Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: Joy2012 on November 29, 2013, 12:03:48 pm
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Inger, I read the post Jessica referred me to.
It is great that you have found the diet and lifestyle that is good for you.
I have one question: What is the reason you want to keep your sleeping environment cold and to take cold bath?
I grew up in an Asian culture. The three-thousand-year-old medicinal system recommends warm diet and warm environment.
I think it is agreed that mankind originated in tropical areas of the earth. So it seems mankind is more suited to warm environment.
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I grew up in an Asian culture. The three-thousand-year-old medicinal system recommends warm diet and warm environment.
I think it is agreed that mankind originated in tropical areas of the earth. So it seems mankind is more suited to warm environment.
Err, Asians, that is "Orientals", appear to have evolved in a cold climate and are therefore more adapted to the cold. Some think that Caucasians are also adapted to cold climates.
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If they (we) were well adapted, shouldn't they (we) remain naked and barefoot outside or inside unheated houses the whole year? ;)
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If they (we) were well adapted, shouldn't they (we) remain naked and barefoot outside or inside unheated houses the whole year? ;)
Well, given my own experiences, I am sure that if I had been outdoors naked all year round from birth that I would have swiftly adapted to the cold.
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My point is that Inger intentionally plunges into cold environment like it is beneficial for health.
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The wise man Lex Rooker explained that exposing oneself to both heat and cold, for the widest natural range of temperatures, most tests the body, and produces the greatest hormetic benefit, and that's what I've found in my experience. It's not cold vs. hot, it's both, and I've come to love both.
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Inger, I read the post Jessica referred me to.
It is great that you have found the diet and lifestyle that is good for you.
I have one question: What is the reason you want to keep your sleeping environment cold and to take cold bath?
I grew up in an Asian culture. The three-thousand-year-old medicinal system recommends warm diet and warm environment.
I think it is agreed that mankind originated in tropical areas of the earth. So it seems mankind is more suited to warm environment.
The illnesses we have today and the man made environment we are surrounded by is very different than for 3000 years ago Joy. Back then they faced cold every so often. We do not anymore. We have heated houses, cars, clothes way different than back then. We live in a unnaturally heated environment, that is the truth. You need to see how we live NOW, then you will know why we might need a different approach than the healing protocol was 3000 years back.
If they (we) were well adapted, shouldn't they (we) remain naked and barefoot outside or inside unheated houses the whole year? ;)
Absolute. That would be the optimal thing to do for health Francois! :-*
I learned in High School about "wolf kids". Children left out in the wild, growing up with animals. Totally naked... even in the German winter! They had fully adapted.
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Thanks to all for replies.
I need to think of some uncomfortably cold or hot environments I might comfortably expose myself to. :)
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Absolute. That would be the optimal thing to do for health Francois! :-*
I learned in High School about "wolf kids". Children left out in the wild, growing up with animals. Totally naked... even in the German winter! They had fully adapte
I had in mind that the Fuegians http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuegians (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuegians) lived naked in the cold southern tip of South America. But I checked and saw that they wore some clothing, although minimal. Inuit’s never lived naked either. They all used fire. Wolves have a thick fur but some other animals, even those that also have fur, cannot survive long in a freezing environment.
Animals, humans included, certainly have a broad tolerance range to temperature. We can survive a while to 50° C in deserts or to freezing winter colds. Getting used to it since birth surely helps but there are of course limits and being able to live in an extreme climate doesn’t mean it’s optimal! We are also able to live with a mostly cooked diet… ;)
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Francois I am not telling we need to live naked i the snow...lol I just say we need to feel the changes of the season. It is enough to be outside and have a little less clothing, having it cooler inside than most (I do 15 degree C in winter) and get lots of benefit. It is about being in touch with the nature... and not over heat. In Finland and Russia it is known since forever ice dips are healing, so about 2 % (Finland - in Russia it might be way more) of the population do them
I am sure you can get lots of CT where you live, swimming in the ocean and not heat too much in winter :)
It is actually very uncomplicated ;)
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That sounds more reasonable.
15° C may suit you fine with your current state of health and level of physical activities you have, but it can't be generalized to everyone at all the times. Everybody is different, and we change over time. ;)
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When I was eating fruits all year round I was so cold all the time in winter.. grrr.... ;) and underweight too... had 25 degree C in my home and bundled up
now I know why ;)
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The last 5 winters I had 13° C in my house in the morning and I didn't feel cold, even though I've been eating fruits as well.
For me, if I'm the whole day inside in winter, I feel cold, whatever the temperature in the house. But if I work outside most of the day, I don't feel cold.
You see, everyone is different.
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Because you live way south..... and you see, outside you do not feel cold when you move around. It is not that we are that different, it is when we do unnatural things, then we get to suffer.
Natures rules are always the same. That is why it becomes dangerous to give advice to eat fruit all year round because we live in different places and someone living far north might get seriously ill eating fruits out of season for a longer duration. Someone working in front of the computer, living in a city... might need a different diet too limiting sugar, even if the person lives in a warm and sunny country. Because surrounded with EMF to an unhealthy degree.
So if a person that lives on the countryside (surrounded by trees and nature - doing fine with a carb loaded diet) gives advice to someone living in the city to do the same... it might be a bad idea.... the sweet tooth is so strong for most, if they have sweet delicious fruits in front of them they cannot resist. That is how it was for me at least... and for many I know about too. clinging to their fruits even if snow outside.... and giving advice to others to do the same and tell how dangerous ketotic diets are (eating only animals foods
Nature rules. Not our dogmas or culture
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Because you live way south..... and you see, outside you do not feel cold when you move around.
No, sorry Inger. I live in Algarve since June only! Before that I spent 5 years in SW France where it froze sometimes down to minus 8° C. I previously lived most of my life in Switzerland by 46°30'N where temperatures could go down to minus 15° C.
clinging to their fruits even if snow outside.... and giving advice to others to do the same and tell how dangerous ketotic diets are (eating only animals foods
Excuse me, but who gives advice to others to eat fruits? Who tells "how dangerous ketogenic diets are"?
I only say that I prefer not to know what “ketogenic diet” means because I have a raw nutrition as close as possible as paleo and I guess our pre-fire ancestors had no way to know about such diets as “ketogenic”. Thus they couldn’t restrict their foods to animals only and must have necessarily eaten plant foods as well… BTW, my everyday experiences tell me it’s much easier to catch a plant (fruit, nut, root or whatever) than an animal (shellfish excepted) because a plant doesn’t run away when you try to catch it, eh! ;)
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Err, well there was an Ice-Age where people had trouble in europe finding raw plant food sources at times... Otherwise you do have a point.....
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Yes, ok, but this ice-age was limited in space and time...
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Except that the last Ice Age lasted c. 100,000 years or so.....
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A very short period compared to the 6 or 7 millions years since we diverged from the chimps, I think. Also short relatively to the 350'000 years or so we've been mastering the fire. I guess a very small percentile of our ancestors endured these ice-ages in Europe, isn't it?
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Hard to ever know if either of you two spent a year or more eating the other's way just what each might discover?? But what a diet experiment that would be. And just think how much each would have to clear out of his and her mind of all the many ideas and memories and believes each has accumulated to give such a test a real fair chance, not to mention each needing to move to the other's location for that year of guided experimental eating. Iguana could go first,, holding up a fig and saying 'now smell this one', and so on,, (didn't mean to suggest he would not have also at some point held up some sort of aged animal from his new refrigerator to smell)…. And then the following year, both would get in the car and head up North to Inger's house, or is it her sister's now, I get confused,, in Norway? Wow what a country that is! Where Iguana would learn about and drink fish head smoothies, amongst other delicacies, and most importantly Inger would gently coach him to trust that his energy would return (after giving up sugars from fruits as his main energy source) after his body keto adapted, ( I know I spent a very long weekend on the coach the first few days of my conversion ). And I can think of no one I'd rather have as a coach than Inger. How special would that be!
And I'm sure if this whole two year experiment was documented, you know, like one of those reality tv shows, well, at least some amount of people would want to find out what happened. I know I'd be watching.
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In Finland and Russia it is known since forever ice dips are healing, so about 2 % (Finland - in Russia it might be way more) of the population do them
Inger, does "ice dip" mean one dips oneself into very cold water? How long do you stay in the cold water?
Do you think "partial ice dip" will do any good? For instance, dipping one's face/hands/arms into very cold water?
What kind of healing will ice dip accomplish?
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I only say that I prefer not to know what “ketogenic diet” means because I have a raw nutrition as close as possible as paleo and I guess our pre-fire ancestors had no way to know about such diets as “ketogenic”. Thus they couldn’t restrict their foods to animals only and must have necessarily eaten plant foods as well… BTW, my everyday experiences tell me it’s much easier to catch a plant (fruit, nut, root or whatever) than an animal (shellfish excepted) because a plant doesn’t run away when you try to catch it, eh! ;)
Francois come here and show me how easy it will be to catch a plant... everything is hard and frozen and ice cold...... >D
Hard to ever know if either of you two spent a year or more eating the other's way just what each might discover?? But what a diet experiment that would be. And just think how much each would have to clear out of his and her mind of all the many ideas and memories and believes each has accumulated to give such a test a real fair chance, not to mention each needing to move to the other's location for that year of guided experimental eating. Iguana could go first,, holding up a fig and saying 'now smell this one', and so on,, (didn't mean to suggest he would not have also at some point held up some sort of aged animal from his new refrigerator to smell)…. And then the following year, both would get in the car and head up North to Inger's house, or is it her sister's now, I get confused,, in Norway? Wow what a country that is! Where Iguana would learn about and drink fish head smoothies, amongst other delicacies, and most importantly Inger would gently coach him to trust that his energy would return (after giving up sugars from fruits as his main energy source) after his body keto adapted, ( I know I spent a very long weekend on the coach the first few days of my conversion ). And I can think of no one I'd rather have as a coach than Inger. How special would that be!
And I'm sure if this whole two year experiment was documented, you know, like one of those reality tv shows, well, at least some amount of people would want to find out what happened. I know I'd be watching.
hahaha.... priceless...!!! I would love Francois to visit me.... and I would love to visit his paradise too and have fresh ripe figs held by his hand up to my nose... ;D
And yeah... we could make a movie out of it, I am all in ;D
@ Joy, to dip means I submerge myself naked up to my neck or also shortly keeping my head under water (diving) in the river. I do only shortly, 1-2 minutes. I have done up to 7 minutes in 0,2 degree C though, but I usually keep it short.
Any cold will do you good, even if just for seconds, and even if showering only arms and feet's or dipping your face. I dip my face in ice water every morning 4 times. Love how refreshing it is!
Healing... so many things! It strengthens your immune system, lowers inflammation (the most important one), increases blood flow and circulation... etc
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Thanks, Inger.
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Inger, has DiagnOptics had any studies done to see how much AGE's are in various diets?
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Francois come here and show me how easy it will be to catch a plant... everything is hard and frozen and ice cold......
I found this hilarious! LOL!
I live in a tropical country, never thought of this.
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Francois come here and show me how easy it will be to catch a plant... everything is hard and frozen and ice cold...... >D
I guess that’s why bonobos and early hominids did not settle in Scandinavia or Finland… Their wise chiefs and sorcerers must have said “Oh, there’s nothing to eat here and it’s freezing cold, let’s go back down South and let our successors come back once they know how to make and control the fire, and when they’ll have developed javelins, bows and arrows! We haven’t yet figured out how to wash the tubers before eating them.” ;D ;)
hahaha.... priceless...!!! I would love Francois to visit me.... and I would love to visit his paradise too and have fresh ripe figs held by his hand up to my nose... ;D
And yeah... we could make a movie out of it, I am all in ;D
You’re welcome here first… What animal foods do you find there? Reindeer and fish from the Baltic? Or are you now in Norway near the Atlantic coast?
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That sounds inspiring.
You have the sex appeal of a 20 yr old.
ain't that the truth :-)
fascinating explanation about the elevated glucose - makes sense
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I guess that’s why bonobos and early hominids did not settle in Scandinavia or Finland… Their wise chiefs and sorcerers must have said “Oh, there’s nothing to eat here and it’s freezing cold, let’s go back down South and let our successors come back once the know how to make and control the fire, and when they’ll have developed javelins, bows and arrows! We haven’t yet figured out how to wash the tubers before eating them.” ;D ;)
You’re welcome here first… What animal foods do you find there? Reindeer and fish from the Baltic? Or are you now in Norway near the Atlantic coast?
;D
I find elk, deer (there are lots of deer BTW.. I see them around the house pretty often!) rabbits there are lots of too... ducks, other animals too.. and yeah many kind of fish in the Baltic. Although there is not as much fish as it used to be and the water is polluted too. But it is getting better. I do believe a healthy person is able to clear many kinds of pollutants and poisons! That is why someone get sick and someone not. It has always fascinated me. Why that is. And how you can be one of them that clear stuff effectively -> stay healthy in not so ideal environment too.
I m not so sure our ancestors hated it here... lol There is a certain magic here up north. Something very peaceful.. and the cold aint that bad as you think, ask Tyler! ;) it is actually pretty nice! It is kind of how you choose to think about it. Everything has its plus and minuses. The summers here are awesome! They are not too warm... and they are just so beautiful.... already the fact that here lives way less people than more south is a very nice thing me thinks. You have so much space! I do not think it is very good to have a too heavy population at all.
It does is something magic about warming around a fireplace in the freezing cold..... ;) I am also wondering if the cold somehow makes a bit cooked animal food less bad for health than if you eat that stuff in a warm climate. I really wonder about that. At least I know ice baths are very good for health, and everyone who lives so far north knows that too. 3 % of the population do them regularly and there are places / lakes to do it, they are hold open by the government.
I like the seasons, they are so different here! It is so freaking exciting when comes spring... and you can taste the first wild edibles... and walk barefoot again. It is like when you have to be away from your lover.. and then see him again.. it is way more exiting and magic than if he is always by you ;)
Believe it or not but when summer is about to end... you get really excited about the winter...! ;D
BTW.. speaking about food sources. I have found a great grassfed Angus beef source not too far away, I have to drive maybe half an hour. It is amazing! They are 100% pastured in summer and in winter they get only hay, nothing else. The meat is awesome! I buy lots of heart.. and other kind of meats too, the liver tastes great too! I love to buy food directly from the producer, it is a couple that own the place, it is a huge place, very beautiful. They are very very nice people. She asked how I cook the heart and I said I eat it raw... the fat too. She was very interested and thought it was cool! Imagine! There was a vet too, her friend, and she said yeah, in Finland we can eat the beef raw without any issues because the meat is so high quality ;) very nice older lady too. They thought it was a great idea. I said I sometimes make carpaccio out of it too and they said they are going to try!
@ PaleoPhil,
IDK if they have? There are information you can check out different foods with different amounts of AGEs.. but I doubt that is telling the whole truth. Looks like we are able to clear them pretty well too if we are healthy and they are also made by the body somehow.. it is a very complex thing. I think we need a little bit of AGEs too? At least I read that somewhere too. Just too much is bad. And stress makes lots of them too, even sport! yeah... it is always way more complex than one thinks, huh! :)
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Yes, I agree Inger, thanks.
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Err, exercise has actually been shown to reduce the levels of AGEs:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19608208 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19608208)
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Err, exercise has actually been shown to reduce the levels of AGEs:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19608208 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19608208)
Awesome. Exercise is likely a contributing factor in why some people who eat junk diets fair better than those who don't exercise.
