Robert asks:
"You mean like how an internet mailing list about food and ways of eating  
has diverted into discussions of social structure and mythology?"

That should be a given: constructions of Paleo habits are in some sense
heuristic or convenient fictions with useful outcomes or not. Those
constructs say a great deal about the context and influences of our habits
of mind in the English speaking world. To ignore such is to abide in a
fantasy world.