On Sat, 25 Nov 2000 05:36:00 -0500, Philip Thrift <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

>90% of the time span of fully modern humans was spent following a
>  big game use adaptation.
>
>from U. Iowa online course on human origins.
>
>   http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/origins/campus/campus.html
>
>http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/origins/campus/lec22.html -

Interesting site and lecture.
You mention 90% time span - I think you are referring to the fact that
homo erectus sites are sometimes associated with large bones (butchering
sites).
The association of bones however doesn´t tell anything about the percentage
or part of the diet such mammouth beasts had.
In a celtic site (iron age) you find millions of bones. They don't tell that
the celtic staple was - wheat (some 6% meat).
The time span I mentioned (1%) betrays the time of eating meat as a BIG part
of the diet - not only some carcasses.

I consider it possible that homo erectus *was* a successfull/avid hunter
too, in areas where the animals were fat. Fat is required to increase meat
above a certain percentage as we know from Cordaine's work.
Homo erectus survived very long in certain areas. Possibly until recently at
Java (50ky) as one site suggests.
We don't know *when* the surviving branch of homo split off, probably
somewhere in africa. We don't know

A good meat eating history site is at
http://www.naturalhub.com/natural_food_guide_meat.htm
The Author points out, that today only 4 types of animals are commonly
eaten.

I note that these are heavily modified genetically and fed differently -
quite a difference between a farm pig and a wild boar.

But i think that different meats aren't so much different to require much
adaption. Meat doesn't contain antinutrients. Animals antinutrients are it's
horns and claws and legs to run,
Annother type of adaption would be that (even in smaller amounts) the body
started to rely on substances *only* available in meat. Ward Nicholson
suggested that. That would be bad news for me...
So far I haven't discovered such a meat only vitamin. Except B12, which had
strange effects in the oversupply i experience now.

Cheers, Amadeus