On Thu, 20 May 1999, Bernard Lischer wrote:

> But in a sense, if pre-agricultural grain use began in marginal areas where
> other plant foods were scarce, and in response to the gradual decline of
> animal foods, one could assume that hunger was indeed of influence.

This makes no sense to me.  In areas where plant and animal foods
are scarce, hunter-gatherers would simply leave!  It's very hard
for me to imagine hungry pre-agriculturalists, finding themselves
in some inhospitable place, saying "What shall we do now?  Move
on or plant a stand of wheat?"  As you've already pointed out,
wheat grows in places where other edible growing things are
available, as well as other creatures that eat those things.  We
are told that agriculture began in the Fertile Crescent, not a
marginal area at all but a place where there would have been
plenty of other things to eat.

To me, the logic of the transition to agriculture is not that
people were somehow *forced* to become farmers, but that they
eventually chose to do so. Their pre-agricultural consumption of
grain would have been sporadic, as you've indicated, but
satisfactory enough so that the benefits of agriculture
outweighed the disadvantages.

> Even so, my way of thinking is that until the need arose 17,000 or
> however many years ago, grain consumtion was minimal, and as far as
> Europeans are concerned, very minimal.

Another thing to consider, concerning optimal foraging theory, is
that there are *many* paleo foods that are so calorie-thin that
they would seemingly not be worth the bother of gathering.  The
spices would tend to fall into this category, for example.  You'd
have to gather a lot of parsley to get 100 Kcal, I think.  The
same is true of other leafy greens.  Optimal foraging theory
would suggest that we'd largely ignore such calorically sparse
items, and so we should not be well adapted to them.  But the
truth is that they appear to be quite good for us.

Todd Moody
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