Todd Moody:

>I'm not so sure.  The article also discusses wild wheat
>harvesting among African hunter-gatherer peoples, who would not
>be expected to have an inventory of farm tools.

It wasn't mentioned that these people were hunter getherers or not in the
posting... maybe you're talking about the actual source material?  In any
case, these are contemporary people and I find it hard to believe that they
harvest grain without the slightest implementation of modern technology.
Hunter gatherer tribes in the Amazon use things like iron machetes.  The
addition of even such a simple tool could significantly improve yield.



>Cordain, in the other article, indicates that grains were a
>subsistence food.

Yes, but only in marginal areas, so you can't really justify generalizing
and labeling grain as a "paleo" food.  To quote the posting in question
here:

"Because the caloric return for energy expended in the harvesting
of grass seeds is low compared to animal foods (6), grass seed consumption
generally occurs under marginal environmental conditions when other food
choices are unavailable.  Seeds from species other than graminacea often
times yield a greater caloric return per energy expended (6) and would be
expected to be part of the diet of hunter-gatherers."



> If grains were a food that no one wanted to eat
>unless they were starving then I just can't see anyone saying,
>"Let's break our backs planting this crap so that we can eat even
>more of it."

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.  Later,
it became true agriculture and eventually spread culturally through Europe.
So surely there was a period of transition where people in limited areas
were gathering wild grains (Don Wiss gives the beginning around 17,000 years
ago).  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.