On Fri, 14 Jul 2000, ardeith l carter wrote:

> Ardeith writes:
> So......we started out eating much like the other great apes....
> leaves, twigs, fruit, maybe nuts, bugs, bird eggs........chimps
> have been seen to hunt and kill monkeys......maybe our
> ancestors did too.......gorillas have been filmed wading in
> a bai, pulling up tubers from the mud, sitting in the water
> munching away..............maybe our ancestors did too.......
> it has been written that our first tools were a rock to smash
> nuts with, and a stick to dig out a tuber with.........that
> pointy digging stick probably became a weapon the first
> time we poked it at a jackal who was scavenging a lion's
> kill to drive him off the meat we wanted........or maybe when
> we poked it at some predator who wanted to make a lunch
> of us.......after all, we were legitimate prey for lions, leopards,
> hyenas, wild dogs, jackals........

I think the important part is that the climate changes forced
some of these guys out of the forest, to where the fruit and nuts
were less plentiful, forcing them to hunt more and also dig more.
I think your average chimplike primate is not keen on
confrontation with hyenas and jackals, unless he is damned
hungry.

> Gorillas don't cook them.....but then gorillas have these massive
> teeth and jaws......and gorillas don't use fire........I think I remember
> that  the oldest systematic use of fire is dated to 40K YBP.....
> someplace called Terra Amata.....south of France I think........
> so we probably ate many tubers raw....and bulbs......onions,
> garlic.....lilies....we learned early on which ones were poisonous....
> probably learned the hard way!.........and let's not forget grubs.....
> grubs seem to be greasy......might be a good source of fats......

The oldest hearths go back about 250,000 years.  Interestingly,
anatomically modern humans appear some time later, maybe
150,000-200,000 years ago.  Our jaws and teeth are smaller than
those of our predecessors.  Perhaps fire made this adaptation,
which also favors the use of the mouth for speech, possible.

Anyway, I don't personally doubt that tubers and other root foods
were important throughout human prehistory, just as I don't doubt
that hunting and eating animals was important.  I don't see any
real opposition between the two.

Todd Moody
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