SC - special needs OOP

Gerekr@aol.com Gerekr at aol.com
Sun Apr 15 11:53:52 PDT 2001


> Is that ture of all populations, though?  I am not well-read on this and
> rely on your and others' knowledge.  My "6-pack Wisdom" is that the
> peoples originating in place with snow on the ground for half the year
> (Alaska, Norway, Upper Canada, Northern Asia) were not so agricultural as
> the equatorial peoples.  I pieced together the idea that they had a
> predominantly animal based diet.
> 
It is a generality on civilizations and growing populations.  People living
under natural conditions in the Arctic have a limited populations and
limited growth.  They also harvest EVERYTHING edible, all animals, nuts,
seeds, berries, lichen, etc.  If wheat could grow there, they would eat it. 

> Certainly the temperate climate gave possibilites to create agriculture
> and feed many more people than hunting/gathering.  That's how population
> grew, I am just forced to believe that not ALL lineages are equally
> physiologically disposed to process an agrarian diet with occasional
> tastes of animal proteins.  
> 
IIRC, the most common food related problem in the world is the inability to
properly digest cow's milk, because not everyone has the proper intestinal
flora and fauna to digest it.  So their are physiological differences.

On the otherhand, man is an omnivore and can usually adapt to whatever is
available.  I submit that the general diet of a given population is based
more on availability, economic requirements, habituation and personal
preference, than any great physiological disposition.

Those Arctic peoples still eat a lot of meat, but mostly because they like
it (so do I), it is readily available and it's inexpensive (check into the
rules for subsistence hunting in Alaska and Canada).  Take a look at what
they purchase to supplement their diet these days (whiskey, beer and bread
were the big items when I was living in Alaska).

Your question was:  "Do more people originate from vegetarian cultures or
meat-eating cultures originally? .... and I don't mean A.D."  I would submit
that the (limited) evidence is humans were omnivores with a primarily
vegetarian diet, who developed hunting skills to expand available foods and
developed agricultural skills to increase the quantities of food available.

There is some serious speculation that cereal growing was developed by
migratory hunters, who sowed grain, then planned their travels to return to
the field at harvest time.  The additional grain gave these bands an edge in
the survival game, allowing them to grow beyond the capacity of a pure
hunter/gatherer environment and later to develop permanent settlements to
exploit agricultural foods while the hunters went afield to find game.  

The various cultures that you see as vegetarian or meat-eating are products
more of environmental limitations than intent, and those cultures which
developed "plant-raising" (especially cereals) proved to be more efficient
in the growth game.  Ergo, most people have their origin in the
"vege-cultures."

Bear




>  
> sca-cooks at ansteorra.org wrote:
> > Large populations appear to originate with permanent settlement related
> togrowing cereals.  Until fairly recently, bread and beer were the staples
> of
> civilization augmented by meat and vegetables.
> 
> Bear
> 
> > Do more people origninate from vegetarian cultures or meat-eating
> cultures
> > originally? . . . . and I don't mean A.D.
> > 
> > niccolo difrancesco
> > 
> ==========================================================================
> ==
> 
> To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
> Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".
> 
> ==========================================================================
> ==
> 
> ==========================================================================
> ==
> 
> To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
> Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".
> 
> ==========================================================================
> ==
> 


More information about the Sca-cooks mailing list