The Paleolithic Lifestyle is more than diet!
 
Here's a review (from Amazon) of Bruce Chatwins "The Songlines";
 
"Part travelogue,part anthropology,part history,linguistics and philosophy, Chatwin tells of his time spent in Austrailia with Arkady-a Russian Austrailian-and the nomadic Aborigine tribes of Austrailia, and connects this experience to his notes on nomads for a book of a culture he couldn't find a way of expressing. He discovers their ancient 'Songlines';early trade routes connecting the far flung tribes where the vast tracts are mapped out by song; a map of Austrailia in song.
Chatwin links this to earliest man and theorises that our many various languages devoloped in song and the differences in languages occuring as each song described the things the people saw;what exists in Greenland-with its countless words for 'snow' has no relevence to desert dwellers,hence the two different lingo's.
In this truly thought provoking and fascinating book,Chatwin sees the decent into alcoholism and mindless violence of the Aborigines who have been forced to live in one place (civilization and progress!) as being a symptom of their having their instinctive and natural life of wandering denied them, and draws parallels with our own drug addled,violent societies in the West suggesting our being cooped up in large urban dwellings goes against our instincts and leaves our natural hunting genes with no other outlet than self destruction. (Cities-since Biblical times-have always been disasterous;Soddam and Gomorrah for eg) Chatwin argues that far from being the naturally murderous creature many anthropologists/psychologists would have one believe, our early weapons were for protection and survival from preditors. If we were 'naturally murderous' and wanting wars we would have been extinct very quickly. Mass murdering your own species isn't a good survival
 technique! Rather, these traits have come about via settling/organized religions and societies. The great paradox of 'civilisation'!
I could go on for many pages! A book as profound as this provokes more discussion in a review than the routine A happened,then B and C and it was good/bad/indifferent.
Do read this and expand your mind! "
 
Ray Audette
NeanderThin