Now, now, be nice! We all know the only thing we were really "built" to do is to preserve as much energy as possible for when food is more scarce (or when we need to run from something) The ultimate paleolithic man is obviously a fat bloke, everything els is clearly just modern unnatural unhealthy trends.. :

Figure 1.1: Ray Mears illustrating the "survival physique" (arrowed).



A number of points:

1. The clue to Cordain's analysis is in the title:



Are you aware that you're making the inherent assumption that all palaeolithic humans followed a hunting or hunter/gatherer based lifestyle?

Is that a fair assumption?

I know that the joke is that vegetarian means "shite hunter", but where do you think isotopic ratio evidence from preserved keratin places quite a few palaeolithic dudes on this scale:



Try:
http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/reprint/13/3/559.pdf

if you want a crib sheet.

2. Cordain et al's analysis is based upon the nutritional content of white-tailed deer versus the nutritional content of twelve selected plant species. Is this a reasonable approach?

3. These analyses make little inference of the cost/benefit calculations implicit in a hunter gatherer lifestyle. Yes, you may get the nutritional equivalent of 30 kilos of lichen in six kilos of hindleg, but in terms of calorie balance, the lichen is fairly low hanging fruit.

4. The oft-repeated assumption that palaeo diets = no grains is erroneous. Anyone wishing to take issue with this is kindly referred to Piperno et al. 2004 (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v4 ... 02734.html) or Aranguren et al. 2007 (http://antiquity.ac.uk/Ant/081/0845/ant0810845.pdf) for evidence of the importance of grain as much as 20-30 millenia before the agricultural revolution.

5. The other assumption - that we are adapted to one particular nutritional mode and one set of environmental conditions e.g. the "palaeo diet" is plainly bollocks. We see humans occupying niches from the tropical to the Arctic, the littoral to the continental. We know that times have been hard for Hom sap, and it's not always been rich pickings. If there is one specific thing we have been adapted to - it is being adaptable.

It always seems to me that people using evolution as an argument misses the whole point of evolution..

double troofs^

Well, do you know of any gatherer-only societies which haven't adopted farming?



Unfortunately this tells us nothing about the nutrition of paleolithic humans, since the whole study is based on a hair sample from a man who died 5200 years ago in Europe - long after farming was widespread. Furthermore, it says that the samples indicate substantial consumption of grains. Nothing surprising here.



This is interesting, (I found a free version of the whole study here) since it proves cereal grains were consumed in some amounts at least 10000 years earlier than previously thought. But that's all it proves. That grains were available in one area of the world and in some amounts (it does not tell us how much, presumably significantly less than after the plants were domesticated) in itself is hardly significant compared to 2.6 million years of evolution, because it still leaves most of humanity at that time and 99% of hominid evolution without them.




Who has said that? This seems to be a reccurring argument against the paleo diet, but it's based on a false premise. The only things most paleo dieters really avoid are grains, legumes, dairy, processed foods and alcohol. There is as much variation in modern paleo diets as there is found in Cordain's study, ranging from "zero carb" meat-eaters to ovo-vegetarians like myself (although I have to admit I'm not 100% paleo, only like 90%).

http://www.arthurdevany.com/2005/08/top ... asons.html

It's dangerous. Plus there would have been no need for a paleolithic hunter-gatherer to waste energy by running for 10 miles. He needed to run away fast and for short distances from a predator, or to catch an animal.

Wouldn't you agree that farming (i.e. crop based) farming is merely a progression from gathering. Any solely-hunter based societies left? Yep. Outcompeted? Yep. Fairly marginalized in remote corners of the world, aren't they?



Just as Cordain's analysis is partly based upon the nutritional content of one species of deer. Oh dear.


Equally the assumption that extant hunter-gatherer tribes are indicative of the norm in palaeolithic times - or even of palaeolithic hunter-gatherer behaviour tells us little.



You should try revisiting the definition of evolution. It may have been the norm for 99% of hominid history, but this is not equivalent to 99% hominid evolution. Calibrating the molecular clock is difficult, and there is not a 1:1 balance between time and evolution.

