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Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

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Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#21

Post by fencepost »

leereeves wrote: post #15
detuur wrote: post #2

I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…

> Dogs don't seem to mind [spoiled meat] I've recently seen proof of that. A dead horse was left on a trail I frequently hike, and I saw dogs eating it a week later. I don't even want to imagine how awful that meat was after sitting in the sun for a week.

I haven't yet listened to the podcast but this has links to all the relevant info on Dogs In Elk which seems relevant.

https://www.wbur.org/endlessthread/2022/02/25/dogs-in-elk

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#22

Post by fencepost »

1MachineElf wrote: post #12

As an aside, most industrial meat is exposed either intentionally or unintentionally to lactobacillus strains. Working in kitchens I've had the opportunity to taste spoiling meat that had high amounts of it. When prepared right it is actually quite good. Taste can be similar to dry-aged steak, but juicer and more flavorful. I've never gotten sick, but it certainly seems like a risk, however tasty it may be.

Lactobacillus has been a part of human meat preservation for a long time. https://record.umich.edu/articles/underwater-storage-techniq...

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#23

Post by stefantalpalaru »

"It is interesting to note that humans, uniquely among the primates so far considered, appear to have stomach pH values more akin to those of carrion feeders than to those of most carnivores and omnivores. In the absence of good data on the pH of other hominoids, it is difficult to predict when such an acidic environment evolved. Baboons (_Papio_ spp) have been argued to exhibit the most human–like of feeding and foraging strategies in terms of eclectic omnivory, but their stomachs – while considered generally acidic (pH = 3.7) – do not exhibit the extremely low pH seen in modern humans (pH = 1.5). One explanation for such acidity may be that carrion feeding was more important in humans (and more generally hominin) evolution than currently considered to be the case [...]" - ["The Evolution of Stomach Acidity and Its Relevance to the Human Microbiome" (2015)](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...)

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#24

Post by ravenstine »

detuur wrote: post #2

I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…

Why subscribe to the endurance running hypothesis, though? There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way, and hominids were already making tools by the time they had developed to subsist on meat. The endurance/persistence hypothesis doesn't even make sense without tools like spears, knives, or arrows, because humans don't kill their prey by biting into them. If they had access to primitive weaponry, why would they waste energy running when they could instead ambush? Even other species like chimps and dolphins, that can't chuck spears, hunt by surrounding their prey. The only reason the hypothesis is even a thing is because people find it confusing that we sweat so much.

If anything, the persistence running hypothesis in some way discredits the idea that hominids relied on rotten meat. If they could catch fresh prey, why eat spoiled meat? Yet our stomach acid has a very low pH, more acidic than even that of cats.

What's more likely, in my opinion, is hominids began to supplement their diet by eating the leftover kills of larger predators as well as any rotting carcasses they may have encountered, and then developed hunting strategies around when they began developing tools. Even having sharp knives made of stone or volcanic glass would have been an obvious advantage in food procurement, and it wouldn't have taken millions of years to figure out that slashing an animal's throat in the right place would take it down quickly. No need for persistence running at all if a group can corner a mammoth or buffalo or lead it to a dead end.

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#25

Post by exfatloss »

The book The Fat of the Land by Vilhjalmur Stefansson (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vilhjalmur_Stefansson) describes how the Eskimos he lived with ate rotten fish all the time. It was a delicacy for them.

Kind of like we eat "rotten/spoiled" blue cheese and dry-aged beef.

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#26

Post by walkhour »

ravenstine wrote: post #24
detuur wrote: post #2

I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…

Why subscribe to the endurance running hypothesis, though? There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way, and hominids were already making tools by the time they had developed to subsist on meat. The endurance/persistence hypothesis doesn't even make sense without tools like spears, knives, or arrows, because humans don't kill their prey by biting into them. If they had access to primitive weaponry, w…

> There are no contemporary examples of humans hunting that way.

There are some examples [0], although admittedly they are isolated cases.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#27

Post by finnh »

Connor_Creegan1 wrote: post #20
detuur wrote: post #2

I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…

>It's obvious that at least in our very recent evolutionary history we had far higher tolerance to spoilage. I would agree, both in terms of actual immunity and taste response, although generally-speaking eating rotten meat (especially when well-sourced) is not nearly as risky as common wisdom would make it out to be. Many folks in the deeper circles of online carnivoria dabble in "high meat" (fermented rotten meat,…

Where did I last read about high meat, again?

Ah yes, the Nov 22, 2010 issue of the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2010/11/22/natures-spoils

big h/t for "deeper circles of online carnivoria", you win phrase of the day

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#28

Post by SketchySeaBeast »

Connor_Creegan1 wrote: post #20
detuur wrote: post #2

I don't see how that's surprising, at least if you subscribe to the Endurance Running Hypothesis (and I do). Any prey humans used to hunt using what we now know as persistence hunting would have been large game. Especially in the hot, tropic climates early humans seemed to have thrived in, such meat would have started to spoil, even if hunted fresh, before any such hunter would have had the time to bring it back to t…

>It's obvious that at least in our very recent evolutionary history we had far higher tolerance to spoilage. I would agree, both in terms of actual immunity and taste response, although generally-speaking eating rotten meat (especially when well-sourced) is not nearly as risky as common wisdom would make it out to be. Many folks in the deeper circles of online carnivoria dabble in "high meat" (fermented rotten meat,…

Fermentation implies an intentional process that protects against spoilage. I don't think anyone considers sauerkraut or wine rotten food.

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#29

Post by foobarian »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #14
Retric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The major issue isn’t the bacteria but their byproducts. Ex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Botulism This is why you can’t render rotten meat safe by simply cooking it. That said, people still age meat. Small birds for will get left for 4-9 days in a cool space before being butchered etc. https://magazine.outdoornebraska.gov/2014/01/hanging-pheasan...

Yep other than a couple notable exceptions like salmonella, this is the norm for food poisoning. It's intoxication from metabolic byproducts, not infection. Remains one of the biggest lay misunderstandings of food safety though. "Just cook it out" plus "your nose can tell" (it can't, spoilage microbes aren't usually illness microbes) are false beliefs that still get people killed.

Curious about sources for this. I see some indication that botulism toxin can be destroyed by cooking, though the bar is pretty high - needs to be boiled over 5 minutes. So lesser temperature methods such as grilling the meat may not be sufficient, but something like stewing over many hours seems like would work fine.

Re: Rotten meat may have been a staple of Stone Age diets

#30

Post by dugmartin »

I remember watching a video a few years ago about a present day tribe (I believe in SE Asia) that went on a hunt and killed a monkey. Due to the heat by the time the hunting party was back the meat had spoiled but nobody in the village had any issue with diving in and eating it. I would think that up until very recent times in human development this was very common.
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