A quick recap:

>>The use of foods from which sugars are naturally derived such as fruits,
>>have not, at least to my knowledge, been a common part of any diet,
>>anywhere in the past - or the present.
>
>Are you suggesting that fruits were not a common part of past diets?
>That's new to me.  Our pre-human ancestors evolved on diets based on fruits
>and berries (2).  Australian Aboriginal people ate fruit, much of it in the
>form of dried fruit with concentrated sugars (3).  Humans have also availed
>themselves of the concentrated sweetness in honey ants, dried dates and
>figs, maple syrup, manna etc

The archaeological record from most continents supports the interpretation
that fruits and berries have long been a part of the human diet.  In fact,
for much of the American west there is good evidence that prickly pear cactus
fruits also were eaten.  These are very high in sugar.  In one coprolite
report for Texas it was suggested that consumption of large amounts of
prickly pear cactus fruits was responsible for the high number of caries
(cavities) for that population.  Mesquite bean pod flour also has a high
sugar content.  So does roasted agave.

I've had several requests to comment on evidence for diet in the
archaeological record.  Most of my research has been on the North American
continent with sites within the last 10,000 years.  Just a blink of an eye
for the time periods that many of you are talking about.  However, as a
preview (I don't have time to enter references at the moment -- and I'm at
home and my references are at the office), we have lots of evidence for
numerous plants such as grass seeds, cattail roots, Chenopodium sp.
(goosefoot) seeds, Amaranthus sp. (pigweed) seeds, seeds of several members
of the mustard family such as Descurainia , various Polygonum (knotweed,
smartweed) seeds, Eriogonum (wild buckwheat) seeds, Cleome (beeweed) greens
and seeds, Opuntia (prickly pear cactus) seeds, Opuntia fruits and pads.
 Cholla buds are steamed and eaten (and taste something like asparagus).
 This is just the tip of the iceberg concerning plants that were eaten.  Some
foods, such as acorns, needed to be processed before they were eaten.
 Leaching acorns usually involves grinding the acorns and rinsing them in
water or burying them.  Leaching (rinsing) Cleome seeds also is a good idea.
 Roots and tubers were important parts of the diet for people living in
portions of North America.  Camas bulbs, bitterroot, lomatium, mariposa lily,
and others were roasted and eaten.

Evidence for eating meat includes most of the game animals that we can think
of and many animals that we wouldn't consider.  Mammoths (now extinct),
bison, pronghorn (known to most of you as antelope), mountain sheep, rabbits,
deer, elk, moose, and many more game animals.  Rodents were consumed -- and
more than the obvious squirrels.  Mice, packrats, and other small rodents
were eaten in many areas.  Certainly some of the historic populations ate
these animals whole (fur, bones, stomaches, and all), which suggests that
prehistoric people may have done the same.  Insects were popular with some
groups, particularly those in California and the Great Basin -- Grasshoppers,
crickets, grubs, worms, and many, many more.  I've had opportunities to taste
many native foods.  Most are surprisingly tasty or at least acceptable.  Some
are not.  Cooked insects are surprisingly tasty.

I'll post a list of references of ethnobotanic studies of historic Native
American groups from the office next week.  At present it's mixed with
references to the edibility of plants in North America -- which I will leave
in for the benefit of those who are interested.

It's been my observation that diet varies with geography.  It's very hard to
generalize about "prehistoric diet" as if it applied to people over a vast
area.  At least during the Holocene (last 10,000 years or so) people in many
areas tended to eat both animal and plant foods during the same day, if not
during the same meal.  The remains are mixed in the coprolites.  While this
is not proof of consumption of a mixure of plant and animal foods at a single
meal, it would be very hard to prove that many prehistoric people had a
regular practice of eating these foods either separately or together.
 Consumption of small rodents (the entire animal) means eating both the meat
of the rodent and the plant foods that the rodent ate (stomach contents) at
the same time.  After having worked with the archaeological record for over
25 years, I'd have to throw my opinion with those of you who believe that
paleodiet included both animal and plant foods that may or may not have been
consumed together -- but that the deciding factor was probably availability
of individual foods.  Sometimes plants and animal foods were available
together and sometimes not.  Sometimes a fresh kill dominated a meal (or day
or more of meals), when people gorged themselves.  Sometimes plant foods were
mixed with meat (pemmican).  Remember we're still in North America and still
in the Holocene when people had grinding tools.

At any rate, that's a very quick review (sans references) for a part of the
North American diet.

Just one quick comment.  Since I've been lurking on this list nearly all the
foods mentioned are ones that modern Americans consider palatable.  Certainly
the true paleodiet contained many more insects that we care to think about.
 Shouldn't we be considering the insect population "fair game"?

Linda Scott Cummings