Today’s dinner was sashimi. I squirmed my way through it. I think paleolithic humans were less picky about food textures than I am.
Tim McCormack commented with some good questions and suggestions regarding this paleolithic diet, so I’ll respond to them here…
1. “You may wish to find out what the natives in some region of North America ate, and stick to that.”
That would be great, but I don’t think it’s feasible. It doesn’t look to me like there’s enough information available to reconstruct the diet of one region. We’re also dealing with a very large time span. The upper paleolithic (i.e. the most recent part of the paleolithic age) alone is longer than the entire span of recorded history. So the diet in one specific region may have undergone significant changes. If someone who is an expert on this would like to chime in with the specific information I have been unable to find, please do so!
It’s this lack of specific information which lead me not to try to replicate an actual paleolithic diet. Instead I’m just trying to vaguely approximate the most dramatic contrasts between a modern diet and a paleolithic one. I figured that the “paleolithic diet” movement was a good place to start. I may have been mistaken, but I’m trying to make the most of it. ;-)
2. “Availability of food varies by time of year, not just location. How much food do you suppose was harvested and then cached for later consumption?”
I don’t have an answer to this question and none of the books or websites I’ve looked at go into that much detail. I suspect that the best there is to be found on that subject is speculation. So here’s mine: foods which naturally last a while, such as nuts, were probably stored up for winter. Meat was probably sometimes preserved by freezing in the snow (where the climate would allow it). But of course, the most cacheable foods had not yet caught on: grains.
I’m going to track down an archeology professor to help answer this and other questions.
3. “Non-agricultural diets will probably include a high percentage derived from animals, and it not just muscle and fat. Ready to eat some random viscera?”
Random viscera? No. I at least want to know what I’m eating. Brains and connective tissues are kind of off the table. Sorry. :-P But liver, heart, tongue, etc… bring it on. Liver I can get at the grocery store. Other organ meats may be harder to track down. I’ll work on that. Also remember that hunting is on my list. Should I kill an animal, I will attempt to use every part of it that I can.
4. “How do you suppose the caloric requirements of our ancestors compared to ours today?”
The requirements? First intuition suggests that they required far more energy than the couch potatoes of today. But second intuition, at least in my case, suggests that it may not be so simple. How much energy we require may be related to how much is available during our formative years. Or perhaps their cultures were adapted to lower availability. Maybe they … fidgeted less.
I’ll bet there is a fair amount of research about this particular question. I shall endeavor to find it.
Now… just so nobody is surprised and disappointed, I have decided that “1 week” is five days, not seven. At least as far as this full-on paleo diet goes. Why? Because it leaves me feeling weak and hungry at inopportune times throughout the day. It may very well be that, given enough time, my body would fully adapt to this, but I need to get on with other Grok Project tasks this weekend. So tomorrow will be the last day of the diet. I’ll still make a point of eating some “organ meat” as I don’t think I’ve every done that before.
Thanks for reading!
Tim McCormack
November 7, 2009
Polina: I’m surprised you’re so quickly discarding the idea that paleolithic people ate much in the way of plants. I have no trouble distinguishing poisonous from non-poisonous berries, and my only training really comes from being told “here, eat this” and “don’t eat that!” as a child. Berries are only one plant food, anyway. Fruits, leaves, and tubers are all readily available sources of nutrition, and require very little caloric expenditure, unlike hunting.
Meat is good if you can get it, but it does not need to be even a primary component of one’s diet in primitive conditions.
Gwen
November 7, 2009
Of course contemporary native groups are not “frozen in time”. This is a misconception that lingered for a long time in anthropology and archaeology, and in some ways continues to be a huge debate in archaeology today. It’s not that archaeologists still view them as relics of the past, but they frequently demonstrate a continuity of knowledge and technologies that are analogous to techniques and technologies of the past. The basis on which we draw analogies is also often debated, but it’s most frequently a similar environment, with similar resources etc.
And for instance when archaeologists draw an analogy between the hunters of the plains 11,000 years ago, who hunted extinct species of bison, archaeologists look at the recent historically documented tribes of the plains who also hunted bison, but their technology was different than that of the ancient plains hunters in several significant ways. The used horses, and bow and arrow. (The bow and arrow wasn’t invented until much later, in this period they used spears and spear-throwers or ‘atl-atl’s). The ancient hunters had neither horses nor bows and arrows. So for another, perhaps better, analogy we can look at the hunting techniques of some of the tribes of eastern Africa, who hunt(ed) large mammals in open plains, using various techniques to drive herds together to kill them more easily, something we have clear evidence of from sites like Folsom, New Mexico.
