I am afraid John Zeran is probably wrong--or at least out of date--about
the following:

>        Although the term hunter-gatherer should be reserved (and has been
>by not a few current anthropologists) because it is recognized that
>gathering constitutes by far the larger survival component...


The claim that gathering constitutes "by far" the larger component of the
diet of most hunter/gatherers is now considered questionable.  Lee
originally made this claim in the late 1960s(1), calculating a worldwide
average of 35% animal food and 65% vegetable food for hunter/gatherers (os
a mean average), but this was later proven to be questionable. Later
researchers showed that he artificially reduced the number of North
American cases, and that he also apparently inadvertantly reclassified
shellfishing into a gathering activity(2).

In fact, more than 75% of the known hunter/gatherer societies derived more
than half of their daily average caloric intake from animal foods(2).

Some of the remaining minority are also questionable; for example, the
African !Kung diet gets only 33% of its daily calories from animal foods,
but the !Kung have long been very near a tremendous mongogo nut forest, and
mongogo nuts make up a majority of their daily calories.  Of the daily
average intake of 2,140 calories for a member of the !Kung, only 190
calories per day were derived from foods other than animals or mongogo
nuts(3).  The average value for all hunter/gatherers worldwide shows that
56-59% of calories are derived from animal foods, and only 44% from other
foods including nuts, berries, tubers, and etc. according to Leanard. (3)

Although it remains speculative of course, right now it is generally agreed
that most hunter/gatherers get a very substantial number of their daily
calories from animal foods, and that peoples who eat most of their calories
as plant foods are in the minority.  Although Zeran's larger point may
still have some validity, since for many peoples animal foods are
"gathered" (such as shellfishing and stealing eggs.)


1.      Lee RB.  What hunters do for a living, or how to make out on scarce
resources.  In Lee RB, DeVore I, eds. Man the Hunter. Chicago: Aldine,
1968:30-48.

2.      Ember CR.  Myths about hunter gatherers. Ethnology 1978;17:439-48.

3.      Leonard WR,  Robertson ML.  Evolutionary perspectives on human
nutrition: the influence of brain and body size on diet and metabolism.
Am J Hum Biol 1994;6:77-88.

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