>From:    Sam Johnson <[log in to unmask]>
>Here's an irony...Ray's book makes a persuasive, if unintended, argument
>that the megafauna itself could be considered a forbidden fruit. According
>to the argument presented, we didn't have the means or ability to hunt large
>game until we teamed with neotenized wolves (dogs). Dogs in essence became a
>'technology' that allowed us access to a food source that we didn't have
>beforehand, and it was a source that (if the theory is accurate) we wiped
>out, leading to agriculture, leading to....

Hmm, good point.  I'd say the key question is, WHEN did we start hunting
with dogs?  If it's long enough ago, then we can conclude that our bodies
have adapted to that WOE.  Anybody know the answer?

A similar argument applies to cooking.  Fire, I believe, is generally
considered to have been first discovered 2 to 300,000 years ago, and to
have been in widespread use by about 100,000 YA.  That's a lot less than
the 2 million years that humans have been around; but it's also a lot more
than the 10,000 years since the discovery of agriculture.  So is cooking
"paleo" or not?  This subject has been touched on on this list, but not
thoroughly explored.

Another thought on the dogs -- it occurs to me that hunting with dogs
didn't change the TYPE of food people ate:  it just changed the QUANTITY,
made it more easily available.  So maybe it doesn't count as "forbidden."