wrote:
> The PBS science show Nova had this week a show on chimps. Not only did
> they eat meat with great relish they did so at every opportunity.
>
> They had invented a kind of spear to kill animals to eat. They hunt
> with group cooperation and share the meat among themselves.
>
>
"The more significant role of social-insect/termite/ant
consumption. Now of course, meat consumption among
chimps is what gets the headlines these days, but the
bulk of chimpanzees' animal food consumption actually
comes in the form of social insects (termites, ants,
and bees), which constitute a much higher payoff for
the labor invested to obtain them than catching the
colobus monkeys that are often the featured flesh item
for chimps. However, insect consumption has often been
virtually ignored since it constitutes a severe blind
spot for the Western world due to our cultural
aversions and biases about it. And by no means is
insect consumption an isolated occurrence among just
some chimp populations. With very few exceptions,
termites and/or ants are eaten about half the days out
of a year on average, and during peak seasons are an
almost daily item, constituting a significant staple
food in the diet (in terms of regularity), the remains
of which show up in a minimum of approximately 25% of
all chimpanzee stool samples."
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w...hs%20ab%20apes
Paleontological evidence shows
humans have always been omnivores
What kind of "evidence" are we talking about here?
At its most basic, an accumulation of archaeological
excavations by paleontologists, ranging all the way
from the recent past of 10,000-20,000 years ago back to
approximately 2 million years ago, where ancient
"hominid" (meaning human and/or proto-human) skeletal
remains are found in conjunction with stone tools and
animal bones that have cut marks on them. These cut
marks indicate the flesh was scraped away from the bone
with human-made tools, and could not have been made in
any other way. You also find distinctively smashed
bones occurring in conjunction with hammerstones that
clearly show they were used to get at the marrow for
its fatty material.[3]
Prior to the evidence from these earliest stone tools,
going back even further (2-3 million years) is chemical
evidence showing from strontium/calcium ratios in
fossilized bone that some of the diet from earlier
hominids was also coming from animal flesh.[4]
(Strontium/calcium ratios in bone indicate relative
amounts of plant vs. animal foods in the diet.[5])
Scanning electron microscope studies of the microwear
of fossil teeth from various periods well back into
human prehistory show wear patterns indicating the use
of flesh in the diet too.[6]
The consistency of these findings across vast eons of
time show that these were not isolated incidents but
characteristic behavior of hominids in many times and
many places.
Evidence well-known in scientific community;
controversial only for vegetarians. The evidence--if it
is even known to them--is controversial only to
Hygienists and other vegetarian groups, few to none of
whom, so far as I can discern, seem to have acquainted
themselves sufficiently with the evolutionary picture
other than to make a few armchair remarks. To anyone
who really looks at the published evidence in the
scientific books and peer-reviewed journals and has a
basic understanding of the mechanisms for how evolution
works, there is really not a whole lot to be
controversial about with regard to the very strong
evidence indicating flesh has been a part of the human
diet for vast eons of evolutionary time. The real
controversy in paleontology right now is whether the
earliest forms of hominids were truly "hunters," or
more opportunistic "scavengers" making off with pieces
of kills brought down by other predators, not whether
we ate flesh food itself as a portion of our diet or
not.[7]
http://www.beyondveg.com/nicholson-w...erview1b.shtml