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yeah... there we see how complex it is LOL
I totally agree exercise is great for health! And I do not doubt it lowers AGE levels too... But. I have no doubt too much exercise do the opposite! ;)
(and for certain people, with burned out adrenals etc. any exercise except maybe Yoga and the like, probably is not good)
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Ive been wondering about where humans should be living. Where is our actual natural habitat?
I know all about Blue Zones and the longevity that humans have who live there....but
Where should we be living?
For years I have been pondering about Homo Sapiens natural habitat. This includes all aspects from lifestyle to nutrition to sun exposure, etc....
It started when i was getting into instinctive nutrition. I was eating a lemon thinking... Why does my body love citrus so much? Did my ancestors love citrus! Where did they live? Did they live in some type of bountiful utopia? Where they nomadic travelers?
So, after a few few more weeks of studying diet, nutrition and human instincts I started heavily researching evolution again.. in attempt to shed some light on some questions Ive always had about where we are meant to live. One theory that will always make the most since to me is the most popular "Out of Africa" theory. Simply stated some of our ape like ancestors stumbled out of the African Rainforest (for what ever reason) and onto the African savanna. Here they adapted and explored new ways of living and surviving. So a big part of our evolutionary history happened in the African Savanna! So is the African Savanna where we should be living? Is this where all the food we should be eating is?
Arent all the other primates in optimal habitats for there specific needs?
Or does each specific nationality or "type" of person have a location that fits them best?
I am tall and skinny and have the body type built for the African Savanna or somewhere hot...
but I am Caucasian and would my skin not be best suited for a northern climate?
So once again
Where is our natural/optimal habitat
Where should we be living?
Would we thrive best in Africa?
All I know is that we were meant to live somewhere warm... Somewhere with a constant tempearture around 70 degrees or so
Anopsology
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The separation of our lineage in two, with on one side the homo lineage and on the other the great ape family, is due to the formation of the Great Rift Valley some 8-9 million years ago -according to a book co-published by famous palaeontologist Yves Coppens-. Pre-humans evolved on the East side of the Rift Valley, where forest started to rapidly disappear due to the drying-out of the region, being then replaced by something similar to our present day savannah; Great apes evolved on the West side, in the vast humid tropical forests of Africa.
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Yes Yes, I was just talking about the Great Rift Valley with a past science teacher today!
Since we all started in Africa would that still possibly be our natural habitat? Or have climate chancge and what not made it no longer suited for thriving?
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Since we all started in Africa would that still possibly be our natural habitat? Or have climate chancge and what not made it no longer suited for thriving?
We did not start from Africa... Our ancestors have moved around the globe, many times. Our ancestors came out of Africa just as other ancestors of ours came from Asia, and many other places.
The "out of Africa" myth is honestly a total idiocy if even a little bit of objective thought is put into it. It simply makes no sense.
Animals have migrated from one place to another for as long as legs and wings, and snaking around, have allowed. The ancestors of our ancestors moved around, so did theirs, and theirs, etc. Not one species has ever been in just one place (some exceptions of course for obvious reasons), especially apes with their legs and arms. Evolution takes so long that by the time the ancestors of "humans" were around their ancestors in turn would have traveled far and wide. They travel, find each other again, they interbreed.
Imagine Tolkien's "middle-earth", or whatever it was, and the different races there. The elves, the dwarves, the hobbits, the humans, etc. You do that you got a rough estimate of our true ancestry. We are a mix of something similar. Even now there are different races with different features, although far less apart-looking as we have had easier ways of traveling for quite long. Presently we don't end up as isolated over such lengthy periods to form as disparate features.
We have many different natural/optimal habitats. As well the reason why we have many different looking "races".
In our case, in comparison to other animals, the mind plays a very big role as well. People have lived in places where without their mind they would die - the mind enables ways of survival we otherwise wouldn't and couldn't have.
Also, the habitats our ancestors lived in are still reflected by our genetics, although ever more fading. Qualities not used for very long will eventually "evolve out" or adapt for new conditions.
We are opted to survive, this is what matters not where we live or where we came from. Find a place you like or what feels good, and live there (if you can...).
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Pretend you are Sherlock Holmes and deduce our natural habitat and optimal habitat (as they are different things) like it was a crime scene.
That is what I have done and I've explored more information than most people who only conceive about continents and other apes.
1. We can deduce from our furless body, location of fat stuck to our skin, natural underwater instincts since birth, and voluntary breath control that we lived in an aquatic environment that was so persistent and long lasting that such profound evolutionary adaptations emerged. We are relatively unique from other apes in this way (our skin and breathing).
2. We can deduce from our upright walking ability that we lived on the ground (as opposed to trees), that it must have been very mild/warm and humid (for without fur and without clothing, we would not survive cold winters).
3. We can deduce that we probably ate a wide range of foods, including aquatic food like mussels on beaches, to fruits, based on our aquatic adaptations and the adaptations of our eye to see in color (necessary for navigating terrain to find colorful food). One of the main reasons we ate fruits was probably for hydration. Unlike modern diets, if you eat fruits with high water content, and raw food such as mussels or insects, you don't need to supplement with pure drinking water.
So in rapid conclusion, it is easy to see through deduction that we spent most of our evolutionary past (in the stage that we are in now), before widespread use of tools, in a semi-aquatic warm/humid environment. Probably this environment was along beaches, rivers, or most likely swamp lands with tropical forests nearby. Back then, carbon dioxide levels would have been much higher and as a result, plant life would have been much richer and the environment slightly more stable in terms of temperature. We are one of the only species that I know of that survived given our dependence on mild climates due to our eventual exploitation of tools, which led to our ability to kill larger animals, and using those animal furs for warmth.
As far as what our optimal habitat is, a good example would be Norfolk Island (without the modernization of course).
(http://www.channersonnorfolk.com/images/kingston-from-flagstaff-hill.jpg)
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I heartily agree with nummi. The out of africa hypothesis has always been very flawed. That theory used to claim that it was impossible for modern humans to have mated with Neanderthals and other so-called "apemen", yet this stupid notion was debunked in recent years once Neanderthal etc. DNA was found in modern humans.
Given that Orientals/East Asians/Inuit are admirably well adapted to cold, not hot environments re their physique, it is absurd to suggest that we are all still adapted to a hot African climate.
The aquatic ape theory has been extensively debunked elsewhere:-
http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/pseudoscience/aquatic_ape_theory.html (http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/pseudoscience/aquatic_ape_theory.html)
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The multiregional hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans)also places our origin in Africa (and I suppose the "aquatic ape theory" too):
This species arose in Africa two million years ago as H. erectus and then spread out over the world, developing adaptations to regional conditions.
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I think humans can live in many places, we just have to take care to adapt ourselves to those places once we're there. This includes adjusting to the seasonality of those places, which includes adapting to seasonality of the foods and medicines that are available as well as the temperature changes. In my opinion this is the missing element in paleo (and raw paleo) theology. It attempts to transplant bits and pieces of ancient eating patterns into modern life without honoring geographical and seasonal contexts.
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I think humans can live in many places, we just have to take care to adapt ourselves to those places once we're there. This includes adjusting to the seasonality of those places, which includes adapting to seasonality of the foods and medicines that are available as well as the temperature changes. In my opinion this is the missing element in paleo (and raw paleo) theology. It attempts to transplant bits and pieces of ancient eating patterns into modern life without honoring geographical and seasonal contexts.
Excellent Eric,
exactly what I think too and also have personally experienced!
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The multiregional hypothesis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans)also places our origin in Africa (and I suppose the "aquatic ape theory" too):
The whole point re the multiregional hypothesis is that hominids left Africa c. 2 million years ago, which is such a long time, evolutionarily, that such hominids which further evolved outside Africa since then must have by now long adapted to entirely different non-African environments etc.
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Yes, I understand that.
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Okay but I think it's clear we are not totally adapted to cold(er) climates. We've got the sensible light skin all right, but where's our bodily fur? No mammals could survive without fur in such regions, unless it has naturally a lot of body fat like seals. Then there's the question: are we supposed to wear clothes or not? Is it "natural"? Should homo have stayed a bit longer in the medium-hot regions before deciding to move to the not-so-hot regions?
BTW 2 million years is a long time but not such a long time evolutionary-wise, or else us northern Europeans would look more like Star-Wars' wookies, IMO. We're not totally adapted to northern seasons too because in that case we would probably hibernate in winter like other animals of the region.
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That's what I would have said too, but I left that point open as it had already been discussed. You wrote it better than I could have, thanks!
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Being totally adapted to a specific condition would require the specific condition to remain the same forever. Our world is in constant change, we are always in adaptation mode; we can never be fully adapted.
When our ancestors moved northward they must have already had enough brains to use animal fur as cold shielding, at least to some extent.
Our brains seem to be the priority. Our brain can and does compensate that which in comparison to other animals we no longer have. Our brain enables us to neutralize severe effects of nature, like cold by wearing clothes, and so we will not adapt to cold but adapt to the condition wearing clothes create. Our mind does adapt and evolve by figuring out how to bypass difficulties without it taking millions of years genetically.
People don't just evolve to the natural conditions they live in but also to the conditions their minds create. The mind adapts to better manipulate the world, as it is in constant use and there's always something new to come up with and improve.
And honestly, looking at it this way. "Back to the wild" is a definite no. It would be moving backward, to conditions where you don't need to use your mind after a point. Our mind is a necessity, it has to keep evolving, which means it has to be used for bypassing difficulties. But this doesn't mean we have to mess up what is already here. It'd be best to see where we are, what we are adapted to, then decide what would be even better, and create conditions that bring us closer to that goal.
As well, keeping warm without clothes would require massive amounts of energy. How could our brains work if most energy goes to keeping warm? Sure, eat more - more energy. But... we would eat our world empty this way, or either choose one and ditch the other or starve to extinction. There's an energy issue here. There is food to enable both, but for how long? Our world is dying, overall energy is fading, the planet is slowly coming to a halt already naturally. The longer it goes the less it can sustain life in general. This planet will die one day, but we can bypass that.
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The previous posters have all made some rather illogical assumptions. First of all, humans are not the limp-wristed sun-worshipping weaklings you claim them to be. I, for example, due to past health-issues, am very well adapted to the cold, to the point where I can cheerfully walk around for long periods in a T-shirt and shorts in very cold temperatures while others seem to freeze. Given my own experience, I am sure that palaeo humans simply adapted themselves to the cold by improving their blood-circulation etc. I know a Primal Dieter, for example, who stated that his resistance to the cold grew every year after he switched away from a cooked diet to the Primal Diet. Take the Neanderthals, they were well-adapted to the cold due to slight differences in physical shape, and I seriously doubt that they wore furs in palaeo times, that's just a movie myth because hollywood was not allowed to show naked people.
The notion re brains seems to be wrong. There is a theory, the cold-climate theory, which states that it is very difficult to maintain a large brain in a hot climate as it is very difficult to get rid of the resulting heat from all the brains' processes, whereas cold climates allow brains to become much larger due to better heat-dissipation - this makes sense when one realises that the cold-dwelling Neanderthals had larger brains than modern man.
Other aspects posters are forgetting is the issue of migration to slightly warmer climes in summer. Birds in Siberia etc. do that in order to avoid winter without having to hibernate.As regards extra body hair, Caucasians have more body hair than other ethnic groups. Though I do not believe that body hair had anything to do with the cold but more to do with sexual selection. Cold-dwelling humans could just as easily have survived better in those days due to having much deeper fat-layers under the skin in those days, so the assumption that humans would grow fur to ward off the cold is likely wrong.
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In that case TylerDurden can you explain to me why animals possess fur? And why does this fur gets thicker the colder the animal's environment gets?
For example my dog is a Lapin Koira, a breed that originates from the Lapland region of Sweden. Compared to other breeds of dog native to warmer regions, it has much thicker and longer fur. Does that make my dog more resistant, better adapted to colder regions compared to shorter furred dogs? I think it does.
It is of course possible to go outside only wearing shorts or a T-shirt even when it's freezing. People that go bing drinking in my campus do it all the time. It only means that as long as they stay "active" their body will produce enough body heat to not suffer from hypothermia. Meanwhile their body is consuming a lot of energy trying to keep warm. However try and go sleep outside in Austria (I believe you live there) when it is not -a very hot- summer and you might not feel the same about this "cold adaptation". Same if your sleeping in a hole like a fox or in a cave or something of the like.
Sure it is true that Neanderthals had a larger brain than us and where more muscular. One must really wonder why they did not come out as the "evolutionary superior", compared to the tall skinny Homo Sapiens. The fact is the environment changed in the regions where they previously thrived, and Sapiens turned out to be winner of the last true "Darwin Award".
According to the book "born to run" (which I highly recommend the lecture), environment changed in EurAsia in a way that made Neanderthal style hunting less efficient than Sapiens style hunting, which was mainly persistence running. A group of homo Sapiens that would use this hunting technique would have more chance of killing a prey than a group of Neanderthals.
The Second would have to run in average another ten miles before catching up with our ancestors in a same period of time.
Also Neanderthals had a much more restricted diet than Sapiens. They mainly relied on animal flesh, whereas Homo Sapiens ate from a much broader range of food, making them more apt to survive if meat became scarce, for example. Therefor Homo Sapiens not only came out as more efficient than Neanderthal hunting-wise, but also more adaptable to its new environment "thanks" to his omnivorous diet.
Finally I want to point out that Caucasians may have more body hair than other ethnic groups, but obviously not nearly enough to claim to survive in cold areas without the use of clothing, and -heated- shelter.
(I hope all this is understandable and I apologize if I have made some grammar mistakes. I'm grateful that such a forum exist because it also helps me train my english writing skills, which have been left unpracticed for a long time before joining :P)
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The claim that Neanderthals almost wholly ate meat has been debunked by recent scientific findings that showed that they actually ate a lot of plant foods as well. Palaeoarchaeology, is, after all, in its infancy still.
The Neanderthals did not die out. They interbred with other hominids to form modern humans(well, outside Africa, anyway). There is DNA evidence for this.
Orientals are way more adapted to the cold than Caucasians despite Caucasians having more body hair. You are forgetting that such things as small stature and other features are way more important re adapting to very cold environments.
Also, I do NOT "need to stay active" in order to survive the cold. Also, I have indeed slept outside in Austria, and similiar cold temperate areas, outside the summer season when it was rather cold, and I was fine(during army exercises at night etc.). I suspect that my ability to adapt is, however, tiny compared to palaeolithic man who never had access to central heating etc. so would have been forced to habituate himself to the cold more efficiently and easily than me.
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The Neanderthals did not die out. They interbred with other hominids to form modern humans(well, outside Africa, anyway). There is DNA evidence for this.
Yes, I am aware of that. However it is clear that not all Neanderthal interbred with homo Sapiens and some of them must have died out, maybe because they were less able to adapt to new environmental conditions and thus survive as opposed to Homo Sapiens.
Orientals may be able to resist cold better than caucasians, but they still have to wear clothes and sleep in fabricated shelters, right? They are not completely capable of resisting colder temperatures, and when they do stay in frigid areas they must preserve the most energy they can by not moving too much, as some monks would in a meditative position.
I really think Neanderthals used other animal's fur to protect themselves against great cold, because unlike other animals surrounding them in these northern regions they lacked this exact thing: fur.
