gordon <[log in to unmask]> writes: > It seems to me there is nothing artificial about the distinction > between running around in a loin cloth in the pursuit of food because one is > forced by hunger to do so, and sitting around on one's duff playing > checkers with a friend because it happens to suit one's fancy at the moment. > One is work and the other is play. Ardeith writes: So, the men go out and chase down a buffalo, kill it, haul the meat home......eating from it on the way.....and get back to the women, children, and elders.....and share the booty around.......and they have fresh meat for a few days, dry some of it, maybe. And the men don't have to go out chasing down another buffalo for maybe a week. They spent a couple of days on the trip.....and have the next week to relax. Meanwhile, the women, elders, and children have spent a couple of hours a day gathering fresh greens, fruit, nuts, egg, whatever.....and they ate quite well while the men were gone.......and if the men don't get another buffalo next week....so what? The family or clan will still get enough to eat. (The survival of our species was more dependent on the gathering than on the hunting......at least in warm climates.......hunting was more vital in cold climates. ) So what do you suppose the men did on the days that they weren't out chasing buffalo? One of the oldest games in history involves putting and taking stones out of little holes.......don't remember the name of it.......but it might be the equal of checkers.......and it certainly didn't require many hours of leisure time or high technology to make the game pieces. Gordon wrote: > We are tempted to give our > paleo ancestors more credit than is due them. Ardeith writes: No, I think you don't want to give them near the credit that is due them. For how many generations did our ancestors survive with stone and wood tools? How long did they survive with just what medicinal plants they gathered? How long did they survive with only their knowledge of the plants and animals and the seasonal changes of life around them to guide them? They were tough and intelligent and creative and spiritual..........all those things. And they did in fact make war on other tribes, and some of them may have treated their women brutally........but if it had not been for their creativity and intelligence......you would not be here to put them down. I don't want to worship my ancestors.....but I do respect them. Gordon wrote: > Occasionally I even ponder the possibility that we would have > descended from strict vegetarians but for the fact that our violent omnivorous > hominid ancestors killed off whatever peaceful plant-eating tribes may have > existed in order to get more food and grub for themselves. Ardeith writes: By all the tests humans have been able to devise.....herbivores are not as intelligent as carnivores or omnivores......I'm not talking about vegetarians here.....I'm talking about the differences between grazers and their predators....including humans. The grazers operate mostly from instinct......the predators have to be more creative than that..... I imagine this difference was a factor in the dying out of the lines of early humans that depended only on vegetation for food.