Rachel wrote:

>I totally disagree.  You are hypothesizing that each person needs thus and
>such amount of land to get his or her food and that this need is too great
>for people to stay in one place.  Perhaps in a dry savannah that MAY be so,
>but in a lush coastal area, in a temperate climate, I don't think your
>hypothesis holds water!

Rachel, this statement of mine is not a hypothesis, it's just taken from
literature. A life of moving around in a certain area isn't bad. In a time
without houses it will be a free way of life.

From literature I  got the minimum area one gatherhunter needs to live
long-term (in good woodlands). That is 30 * 30 km for 90 people.
Or a circle with 17km radius.
I think this is a little too long for day trips, at least there has to be a
little moving over the year (or years) from time to time.
For a group of this size.
Of course smaller groups (like in Auels book some 20 or so) need a smaller
space, which may be within day reach.
Smaller groups may stay, bigger groups must move or cannot build at all.

As for the coastal environment. Some seem to have misunderstood my
viewpoint. I consider the coastal environment shurely as the richest and
most fruitful for gatherhunting people. Particularly because the
bio-productivity of the sea very high and at the coastline the productivity
of some sea area comes together. Mussles clams and crabs collect the
productivity from algae in a more direct way, with less loss than land
animals do.

Also Don, I can agree to all your points in favour of coastal regions.
I'm sure early humans will have loved coasts. I just cannot recognize a
particular *adaption* to seafood, except maybe the dependency of iodide
(which is present in non-agricultural exploited soils as well).

>  Fish are prolific (like rabbits, but moreso!);

Some have reported about interesting and ingenious ways how to catch fish.
Still my impression is, that catching *amounts* of fish won't be so easy
without fishhooks and nets. The australian aboriginals have adopted the
fishhook (from mussel shell) relative recently.
How about thinking of earlier (middle paleolithicom) people to resemble more
the Tasmanian people?

>water plants are prolific; nut and fruit trees are prolific.  With an
>abundance of food sources---many varieties of fruits, vegetables, nuts,
>birds, fish, and small mammals, a group of people need not exhuast their
>food supply.  In places where there are a distinct seasons, different foods
>come to fruition at different times.  Since humans have feet (unlike fish),
>they could explore various food sources in a given area, without having to
>be always moving.  They could take day trips or explore areas within
walking
>distance (for fun), but not have to be on the move to meet nutrient needs.

All agree.
The question just is, how big can a group grow, that the wild food resources
of a given area permits not to move.
Even with the increased coast produvtivity the limit of group size, when
movement must begin will be aroun 50-90 people, I estimate.
But I think, not to move would'nt be a goal for a wild on the beach.
Personally I like walking on the beaches. That's not a disadvantage.

> Can you not see how
>abundant nature is? ..

Yes. It was.

>If you took a population of 1 million people spread over the entire earth,
>there would be way more than enough food for people hunting and gathering
>and living near the land water interface.

As we are the 5000-fold of 1 million now, things get a little tighter.
Stone age agriculture reduced the space needs by a factor of 1000 (but for
good soils).
Organic agriculture today yealds some 3-10 fold more than this.
Chemical agriculture of today yields 2-4 fold of organic agriculture.
And a good part of all crops (of the 1xxxx fold agriculture) is fed to
animals. There we are, at the boundary of enough and starvation, *with*
using chemical agriculture.

>In my experience, vegetarians want to argue that we can or
>should only eat in a way that would support the largest (human) population
>possible.  Mother Nature does not have that as her goal.

I think this is off topic, it's not on nutrition.
And I think your question should be put annother way round:
If we are xx people at a place, how do we plan to *share* what we have?

If we are a group of 90 gatherhunters on a beach, certainly not 10 of them
would eat away all the mussles. They'd care for each other.
Now we are 6,000,000,000 people. Goal or not, we are.

> I am frustrated by the fact
>that you keep pushing a "poverty mentality," saying there must have been
>too
>little food to go around; ..

Somewhat strage that it came out this way for you.
I feel the opposite. Good food is abundant. Even for very dense populations.

> .. it's impossible for man to get enough calories
>eating lean meat or fish; man could only meet his calorie needs living on a
>tuber-and nut-based diet.

Not because it hasn't been abundant enough.
Because high-energy food is something else.

> Neither Don or I ever argued that man lived by
>meat and fat (or fish) alone.

I did regard your both's well informed and well backed argumentation.

Regards,
Amadeus
in the spring, at last ...