On Sun, 11 May 2008 16:24 Geoffrey Purcell wrote:

>I'm afraid you're labouring under a misapprehension. Modern "hunter-gatherer" 
>societies are NOT "palaeolithic", they are Neolithic, as indeed is any tribe from 
>10,000 BC onwards, from a hsitorical point of view. As soon as they adopted 
>Neolithic-era practices such as eating grains, tubers (or in the case of the 
>Masai, drinking raw dairy) etc., they no longer can be considered Palaeolithic 
>even from a purely dietary context, in any way, by definition.

I must disagree here, Geoffrey. Australian Aborigines were Palaeolithic
through to their first contact with Europeans and a number of desert 
tribes were Palaeolithic through to the early 20th century and I recall
well the last small tribal group to make first contact in 1984. These 
latter were Pintupi and wholly nomadic hunter-gatherers and so did 
not use any agricultural practices. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pintupi_Nine

Note the medical examination of this group's physical condition.

Nothing happened in Australia ~10,000 years ago that marked the 
transition from Palaeolithic to Neolithic which occurred at that time 
in Papua New Guinea, South/Central America or the fertile crescent.

There is a nice picture of Bathurst Islanders on Wikipedia. A photo
like this proves nothing, but it depicts people who look pretty
much like hunter-gatherers:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Australians

Keith