In a message dated 98-04-25 09:37:58 EDT, you write:

<<That's a good point, but I doubt that an agricultural period would account
for 76.5% (if I recall correctly) of the Blackfoot and Blood being Type A.
In the first place, >75% Type A is highly unusual, even in European
countries where agriculture was prevalent.  Secondly, I can't find any
evidence that the Blackfoot and Blood tribes ever relied on agriculture,
though I could be wrong.  Are any of the subscribers to this list well
versed in Native American history? >>

I looked up information on the Blackfoot from my textbook I had for Native
American anthro class, Native North Americans: An Ethnohistorical Approach;
Daniel L. Boxberger, Editor.  Copyright 1990.

It states: We can identify three major types of groups who are identified as
plains tribes.  Symmes Oliver classifies the first group as "True Plains
Tribes of Hunting and Gathering Origin" representing those tribes who lived as
pedestrian (on foot) hunters who roamed the plains hunting buffalo and whose
cultures and social organization represented the loose flexible societies of
nomads. . . . These tribes, such as the Blackfoot, Plains Cree, Sarsi and
Assiniboine show no evidence of ever having been horticultural, show no
evidence of sedentism and, while they survived without the horse, quickly
incorporated it and became the full-blown equestrian nomads we think of today
as the "typical plains" hunters. . . . (pp. 172)

The other two major groups were "True Plains Tribes of Farming Origin" by
which Oliver means tribes whose origins were those of sedentary farmers, but
who adopted a nomadic life as they pushed westward out into the central
plains.  They are the Teton-Dakota or "Sioux", and perhaps the Cheyenne.  The
third category is the "Peripheral Farming Tribes" which were the ancient
horticulturists, such as the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara, the Iowa, Oto and
Missouria.  They had elaborate cultures, and complex social and ritual
activities.  Their staple crops were corn, squash, beans, supplemented by
melons, sunflower seeds, and pumkins  However, there is a controversy whether
these sedentary tribes actually had a food supply dependable enought to permit
them to become truly dependent upon heavy farming.  Alan Osborn, an
archeologist, is pointed out as saying he believes they were really "sedentary
hunters' who hunted but came back to a fixed base.  He believes that these
people depended priimarily on meat and not plant resources due to the cost
effectiveness of hunting.  Because of the limited number of of frost-free
days, especially in the north, it is likely that hunting activities were an
essential "addition" (if not staple food item) of these villagers' diets.

The nomadic or western plains tribes [pertaining to the tribes of hunter
gather origin such as the Blackfoot] who roamed on foot following the bison
left an archeological legacy providing us with clear indications of
populations which, for thousands of years, followed traditional methods of
hunting and gathering which enabled them to survive.  (pp.173)

So the Blackfoot would not fit the profile of Type As according to D'adamo's
theory.  They are neither farmers nor sedentary, but were nomadic and existed
solely on hunting wild game for meat and gathered "wild tubers . . . or wild
turnips, buffalo and gooseberries, choke cherries, wild onions, teas and
medicinal plants  . . . ." (pp.180) instead.  I also wonder what a comparison
study of health profiles for these three classifications of the plains tribes
would show.  Whether the hunter/gather tribes had less diseases and more
longevity in comparison to their horticulturist neighbors.

Ella