Ken Stuart wrote: The major point is: " The data that human brain size has fallen 11% in the last 35,000 years--with the bulk of that decrease (8%) coming in the last 10,000 years.... that increasing brain development earlier in human evolution is correlated positively with the level of animal food in the diet. Amadeus wrote: > Why did then human brain size fall (by 3% according to your numbers) in a time, where animal consumption increased a lot, in the time between 35000 to 10000 BC. Ardeith writes: Amadeus, that's not what it says........it says that earlier in human evolution, human brain size *increased* in proportion to the meat consumed, 'way back.....500K to a million years ago. The human brain kept on increasing in size....skulls kept on getting bigger. The decrease in brain size, as well as a decrease in overall skeletal size, occurred in the last 35K years, with the most decrease occurring in the last 10K years, after the development of agriculture and the increased consumption of grains........ Amadeus wrote: > My guess is as follows: > The really big encephalisation happened in doubling and threefolding > the brain size from 2-1 million years ago. Caused by better availability > of a superior high energy brain food: carbohydrates of savannah USOs > (tubers). Ardeith writes: Sorry, that's not what the anthropologist of the world think..... The anthropologists say our brains increased in size with the eating of meat as a regular part of our diets.......we had tubers, fruit, leaves, etc all along.....but the brain size increased with the availability of more meat and the ability to hunt that meat. Amadeus wrote: > Brain size reached a peak in neanderthals (which are not known to > hav had particular intelligence - few developements in 100000's of years). Ardeith writes: The Neanderthals survived 100K years during the Ice Ages, which modern humans probably could not do......and the Neanderthals did it eating a lot of meat, along with the root, tubers, leaves, etc available during very short summer seasons......which isn't very much...... Amadeus wrote: > >Finally, in what will be > >controversial to raw-fooders, Aiello and Wheeler, after arguing > that the first major increase in encephalization was due to increased > consumption of animal foods, next propose that the second major increase in > brain size (with the appearance of archaic Homo sapiens) was due to the > >appearance of cooking practices. Ardeith writes: When I was taking anthropology courses, in the 1980's, they were teaching that the earliest evidence of "controlled" use of fire was only 40K years ago, at a place called "Terra Amata"........I think that date has been moved back a couple of 100K years lately. Amadeus wrote: > Energetically animal food is not a good deal. Ardeith writes: Go take another look at gorillas and orangutuans..... they have bit paunches....big guts.....of the sort required to digest masses of plant materials. Chimps have lesser paunches, but still more than the average human. Look at monkeys.....Spider monkeys which eat fruits are slim active little buggers.....because fruits are concentrated sources of energy. Other sorts of monkeys that eat mostly leaves have the big paunches that resemble chimps.....because a diet of mostly leaves is low in energy and they have to eat huge masses of leaves just to live.....and they are not near so active as the fruit eaters. Leaf eating apes such as gorillas and orangs are not nearly as active as fruit eating animals or meat eating animals. Now take that one step further.......meat is an even more concentrated source of energy.....no predator has the big paunch of the grass and leaf eaters....... The human gut is more like the predator gut that the leaf eater's gut.......designed to digest and draw energy from meat, primarlily, but able to handle plant foods too. And all the predators eat plant foods too........ lions and wolves will eat the stomach of grazers such as deer and antelope, including the half digested plant foods the grazers ate. And predators will seek out and eat other plants from time to time......perhaps instinctively knowing they need "some" roughage to keep the hair they lick from their own bodies moving along....... Sorry, Amadeus. While I appreciate your desire to be vegetarian, you can in no way make a valid argument that humans developed their body design and brain size on a vegetarian diet. There is just too much anthropological data out there to refute such an idea. Then when you add in the improved health of so many people, including me, who have decided to cut grains from their diets, it is even more unlikely that we evolved as vegetarians. Even today, in a basically vegetarian culture such as in India, you can see the loss of skeletal size that anthropologists find in the bones of earlier agriculturists...... You just don't grow people the size of our European ancestors on grain-based diets. The Norse and Germanic tribal warriors of 2K years ago were awesome......and they weren't vegetarians! [log in to unmask] Walk The Path With Practical Feet! ________________________________________________________________ GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO! Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less! 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