On Thu, 12 Oct 2000 11:37:35 -0500, Ray Audette <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

I wrote:
>> I suppose that ice age animals *were* more fatty in northern
>> regions.
>
>Do you mean like Texas (which was the home to many species of Pleistocene
>Megafauna) or southern Asia (likewise).

I consider the whole new world as totally irrelevant to human
evolution.
Southern Asia likewise, but this is in dispute
(concurrent evolution theory).
America was populated long after anatomically modern humans evolved.
It was unknown to neanderthals, homo erectus and homo anything.

Anatomically modern humans, which look like us and can be considered
to
have had the same genome as found today, were found after about
120,000 years ago (in Africa).
Some 80,000 years later, at 40,000BC these AMHs made a giant
technological
leap (developing efficient weapons, tools, better clothing).
Then they spread out to northern latitudes, where the fatty megafauna
lived.
As several other hominid traits had done before, including
neanderthals and
erectines which all have died out.

>Cordain recently published an article showing how the megafauna were very
>high in fat.  He speculated that paleo man needed no vegetable
>suplementation as this fat represented over 60% of calories in these
>animals allowing most of it to be eaten without protein poisoning ( rabbit
>starvation).

Cordain mentioned the megafauna of northern latitudes.
Northern latitudes weren't reached by anatomical modern humans
before 40000 years ago.
Which is a very small timeframe of the human evolution, as you use to
say.
40000 years of 2 million years are only 2%, maximum, in northern
latitudes.
Lucy is 3.2 mio years old, btw.

>The steppe-tundra of the Pleistocene was far larger than the tropical
>savannahs of the time and contained far more animals.  Tropical regions
>shrunk as the temperate regions with their megafauna moved southward.
>Megafauna comprised over 60% of all large mammal species and far
>outnumbered any other species of the time.

What is megafauna, anyway?
An animal that's heavier as 45 kg for example.
You tell us that there were so many mammal species in the
steppe-tundra.
That doesn't tell us how *many* animals were living there.
The number of animals depends on the bioproductivity of an area.
The bioproductivity depends on the growth potential of the plants.
One main limiting factor for plant growth is availability of water.
The glacials (ic age cold phases) were particularly very dry.

There's no sign, why animals out of iced areas should accumulate
exactely fat. Animals tend to invest food into body growth, not just
fuel
storage. Except if they  need insulation or have to cover long times
of food
shortages (like hibernation or strong seasons).
Natural food items (paleo food) is notoriously *low* in energy.
With the exception of fruit and nuts, which have more energy relative
to
their protein content.
Which explains that primates, stemming from an environment of fruit
are so
fond of food energy that humans even accept pure food energy without
protein
and vitamins (sugar).

>Homo Sapiens are also Pleistocene Megafauna appearing only when the ice
>ages began about two million years ago to exploit the new game rich
>enviroment.

The human predecessors (but not homo sapiens) which appeared with the
onset
of the ice ages had to exploit other food sources than fruit, when
large areas changed from rainforest to savannah.
They will have eaten animals like reptiles, maggots, grasshoppers like
baboons do today. They will have explioted nuts and underground
plants(tubers), which were available from then.
If they saw a sabbertooth tiger, a lion, a horse (or hipparion), a
wholly
rhinoceros , mammouth, bison, these small creatures with nothing more
than a
stick and a stone....
They will have done what *you* would do in the situation. Run.

Hardly "exploit the game rich environment".
Exploit the environment, but not much of the game.

This was done by later traits, which developped to real predators like
neanderthals, who exploited the fatty animals of northern areas.
Mighty hunters and so.....

To some strange reason this traits were not successfull on the long
run
and died out, leaving the room for us.

Amadeus