On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 23:56:05 -0600, Ray Audette <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>From: Arthur McConnachie
>>Thus, I think today's HGs are poor examples of what we should be eating.
>
>You're right!
He's right, but because all areas suitable for any kind of
agriculture are inhabitated by agriculture in the meantime.
What's left are the least favourable kinds lands
- usually deserts. Where no usable plants live, only specialist
animals can exist, and humans there only from animals.
Milking them (if goats can exist) or killing them -like arctic.

> The prevelant enviroment of the homo sapien form of hominid,
>the Pleistocene Steppe-tundra, no longer exists.
> The woody plants that

>predominate today were inhibited in their growth by both lower CO2 levels
>and the resulting Ice Age.  Pollen counts from this era indicate that
>grasses were a far greater part of the vegetable world than they are today.
>On the steppe-tundra few other plants could survive.

Woody plants disappeared (beside lower temperatures) because of
extreme dryness in winters.

The bioprodictiviy, estimated to have been similar to today(4-5 big animals
per 100 ha) then was reduced to about 10 percent of before.
This explains, why (at least in europe) so few remainders were
found from glacials, and so much more artefacts from thermals and
onset stages.

Ice age - last about 2 mio years- is made up for half or a little
less from thermals (with climate like today) and the rest from glacials.
>
>Although homo sapiens being Primates could not eat this grass, they could
>exploit the animals wh
o did.  These animals were known as the Pleistocene
>Megafauna and existed in far greater numbers than all of our domestic and
>wild animals alive today.  Imagine the Buffalo herds of the old American
>west.  Now multiply their population by four and their individual size by
>two.
>  Then add several other species of much larger size in similar numbers.
>This was indeed the "happy hunting ground" of the American Dreamtime.

Very happy. And what did they drink? If in Ketosis?

> <snip> the "less productive tropical regions".

>In short, during the Pleistocene, the diet of Man would have been closer to
>the Inuit than the Bushman.

And exactely where and when did this inuit-like pleistocene
*climate* happen? Whould you mind defining
*where* Steppe/thundra (with grass only and so much big animals)
happened to be? Let say in the year 30000bc
or65000 bc or from 80000bc to 1
30000bc? Or when else.

And when it was in Africa in a glacial, wasn't it so, than less *dry*
more favourable landscapes with woods and exploitable plants
were reachable within a few 100 miles?

I can't see that this megafauna-steppe picture you use to portray
lasted for a longer time and at large areas.
If you have differrent informations, then please offer them here
exactely.

regards
Amadee S.
(last inquiry before heading - Coconut tree tropical beach zone)