As a newbie to the list, I find this message interesting in that it seems to assume ancient humans hunting and gathering with a fairly obvious lack of forethought, struggling almost as if they were knuckle-headed cave man stereotypes unable to see much beyond staying alive and un-maimed. Surely they used much more strength than we do, and surely there were many situations in which they used that energy in brief, intense moments of activity ("Og, what do you want to do about that Paleo-hog sniffing your butt . . ."). But it seems to me that, over hundreds/thousands of years, the ancients would have certainly had the experience and time to refine methods of hunting, killing C butchering, and transporting animals so as to minimize physical exertion and damage. And *before* not after one of them tried to drag a log across a river, it seems to me that, if he was fairly well-evolved, he would have gathered several friends to discuss the best way to get the job done with the least physical exertion. I don't know if the ancients would have had super-strength. I think it might have been simply normal strength, strength which we haven't tapped since who knows when. (Perhaps one Cuban friend of mine has tapped into that very old mode of doing daily business. Before emigrating to the States, he was in the Cuban army for a time; there was a period of several months during which he spent twelve hours a day wielding a machete and cutting sugar cane.) My point I guess is that a portrayal of our Paleolithic ancestors as act- now, think-later, work-harder-not-smarte r super-brutes sets standards that are somewhat demeaning to their memory, unrealistic, and potentially physically damaging for those who take them seriously. Edith McKlveen On Sun, 1 Jul 2001 19:24:48 -0500, Keith Thomas <[log in to unmask]> wrote: <snip> If I try to think the way a Palaeo person might think and the experiences a Palaeo person might have, lets consider them chasing a mammal or dragging a log across a stream. <snip> Apart from alertness, foresight and other mental skills, these would have involved extreme exertion. Chasing a rabbit or grappling with a boar would have required agility, a sharp eye, excellent balance, dynamic sprinting ability and, in the case of the boar or other larger mammal, super strength. Endurance would have been measured in minutes, not hours and it would have been endurance with maximum exertion. To unsubscribe from the list send an email to [log in to unmask] with the words SIGNOFF EVOLUTIONARY-FITNESS in the _body_ of the email. To get a copy of the old archives or the FAQ, look in the EvFit folder at http://briefcase.yahoo.com/dryeraser