Fur enables the animal to capture and keep a certain part of their own bodily heat. Without this concentration of hair, internal heat quickly leaves the body and dissipate in the surrounding air. If an animal lacks bodily fur, two choices are given to him: either live in an environment already warm enough to not have to produce -much- internal heat, or try and survive in a cold environment and waste a lot of energy trying to keep its body at an acceptable temperature.
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Also TylerDurden you seem to be quite fit and healthy, but imagine how it would be for weaker individuals, such as newborns and elders. It would be a lot more difficult for them to survive the cold, at least without any clothes or heated shelter.
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Cold acting as a cooling for the brain would rather be one side of the whole, not the entire truth.
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Does being smaller really make you more suited to the cold? I would think it would be the other way around, since being large means you have less relative surface area and a larger, more efficient, more powerful and warmer reactor. I think being of smaller stature is more an adaptation for living in very harsh circumstances and times of food scarcity. Also, developing children might get less food during food scarcity and thus develop smaller.
I'm almost a giant and more cold impervious than anyone I know other than my father who is also near giant size. I just made it through February without lighting a fire once in my house. My only source of heat is my body, half ass winter clothes, my sleeping bag and a couple cats.
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Does being smaller really make you more suited to the cold? I would think it would be the other way around, since being large means you have less relative surface area and a larger, more efficient, more powerful and warmer reactor.
Hmmm it really depends. For example bigger man-selected plants are not more nutrient-rich than smaller, "original" plants. Modern wheat grains may be bigger in size than small spelt, but that's just because they contain a lot more gluten than the latter. Smaller things are generally just more concentrated, in nutrients for example, than their larger equivalent. Take a small breed of pepper and a bigger breed and you'll notice that for most it's just the quantity of water inside them that varies, not their spiciness.
Therefor smaller people will probably have a heating reactor just as powerful as taller people, but they'll have less bodily surface to heat, thus using less energy to keep warm.
(Take note that I have no intention of being critical towards tall people. Sometimes being tall truly is a survival advantage)
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The shape with the best surface area to volume ratio to keep heat is the sphere. ;D
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Obviously Orientals are only better adapted to the cold, but not as much as in palaeo times. Fur is not needed if the body has much warmer blood circulating, with extra layers of fat around the belly and so on.
The Neanderthals were even better adapted to the cold than Homo Sapiens, so certainly never needed any fur. There was some scientific stuff about the shape of their noses etc. which explained partly why they were so much better adapted:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12203812 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12203812)
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Larger people have less surface area to body mass, not more. Larger means more efficiency in consumption but less in getting around to feed.
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Larger people have less surface area to body mass, not more.
Yes that's true. I forgot while writing my post that the "insides" also needed to be heated, and not just the layer of skin(surface). But that still means that 1) Smaller individuals have less body mass that needs heating and 2) they need less calories to maintain a correct body temperature.
At least that's what I believe to be the reason why they are more resistant to cold. Maybe TylerDurden can answer this in a more detailed/better way.
Obviously Orientals are only better adapted to the cold, but not as much as in palaeo times. Fur is not needed if the body has much warmer blood circulating, with extra layers of fat around the belly and so on.
The Neanderthals were even better adapted to the cold than Homo Sapiens, so certainly never needed any fur. There was some scientific stuff about the shape of their noses etc. which explained partly why they were so much better adapted:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12203812 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12203812)
The study you posted states nowhere that Neanderthals really did not wear clothes. It actually claims, as I did, that Neanderthals could not have a thick enough layer of fat, unlike some aquatic mammals such as seals, to protect themselves efficiently against cold. If, as a terrestrial mammal, they did have a thick enough layer of fat, then they would actually be "obese". And if they where obese they would certainly have trouble foraging food and hunting down animals.
Yes they acquired noses that where more adapted to cold climates, as well as blue eyes and straight hair, but that's probably because they would not protect their face with clothing. I usually don't wear anything on my head, even during wintertime. I doubt they would, be it a mammoth skin balaclava. Since this part of their body was in constant contact with the surrounding environment, it may be one of the only things, along with light skin, that partly "adapted" to cold climates.
Having warm blood circulating in your body doesn't have such a great influence on your levels of resistance against colder climates. Every mammal has warm blood flowing inside them. They still need fur or fat to keep warm. Unless that animal originates from a region or zone where -heavy- protection against cold is quite unnecessary. Furless animals come in that category, with animals such as Egyptian cats, elephants, hippos and…humans.
Talking about pachyderms, why do you think mammoths had fur, but not their Southern cousin the elephant?
Finally, we both agree that Neanderthals had a bigger brain than Sapiens. Don’t you think they would be smart enough to find a way to store the most energy they could by, for example, keeping their bodily heat from otherwise dissipating into the surrounding air by wearing handcrafted clothes made out of animal skin? Sapiens certainly was bright enough to do so.
Who knows, maybe that’s why Neanderthal disappeared :P. To dumb to wear clothes when it's cold outside.
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By the way TylerDurden could you post a link to a study that actually states that Neanderthals did not greatly depend on animal flesh as a food source? Their downfall as a subspecies of Homo would make more sens in that case, them not being able to fulfil their daily 4000+ kcal intake, out of meat for the most part. It could be that their habitat's environment changed in a way that made the population of animals they previously hunted on become rare; Or it could be that they were not fit, not capable enough to compete with Sapiens on the hunting scene, at a time where both would be found occupying the same regions.
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By the way TylerDurden could you post a link to a study that actually states that Neanderthals did not greatly depend on animal flesh as a food source? Their downfall as a subspecies of Homo would make more sens in that case, them not being able to fulfil their daily 4000+ kcal intake, out of meat for the most part. It could be that their habitat's environment changed in a way that made the population of animals they previously hunted on become rare; Or it could be that they were not fit, not capable enough to compete with Sapiens on the hunting scene, at a time where both would be found occupying the same regions.
All nonsense. Neanderthals needed a lot of plant foods:-
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I don't know about Europe, but here in the us, Indians did quite well with adequate amounts of animal food, with some plant supplementation.
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All nonsense. Neanderthals needed a lot of plant foods:-
Tyler, I was actually asking you if you had any info on this, since you seem to know what you are talking about. From what I've learned, Neanderthals relied mostly on meat. But maybe it's not the case, so if you know of some info that states otherwise, please post it here. Of course aside from that I do believe that Neanderthal ate some plants, but maybe in a small proportion, or at least not as a principal source of energy, making him less apt to survive if animal flesh became somehow scarce. But maybe this is wrong...
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so do you guys think there is a certain location most optimal to people?
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Here is that study:-
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080428-neanderthals-diet.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080428-neanderthals-diet.html)
I seem to be becoming more careless and not bothering to actually add links I point to.
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so do you guys think there is a certain location most optimal to people?
This question of yours forms a common theme for many of your posts, and much intelligent speculation has followed, yet your question still lingers...
Perhaps you won't get one, overriding, definitive answer, yet you will find interesting evidence and pseudo-evidence on both sides. Perhaps, instead of answering your question, you can understand the various perspectives involved, such as the absence of insulating body hair and subcutaneous body fat in humans where no adapted animal could live without either vs. the fact that mankind does revel in the cold. I'm sure you've come across posts on this forum - the video of children playing in the snow in their bathing suits and pouring chilled water over their whole bodies comes to mind, as do videos of "The Iceman" Wim Hof and pictures of our member Inger's icy dips - that stretch the limits of what we think of "necessary" temperatures for human survival.
I've lived in 40 below and 40 above, and both were tolerable. I used the Zen saying, "When you're hot, be perfectly hot, and when you're cold, be perfectly cold" to mentally adapt to both extremes.
Another way to look at it: if you look at non-human primate distribution maps, you find the natural, optimal areas for those species to live. Now, look at human distribution maps. Those are the areas where we have adapted, either physically or mentally.
You might enjoy the movie Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, a tale in the arctic. For me, it shattered the image of arctic peoples wrapped in furs and huddling in igloos.
Good luck in your studies.
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Thanks for the study Tyler, it quite fits the view I had which is that Neanderthals, even though they held animal flesh as a central piece of their diet, still ate a certain amount of plant food. Too bad experts did not yet uncover the average proportion of plant (roots, fruits, berries, leafs) eaten perhaps on a regular basis by those guys.
Also I think it could be interesting to discuss in another thread the circumstances that led Homo Neanderthal to go extinct.
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@TylerDurden
You are right that humans are much better adapted to cold when they are truly healthy (not just muscular or athletic). Some of the healthiest people in the world, true tibetan monks, can withstand such cold temperatures overnight with minimal clothing that it left scientists baffled.
The reasons this is possible is because:
Extreme health allows ideal CO2 levels, which dilates blood vessels and helps circulation
They have adapted their bodies to the cold over time via brown fat - a special kind of "warmer" fat that generates heat like muscle and is developed by subjecting bare skin to cold temperatures
They can relatively effortlessly raise their body temperature, through faster metabolism, in response to their environment, as many healthy animals do
However, due to our lack of fur, we have a remarkable ability to rapidly cool ourselves by sweating. Unfortunately, as soon as there is any rain+cold weather+wind, we will die soon when naked in freezing weather no matter how healthy you are. That is why animals like us either stay where it is warm, and only in rare cases do we need to take shelter in things like mud or water for rainstorms. (bodies of water for protection against wind chill)
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Putting oneself into water would only make things worse by enhancing exposure. Water is a very effective coolant.
Look, this nonsense re needing fur to ward off the cold and that we are all supposedly only adapted to warm climates must stop. It is ridiculous when one considers all the various humans who have easily adapted to the cold. I am thinking of examples such as martial artists practising in snow with bare feet, russian children being regularly doused with ice-cold water in Siberia because it makes their bodies hardier and them less prone to infection and so on and so forth.
Come to think of it, even animals that have fur routinely seek out warm dens in which to sleep or hibernate so that they can handle the cold climate as a whole. No reason why humans can't similiarly seek out shelter during storms and still survive in a cold climate.
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Putting oneself into water would only make things worse by enhancing exposure. Water is a very effective coolant.
Look, this nonsense re needing fur to ward off the cold and that we are all supposedly only adapted to warm climates must stop. It is ridiculous when one considers all the various humans who have easily adapted to the cold. I am thinking of examples such as martial artists practising in snow with bare feet, russian children being regularly doused with ice-cold water in Siberia because it makes their bodies hardier and them less prone to infection and so on and so forth.
Come to think of it, even animals that have fur routinely seek out warm dens in which to sleep or hibernate so that they can handle the cold climate as a whole. No reason why humans can't similiarly seek out shelter during storms and still survive in a cold climate.
Tyler, with these kind of examples you give, it seems you believe that because we can stand cold temperatures for a limited amount of time, we can survive a whole freezing winter naked. Yes our Paleolithic ancestors were more resistant to cold, they had to because even Equatorial Africa has chilly nights in winter, and frisky river or sea water to swim/bath into.
When I went to Senegal (West Africa) during winter vacation, I was surprised to see the people working in this outside hotel resort wearing windbrakers, gloves and winter caps at night. It wasn't as cold as back in Belgium, but cold enough for them to dress that way. It only got warm enough for us to leave our sweatshirts after breakfast, around 10-11am.
Paleo humans could probably manage a couple of bitter nights without the need for extra protection, but they certainly could not survive a whole season in freezing temperatures, bare. Believing humans are better than animals who do have suited protection for these kind of northern climates is ridiculous. You are right, Humans aren't the bunch of lousy wimps some believe them to be. But they're not super-beings either. They simply are...humans
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As I have already pointed out ad nauseam, modern humans have ALREADY shown themselves to adapt to much colder environments for long periods of time, without the ridiculous need for extra fur or clothes etc.. Palaeo humans had better genes than us due to enduring natural selection and so undoubtedly were even more cold-resistant than modern humans.
Plus, as I have already pointed out numerous times, the out of africa theory is a bogus myth. Hominids like the Neanderthals lived far outside Africa in extremely cold environments without any fur and did so up to 2,000,000 years ago.
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So what is it about the blue zones then? Areas in the world where people live the longest and healthiest..
What do they all have in common?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone)
Okinawa, Japan
Sardinia, Italy
Loma Linda, California
Nicoya, Costa Rica
Ikaria, Greece
They are all coastal towns. With spectacular ocean and land views.
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...and not particularly cold places! :)
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As I have already pointed out ad nauseam, modern humans have ALREADY shown themselves to adapt to much colder environments for long periods of time, without the ridiculous need for extra fur or clothes etc..
Hmmm not really. You have shown that modern humans can stand short periods of time in really cold environments naked, and maybe longer periods of time in total immobility, as some buddhist monks can. But maybe your idea of a long or a short period of time is not the same as mine.
Palaeo humans had better genes than us due to enduring natural selection and so undoubtedly were even more cold-resistant than modern humans.
Yes, that is clear, even to me.
Plus, as I have already pointed out numerous times, the out of africa theory is a bogus myth. Hominids like the Neanderthals lived far outside Africa in extremely cold environments without any fur and did so up to 2,000,000 years ago.
As long as you don't have actual proof of this (Neanderthals not wearing fur in Northern regions), it is nothing else than speculation. The study you posted never claimed this either.
Also I never recognized the Out of Africa theory as being valid. I just explained that humans can manage warm tropical and equatorial climates with their possible colder nights while being totally naked, all year round; But they may not survive whole snowy winters without some kind of protection (clothing, for starters).
I guess in the end there is no point discussing this, as one chooses to believe what one chooses to believe.
AnopsStudier, what the people living in the blue zones generally have in common is a healthy, frugal diet (raw fish for the Okinawans), a stressless yet active lifestyle, and presence in a rather pristine environment (the coast as you mentioned).
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...and not particularly cold places! :)
Iceland is well-known for its citizens' longevity and is pretty cold.
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Hmmm not really. You have shown that modern humans can stand short periods of time in really cold environments naked, and maybe longer periods of time in total immobility, as some buddhist monks can. But maybe your idea of a long or a short period of time is not the same as mine..As long as you don't have actual proof of this (Neanderthals not wearing fur in Northern regions), it is nothing else than speculation. The study you posted never claimed this either.
Also I never recognized the Out of Africa theory as being valid. I just explained that humans can manage warm tropical and equatorial climates with their possible colder nights while being totally naked, all year round; But they may not survive whole snowy winters without some kind of protection (clothing, for starters).
I guess in the end there is no point discussing this, as one chooses to believe what one chooses to believe.
No, I meant longer periods of time. After all, wild animals all have different methods of handling the cold, not just by having fur. Some have blubber, some have enhanced blood vessels near the skin, others have evolved unusual physical shapes which are better adapted to the cold, and so on.
I think it is reasonable to assume that Neanderthals never wore fur. For one thing, the notion of fur-wearing cavemen only ever got started with Hollywood films like that 10,000,000 BC film starring Raquel Welch. I somehow doubt that cavewomen wore furs purely designed to cover breasts and private parts. The Neolithic era was the era in which humans got started developing the tools of civilisation, so, clothes would likely only have been invented then. Hmm, tell you what I will ask a palaeo expert re this. This guy is an unashamed out of africa theorist but he should be able to answer non-related questions with more integrity.
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I think it is reasonable to assume that Neanderthals never wore fur. For one thing, the notion of fur-wearing cavemen only ever got started with Hollywood films like that 10,000,000 BC film starring Raquel Welch. I somehow doubt that cavewomen wore furs purely designed to cover breasts and private parts..
