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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

#101

Post by NineStarPoint »

bernawil wrote: post #82
ravenstine wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

this somehow always comes up when anybody mentions human sweating or how good we are walking large distances. But whoever thinks it's feasible to hunt any animal worth its calories just jogging behind it has never chased a playful dog. A furry mammal with no sweat glands has way more endurance than any fit man and let's not talk about top speed. You'd never catch it.

Dogs also have unusually high endurance actually, some breeds extremely so like sled dogs (up there in the top three with humans and horses). In general wolves are already pretty high up there endurance wise, and dogs probably had an evolutionary incentive to be able to keep up with us better on top of that.

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

#102

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #18
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.

Yeah you can definitely lacto ferment meat, it's a major flavor component of the european dry sausages. Doing it safely isn't hard, but a lot of the nuances of that technique are towards making it actually taste good. It's very easy to lose control of water activity and get out of control rancid elements, or get air ingress and grow aerobic bacterias that clearly taste like rot, or too much oxidation of the fat, or t…

Lebanon bologna is a more commonly available fermented meat in the US. Much better stuff than the pink slime bologna.

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

#103

Post by mklepaczewski »

bernawil wrote: post #82
ravenstine wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

this somehow always comes up when anybody mentions human sweating or how good we are walking large distances. But whoever thinks it's feasible to hunt any animal worth its calories just jogging behind it has never chased a playful dog. A furry mammal with no sweat glands has way more endurance than any fit man and let's not talk about top speed. You'd never catch it.

On short distances all dogs outpace humans. After an hour of running most dogs will just quit. On several occasions I had very hard time convincing various dogs to get off the ground after an 8-10km run.

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

#104

Post by jrootabega »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #94
bernawil wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this somehow always comes up when anybody mentions human sweating or how good we are walking large distances. But whoever thinks it's feasible to hunt any animal worth its calories just jogging behind it has never chased a playful dog. A furry mammal with no sweat glands has way more endurance than any fit man and let's not talk about top speed. You'd never catch it.

Plus, now you're exhausted and you've chased it for how long? If you've run for the last 18 hours exhausting the gazelle, home is now an 18 hour jog back the other way, and you won't be jogging, you'll be lugging a gazelle with you and you're already utterly exhausted.

It would make sense to try to flank the animal and get it to run where you wanted it to.

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

#105

Post by mklepaczewski »

SketchySeaBeast wrote: post #94
bernawil wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this somehow always comes up when anybody mentions human sweating or how good we are walking large distances. But whoever thinks it's feasible to hunt any animal worth its calories just jogging behind it has never chased a playful dog. A furry mammal with no sweat glands has way more endurance than any fit man and let's not talk about top speed. You'd never catch it.

Plus, now you're exhausted and you've chased it for how long? If you've run for the last 18 hours exhausting the gazelle, home is now an 18 hour jog back the other way, and you won't be jogging, you'll be lugging a gazelle with you and you're already utterly exhausted.

Is gazelle able to jog for 18 hours in a hot day? Or even for 2 hours? Keep in mind that the predator chooses the prey. Humans didn't had to chase gazelles, they may choose something bigger and slower.

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

#106

Post by jonnycomputer »

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…

I really don't think whether the prey is big-game or not matters with respect to "spoiled" meat, however, contra to what some others here are saying, persistence hunting is (or was) a real thing. This paper [1] describes ethnographic examples of persistence hunting; heck, my grandfather described to me running down rabbits as a way of hunting them.

However, I would also argue that a more common approach, at least when there are multiple hunters working together, is to "herd" animals into kill zones such as pit traps, or channels. We have lots of evidence of those in the archeological record, such as here [2] and here [3].

I actually suspect that bacterial "preprocessing" of meat would assist in digestion. Rather famously, it is hard to get everything you need in a raw food diet, and a well known argument in anthropology is that cooking with fire is our way to make food easier to digest (rather than approach the problem the way, say, cows do). Fermentation can also improve the digestibility of foods (increasing bioavailability of calories, nutrients, etc.).

[1] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/508695 [2] https://albertashistoricplaces.com/2018/07/18/pronghorn-trap... [3] https://torbygjordet.com/food/hunting/

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

#107

Post by krona »

kybernetyk wrote: post #88
ravenstine wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>If they had access to primitive weaponry, why would they waste energy running when they could instead ambush? This is the main point why I don't believe in the endurance running hypothesis. Humans are lazy. Why would they opt to run for days over just waiting at the local watering hole for prey?

> Humans are lazy

I don't think you realize how easy it is if you know how to track and jog for 2-3 hours for antelope, even less for cats. All you need is a club. 'Running' isn't necessary.

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

#108

Post by jaggederest »

pegasus wrote: post #95
bernawil wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this somehow always comes up when anybody mentions human sweating or how good we are walking large distances. But whoever thinks it's feasible to hunt any animal worth its calories just jogging behind it has never chased a playful dog. A furry mammal with no sweat glands has way more endurance than any fit man and let's not talk about top speed. You'd never catch it.

Not so: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/health/27well.html "But when it comes to long distances, humans can outrun almost any animal. Because we cool by sweating rather than panting, we can stay cool at speeds and distances that would overheat other animals. On a hot day, the two scientists wrote, a human could even outrun a horse in a 26.2-mile marathon."

And we know because there are a number of "human versus horse" races over long distances that are occasionally won by humans. Generally the longer the race the more often humans win.

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

#109

Post by majormajor »

mklepaczewski wrote: post #99
ravenstine wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> If they had access to primitive weaponry, why would they waste energy running when they could instead ambush? Have you ever fought a dog, a deer or a boar? Fighting means wounds, possibly fatal ones. Spear or no spear, you're going to die in one of those fights. Running on the other hand is pretty safe and not that tiring, especially if you've been doing it for years and your weight is close to 50-60kg. Ability to…

Would you want to chase animals you wouldn't want to fight? What if they turned around and tried to fight you? You have less tactical advantage than trying to hunt or ambush them with stealth, and if you turn to run maybe you get away but then you've burned up a lot of your extra stamina? Give me the bow and arrow or spears so I can wound the target before /while chasing it, vs just popping out and hoping it ran away from me instead of at me.

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

#110

Post by chimpanzee »

kybernetyk wrote: post #88
ravenstine wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

>If they had access to primitive weaponry, why would they waste energy running when they could instead ambush? This is the main point why I don't believe in the endurance running hypothesis. Humans are lazy. Why would they opt to run for days over just waiting at the local watering hole for prey?

Plenty of humans “run for days” for pure enjoyment. Not to say the ancients would be so foolish when energy expenditure is a concern. But run for days, for a purpose, with companions, releasing endorphins throughout, and then topping that off with a nice, rewarding meal full of fat and protein? I don’t see why not.
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