On Thu, 7 Dec 2000 19:15:38 -0400, matesz <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Rachel:
>In Jean Auel's book, the potential loss of fat was dealt with in some cases
>by cooking the animal, such as rabbit, with the skin on.   Also, people
>burned dung, kindling, and dried shrubbery from many plants for fuel.
>Auel
>got some information from paleo anthropologists that suggests that people
>may have rendered the animal fat in leather sacks hung over the fire and
>wet
>first so they would not burn.  It is interesting the way she describes it.

Now i ordered a german version of the Auel book in an auction.
Auel seems to be conscious about the problem of loosing fat
and the missing firewood.
Can you imagine barbecueing a fatty peace of mammouth inside a leather
bag with water?
Over a fire of dung and grass?

I don't want to say that it can't be done at all.
But i think the facts (fat and fuel) suggest that the meat was eaten
mostly raw - like inuit do.

People living on a ice-age steppe/tundra (this occured in asian parts of the
world) had few other chances to survive as eating carcasses.
If possible, they would heat them for protection against decomposing
tendencies and against parasites.

As for fossil evidence, i asked:
>I don't recall any evidence of "grilled" bones (plain bones yes).

and Philip wrote:
> http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,127619+9,00.html
>
> Perhaps our predecessors are more informatively called
> "hunter-cookers".

Thats a very huge well written informative website, very nice.
But about fire use on carcasses?
Searching for "bone" brought one hit of fire signs on bones (in conjunction
with signs of cannibalism). Many hits on herds and fire usage.

I think the view of the homo erectus sitting on the fireplaces and having a
nice mammouth barbecue everyday is a wrong myth. I think they ate the
mammouth mostly raw.
And used the fire (which they apparently had) to roast tubers (like we used
to da with potatoes in a campfire).
The article Philip posted
>>>Another article on homo erectus hearths and cooking:
>>>
>>>   http://www.discoveringarchaeology.com/0599toc/5feature3-fire.shtml
>>
supports this and supports the tuber theory from
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CA/journal/issues/v40n5/995001/995001.html
(fee required for this one)

Philip, homo erectus, asian steppe/tundra and the like...
Don't forget that it's incertain how faw ago the last comon anchestor of
homo erectus and us lived. I can be that all the traints which specialized
in very much hunting (like neanderthals) and died off (like neanderthals and
homo erectus) don't have much to do with us after that specialisation.
( http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/9/0,5716,127619+8+117282,00.html
mid page)

But in your case (diet) I'd insist on the mammouth erectus as grand**father.

Cheers, Amadeus