In a message dated 8/7/99 9:13:05 AM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

>
>  The article states, "The earliest evidence reveals humans hunted mastodons
> and stored their meat in local ponds 11,000 years ago."
>
>  I've no idea how they managed to find archaeological evidence supporting
> meat storage in ponds, but assuming they did, why would early Native
> Americans store meat in water?  Smoking meat, drying it in the sun,...but
> storing in water???  How long do you think it would last?  Were they trying
> to preserve the meat, keep insects off it, keep it safe from predators -
what?
>
>
>  Kath
>
>

Depends on how cold the water is.  It can actually preserve it.  Fish and
other living organisms can feed off of it, but if it's particularly large and
there aren't many other creatures there,,I can see it working...

Not trying to be morbid, but we see this type of preservation with corpses
that are in cold water.  It takes longer to decay.

Anna 8-)