I've personally never watched a whole movie about cavemen, except the very beginning of J-J Annaud's La Guerre Du Feu and the cult french parody movie RRRrrrr!!!! :P.
I'm quite conscious that if cavemen did wear animal skin, covering his "private parts" would be the least of his concern. I imagine Paleolithic humans would wear their fur as a cape, or in a rudimentary poncho kind of way, keeping their torso warm.
Maybe they acquired advanced sewing technique quite early in Nordic exploration, and could assemble clothing parts that leave a wider range of motion to the wearer, while keeping him warm. In a similar way Inuits make their clothes, but with fewer layers.
The Neolithic era was the era in which humans got started developing the tools of civilisation, so, clothes would likely only have been invented then.
Tools of civilization perhaps, but not elementary tools, fabricated by Homo in much more remote times.
Have you forgotten the trimmed stones, already known to Homo Habilis some 2,5million years ago? And what about the musical instruments carved out of bones, the teeth necklaces, and of course the rock paintings, all done by both Neanderthals and Cro-magnons?
If they had the necessary level of skill and intelligence to create such things, they certainly had the capacity to conceive clothing items with fur and cord.
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The trouble with the above mentions is that hominids only produced very primitive tools such as sharpened flints for most of the Palaeolithic period. It was only c.60,000 years ago when hominids started inventing spears, bows and arrows and complicated traps, for example. So, things like clothes re sewing/weaving etc. are highly unlikely to have been invented prior to Neolithic times.
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It seems Neanderthals were not really well adapted to their environment and/or diet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_anatomy#Degenerative_disease (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_anatomy#Degenerative_disease)
Most relevant excerpts:
Arthritis was common in the older Neanderthal population.
A study of 669 Neanderthal crowns showed that 75% of individuals suffered some degree of hypoplasia.
Evidence of infections on Neanderthal skeletons is usually visible in the form of lesions on the bone, which are created by systemic infection on areas closest to the bone. Shanidar I has evidence of the degenerative lesions as does La Ferrassie 1, whose lesions on both femora, tibiae and fibulae are indicative of a systemic infection or carcinoma (malignant tumour/cancer).
Most of us probably have some Neanderthals' DNA, but not that much — 1 to 4%, perhaps 20% maximum.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_interaction_with_Cro-Magnons#Rapid_extinction_by_parasites_and_pathogens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_interaction_with_Cro-Magnons#Rapid_extinction_by_parasites_and_pathogens)
Modern humans may have first migrated to Europe 40–43,000 years ago,[4]
An alternative to extinction is that Neanderthals were absorbed into the Cro-Magnon population by interbreeding. This would be counter to strict versions of the Recent African Origin, since it would imply that at least part of the genome of Europeans would descend from Neanderthals, who left Africa at least 350,000 years ago.
350,000 only? Then wouldn't even Neanderthals perhaps have had the fire from the start of their spreading into cold climates?
Genetic studies indicate some form of hybridization between archaic humans and modern humans had taken place after modern humans emerged from Africa. An estimated 1 to 4 percent of the DNA in Europeans and Asians (e.g. French, Chinese and Papua probands) is non-modern, and shared with ancient Neanderthal DNA rather than with sub-Saharan Africans (e.g. Yoruba and San probands).[25]
Although modern humans share some nuclear DNA with the extinct Neanderthals, the two species do not share any mitochondrial DNA,[31] which in primates is always maternally transmitted. This observation has prompted the hypothesis that whereas female humans interbreeding with male Neanderthals were able to generate fertile offspring, the progeny of female Neanderthals who mated with male humans were either rare, absent or sterile (in line with Haldane's rule).[32]
While interbreeding is viewed as the most parsimonious interpretation of the genetic discoveries, the authors point out they cannot conclusively rule out an alternative scenario, in which the source population of non-African modern humans was already more closely related to Neanderthals than other Africans were, due to ancient genetic divisions within Africa.[29]
Neanderthals went through a demographic crisis in Western European that seems to coincide with a period of extreme cold in Western Europe
Although it is believed that Neanderthals had clothing,[34] it has been proposed that failure to adapt their hunting methods caused their extinction when Europe changed into a sparsely vegetated steppe and semi-desert during the last Ice Age.[35]
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It would actually be fairly easy to skin an animal with just a sharpened flint. The result wouldn't come out as nice as with a special knife, but cutting through the skin at specific places and then detaching the fur coat from the animal's body would not be an impossible task, even to hominids like Homo Erectus.
To make more advanced clothing items paleo men could just use some tree fiber, plant stem, climbing plant or even the animal's tendons and guts to wrap the fur around their waist, for example.
Here's a video of a guy skinning a deer with a modern knife. I just picture the same work with a sharp flint being rougher and less precise.
http://youtu.be/Ze9tQANKB2g (http://youtu.be/Ze9tQANKB2g)
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Arthritis is common among all species which eat cooked foods as AGEs in cooked foods exacerbate arthritis. Even wild animals get arthritis to some extent, though not as bad as cooked-eating humans. Infections were common long before the advent of penicillin and would have been greater in frequency among cooked-eating populations like the Neanderthals as cooked foods lower the immune system over time. So, the comment is meaningless re Neanderthals and disease.
The comment re amount of Neanderthals' DNA in modern humans is meaningless, too. I had already given an example where Dr James Watson was incorrectly cited by some genetics laboratory as having c. 16% Sub-Saharan African DNA in him, when the reality was that he had less than 0.1% sub-Saharan African DNA in him. So,if they can get a simple genetic test this far wrong, it would not surprise me if the proportion of Neanderthal DNA in us eventually turns out to be much, much higher.
350,000 years ago as a date is wrong. Neanderthals have been shown to have been in Europe since at least 400,000 years ago.
Whatever the case, Neanderthals were far better at adapting to the cold than modern humans due to better genetic adaptation etc., so would certainly have had much less need for clothes. Also, complicated things, derived from civilisation, such as sewing needles etc. would not have been invented until the neolithic era.
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Arthritis is common among all species which eat cooked foods as AGEs in cooked foods exacerbate arthritis. Even wild animals get arthritis to some extent, though not as bad as cooked-eating humans. Infections were common long before the advent of penicillin and would have been greater in frequency among cooked-eating populations like the Neanderthals as cooked foods lower the immune system over time. So, the comment is meaningless re Neanderthals and disease.
It means they had some diseases… and that was likely due to cooked food, and mostly meat as far as we know. To eat cooked meat, they must logically have controlled the fire, and if they used fire, it could logically have helped them to withstand the cold.
350,000 years ago as a date is wrong. Neanderthals have been shown to have been in Europe since at least 400,000 years ago.
Wikipedia says “at least 350,000 years ago”, so it can be 450,000 years ago as well. This is about the era at which the first fireplaces have been discovered, thus it’s coherent with the above.
A new study involving the University of Colorado Boulder shows clear evidence of the continuous control of fire by Neanderthals in Europe dating back roughly 400,000 years, yet another indication that they weren't dimwitted brutes as often portrayed.
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"Until now, many scientists have thought Neanderthals had some fires but did not have continuous use of fire," said Villa. "We were not expecting to find a record of so many Neanderthal sites exhibiting such good evidence of the sustained use of fire over time."
Fires would have contributed to lowering the endurable temperature during sleep. A family hut would have had one fireplace, a cave several, and additional fires were lit in the open.
The comment re amount of Neanderthals# DNA in modern humans is meaningless, too. I had already given an example where Dr James Watson was incorrectly cited by some genetics laboratory as having c. 16% Sub-Saharan African DNA in him, when the reality was that he had less than 0.1% sub-Saharan African DNA in him. So,if they can get a simple genetic test this far wrong, it would not surprise me if the proportion of Neanderthal DNA in us eventually turns out to be much, much higher.
20% perhaps, but could be 0% as well. And even if it were 30 or 35% would it matter? Since even Neanderthals appear to have commonly used fire for cooking and heating, we can’t say that they would have survived nude in the coldest climates without any help from fires and probably clothing.
Whatever the case, Neanderthals were far better at adapting to the cold than modern humans due to better genetic adaptation etc., so would certainly have had much less need for clothes. Also, complicated things, derived from civilisation, such as sewing needles etc. would not have been invented until the neolithic era.
Isn’t that consistent with JeuneKoq stance? Yes, much less need for clothes but it doesn’t mean they were always completely nude.
What is most relevant for us is that since Neanderthals routinely used fire, their largely carnivorous cooked diet and their habitat in cold regions can not be taken as a model for raw paleo dieters.
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Neanderthals are likely to have eaten a lot of their meat raw like all Arctic tribes have done prior to modernisation.
The issue of Neanderthals controlling fire is also rather meaningless. I have used fires a lot in the outside when camping and I can tell you from experience how difficult they are to set up and keep going, especially if one is in a wet climate. They are not a reliable method to keep warm, on the whole, especially when one considers that palaeo-era humans routinely migrated for months on end so obviously had no source of fire while travelling, only when resting. More to the point, hominids lived in the Arctic long before fires were invented(ie c.800,000 to c.2,000,000 years ago) and still survived just fine.
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More to the point, hominids lived in the Arctic long before fires were invented(ie c.800,000 to c.2,000,000 years ago) and still survived just fine.
...The Arctic?
Info please? That doesn't seem very likely...to me at least.
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There has been info on lower paleolithic remains in Europe:-
http://history-world.org/stone_age1.htm (http://history-world.org/stone_age1.htm)
Given the Ice-Age, Europe was effectively in an arctic environment at the time.
And there is evidence of hominid occupation in Northern Asia?Siberia during the Lower Palaeolithic era:-
http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00974881#page-1 (http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF00974881#page-1)
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Thanks again for the info Tyler!
Looks like you're talking about Homo Erectus, an advanced hominid specie that apparently lived in socially organized groups, built shelters, wore fur, and probably fabricated rafts to travel oceans. Some archaeologists believe Homo Erectus may have used fire some 1,5 million years ago!
Wikipedia: "East African sites, such as Chesowanja near Lake Baringo, Koobi Fora, and Olorgesailie in Kenya, show some possible evidence that fire was utilized by early humans. At Chesowanja, archaeologists found red clay sherds dated to be 1.42 Mya.[46] Reheating on these sherds show that the clay must have been heated to 400 °C (752 °F) to harden. At Koobi Fora, sites FxJjzoE and FxJj50 show evidence of control of fire by Homo erectus at 1.5 Mya, with the reddening of sediment that can only come from heating at 200–400 °C (392–752 °F)"
...and to reassure our fellow raw dieters ;):
Still Wikipedia: "There is no evidence that Homo erectus cooked their food. The idea has been suggested,[49] but is not generally accepted.[50][51] It is known, from the study of microwear on handaxes, that meat formed a major part of the erectus diet. Meat is perfectly digestible without cooking, and is sometimes eaten raw by modern humans. Nuts, berries, fruits are also edible without cooking. Thus cooking cannot be presumed: the issue rests on clear evidence from archaeological sites, which at present does not exist."
Even if Erectus did not yet control fire at the time he traveled to colder regions it is demonstrated that this homo sub-specie possessed the necessary mental capacity and skill to build shelters and wear fur, in order to protect itself against the harsh northern environment in those times (Ice-Age).
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The article I quoted excerpts above says:
Villa and Roebroeks, who together speak and read six languages, have visited or worked at dozens of the Neanderthal excavation sites in Europe. They also combed libraries throughout Europe and the United States for research papers on evidence for early fire use in Europe, contacting researchers involved in the excavations when possible for additional information and insight.
As part of the study they created a database of 141 potential fireplace sites in Europe dating from 1.2 million years ago to 35,000 years ago, assigning an index of confidence to each site. Evidence for the sustained use of fire includes the presence of charcoal, heated stone artifacts, burned bones, heated sediments, hearths and rough dates obtained from heated stone artifacts. Sites with two or more of the characteristics were interpreted as solid evidence for the control of fire by the inhabitants.
The second major finding in the PNAS study -- perhaps even more surprising than the first -- was that Neanderthal predecessors pushed into Europe's colder northern latitudes more than 800,000 years ago without the habitual control of fire, said Roebroecks. Archaeologists have long believed the control of fire was necessary for migrating early humans as a way to reduce their energy loss during winters when temperatures plunged below freezing and resources became more scarce.
"This confirms a suspicion we had that went against the opinions of most scientists, who believed it was impossible for humans to penetrate into cold, temperate regions without fire," Villa said.
Recent evidence from an 800,000-year-old site in England known as Happisburgh indicates hominids -- likely Homo heidelbergenis, the forerunner of Neanderthals -- adapted to chilly environments in the region without fire, Roebroeks said.
The simplest explanation is that there was no habitual use of fire by early humans prior to roughly 400,000 years ago, indicating that fire was not an essential component of the behavior of the first occupants of Europe's northern latitudes, said Roebroeks. "It is difficult to imagine these people occupying very cold climates without fire, yet this seems to be the case."
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Recent findings have even indicated Neanderthals were cooking, as evidenced by tiny bits of cooked plant material recovered from their teeth.
Anyway, it's not even sure that modern humans have some Neanderthals DNA, and if they (we) have, the percent is generally thought to be 1 to 4%. Cro-magnon (modern humans) are said to have appeared first between the Red sea and the Eastern Mediterranean, expanding rapidly to what is now Egypt, Israêl, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Southern Turkey.
Then they would have moved West to Europe, North and East in a period of warmer climate — the climate changed very quickly at this epoch, within a lifetime I read. They also settled South in Africa.
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The claim that homo erectus travelled oceans, let alone the claim re wearing furs is so laughable one cannot take it seriously! I mean, it was difficult enough for humans to cross from island to island in the Pacific in the tail-end of the Palaeolithic era.
Incidentally, ALL the scientific evidence re fire from c.500,000 years ago or earlier is universally viewed by scientists as being flawed and likely wrong. This is either due to evidence being contaminated by other evidence from different layers(and therefore different epochs) or simply false scientific evidence turning up previous actual bush-fires. Up to about c. 250,000 years ago, evidence for fires is extremely rare, it is only after that point, that fires became common.
Here is some data from wikipedia:-
"All evidence of control of fire during the Lower Paleolithic is uncertain and has at best limited scholarly support. In fact, definitive evidence of controlled use of fire is one of the factors characteristic of the transition from the Lower to the Middle Paleolithic in the period of 400,000 to 200,000 BP." The reference you gave to those shards of yours are mentioned in the control of fire wikipedia article as likely resulting from bush-fires not from human action at all. Too bad.
There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever existing to suggest that hominids wore fur in the palaeolithic era, just some vague, uneducated guesses. I have already shown that adaptations to the cold such as different body shapes, different fat-layers etc. could easily lead to cold-adpatation without ever needing furs.
Incidentally, I once viewed a reconstruction of a simple "palaeo" dwelling made up of endless logs etc. It was bloody cold and not much use in warding off the very cold weather outside at the time!
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Ok, I agree. Maybe some Neanderthals or rather Heidelbergensis moved North before having the fire and could survive the cold. Nevertheless, most of the remains have been found South of the frost line. Isn't it likely that they moved North in summer and either died, barely survived or came back before the winter?
