At 01:55 PM 3/17/01 EST, Charles Alban wrote:
>Dianne:
>
>I hoped I'd draw someone on this "paleo" thing. The fact is the paleolithic
>simply describes a state of being, not a particular date in the past.
Well, yes and no. The Lower Paleolithic Period, in particular, is the time
frame, in anthropological terms, during which human evolution pretty much
finished. It is significant, to discussions of evolutionarily appropriate
diets to distinguish between that time frame and the more general meaning
of the term. The group of folks you've been studying are no more "paleo"
in the anthropological sense than we are. They are, however, more like our
paleolithic ancestors in lifestyle than we are.
>Webster's definition is: "Of or pertaining to the early human culture
>characterized by rough or chipped stone implements." It simply means "old
>stone age," as opposed to the mesolithic (middle) and neolithic (new) stone
>age. Lithic means stone.
Well, this illustrates the constraints of the general language
dictionary--it is a good place to find word origin and common usage, but
rarely has the space (nor is designed to) give more... technical meanings?
I'm not saying you're wrong, within common usage, to refer to the early
California tribes as paleo; I'm suggesting that imprecision, within the
context of discussing what we've evolved to eat, can become misleading. If
I'm making sense?
>The essential difference between the paleo lithic and the meso and neo lithic
>is the introduction of agriculture and pasturelism (domesticated animals).
>The reason I describe "my" local indians as paleolithic is this is what they
>were. Whether its 5k years or 50k years is irrelevant. This is what I meant
>by the eurocentrism of this discussion. All these terms were based on the
>discovery of remains in Europe (neanderthal, cro-magnon, etc), where the
>paleolithic indeed was more than 50k years ago. But the native peoples in the
>rest of the world, and a few that still exist, such as the San of the
>Kalahari, were still living a hunter/gatherer stone age existence until quite
>recently.
Correct, 5k or 50k is irrelevant; 5k versus 250k is relevant. And that is
my point... at best, the local tribes have paleolithic-like lifestyles and
have adapted to the conditions here, but they're modern, from an
evolutionary standpoint--in fact, they didn't even arrive here (as best we
know) until long after man had become more... domesticated :)
>And this is the case with the California Indians, and this is why they are
>such a treasure trove of information about the "paleolithic" We haven't a
>clue as to how paleolithic Europeans lived and what they ate. Hence all this
>ill informed discussion about raw meat. Did they eat it or not? Who knows?
>But we do know what paleolithic native Californians ate in great detail --
>all 600 different food items, and just as importantly, how they processed it
>(and most of this stuff is still available - all you have to do is go and get
>it!).
>
>And since all this is presumably about genes -- in other words, do we have
>paleolithic genes, so should we be eating in a paleolithic manner, then the
>details of a paleolithic culture's eating and lifestyle habits is highly
>valuable. What we are all really concerned with is health. Where these people
>healthy, and should we emulate them, so far as we can? The answer, of course,
>is yes. They were extremely healthy, and were frequently described by the
>Spanish chroniclers as healthy, robust good looking people.
I'm not disagreeing with anything but your terminology--there is frequent
discussion of more modern hunter-gatherer tribes, for the very reasons you
state. I do understand that what you're talking about is relevant and
important--most certainly. All I disagree with is that they
are--biologically and genetically speaking--paleolithic. But I think it's
also important to realize just how modern they really are--a few thousand
years is barely long enough to adapt to an area--climate, food, etc.
<snip>
>You will constantly hear the myth being repeated that the reason we are
>suffering from all these autoimmune disease is simply because we are living
>longer. "In the old days, they all died at 40, so they died before they got
>these diseases." This is complete nonsense.
I think most people who bother to think about what they read do realize
this. We just seem to have a higher concentration of such individuals <g>
>The only reason we live as long as we do, on average, is because of medical
>technology. Take that away, and our average life expectancy would be less
>than native peoples. Look at the obituaries in your local newspaper -- at
>least 20% of people are dying prematurely of these autoimmune diseases, and
>how many of the others that live a complete lifespan are not on some kind of
>medication?
"average life span" again--it's no more applicable to us than to folks who
lived thousands of years ago--the weak die young, the strong survive. Our
problem is that we've learned how to make the weak survive and reproduce.
>So Ray Audette is correct is principle - he just did not research in detail
>what a paleolithic diet actually is. He mainly speculated on this. The real
>answers are to be found in native cultures that live long healthy and active
>lifespans.
Definitions, again. There is no lack of discussion here on modern
hunter-gatherers, and Ray does discuss that sort of thing off an on, as
well. What he was aiming for, if I understood him, was to determine as
best as possible what foods we *evolved* to eat... anything occurring after
that being problematic. From that standpoint, studying the oldest
civilisations we can find won't tell us much more than studying modern
ones--other than to show us what doesn't work.
I find what you've had to say about the California tribes quite
interesting, I think we can learn from them, absolutely. But I don't
believe they can tell us what their ancestors from 2.5 million years ago
did/ate/etc. And that was my point, and that was all I was trying to say.
Dianne
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