It certainly is not equivalent to 99% of human progress. Draw yourself a timeline of human achievements; there are pretty massive gaps between fundamentals such as using fire and so on. And then, within the last 10,000 years or so - whoosh. Coincident with more consistent nutrition? Mayhaps. Arguably, it provides the suggestion that the hunter/gatherer lifestyle has been a severely limiting factor in hominid development over its history. This debate has been had on this site before, how Homo sp. were nowt special for the majority of its history.

Curiously, it is only within the last 100 years or so that many of the things that palaeo diets claim to reduce the risk of have become problems in public health. Is that the sign of a pleistocene genome struggling with agriculture in general, or one struggling with overconsumption - largely of animal products? If the latter, surely these problems would have presented themselves in the prior 9,900 years or so.

Oh, I'm using the 10,000 years BP mark again. You possibly know that the earliest evidence for utilizing seeds dates from 200,000 years BP in the Sudan, according to Murphy's book People, plants and genes (2007 - it's on google books, p 293).

It's hard to put a start date on this transition. But the above would suggest that its earliest inklings were contemporary with mitochondrial Eve, and tens of millenia before Y-chromosome Adam. Evidently then the "pleistocene genome" may not be as unsuited to agriculture of some form as you argue.

On running:


Oh dear.

May I suggest to you Dr. Mike Stroud's Survival of the Fittest as a little remedial reading on the topic of endurance during palaeolithic times, and evolutionary adaptations to it. Unlike proponents of palaeolithic diets who more commonly than not mis-spell "palaeo", he seems to know his stuff and apply a much less rose-tinted view of those times.

Recently a slightly rotund comedian in the UK, Eddie Izzard ran 43 marathons. It was pointed out that on average we all have enough body fat to support 40 marathons. Physiology doesn't quite work out like that, but it is curious. Again, I refer you to Stroud for some compelling arguments as to the importance of running as a costefficient means of covering ground in prehistory. I think the "short burst" to evade predators or catch prey as the sole importance of running is frankly, deluded.

Final point:



The anachronism of "modern palaeo diets" aside, may I ask A) were chicken eggs a mainstay of an actual palaeolithic diet and B) what do you seek to gain, as an egg-eating-vegetarian effectively advocating meat consumption on a vegan forum?

I really don't get the obsession with eating what we ate 20,000 years ago.

We certainly don't live anything like we did then.

And why is *diet* the only behavior that we try and adapt? How about social behaviors as well? Why is it any more rational to try and use diet from 20,000yrs ago, but not other behaviors? Why shouldn't we rely on physical strength to assert our dominance, and take whatever mates we want, whenever we want?

This doesn't make any sense to me. I think eating like a caveman comes from thinking like a caveman. Bravo homo sapien, we've conquered evolution and natural selection, and are able to move backwards again....

Fuck me, a Dave noisy post I agree with!

I absolutely agree with the point you're making, but I think we should cut the cavemen some slack! Is there really any evidence of them being rapists, what kind of archeological traces would that leave..? If we assume that they lived in small, nomadic groups and were psychologically basically the same as us, my guess is that rape would have been less common than now.

Arguably it might leave traces in population structure if it were common or prolific enough, which might well be detectable if you could get hold of enough ancient DNA to develop a decent, representative database of a population. It would more likely be obscured in modern day samples by other, similar events in subsequent history.

Otherwise a very good post from Dave!

A sexist non-vegan poster with a rose-tinted view of the past comes on here and tries to convince us of the merits of dropping the vegan diet. Quality!

As I don't have time to sharpen my knife, all I'll say is:

Bugger off and eat your pre-historic diet if it floats your boat. Just don't use a computer to tell us about it!

Quite the opposite maybe?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting

As Eddie McGee would say: You are only as sharp as your knife.

Calm down foxy. I'm sure they had pies in the palaeolithic. Here, here's a palaeo diet pumpkin pie recipe. I'm sure if you find alternatives to the unsalted butter and creme fraiche it would be vegan too.

http://www.paleodietonline.com/2007/11/ ... n-pie.html

Wait palaeolithic diet with dairy in it? How does that work?