About 55,000 years ago, the weather began to fluctuate wildly from extreme cold conditions to mild cold and back in a matter of a few decades. Neanderthal bodies were well suited for survival in a cold climate—their barrel chests and stocky limbs stored body heat better than the Cro-Magnons. However, the rapid fluctuations of weather caused ecological changes to which the Neanderthals could not adapt; familiar plants and animals would be replaced by completely different ones within a lifetime. Neanderthals' ambush techniques would have failed as grasslands replaced trees. A large number of Neanderthals would have died during these fluctuations, which peaked about 30,000 years ago.[114]
mtDNA-based simulation of modern human expansion in Europe starting 1600 generations ago. Neanderthal range in light grey (below, from Wikipedia).
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There is, of course, no evidence whatsoever existing to suggest that hominids wore fur in the palaeolithic era, just some vague, uneducated guesses. I have already shown that adaptations to the cold such as different body shapes, different fat-layers etc. could easily lead to cold-adpatation without ever needing furs.
Yes, but there’s no evidence either that Heidelbergensis and Neanderthals never wore animals’ furs. Some Heidelbergensis may also have had much more hair than us all over their body, perhaps enough to form a real fur, who knows? They probably slept closely packed together to minimize their body area in contact with the cold surroundings. And they may have pushed up North during an interglacial era just before 800,000 years ago or during short warmer periods.
We now know that the cold stages were not uniformly cold, nor were the warmer spans continuously warm. In fact, there is evidence that at least two dozen warm-cold cycles have occurred during the past 1.6 million years, and that some of the changeovers occurred within the period of a century or so.
Anyway we are not Neanderthals, but 80 to 100% Cro-magnon: our origin is in Africa and then Middle East, where there are currently some of the hottest temperatures on Earth in summer, such as 50° C in Kuwait, and our ancestors began to settle in Europe about 43,000 years ago only.
There is no reliable evidence of modern humans elsewhere in the Old World until 60,000-40,000 years ago, during a short temperate period in the midst of the last ice age.
Even Heidelbergensis mostly remained in tropical and relatively warm or temperate areas.
http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_1.htm (http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_1.htm)
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I apologize Tyler, I should've made it more clear that I posted the -1,5million years old fire as a kind of joke :P. Of course these could just have been bush fires or events of the sort, archaeologists tending to jump to wild conclusions quite easily, when it comes to their own discoveries...
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Bush fires are actually quite frequent in east Africa, being started by lightning, which is why there have been a few errors made by scientists. The real test is that fire became widespread after hearths were invented c.250,000 -300,000 years ago - before that point, evidence re fires is extremely rare - one would expect an explosion in the number of fires made relatively soon after the very first discovery of fire.
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Iguana, scientists view heidelbergensis as having little body hair:-
http://www.localhistories.org/homoerectus.html (http://www.localhistories.org/homoerectus.html)
Again, you are spouting the out of africa nonsense re claims of 43,000 years: Not only is 43,000 years more than long enough to adapt to cold climates(eg:- the Inuit) but the multiregional hypothesis, a far more likely scenario, posits that ancient hominids left Africa in a period between 800,000 to 2,000,000 years ago and became separately hominised, with no massive influx from Africa occurring later on. The other point is that genetics studies are very new - and already there has been proof shown that modern humans are descended, variously, from anywhere up to 3 different hominids, not just Neanderthals. The likelihood, therefore, is that we find eventually that we are all a hodgepodge mixture of numerous hominids such as homo erectus, Neanderthal Man, homo heidelbergensis etc. etc. So we many humans are indeed well cold-adapted.
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Bush fires are actually quite frequent in east Africa, being started by lightning, which is why there have been a few errors made by scientists. The real test is that fire became widespread after hearths were invented c.250,000 -300,000 years ago - before that point, evidence re fires is extremely rare - one would expect an explosion in the number of fires made relatively soon after the very first discovery of fire.
True, perhaps in a hundredth monkey effect kind of way.
Oops I forgot the true meaning of that effect. What I meant is that hominids having discovered the use of fire would share their discovery with clan members and outsiders with which they would come in contact with, and so on...
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Tyler, you may well be right concerning body hair, but there are still large variation between individuals — and at fortiori between populations — and it seems there’s no way to be sure about it. You link says:
Obviously it is impossible to tell from a skeleton how hairy someone was. However scientists believe Homo erectus had little body hair and controlled their body heat by sweating.
From about 500,000 onward a slightly different species called Home Heidelbergensis lived in Europe. At that time it was a very different place from today. Animals like elephants, lions, bear and wolves lived there. Homo Heidelbergensis had a larger brain than Homo erectus and they hunted animals like horses and deer with spears.
It is believed that Homo Heidelbergensis gave rise to the Neanderthals.
Another page of the same website says:
Modern humans entered Europe about 35,000 BC at a time when the Earth was in the grip of an last ice age (which ended about 8,000 BC).
I don’t know (and I don’t realy care) whether it is the multiregional hypothesis or the "Out of Africa" model which is nearest to what actually happened, but anyway, both models place our origin in Africa. Does the “Multiregional hypothesis” questions the spreading of Co-Magnons to Europe some 43,000 years ago? If it does I couldn’t find any indication of that.
In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans, frequently dubbed the "Out of Africa" theory, is the most widely accepted model describing the geographic origin and early migration of anatomically modern humans. This model has incorporated the 2010 discovery of genetic evidence for some archaic human admixture with modern Homo sapiens.[1] The theory is called the (Recent) Out-of-Africa model in the popular press, and academically the recent single-origin hypothesis (RSOH), Replacement Hypothesis, and Recent African Origin (RAO) model. The concept was speculative until the 1980s, when it was corroborated by a study of present-day mitochondrial DNA, combined with evidence based on physical anthropology of archaic specimens .
Re our adaptation to cold climates, the Inuit don't live nude, as nobody else has ever been known to permanently do in temperate and cold regions. Thus, someone pretending that we are perfectly adapted to temperate and cold climates has the burden of the proof, exactly as for our alleged adaptation to cooked food and dairy.
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Not only is 43,000 years more than long enough to adapt to cold climates(eg:- the Inuit)
Is that what you call adapted to the cold? Inuits live in often heated shelters and wear fur clothes from head to toe, face excepted. More like used to cold...
https://www.google.be/search?q=inuits&client=firefox-a&hs=gT3&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&channel=sb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=40EgU53BNsKL7Ab7kYHgDw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=794 (https://www.google.be/search?q=inuits&client=firefox-a&hs=gT3&rls=org.mozilla:fr:official&channel=sb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=40EgU53BNsKL7Ab7kYHgDw&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1600&bih=794)
The likelihood, therefore, is that we find eventually that we are all a hodgepodge mixture of numerous hominids such as homo erectus, Neanderthal Man, homo heidelbergensis etc. etc. So we many humans are indeed well cold-adapted.
I don't really see the link there. It would mean that Erectus, Neanderthal, etc were somehow adapted to cold, which at this moment is only an evidence to you.
When you suggest that hominids were adapted to (great) cold, you explain that humans possessed a certain body shape, enhanced blood vessels near the skin and a special fat layer that made them capable of withstanding challenging temperatures.
First of all, I don't see how an upright position could be an asset in protecting oneself against cold; quite the contrary, as you become more vulnerable to cold air currents like winds, the torso being highly exposed. However it is a great body shape for particularly sunny regions, the head being the only part of the body directly exposed to the burning sun when at its highest point.
It leaves us with the enhanced blood vessels and the special fat.
Both great to deal with situations humans could've faced in warmer regions, such as swimming or immersing themselves in cool water, or sleeping through some chilly nights without consuming an excessive amount of energy in the process. Sufficient if hominids migrated in milder regions for a season or two, and came back in warmer climates prior to wintertime (in a similar way how birds migrate from North in Spring-Summer to South in Fall-Winter) ; But to think that hominids' defense against variating temperatures is a match to the ones of species indigenous to the freezing northern environments: woolly rhino, mammoth, wolf, deer, and others with their thick layer of fur, fat, and sometimes both...that is simple fiction, until proven otherwise.
Either those hominid sub-specie were able to advance further into colder regions with the use of exterior protection such as fur clothing and fabricated shelters; Or they inevitably died out at some point during the several winter months or Ice-Ages from hypothermia or any other causes of death related to (inability of withstanding) great cold...
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Or maybe these human sub-species weren't so furless after all!! :P
http://evoandproud.blogspot.be/2012/01/were-neanderthals-furry.html (http://evoandproud.blogspot.be/2012/01/were-neanderthals-furry.html)
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Most of the above is easily debunked. The Inuit are adapted to the cold to some extent, sure nowhere near as much as their palaeo equivalents, obviously.
This study should make clear that Europeans, for example, are adapted to the cold not to hot environments, with the Inuit being foremost among the cold-adapted:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19927367 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19927367)
I have already pointed out that homo heidelbergensis migrated to arctic regions and is thought by scientists to have never had fur. Since homo heidelbergensis performed these migrations well before the advent of fire(ie before c. 250,000 to 300,000 years ago) and well before the advent of clothes(supposed to be no more than c.70,000 years ago or so), it is reasonable to assume that they did so without fur, with the burden of proof being on others to cite clear evidence that fur was needed.
Here is scientific proof that clothes could not possibly have been invented prior to 170,000 years ago:-
http://forwhattheywereweare.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/clothes-lice-homo-sapiens-and-neanderthals/ (http://forwhattheywereweare.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/clothes-lice-homo-sapiens-and-neanderthals/)
Note that, in the text of that link above, it is mentioned that loss of hominid body hair already happened c.1.2 million years ago, in the "homo ergaster" phase. So no furs were worn prior to 170,000 years ago, and no natural fur was grown after 1.2 million years ago - yet various hominids did indeed migrate to arctic climates. Looks like I've rather made my point! :P :-* ;D ;)
Lastly, Iguana, just because wikipedia cites the out of africa theory as being the most popular model does NOT make it the correct one. For example, there are now thousands of studies showing the harm done by cooking yet cooking stubbornly remains more popular than eating all foods raw. Similiarly, until very recently, the out of africa theory used to bluntly claim that there was NEVER any admixture between modern humans and other apemen such as neanderthals. Indeed it was one of its 2 main tenets that they fanatically spouted for many years. For them to suddenly switch round and claim that, well, OK, there was some admixture but ONLY when humans came out of Africa c.43,000 years ago is a major bluff and shows just what is so wrong about the theory as a whole. I am also amused at how often the out of africa "theorists" constantly change their minds on an individual basis as to the rough dates when humans supposedly left Africa. Some claim the date to be c. 200,000 years ago, the more loony politically-correct quasi-Creationist bunch cite a date of only c.20,000 years ago, but the dates are all over with no real concensus.
Oh, one last thing:- Iguana, you are quite wrong. The fact that humans came out Africa which is a warm environment does NOT support your argument if humans left there 800,000 to 2,000,000 years ago. That time is MORE than enough for hominids to adapt to a cold climate. Come to think of it, I have just cited various data to show that one can adapt to a cold climate in a much shorter time-period as well.
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Thanks to you and JeuneKoq for this instructive debate.
As I understand it, your first reference says that Europeans and Inuit are equally (not differently) adapted to cold. An “adaptation” which is better than that of Africans — as we would all have expected.
Not sure if I grasp correctly the meaning of the text of your second link, but I understand that animal skins were worked with hide scrapers as far back as 780,000 years ago. It says “In Europe the need for clothes was much more urgent obviously and the ancestors of Neanderthals got to work on it out of need.” Also “a more likely age of at least 250,000 years for the coalescence of modern clothing lice and hence use of clothes by our ancestors (excepting probably Neanderthals). At that time (all of them) we were still living in Tropical Africa. Why would people begin to use clothes then? I am hunching here that maybe there was some need in order to colonize or otherwise exploit the Ethiopian highlands.”
Seems to me he means that Neanderthals probably had clothes before 250,000 years ago. If so, it doesn’t match your figure of 170,000 years ago, which on the graph is labeled “Median head — clothing louse divergence”.
…no natural fur was grown after 1.2 million years ago - yet various hominids did indeed migrate to arctic climates.
Yes, that’s what that article says. But the anthropologist in the link given by JeuneKoq says the contrary: according to him, Neanderthals would likely have had a fur!
Lastly, Iguana, just because wikipedia cites the out of africa theory as being the most popular model does NOT make it the correct one.
I agree, but it doesn’t necessarily make the “multiregional hypothesis” correct either! Arguments for or against each theory is a task for top experts in anthropology and since I’m far from being one, I’m totally unable and unwilling to say which one of these hypothesis is most correct — as even these experts disagree between them.
For example, there are now thousands of studies showing the harm done by cooking yet cooking stubbornly remains more popular than eating all foods raw. Similiarly, until very recently, the out of africa theory used to bluntly claim that there was NEVER any admixture between modern humans and other apemen such as neanderthals. Indeed it was one of its 2 main tenets that they fanatically spouted for many years. For them to suddenly switch round and claim that, well, OK, there was some admixture but ONLY when humans came out of Africa c.43,000 years ago is a major bluff and shows just what is so wrong about the theory as a whole. I am also amused at how often the out of africa "theorists" constantly change their minds on an individual basis as to the rough dates when humans supposedly left Africa. Some claim the date to be c. 200,000 years ago, the more loony politically-correct quasi-Creationist bunch cite a date of only c.20,000 years ago, but the dates are all over with no real concensus.
It shows that no one really knows, the paleo-anthropology still being in its infancy and thus extremely unreliable.
Oh, one last thing:- Iguana, you are quite wrong. The fact that humans came out Africa which is a warm environment does NOT support your argument if humans left there 800,000 to 2,000,000 years ago. That time is MORE than enough for hominids to adapt to a cold climate. Come to think of it, I have just cited various data to show that one can adapt to a cold climate in a much shorter time-period as well.
An adaptation to a new environment is not always possible or it may take longer than that. It doesn’t seem so difficult for a species to adapt to a new environment, but what do we know?
Anyway, there’s still fact that no modern human on this planet have been known to permanently live without any clothing in cold and even temperate climate. It seems to show that adaptation to these climates is very partial for modern men while it seems to have been much better for Heidelbergensis and Neanderthals. So what? Isn’it logical to conclude that we, homo sapiens sapiens, have not inherited much DNA from those subspecies? Why do so many people go to warm and tropical regions for their holidays? Granted, some like to go to cold places, but they’re clearly a tiny minority.
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Thanks to you and JeuneKoq for this instructive debate.
As I understand it, your first reference says that Europeans and Inuit are equally (not differently) adapted to cold. An “adaptation” which is better than that of Africans — as we would all have expected.
OK, so they are equally cold-adapted, I should have checked more closely. The POINT is that they are said to be adapted to cold climates , NOT warm climates. So it is moronic to go on claiming that we are all adapted to warm, African environments.
Not sure if I grasp correctly the meaning of the text of your second link, but I understand that animal skins were worked with hide scrapers as far back as 780,000 years ago. It says “In Europe the need for clothes was much more urgent obviously and the ancestors of Neanderthals got to work on it out of need.” Also “a more likely age of at least 250,000 years for the coalescence of modern clothing lice and hence use of clothes by our ancestors (excepting probably Neanderthals). At that time (all of them) we were still living in Tropical Africa. Why would people begin to use clothes then? I am hunching here that maybe there was some need in order to colonize or otherwise exploit the Ethiopian highlands.”
Seems to me he means that Neanderthals probably had clothes before 250,000 years ago. If so, it doesn’t match your figure of 170,000 years ago, which on the graph is labeled “Median head — clothing louse divergence”.
