In her post of November 26, Linda Scott Cummings brings up an
important point regarding seed consumption in hunter-gatherers which often
times seems to be frequently misunderstood or perhaps misinterpreted in this
listserve.  As she points out, there is ample evidence from a variety of
sources that indicate seeds of a variety of species were consumed by
pre-agrarian people (1-4).  Also, there is substantial evidence to indicate
that grass seeds were sporadically consumed by certain hunter gatherer
societies during the post-pleistocene (Holocene) epoch (5).   The issue here
is the quantitative assessment of grass seed and other seed consumption in
the diets of hunter-gatherers.  Generally, grass seeds only comprised
significant energy on a regular basis for hunter-gatherer societies living
in marginal areas such as in the American Great Basin (5), Certain parts of
the arid Australian outback (4,5,6) and portions of Africa (5).  Many of
these marginal areas only became inhabited by humans in the post-pleistocene
epoch when human populations numbers increased and large mammal numbers
declined.  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.  However, it is quite
unlikely that any seed ever represented the majority of the daily energy
intake in any human group until the advent of agriculture and the
domestication of cereal grains.

        In regards to menopause, Ruediger Hoeflechner brings up data (7) of
which I was unfamiliar and which clearly does not support Jared Diamond's
contention (8) that menopause is an almost unique function of humans.  I
certainly do not claim expertise in this area.  Perhaps we could get Dean to
solicit the opionion of either Dr. Diamond or Dr. Packer.?

                                        REFERENCES
1.      Renfrew JM.  Paleoethnobotany. The Prehistoric Food Plants of the
Near East and Europe. Columbia University Press, N.Y., 1973.
2.      Sobolik KD (Ed.). Paleonutrition and Health of Prehistoric
Americans.  Center for Archaeological Investigations, Carbondale, Ill, 1994.
3.      Gilbert RI, Mielke JH (Eds). The Analysis of Prehistoric Diets.
Academic Press, N.Y., 1985.
4.      Brand-Miller JC, Holt SHA.  Australian aboriginal plant foods: a
consideration of their nutritional composition and health implications. Nutr
Res Rev 1998;11:5-23.
5.      Harlan JR.  Wild grass seed harvesting and implications for
domestication.  In: Prehistoire de L'Agriculture:Nouvelles Approches
Experimentales et Ethnographiques.  Monographie du CRA no. 6, ed CNRS, 1992.
6.      O'Connell JF, Hawkes K.  Food choice and foraging sites among the
Alyawara. J. Anthropol Res 1984;40:504-35.
7.  Packer C, Tatar M, Collins A.Reproductive cessation in female mammals.
Nature 1998 Apr 23;392(6678):807-11
8.      Diamond J.  Why women change. Discover Magazine, July 1996:131-37.




Loren Cordain, Ph.D., Professor
Department of Exercise and Sport Science
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
tel: (970) 491-7436
fax:(970) 491-0445
email:[log in to unmask]
http://www.colostate.edu/Colleges/CAHS/ess/cordain.htm