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