The whole point is that the general concensus is that the date for the invention for clothes is 170,000 years ago. Sure, this guy thinks that the real figure is 250,000 years ago, but this is a minority opinion formed by just one lone guy! Highly unlikely to be correct, whereas the 170,000 year figure is commonly accepted. And, NO, he definitely does NOT mean that Neanderthals had clothes prior to 250,000 years ago. He even makes a clear EXCEPTION for the Neanderthals. What weakens his argument re the Ethiopian highlands is that clothes are not really suited to the generally warm African climate. But clothes are admittedly more likely to have been used for much colder climates outside Africa. If that is the case, then the advent of clothes 170,000 years ago outside Africa is just one more nail in the coffin of the absurd out of africa hypothesis. And my main point, which was that Neanderthals and previous hominids were easily able to survive in cold climates without any need for clothes is still solid and proven.
Yes, that’s what that article says. But the anthropologist in the link given by JeuneKoq says the contrary: according to him, Neanderthals would likely have had a fur!
The general concensus, is , however, that hominids lost their fur as far back as homo ergaster. The only vaguely valid argument put forward is the finger-ridge one. What is a clincher is that a dna analysis of a neanderthal woman's body showed that she did not have fur on her:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1058538/Meet-Wilma-The-face-Neanderthal-woman-revealed-time.html (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1058538/Meet-Wilma-The-face-Neanderthal-woman-revealed-time.html)
I agree, but it doesn’t necessarily make the “multiregional hypothesis” correct either! Arguments for or against each theory is a task for top experts in anthropology and since I’m far from being one, I’m totally unable and unwilling to say which one of these hypothesis is most correct — as even these experts disagree between them.
It shows that no one really knows, the paleo-anthropology still being in its infancy and thus extremely unreliable.
Not really. What I have demonstrably shown is that one of THE key tenets of the out of africa theory has been disproven(the one that stated that humans never interbred with the Neanderthals or other apemen). The multiregional hypothesis is therefore in a stronger position.An adaptation to a new environment is not always possible or it may take longer than that. It doesn’t seem so difficult for a species to adapt to a new environment, but what do we know?
Pure equivocation. Plenty of other wildlife has adapted to big extremes of temperature in a much smaller period of time. The point being that many hundreds of thousands of years/1 or 2 millions of years is more than enough to adapt.
Anyway, there’s still fact that no modern human on this planet have been known to permanently live without any clothing in cold and even temperate climate. It seems to show that adaptation to these climates is very partial for modern men while it seems to have been much better for Heidelbergensis and Neanderthals. So what? Isn’it logical to conclude that we, homo sapiens sapiens, have not inherited much DNA from those subspecies? Why do so many people go to warm and tropical regions for their holidays? Granted, some like to go to cold places, but they’re clearly a tiny minority.
The above claim isn't quite true. For example, the Gauls in ancient France were well known to routinely fight stark naked in battles. So far, despite primitive dna technology, we are estimated to have anywhere up to 20% Neanderthal dna and that does not even include many other possibilities re admixture with other types of "apemen", so we are likely to have a much higher percentage of hominid dna than you would like to think.
The claim re "most" people wanting to go to warm climates for their holidays is rather bogus. For one thing, we live in a modern environment where most of us have access to central heating so that we may simply be used to warmer temperatures out of lifelong habit, nothing else. Then there is the issue of all those immigrants from the 3rd world looking for a better life, but, interestingly, always seeking out colder climates when possible.
From my own experience, I can safely state that my parents were much better adapted to the cold than I ever was, simply because they had no access to central heating so were more prone to frostbite so their bodies were forced to adapt much harder in order to survive.
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Incidentally, I have just come across a fascinating naked tribe, the "Yaghan" who lived at the tip of South America, Tierra del Fuego, which is a pretty cold place and very wet. They managed to survive as they had evolved a higher metabolic rate. Which is what I have been saying all along, that if you plonk modern humans into Siberia or some other cold place, without clothes, they will simply adapt to the colder climate through depositing more body fat etc. etc.
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Thanks for you comprehensive answer. I could answer once again because I still disagree on many points, but I feel both of us have rather exhaustively explained our respective views and we are dragged into an endless loop argument. For example, I mentioned the Fuegians in this post, on the 1st page of this topic:
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/humans-naturaloptimal-habitat/msg117274/#msg117274 (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/humans-naturaloptimal-habitat/msg117274/#msg117274)
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The info I read on the Fuegians was that they wore little to no clothing at all. In other words, some wore no clothing at all, while others may have worn tiny amounts.
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TylerDurden:
Bodies of water can provide shelter from rain and high winds by cooling your body at a lesser rate than the colder rain/colder wind. A rate your body can keep up with. Just because the air outside of our bodies may be 72 degrees fahrenheit, and our internal temperatures are around 98.6 degrees fahrenheit, doesn't mean that 72 degree weather will kill us. Use thorough reasoning, it appears you are grasping at every straw you can to sustain a stubborn position with ideas you like.
A simple search on google reveals that the Yaghans did not just simply adapt to the colder climate through depositing more body fat (every human can do this, and they can also use a special type of body fat called brown fat which generates much more heat). What they also did is build frequent fires, build rock shelters, and cover themselves in animal grease which they killed by using technology not their body fat. Logical errors abound in your posts. Your words are not to be trusted.
There is a reason almost all medium-large mammals have fur and that the ones who don't typically have other means of shelter like going underground. It is extremely rare to be as naked as we are and not be underground-dwelling. It is extremely rare for any land mammal to have subcutaneous body fat. It is extremely common for aquatic/semiaquatic life to have subcutaneous (attached to the skin) body fat. Wake up.
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The aquatic ape theory has, I'm afraid, been thorughly debunked a long , long time ago:--
http://www.aquaticape.org/ (http://www.aquaticape.org/)
I had also mentioned that the Fuegans had a highr metabolic rate which easily explained adaptation to the cold. Frequent fires, shelters and grease are hardly too effective against the cold by comparison to a higher mtabolic rate.
At any rate, I have demonstrated that cold adaption can easily occur without the need for fur.
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I'm just going to correct the things said that particularly bother me:
The above claim isn't quite true. For example, the Gauls in ancient France were well known to routinely fight stark naked in battles.
That's an example of humans standing the cold for a short period of time. They fought for a few hours max naked, then came back to their clothes, fire and houses/shelters. Unless, of course, they were still pumped-up from Panoramix' magic potion ;D
Then there is the issue of all those immigrants from the 3rd world looking for a better life, but, interestingly, always seeking out colder climates when possible.
I think it's safe to suggest that colder climates is not what these people are looking for, when coming to the -wealthy- northern regions of the world, such as Europe and USA.
What weakens his argument re the Ethiopian highlands is that clothes are not really suited to the generally warm African climate. But clothes are admittedly more likely to have been used for much colder climates outside Africa.
Africa, just like any other continents on this planet, minus perhaps the two poles, is home to various type of climates: desert, steppe, savanna, tropical rain-forest, mediterranean...all not equally warm, or dry, or moist...
Wikipedia on Ethiopia's not-so-warm climate:
"The predominant climate type is tropical monsoon, with wide topographic-induced variation. The Ethiopian Highlands cover most of the country and have a climate which is generally considerably cooler than other regions at similar proximity to the Equator.(...)The average annual temperature in Addis Ababa is 16 °C (60.8 °F), with daily maximum temperatures averaging 20–25 °C (68.0–77.0 °F) throughout the year, and overnight lows averaging 5–10 °C (41.0–50.0 °F). Most major cities and tourist sites in Ethiopia lie at a similar elevation to Addis Ababa and have a comparable climate."
Not to state the colder temperatures in the more elevated parts of the country.
In such conditions wearing clothes might've been a necessity.
I think that in the end no faulty historical science, no uncertain arguments and no personal convictions (I'm also including myself when I say this) can truly decide what is one individual's optimal living place. It is everyone's responsibility to find the place where they can live the best with the least need to rely on "unnatural", accessory means. There is obviously more than one Garden of Eden on this Earth. The key is to experiment, see if you can manage every aspect of a certain environment, be it the climate, the terrain, the edibles, their level of access depending on the season....
If you can manage all those aspects in the colder regions -Not only the climate-, it's all very fine. If not, it's all right, back out a bit in more comfortable environments and let time eventually decide when it may be right to move forth, if it ever is.
Personally I am more attracted to the idea of going back to warmer regions, but if I do this it would be in a very progressive way, like for instance moving to a more southern European country such as Spain, gradually adjusting to an already less familiar environment. But that's just my own suggestion to myself.
It's every person's task to find their own optimal habitat, be it Siberia, India, East Africa or New Zealand, and to live more in tune with it.
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I'm just going to correct the things said that particularly bother me:That's an example of humans standing the cold for a short period of time. They fought for a few hours max naked, then came back to their clothes, fire and houses/shelters. Unless, of course, they were still pumped-up from Panoramix' magic potion ;D
I would suspect that Gaulish warriors on major campaigns would hardly have gone back to wearing clothes inbetween battles.I think it's safe to suggest that colder climates is not what these people are looking for, when coming to the -wealthy- northern regions of the world, such as Europe and USA.
You are missing the point, again. They are going to these much colder climes despite there being other wealthy countries in much warmer climes.
Africa, just like any other continents on this planet, minus perhaps the two poles, is home to various type of climates: desert, steppe, savanna, tropical rain-forest, mediterranean...all not equally warm, or dry, or moist...
Wikipedia on Ethiopia's not-so-warm climate:
"The predominant climate type is tropical monsoon, with wide topographic-induced variation. The Ethiopian Highlands cover most of the country and have a climate which is generally considerably cooler than other regions at similar proximity to the Equator.(...)The average annual temperature in Addis Ababa is 16 °C (60.8 °F), with daily maximum temperatures averaging 20–25 °C (68.0–77.0 °F) throughout the year, and overnight lows averaging 5–10 °C (41.0–50.0 °F). Most major cities and tourist sites in Ethiopia lie at a similar elevation to Addis Ababa and have a comparable climate."
Not to state the colder temperatures in the more elevated parts of the country.
In such conditions wearing clothes might've been a necessity.
You have missed the point once again. Africa is not known for its cold climates. About the best it can manage is snow on the top of some mountains like Mt Kilimanjaro, that's about it. So, the Ethiopian highlands remark was absurd and a clearly desperate one. The figures you cite do NOT suggest a cold climate but a temperate one, easily dealt with by someone without clothes.
It's every person's task to find their own optimal habitat, be it Siberia, India, East Africa or New Zealand, and to live more in tune with it.
Easy to say, NOT easy to practise. I would state that my own ideal temperature right now would, at most, be never more than +10 degrees Celsius, at the present time, while wearing perhaps shorts and T-shirt. Perhaps 12-13 degrees Celsius if always naked. After set periods of time, this would improve, year on year, so that I could progressively handle even lower temperatures. However, long before I reached that stage I would have become permanently locked up for indecent exposure.
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Do you recognize him?
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A friend once snapped a photograph of me wading out of Lake Champlain in February when the water was ~0 Centigrade (barely over 32 Fahrenheit). I looked through the folders I keep images in and can't seem to find it. Guess I'll have to get someone to take another once the lake thaws.
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Do you recognize him?
GCB's youngest son, right?
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:) Right !
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I am very sure humans are capable of adapting to cold - everyone is! And this is a super easy N=1 to do. The colder you have it the more you will get used to it, the warmer you have it around you the colder you will be when facing cold. Easy :)
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The rawfooders that eat fruits year round that I have come to know often dream about moving south.
Maybe it is their body telling them about the mismatch... and they not feeling 100% well in the environment they live in because they eat foods not belonging there at all.
So for the sugar not to harm their bodies they need SUN... SUN and more SUN what they do not get... hence always dreaming about sunnier and warmer climates ;)
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I am very sure humans are capable of adapting to cold - everyone is! And this is a super easy N=1 to do. The colder you have it the more you will get used to it, the warmer you have it around you the colder you will be when facing cold. Easy :)
Yes of course but I guess I am wondering if adapting and living in cold climates is beneficial or good for a person... or it is healthier to just be living in a place where you constantly have a warmer temperature.
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Tylerdurden:
The anti-aquaticapetheory website you posted is just that, a view against it, what matters is if the website has any substantial claims (claims having logical validity). When I first viewed the website, long, long ago, I didn't find any. That's why when arguing, I prefer to use actual logical claims, rather than tell you to reference all of wikipedia or google in order to correct every flaw in your reasoning.
By using the childish act of merely posting an entire website to support your stance for or against something, you outline your inability to critically think for yourself.
Furthermore, what the aquaticape.org website does is single out every aspect of aquatic/semiaquatic ape theory and its variants and give alternative reasons/circumstances besides aquatic ones in which our adaptations could have happened/could have been caused by. If you single out every aspect of something like this on any topic, you miss the big picture and cannot connect the dots to see a relational model presenting the conclusion right under your nose. If there was only one feature that suggested aquatic history, then it would be far fetched. If there are a lot of features suggesting aquatic history, yet only a few people believe it, then it's not far fetched, just unpopular, as all non-far fetched ideas which challenge orthodox strongholds are in their infancy.
Similarly, there is no such thing as absolute proof in our world outside of imaginative constructs like math - that is what that website and all other websites which have the weakest possible defense to an idea relies on - since absolute proof doesn't exist, or you can't absolutely prove something to be right or wrong, then as long as I can divide and conquer each aspect of your theories then no one should give it a second thought. And thus goes the weak minded stance of bias, rather than deduction.
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About cold adaptation without fur, you have not demonstrated that we can survive for long periods (thousands of years) in a quantifiably cold/harsh environment without relying on technology, which is all that I'm getting at. Without the aid of fire, or products of animals (whether it be grease or their furs), or other technological thinking, then we could not survive those environments. You have not shown, nor will you ever (since they don't exist) a people which have lived in these environments as anything more than a temporary necessity without the aid of technology.
All mammals have a natural habitat. No mammal can withstand every range of temperature or climate. All mammals can adapt to their climate over time, but what our body is currently and was most recently adapted to is not climates like the arctic or the desert (without technology), or in frequently freezing temperatures and wet climates without natural shelters (and without technology). The fact is, that we had to evolve on land somewhere without the help of technology in the beginning. Our bodies are still adapted to a climate such as a tropical savanna (with bodies of water) or similar, which means that if we did adapt to colder climates, it was after the use of technology rather than bodily adaptations.
Higher metabolisms are not the magical answer to everything you seem to think they are. If they were, every animal would just "increase metabolism" to combat everything. The problem is we live in a world where energy is costly, so you can't just "use super high metabolisms all day" without paying a high price in energy - which is why it makes absolutely no sense and if you lived somewhere as a species for a lengthy time (tens of thousands of years) you would adapt by making the energy expenditure much less with fur or feathers or something besides high metabolism, unless of course you had tools which allowed you to eat much more than is natural due to having unique advantages of killing/processing/cooking large amounts of food (or growing it). I would just love to see you chase down an animal to exhaustion without the use of tools, animal grease or fur or any clothing or technological aid, in the cold of winter, in a harsly cold environment, routinely, to feed your increased metabolism. By the way good luck outlasting a furred mammal when you're chasing it in the cold, and good luck exhausting it without weapons.
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So what is it about the blue zones then? Areas in the world where people live the longest and healthiest..
What do they all have in common?
Okinawa, Japan
Sardinia, Italy
Loma Linda, California
Nicoya, Costa Rica
Ikaria, Greece
They are all coastal towns. With spectacular ocean and land views.
