Amadeus Schmidt wrote:
> And before that, we have to look at about 2 millions of years in Africa,
> which is very rich of various plant resources. There is no doubt that
> the homo erectus/habilis fraction was able to, and did hunt.
> But i doubt hunting to have had a big role in nutrition.
> I'd see the hunting role similar to other primates (chimps for example).

I agree with the general drift of your post. Vegetable foods are clearly
an important part of the diets of both modern and paleo HGs. Despite the
fact that this is fully acknowledged in Neanderthin, somehow this list
has a distict anti-vegetable flavour, as if it is important to prove that
all humans can be maximally healthy on steak and eggs.

> Gathering is much more efficient and much less dangerous-think of parasites.

I'm not sure what you mean here. How do parasites fit into it?

> Also i see few alternatives to energy (caloric) supply for prehistoric
> humans to plants (and that is again starches and sugars from roots and fruit).
> Everybody knows that wild game is rather lean, and where should the energy
> else come from?

If for the moment you're just talking calories and not availability, why
would you knock lean game in favor of starch and sugar? I bet there would be more
calories in a rabbit than in a rabbit-sized volume of non-agriculturalized
paleo-foliage.

> If you speak in terms of years or generations of adaption, then i think you
> should also consider the several million of years before the development
> of hunting tools, as were pointed out nicely in Wards interview.
> .  2 Million years eating insects (mammals, small as mouses)
> . 20 Million years as fruitarians
> . 26 Million years as primate fruitarians
> .  2 Million years as homo in a changed invironment (savanne) gatherer/hunter?
> .  0.020 Million years as ice age european hunters/gatherers
> .  0.010 Million years in neolithicum
> .  0.000100 Years with "refined" food items
> Makes a pretty long plant food adaption, isn't it?

Sure, but this doesn't say much about what we're currently best adapted to eat.
If significant adaptation can occur within 2 million years (and it almost
certainly can), it doesn't matter if the previous 500 million years were spent
eating fruit.

> If i look at todays usual food and compare it to a nowadays gatherer/hunter
> or to a chimp like diet, than i find the main difference is not the grain -
> there are grains in the savanne too.

I think it has been successfully argued by anthropologists that wild grains
don't provide a positive calorie balance for an HG. In other words, they're
more trouble than they're worth.

> It's the largely reduced vitamin- and fiber- content of the food
> resulting from the "refinement"-process.

I think this is probably very important, and is in fact probably the Number
One reason why I think paleo-eating can be healthy: by denying yourself
grains and eating fruits and veggies instead, you will be:
(a) lowering your total carb intake
(b) increasing your fibre intake (especially soluble fibre)
(c) dramatically increasing your intake of micronutrients and phytochemicals

> If it comes to nowadays practical translation into action of paleolithic
> nutrition, I think we should concentrate much more on getting
> an adequate supply of largely unmodified and fresh plants:
> Tubers, nuts, fruit and yes, also grains. With the focus on vitamin supply!

Focusing on vitamins will push you towards veggies and fruits and away from
tubers and grains, since these latter are so calorically dense that they
have a poor micronutrient:calorie ratio.

> But my paleolithic picture is different, its a gatherer,
> living on fruit, bears, seeds, nuts, herbs and tubers,
> from time to time only hunting a (small!) animal.

By all means, I hope you keep arguing for your picture. Provide evidence
for why the other pictures are wrong!

> That of course alters the protein percentage from the crazy 30 percent
> to about the 11 percent which also todays h/g people consume.

Why is 30% crazy? Where do you get 11%? Eaton found an average of 33%
calories from protein among todays HGs.