On Fri, 17 Jul 1998, Hans Kylberg wrote:

> At 10:41 1998-07-17 -0400, Todd wrote:
> >This is interesting especially in how it might have a bearing on
> >the presence of cooked foods in the paleolithic diet,
>
> Maybe they were clever enough to eat raw :-)
>
> > A common view, known as the "Out of Africa"
> >hypothesis, is that modern humans, H.sapiens, evolved from H.
> >erectus in Africa in the past 150 000 years.
> snip
> >capabilities of Homo erectus may be due  for reappraisal! If H.
> >erectus acted like humans, they probably were our ancestors.
>
> This does not contradict the out of Africa theory. Humans of different
> evolutionary states have left Africa in waves. The earlier are now
> exteinct and only the more recent few, all homo sapiens remain.

I agree.  The findings do not suggest a new origins theory.  What
they do suggest, however, is that homo erectus was more
sophisticated than we thought.  If he was sailing in boats, using
food processing tools (No blender?), and the like then he was
clever enough to use fire to cook foods.  This means that the
"naked with a sharp stick" principle was already obsolete 800,000
years ago.

As far as grains are concerned, this would be largely irrelevant,
because grains must be ground to be useful, and this would be a
pointless labor-intensive activity prior to the restructuring of
society that took place in the agricultural revolution.  An
exception would be rice, which can be gathered and cooked.
Another would be legumes, which can be gathered and cooked.

Todd  Moody
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