On Thu, 19 Oct 2000, Philip Thrift wrote:

> On Thu, 19 Oct 2000 07:23:24 -0400, Amadeus Schmidt <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> >A most important change in nutrition took place only 40k years back, not
> >determined by genetics, but by *cultural changes*.
>
> William Calvin ( http://faculty.washington.edu/wcalvin/ ),
> a neuroscientist, discusses in many places throughout his work the
> *ability to throw* being a key driver for advantage in human evolution.
>
> I don't think we were throwing things at plants :-).

It's an interesting argument, and in general seems to support
that view that our hunting adaptation was initially to small
game, and only later to larger animals.  Indeed, Calvin uses the
example of throwing things at a rabbit to make his point.

You can't kill large animals by throwing things at them unless
your throwing is enhanced by the kinds of implements that didn't
appear until the Cro-Magnon period, 40,000 years ago and later.

In dietary terms, this is most consistent with the version of
paleodiet described by Cordain and Bogin: high-protein from
small, lean, animals, relatively low fat, with the balance of
energy from gathered vegetables.

Todd Moody
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