"william" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> How about this:
> When the Tasmanians' diet changed, they found that they didn't _need_ fire.

Can you please give a link for that quote? I scoured the whole
article and this is the ONLY passage that mentions "fire":

"When Europeans discovered Tasmania in the 17th century, it had
technologically the simplest, most "primitive" human society of
any society in the modern world. Native Tasmanians could not light
a fire from scratch, they did not have bone tools, they did not
have multi-piece stone tools, they did not have axes with handles,
they did not have spear-throwers, they did not have boomerangs,
and they did not even know how to fish."

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond_rich/rich_p4.html

None of the pages contain the word "diet" either. I checked
them all with the Google Toolbar. It seems you are referring
to evidence not contained in the article cited.

-Bruce Kleisner


Eva Hedin:
> I don't know if I'm an unusually impatient person but I have looked at every
> link on the page below and have found absolutely nothing about aborigines or
> fire.  I am obviosly doing something wrong, but what.

> > attached article by Jared Diamond.  It is absolutely fascinating and
> > also explains why the Tasmanian Aborigines lost the ability to make fire.
> >  http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/diamond_rich/rich_p1.html  Ken