Anyway, I thought I should clarify that point. It’s something archaeologists still debate about a lot. But when there are so many aspects of behavior that don’t preserve archaeologically, my personal opinion is, it’s valid to look at the wide array of cultures that we have documented in the modern world and recent historic periods. By doing so we can see what kinds of tools and techniques are used to solve particular problems, to process or cook particular foods, etc. It may not be the correct answer to the question. But it helps us form much more concrete hypotheses that we can go back and test through more excavation and research.
As always, I’m happy to provide references for anyone interested in reading more.
Polina Khavkina
November 6, 2009
I was thinking about this issue of natural plant variations and which kind of potatoes are “natural”. We discussed this briefly during your unfortunate encounter with fish.
Whilst some would claim that varieties of plants indicate that many aren’t natural, we’ve often actually reduced the varieties of existing species to suit some whim of our palate or to suit our lust for calorie output.
Indeed, we’ve been altering plants for thousands of years with simple cuttings and similar techniques. It’s hard to know, really, what is an “original” species. Certainly, what I describe isn’t paleolithic, but it was going on pretty early.
At that early stage, I sort of doubt any fat that isn’t animal based semi-solid fat was eaten. I also have serious doubts about vegetable fat. I think any vegetable fat that got in the diet got there by accident until much much later. These were people who ate whatever was at hand. Generally speaking, dead animal was at hand. Dead animal is high in life-sustaining calories. Random berries found by the creek are not. Also, random berries might be poisonous. Meat is relatively reliable for not being poisonous if you didn’t leave it around too long. And it’s pretty tasty.
My guess is plants were second-rate food as far as anyone was concerned.
No health food crazes at that early stage
Gwen
November 6, 2009
Its true that there was a significant amount of climatic shift over time in the period you’re looking at, so that diet in a particular region would probably have shifted over time. Still, it’s not a bad idea to look for data on a particular region & time-period.
Also, there is a lot of data on how various indigenous groups use and store food that is more detailed from ethnographic sources than archaeological ones. For instance, if you’re interested in high-protein diets, there has been a lot written about the various Inuit (Eskimo) groups. With access to plenty of ice, they did (and do) freeze a lot of meat. But they also utilize(d) something that was probably more common further south which is drying. Groups on the high plains made use of a lot of smoking and drying of fish and meat, making and eating lots and lots of what we would call jerky (and lox
.
Archaeological research on diets is frequently limited to obtaining data on the species of plants and animals people used. There is frequently scant evidence on how they prepared or stored it over time. So actually archaeologists frequently rely on analogy with living indigenous groups to draw inferences about the actual diet and preparation of foods in the past.
Also, depending on the region, a wide variety of grains were likely harvested from their wild sources, stored, cooked, etc. It’s just they weren’t actively cultivating or domesticating these plants.
Sorry, I can’t help commenting. I’m working on a Ph.D. an archaeology, and I think your whole project is a great idea. I have/can find specific refs on the diets of a wide variety of contemporary groups, as well as archaeological examples, if you want them. I’m not an archaeology professor (yet…) but I can probably help you find stuff you’re looking for. I also was a teaching assistant for course with my advisor on ancient technology. We have a syllabus that goes through the entire sequence from stone tools to pottery, metals, and everything in between. Plus I have been doing, and will continue to do some experiments of my own on different techniques for firing pottery in oxidizing and reducing atmospheres. …
Anyway… I can go on forever about this stuff. Great project! Great Blog! I look forward to reading more.
Ian
November 6, 2009
Oh, cool! I didn’t know you studied archeology. I would like to pick your brain and get a look at that syllabus. Do you think we could talk on the phone or IM some time soon? You can reply in private to ian@grokproject.net. Thanks!
I think looking at the diets of some indigenous cultures on this blog could be helpful, as you said, because analogies can be drawn, but I want to avoid the perception that modern indigenous cultures are like paleolithic ones “frozen in time”. Those cultures have been evolving all this time too.