LOL... nice try, but Loma Linda, California, is smack dab in the middle of the San Bernardino Valley desert, and about a three-days' walk to the coast.
Blue Zones, a work on long life and happiness, has its own conclusions, called the Power 9, which does not include optimal climate. The Power 9 are http://www.bluezones.com/live-longer/power-9/ (http://www.bluezones.com/live-longer/power-9/):
1. Move Naturally ?The world’s longest-lived people don’t pump iron, run marathons or join gyms. Instead, they live in environments that constantly nudge them into moving without thinking about it. They grow gardens and don’t have mechanical conveniences for house and yard work.
2. Purpose. The Okinawans call it “Ikigai” and the Nicoyans call it “plan de vida;” for both it translates to “why I wake up in the morning.” Knowing your sense of purpose is worth up to seven years of extra life expectancy
3. Down Shift? Even people in the Blue Zones experience stress. Stress leads to chronic inflammation, associated with every major age-related disease. What the world’s longest-lived people have that we don’t are routines to shed that stress. Okinawans take a few moments each day to remember their ancestors, Adventists pray, Ikarians take a nap and Sardinians do happy hour.
4. 80% Rule? “Hara hachi bu” – the Okinawan, 2500-year old Confucian mantra said before meals reminds them to stop eating when their stomachs are 80 percent full. The 20% gap between not being hungry and feeling full could be the difference between losing weight or gaining it. People in the Blue Zones eat their smallest meal in the late afternoon or early evening and then they don’t eat any more the rest of the day.
5. Plant Slant? Beans, including fava, black, soy and lentils, are the cornerstone of most centenarian diets. Meat—mostly pork—is eaten on average only five times per month. Serving sizes are 3-4 oz., about the size of deck or cards.
6. Wine @ 5? People in all Blue Zones (except Adventists) drink alcohol moderately and regularly. Moderate drinkers outlive non-drinkers. The trick is to drink 1-2 glasses per day (preferably Sardinian Cannonau wine), with friends and/or with food. And no, you can’t save up all weekend and have 14 drinks on Saturday.
7. Belong? All but five of the 263 centenarians we interviewed belonged to some faith-based community. Denomination doesn’t seem to matter. Research shows that attending faith-based services four times per month will add 4-14 years of life expectancy.
8. Loved Ones First ?Successful centenarians in the Blue Zones put their families first. This means keeping aging parents and grandparents nearby or in the home (It lowers disease and mortality rates of children in the home too.). They commit to a life partner (which can add up to 3 years of life expectancy) and invest in their children with time and love (They’ll be more likely to care for you when the time comes).
9. Right Tribe ?The world’s longest lived people chose–or were born into–social circles that supported healthy behaviors, Okinawans created ”moais”–groups of five friends that committed to each other for life. Research from the Framingham Studies shows that smoking, obesity, happiness, and even loneliness are contagious. So the social networks of long-lived people have favorably shaped their health behaviors.
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Tylerdurden:
The anti-aquaticapetheory website you posted is just that, a view against it, what matters is if the website has any substantial claims (claims having logical validity). When I first viewed the website, long, long ago, I didn't find any. That's why when arguing, I prefer to use actual logical claims, rather than tell you to reference all of wikipedia or google in order to correct every flaw in your reasoning.
I simply pointed out that ref because it showed that there were better, simpler explanations than the Aquatic Ape theory. There is plenty more anti-Aquatic Ape-theory info online that you could check if you really wanted to, but you have a closed mind.
About cold adaptation without fur, you have not demonstrated that we can survive for long periods (thousands of years) in a quantifiably cold/harsh environment without relying on technology, which is all that I'm getting at. Without the aid of fire, or products of animals (whether it be grease or their furs), or other technological thinking, then we could not survive those environments. You have not shown, nor will you ever (since they don't exist) a people which have lived in these environments as anything more than a temporary necessity without the aid of technology.
All mammals have a natural habitat. No mammal can withstand every range of temperature or climate. All mammals can adapt to their climate over time, but what our body is currently and was most recently adapted to is not climates like the arctic or the desert (without technology), or in frequently freezing temperatures and wet climates without natural shelters (and without technology). The fact is, that we had to evolve on land somewhere without the help of technology in the beginning. Our bodies are still adapted to a climate such as a tropical savanna (with bodies of water) or similar, which means that if we did adapt to colder climates, it was after the use of technology rather than bodily adaptations.
Higher metabolisms are not the magical answer to everything you seem to think they are. If they were, every animal would just "increase metabolism" to combat everything. The problem is we live in a world where energy is costly, so you can't just "use super high metabolisms all day" without paying a high price in energy - which is why it makes absolutely no sense and if you lived somewhere as a species for a lengthy time (tens of thousands of years) you would adapt by making the energy expenditure much less with fur or feathers or something besides high metabolism, unless of course you had tools which allowed you to eat much more than is natural due to having unique advantages of killing/processing/cooking large amounts of food (or growing it).
I have actually shown, conclusively, that ancient hominids, with minimal difference from us modern humans re DNA, have been able to a) survive in cold climates without clothes and without fire, since the advent of clothes and advent of fire happened ages afterwards. Given the minimal difference in DNA, it would be very easy for modern humans to adapt to cold climates over time without the need for technology, therefore. At worst a few generations, and maybe just one or two, given the evidence of the Fuegans. Plus, I have also shown that some modern humans, such as Inuit and Caucasians, are definitely NOT adapted to warmer climates, at the very least.
I would just love to see you chase down an animal to exhaustion without the use of tools, animal grease or fur or any clothing or technological aid, in the cold of winter, in a harsly cold environment, routinely, to feed your increased metabolism. By the way good luck outlasting a furred mammal when you're chasing it in the cold, and good luck exhausting it without weapons.
*sigh*. Our hominid ancestors easily managed to hunt without the use of traps or tools like spears and bows and arrows(those only appeared c.60,000 years ago!), so this is a silly claim. Also, there is a theory you obviously haven't heard of which is that palaeo man was largely a scavenger, not a hunter, until c.60,000 years ago. Then there is the fact that clothes were invented only c.170,000 years ago so could not have been used by earlier hominids.
I can safely state, from the above evidence I posted in this thread, that Caucasians and Inuit are certainly NOT adapted to warmer climes but at least to temperate ones and that many ancient hominids were able to handle very cold climates without the need for clothes or fire, since neither had been invented when they were around. Modern humans might need a few generations to adapt to truly arctic conditions, as opposed to just cold, temperate climes.
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By the way, I like the photo of GCB's son on the snow! So many people assume that one has to have clothes and shoes at all times just in order to survive a little snow. Our ancestors would weep to find us so wimpy and unadaptable.
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Yes of course but I guess I am wondering if adapting and living in cold climates is beneficial or good for a person... or it is healthier to just be living in a place where you constantly have a warmer temperature.
I think it all depends on how you do it.
If you live inside with fake light all winter long and eat fruit - it will hurt you.
If you explore darkness and cold.. and eat what is natural to where you live ( a ketogenic diet) it will be very beneficial.
I have done this to some extent, not 100% for sure but even the little I have done have given me quite some benefits!
I think cold is very refreshing and I think illnesses can heal in a very nice way during a winter if you dive into it - especially if you tan all summer long when the summer is there. You need to let you body feel all the seasons to make it optimal.
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Whats up with all that "fruity" hostility? You do know that at least 20 percent of mammals, including northern indigenous ones such as foxes, wild boars, deers, horses, wolfs eat fruit as a part of their diet? Fruit ain't drugs, not more than the meat and fat you eat, Inger.
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Whats up with all that "fruity" hostility? You do know that at least 20 percent of mammals, including northern indigenous ones such as foxes, wild boars, deers, horses, wolfs eat fruit as a part of their diet? Fruit ain't drugs, not more than the meat and fat you eat, Inger.
I have seen photos of wolves eating berries but this is supposed to be a rare part of their diet, not a regular item.
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True. Also I mistaken the common wolf with the South American maned wolf, which is quite an important fruit eater, apparently.
A lot of very interesting info regarding frugivores on wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frugivore (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frugivore)
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Question.. DId humans most likely ever have an "optimal habitat" for a long period of time? Or did they always have to deal with constant climate change?
anyways
not one single human being on earth can survive a cold winter with no clothing , or human shelter. Now if we didnt start wearing clothes would we have grown a ton of hair or have kept more hair to survive bitter temperatures? Maybe.. but the majority of us are pretty hairless.... So we havent really "adapted" to cold weather.. IMO we are meant to live somewhere where we can maintain a pretty constant body temperature between 60-85 degrees. I know we can live anywhere by "adapting" but.. what makes it optimal? Im talking about longevity and being healthy all the time....
If you lived in Alaska of course your going to be eating what grows there... If you live in South America you eat what grows there... but is there a difference in health? Or maybe humans are meant to explore and travel the world and eat anything.. Idk just some foggy questions and statements I had.
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I have already pointed out that there are many other ways to adapt to the cold such as raising one's metabolic rate etc.
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Sorry, but I didn’t find you answer to that argument of Panacea convincing. ???
Higher metabolisms are not the magical answer to everything you seem to think they are. If they were, every animal would just "increase metabolism" to combat everything. The problem is we live in a world where energy is costly, so you can't just "use super high metabolisms all day" without paying a high price in energy - which is why it makes absolutely no sense and if you lived somewhere as a species for a lengthy time (tens of thousands of years) you would adapt by making the energy expenditure much less with fur or feathers or something besides high metabolism, unless of course you had tools which allowed you to eat much more than is natural due to having unique advantages of killing/processing/cooking large amounts of food (or growing it).
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Well, actually there are cases of wild animals who have gone in for a much higher metabolism. Oftentimes, this merely means that they have to eat much more than they would have had to with a much lower metabolic rate. Hummingbirds are an example. They go into torpor at night or when they are relaxing or when they are starving, which reduces their metabolic rate to way below normal.
I did not, incidentally, cite only a higher metabolism as a way of combatting the cold. Other methods include reshaping size of nasal passages, due to genetics, different overall body shape, colour of skin etc.
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Whats up with all that "fruity" hostility? You do know that at least 20 percent of mammals, including northern indigenous ones such as foxes, wild boars, deers, horses, wolfs eat fruit as a part of their diet? Fruit ain't drugs, not more than the meat and fat you eat, Inger.
Jeune you seem to have missed the whole point I try to make again and again. It is a broader view.
Fruits (carbs) are very bad eaten out of context, and I suggest even cultivated fruits are bad for most of us (the broken ones) eaten in season too
No animal in the wild ever eats imported fruits from the other end of the world, sorry
If they eat the fruit that grow in their natural habitat, it of course will not harm them.
Did I make my point clear enough...?
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No Inger you are the one that got confused on the point I was making.
Before making assumptions, which in this case is quite understandable knowing the fact that I support the instinctive "dietary" method, you should closely read my post(s) before making me say what I haven't said (or wrote). Of course I meant fruits -and other plants- that are native to and present in the animal's natural environment; I did not say "wolves in Sweden eat imported papayas and mangoes for breakfast" :P!
If they eat the fruit that grow in their natural habitat, it of course will not harm them.
^that is exactly what I meant.
When you posted those claims re fruits being harmful and dangerous I thought you meant every fruit in any context. Reading your last comment it seems that I was wrong on that and did miss the point you were trying to make after all..
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ok.. lol. Must be you haven't read my posts much then :) Look I absolutely think wild fruits and berries in season are fine! But I also know quite a bit about wild fruits and wild edibles and they are pretty far from what most people eat.
I have had wild durian (very hard to come by, BTW) and it was nothing like the durian's you get in a shop normally. Very little flesh on it and very concentrated. The highly cultivated fruits we normally eat are just... sugar.
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Jeune you seem to have missed the whole point I try to make again and again. It is a broader view.
Fruits (carbs) are very bad eaten out of context, and I suggest even cultivated fruits are bad for most of us (the broken ones) eaten in season too
No animal in the wild ever eats imported fruits from the other end of the world, sorry
If they eat the fruit that grow in their natural habitat, it of course will not harm them.
Did I make my point clear enough...?
then what is humans natural habitat!?
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It can differ a lot... but it will be what you have adapted to. Like, for me Africa would not be that.. I probably would get some issues if moving there. Like my skin is not made to live there etc.
I think we adapt pretty fast.... and if going to live somewhere far from where your parents and grandparents and grand grand parents (and so on) have lived, you would have good chances of surviving if you live in and from the nature where you are. But there are risks, parasites we are not used to etc. So I would never do this if I can avoid it.
Humans natural habitat is Nature for sure. Not the modern world with its technology and circadian disruptions and unnatural foods. We can tolerate it - some more some less... but most of us pay a high price for our comfort.
I also believe Humans natural habitat is close to water. As the human brain needs seafood to not de evolve.
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(emphases mine)
The separation of our lineage in two, with on one side the homo lineage and on the other the great ape family, is due to the formation of the Great Rift Valley some 8-9 million years ago -according to a book co-published by famous palaeontologist Yves Coppens-. Pre-humans evolved on the East side of the Rift Valley, where forest started to rapidly disappear due to the drying-out of the region, being then replaced by something similar to our present day savannah; Great apes evolved on the West side, in the vast humid tropical forests of Africa. ...
In an interesting coincidence, Mark Sisson just published an article about the Rift Valley region today:
...make no mistake: we may not know the day-to-day eating habits of our ancestors, but we know some things. And we can use what we know, drawing on several lines of evidence, to make some educated estimates.
The best place to start is, well, the place where it all started: East Africa, the cradle of human evolution. More specifically, let’s look at the Lake Turkana, Rift Valley, Omo River part of Ethiopia and Tanzania, which is where the oldest known remains of modern homo sapiens – dating back 200,000 years – were found. It’s a beautiful place. I mean just look at it. No wonder we hunkered down there for thousands of years." Read more: http://www.marksdailyapple.com/what-did-our-ancient-ancestors-actually-eat/#ixzz2wSjKXcdN (http://www.marksdailyapple.com/what-did-our-ancient-ancestors-actually-eat/#ixzz2wSjKXcdN)
I know that not everyone here will agree with him, yet, make of it what you will, it's still an interesting coincidence of timing.
And in the same article, Mark also wrote some more about RS and prebiotics in general: Tubers
Important parts of early human diets, tubers likely acted as fallback foods for when the hunt was poor or fish were scarce. It’s crucial to understand that these were wild, fibrous tubers, though – not the creamy, smooth russet potatoes that make the best darn mash you’ve ever tasted. An analysis of wild tubers currently present in this area and utilized by the Hadza (the modern hunter gatherers who live on the same ancestral Tanzanian lands) found that they contain only between 19 and 26 grams of starch per 100 grams of tuber, along with a ton of prebiotic fiber (PDF). Some of that starch was likely resistant as well, boosting the prebiotic count even higher and lowering the amount of digestible starch.
East African wild tubers therefore provide a moderate bolus of digestible starch with a sizable portion of prebiotic substrate, resulting in moderate glucose loads and improved glucose tolerance from the fermentation of prebiotic fiber.
Takeaway: Tubers were important foods for early humans, but not necessarily for the glucose they provided. The primary feature of wild East African tubers that set them apart from modern cultivated tubers was the indigestible portion, the prebiotic fiber and resistant starch that fed, nurtured, and cultivated the hugely crucial microbiome living inside our guts.
