On Tue, 14 Feb 2006 16:08 Wally Day wrote:


>I've long had a difficulty resolving the Paleo principle of seasonality
>with the idea that behaviorally modern humans have been around for about
>50,000 years (give or take). If that is the case, then I'm willing to bet
>that humans have been *obsessively* storing food for a long, long time. I
>just can't see a human - modern or ancient - saying, "Well that
>fruit/nut/veggie was good. I guess I'll just have to wait until next year
>at this time to have it again". Sure, it may not have always been possible
>to store foods, but I'm willing to bet it was a task they/we were always
>flirting with.

I would have thought this to be the case too. But anthropological accounts show that some 
genuine hunter-gatherers were remarkably "improvident" by our standards. They simply didn't 
bother to store food and - like other mammals - just lived from day to day.

There was one account I read of a European who lived about 30 years with the Australian 
Aborigines in the early 19th century. During that time he lost his ability to speak English, went 
naked and was fully accepted by his adoptive tribe. On cold nights the Aboriginal children 
regarded him as their favourite adult and came to spend the night with him because he was the 
only one in the tribe who could be bothered to gather enough firewood to keep some heat 
radiating all night. 

I'm not saying these illustrate a universal tendency, just that we can't assume our Western, 
"protestant ethic" providence applied to all hunter-gatherer peoples.

Keith