As a newbie to the list, I find this message interesting in that it seems
to assume ancient humans hunting and gathering with a fairly obvious lack
of forethought, struggling almost as if they were knuckle-headed cave man
stereotypes unable to see much beyond staying alive and un-maimed.

Surely they used much more strength than we do, and surely there were many
situations in which they used that energy in brief, intense moments of
activity ("Og, what do you want to do about that Paleo-hog sniffing your
butt . . .").

But it seems to me that, over hundreds/thousands of years, the ancients
would have certainly had the experience and time to refine methods of
hunting, killing C butchering, and transporting animals so as to minimize
physical exertion and damage.

And *before* not after one of them tried to drag a log across a river, it
seems to me that, if he was fairly well-evolved, he would have gathered
several friends to discuss the best way to get the job done with the least
physical exertion.

I don't know if the ancients would have had super-strength.  I think it
might have been simply normal strength, strength which we haven't tapped
since who knows when.

(Perhaps one Cuban friend of mine has tapped into that very old mode of
doing daily business.  Before emigrating to the States, he was in the Cuban
army for a time; there was a period of several months during which he spent
twelve hours a day wielding a machete and cutting sugar cane.)

My point I guess is that a portrayal of our Paleolithic ancestors as act-
now, think-later, work-harder-not-smarte
r super-brutes sets standards that
are somewhat demeaning to their memory, unrealistic, and potentially
physically damaging for those who take them seriously.

Edith McKlveen

On Sun, 1 Jul 2001 19:24:48 -0500, Keith Thomas
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:


<snip>


If I try to think the way a Palaeo person might think and the experiences a
Palaeo person might have, lets consider them chasing a mammal or dragging a
log across a stream.

<snip>


Apart from alertness, foresight and other mental skills, these would have
involved extreme exertion.  Chasing a rabbit or grappling with a boar would
have required agility, a sharp eye, excellent balance, dynamic sprinting
ability and, in the case of the boar or other larger mammal, super
strength.  Endurance would have been measured in minutes, not hours and it
would have been endurance with
 maximum exertion.

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