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ok.. lol. Must be you haven't read my posts much then :) Look I absolutely think wild fruits and berries in season are fine! But I also know quite a bit about wild fruits and wild edibles and they are pretty far from what most people eat.
I have had wild durian (very hard to come by, BTW) and it was nothing like the durian's you get in a shop normally. Very little flesh on it and very concentrated. The highly cultivated fruits we normally eat are just... sugar.
Inger I actually enjoy reading your posts! I'm all for getting in contact with the surrounding nature, and eating wild untransformed food. For instance my usual "workout session" is usually going to the forest and make use of the environment, like climbing trees, crawling under branches, balancing on wooden poles,... A lot more fun than the usual push-ups and crunches during crossfit classes.
I started doing those kind of exercises in the open again after taking part in a two-day movnat workshop, which is all about natural movement.
Anyway it's just that I thought your stance on sweet fruits was getting a bit more...extreme lately. Glad to see I was wrong :)
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Haha PaleoPhil we might call it a double -or triple- coincidence :D; Here's Anopstudier's comment that followed the one you quoted:
Yes Yes, I was just talking about the Great Rift Valley with a past science teacher today!
Interesting article, Phil.
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Yes, and a confluence of things were reminding me of the Great Rift Valley region and pointing me in that direction in recent months, and I seem to have benefited from what I learned, so I guess it's a quadruple coincidence. LOL Maybe I'll get into it some more later.
It was part of what inspired me to try drinking more sparkling mineral water, which I posted about back on January 30: http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/journals/paleophil's-journal/msg118727/#msg118727 (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/journals/paleophil's-journal/msg118727/#msg118727)
In particular, it led me to search for what would seem to be the ideal drinking water, based on what I had learned about what might have been some of the healthful, life-promoting properties of waters of the ancient Rift Valley and deep sea volcanic vents and research on cellular respiration. I had Googled this and found that the one that best matched was called Gerolsteiner. Since then I saw a health news report in which Gerolsteiner was called "the cadillac of mineral waters."
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The claim that Neanderthals almost wholly ate meat has been debunked by recent scientific findings that showed that they actually ate a lot of plant foods as well. Palaeoarchaeology, is, after all, in its infancy still. ...
Indeed, and the list of plant foods that Neanderthals reportedly ate keeps growing:
The Real Caveman Diet: Did people eat fruits and vegetables in prehistoric times? (http://www.slate.com/articles/life/explainer/2012/02/the_real_caveman_diet_what_did_people_eat_in_prehistoric_times_.html)
"paleoanthropologists found bits of date stuck in the teeth of a 40,000-year-old Neanderthal"
"Ancient man also ate plants that you can’t find at a grocery store, like ferns and cattails."
Here is that study:-
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080428-neanderthals-diet.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080428-neanderthals-diet.html)
...
Thanks for the link to that interesting article about the study that produced quite different findings from the early evidence on Neanderthal diets. In it is this about the foods that Neanderthals ate:
"We know that this individual ate a variety of plants, including grass seeds, more commonly called grains" [such as wild barley] http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080428-neanderthals-diet_2.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/04/080428-neanderthals-diet_2.html)
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Part of the reason Humans have been so successful is that we're highly adaptable to different environments. I doubt there is an "optimal" habitat for humans, but, with the majority of vacationers always heading to tropical locations (not too mention all of the tropical wallpapers, screen-savers etc) it makes me think that perhaps that is the ideal for most Humans.
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So, using the least common denominator here and logical deduction, who else believes that we were relatively naked scavengers in very cold climates, and adapted to that lifestyle over hundreds of thousands of years without developing a much thicker coat of fur, being one of the naked above-ground mammals with subcutaneous fat (attached to our skin) like seals and other aquatic/semiaquatic life? Sometimes the idiocy of self-appointed know-it-alls on the internet is exhausting.
We all know that nature, like a river, goes against the simplest path. Why would a river flow down the easiest path of a landscape and why would a human develop thick fur to conserve energy in a cold environment when we can expand nostrils and increase metabolism like no-other-animal-on-the-planet-ever-did without developing thick fur as well?
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Lately I've stumbled onto the "humans were engineered" into existence (see my thread somewhere here)... I tend to believe that is the most probable human origin... but most of my raw paleo friends dislike that idea so much.
Aajonus did not dwell too much on a mythical paleo past, he experimented with what works today.
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Tylerdurden: We are are one of the most naked land mammals that doesn't live underground, yet your idiotic theory is that we are better adapted to cold weather than many animals which actually have furs. There is no reasoning with such a moronic view. It is one thing to stand outside in snow in still air, and a whole other thing to get blasted by wind chill, among countless other common sense facts against your delirious theory. Our sweating mechanism gives us one of the most rapid cooling mechanisms of all mammals our size when out in the heat, but yeah, we totally evolved in cold climates. Many people here don't have research under their belt so I can't label them idiotic, just ignorant, but you're actually an idiot - unable to reason despite reading a lot.
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Tylerdurden: We are are one of the most naked land mammals that doesn't live underground, yet your idiotic theory is that we are better adapted to cold weather than many animals which actually have furs. There is no reasoning with such a moronic view. It is one thing to stand outside in snow in still air, and a whole other thing to get blasted by wind chill, among countless other common sense facts against your delirious theory. Our sweating mechanism gives us one of the most rapid cooling mechanisms of all mammals our size when out in the heat, but yeah, we totally evolved in cold climates. Many people here don't have research under their belt so I can't label them idiotic, just ignorant, but you're actually an idiot - unable to reason despite reading a lot.
*sigh* you are truly a moron and a hypocrite. I have already pointed out how others, such as the Neanderthals managed to adapt to truly cold climates, all without needing "furs" or "blubber". And, needless to say, it is not even "my" theory, but one started by several eminent scientists.
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I really want both of you to stop this name calling. It is really bad news for this forum.
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Tyler I'm curious, when you talk about humans being adapted to cold, do you envision newborns, or in your perverted mind is the human race populated only with healthy adults that might be able to last a trivial time in high wind cold weather without clothes/technology?
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Here are the forum guidelines found at http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/welcoming-commitee/welcome-new-members!-please-read/ (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/welcoming-commitee/welcome-new-members!-please-read/).
That thread says (in its entirety, emphasis mine):Welcome to Raw Paleo Forum! We are a laid-back, tolerant group of friends who follow or are planning to follow some sort of raw food diet that contains raw animal foods (RAF). We encourage support, debate, and humor alternative viewpoints that fit into the Raw Paleo Diet (RPD) paradigm. A 100% RPD is certainly not required, as we are all on our own path to health. In fact, within the RPD movement, there are many subgroups that exist and are welcome here.
While we do welcome disagreement with any idea, due to past experiences here, we must ask that if your sole purpose in participation is to disparage this diet or the people who follow it, that you not bother joining (In other words, trolls will not be tolerated for long here). Also, please refrain from personal attacks and other speech that is not constructive in nature to an RPD lifestyle. It is understandable that heated exchanges can occur. But please keep any fowl language or other pointed remarks at the ideas themselves and not the individuals who make them. Continual disregard of these basic common guidelines will result in warnings and possible removal from the group.
Please do participate in whatever ways you feel comfortable. It does help if you would enter your gender in your profile when you join. This is a close-knit community and we are happy you have chosen to join us.
Thank You,
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Often, the phrase "I disagree ... " can be used to introduce a completely opposite fact or opinion, allowing the discussion to proceed without the use of invectives. The use of name-calling, while it might be acceptable in some cultures, is not universally acceptable, as demonstrated in the guidelines quoted above.
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Let's stop all the name calling. Just saying "I disagree" works well.
Tylerdurden: We are are one of the most naked land mammals that doesn't live underground, yet your idiotic theory is that we are better adapted to cold weather than many animals which actually have furs. There is no reasoning with such a moronic view. It is one thing to stand outside in snow in still air, and a whole other thing to get blasted by wind chill, among countless other common sense facts against your delirious theory. Our sweating mechanism gives us one of the most rapid cooling mechanisms of all mammals our size when out in the heat, but yeah, we totally evolved in cold climates. Many people here don't have research under their belt so I can't label them idiotic, just ignorant, but you're actually an idiot - unable to reason despite reading a lot.
I actually agree with this logic. It may be rephrased to remove the mention of idiotic and idiot.
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Tyler I'm curious, when you talk about humans being adapted to cold, do you envision newborns, or in your perverted mind is the human race populated only with healthy adults that might be able to last a trivial time in high wind cold weather without clothes/technology?
One of the interesting tidbits of info re raising polar bears in zoos was that scientists, much like you, foolishly assumed that because adult polar bears had fur and could handle the cold, more or less, that their newborns also could do so. This of course meant that polar bears were unable to breed in any zoos for many years, until a bright spark thought of the idea of using warm burrows like polar bears use in the wild for raising their offspring. Then cubs started to appear in ever larger numbers in zoos.
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thank you for that unrelated and abstract polar bear reference which doesn't have anything to do with humans, lol.
fact: human babies naturally hold their breath underwater, an evolutionary adaptation due to human babies being in water
fact: human babies will die in cold climates when they go for a swim and/or emerge drenched in water
obvious conclusion: naked babies don't keep behaviors having to do with swimming when they're living in a cold climate
obvious conclusion: your theory is shown to be completely bogus, without having to rely on polar bear references
ignoring infants, your theory is still invalid however, as young children are not going to huddle up all day in a burrow to survive and stay warm, and evolve that way over tens of thousands of years. you clearly know nothing about the behavior of these nearly naked (no armpit hair, genital hair, and very little body hair) young children which in nature run around and walk around to stay healthy, rather than huddle up in a shelter for 3/4 or 1/2 the year.
the fact that you cannot see that virtually all great apes have trouble with cold climates without technology is the underlying fundamental foolish ignorant belief on your part, you need to open your mind to other ideas rather than keep listening to your own delusions
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that's exactly ( huddle together) what Inuit tribes do including young, and the american Indians. And I imagine all tribes of the European north countries of old before heated homes were created. I am not saying that is ideal. But the human race ( the northern peoples of the earth) certainly didn't die out because of the cold. Why interject anything about babies, for there are very few species that can survive without the aid of one of the parents in some form or other, warm or cold environments. It's obvious that our brains/intelligence has allowed us to thrive in cold environments,, and not the amount of arm pit hair.
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um no, inuit tribes / american indians in cold climates use technology, we are talking about natural habitats here, without technology, pure naked human skin against the elements. we are also assuming that these humans didn't try to survive in colder climates than was comfortable for them, because why would they? wild animals simply don't migrate to colder climates than they would prefer to start making/raising young (without genetic adaptations) yet you can compare the northern human evolution to the equatorial human evolution and the only dramatic difference is skin color, which makes sense given the sun changes, but there is no evolutionary difference which shows cold adaptations.
what people did after technology is a completely different story as we had/have all kinds of stupid ideas like chopping human heads off for sacrifice to the gods or talking about theories that naked apes natural habitat is a cold climate when it goes against all reasoning that many children and all reasonable people who aren't deluded by gods, fairytales, and the validity of their own abstract daydreams can see.
in short, the argument is what is the natural habitat for humans, how did it get so far off base from choosing between warm climates? because there are people who have been staring at a computer screen, the walls of their heated home, draped in clothing, totally oblivious to what a cold climate feels like on a naked body 24 hours in a row, day and night, that's how. It simply can't be done over a span of 10,000 years with our current bodies. We are talking about thriving here, animals don't last as long as we have by "barely hanging on by a thread" in climates that constantly torment them (they evolve dramatic genetic changes if they are forced with extended stays).
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I don't know if you got what I said. The Inuits, American Indians, tribes or northern Russia, Tibet, Greenland, Iceland, Siberia.... one to two hundred years ago did not have technology, i.e., heated homes. But they existed and thrived. And they cradled their babies close to the breast from warmth and food. Doesn't prove we're meant to exist in cold climates. But it does obviously evidence that we can adapt, via intelligence, without so called technology. I'm not really into this thread, seems like it will go nowhere, but did want to state the obvious.
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I'm enjoying this discussion. I was born and raised in this tropical country and have no idea what it is like in your 4 weather or even very cold scandinavian countries.
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I don't know if you got what I said. The Inuits, American Indians, tribes or northern Russia, Tibet, Greenland, Iceland, Siberia.... one to two hundred years ago did not have technology, i.e., heated homes. But they existed and thrived. And they cradled their babies close to the breast from warmth and food. Doesn't prove we're meant to exist in cold climates. But it does obviously evidence that we can adapt, via intelligence, without so called technology. I'm not really into this thread, seems like it will go nowhere, but did want to state the obvious.
According to common definitions of technology, Inuits, Amerindians and the tribes you cite, Van, used a lot of technologies such as clothing, controlled fire, tents, igloos, hunting weapons, etc.
Technology (from Greek techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -logia) is the collection of tools, including machinery, modifications, arrangements and procedures used by humans. Engineering is the discipline that seeks to study and design new technologies. Technologies significantly affect human as well as other animal species' ability to control and adapt to their natural environments. The term can either be applied generally or to specific areas: examples include construction technology, medical technology and information technology.
The human species' use of technology began with the conversion of natural resources into simple tools. The prehistoric discovery of how to control fire increased the available sources of food and the invention of the wheel helped humans in travelling in and controlling their environment.
In 1937, the American sociologist Read Bain wrote that "technology includes all tools, machines, utensils, weapons, instruments, housing, clothing, communicating and transporting devices and the skills by which we produce and use them."[5] Bain's definition remains common among scholars today, especially social scientists.
Technology can be most broadly defined as the entities, both material and immaterial, created by the application of mental and physical effort in order to achieve some value. In this usage, technology refers to tools and machines that may be used to solve real-world problems. It is a far-reaching term that may include simple tools, such as a crowbar or wooden spoon, …
I'm enjoying this discussion. I was born and raised in this tropical country and have no idea what it is like in your 4 weather or even very cold scandinavian countries.
No human would survive there without some kind of housing, clothing, tools, hunting and fishing weapons. It’s so obvious…
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You know what? Enough with the theories and speculation about how humans can survive, let alone thrive in the cold without technology (as defined by wiki).
Lets get some actual empirical evidence out there >D!
And I don't want to hear about no Inuit or Fuegian tribes, because they obviously use at least one form of technology to keep warm (shelter, clothes, controlled fire).
Tyler, you seem to be of northern-european descent, right?
You're probably following what you would describe as an optimal, or near optimal diet, correct?
Well, Tyler, and any other willful person who shares the same characteristics as cited above, I challenge you to pick your favorite winter vacation (Christmas, St-Nicolas...) to go and live outside with absolutely no heating or cold protecting technology.
Yep, that's no T-shirt, no blanket, no central heating, no hair-dryer, no fur, no fire. I you do need to use your car during this experiment, it's windows down (Is their any natural shelter on earth with no open entry-exit?) and no heating of course.
If you've got work to do, just bring your office chair and computer outside the house, and cover it with something when done (We don't want your office tools to get cold and wet, do we? ;))
If you can't sleep without a good mattress, you are allowed to bring yours outside. But no covers!!
Mosquito net allowed too, if not touching the skin. Probably wont need it though, since insects don't usually hang out in the cold...
You can train before D-day of course, make the most of your weekends and go live and sleep outside while it's not dangerously freezing yet.
This is a joke of course, but if somebody really did that, I can bet you he wouldn't last 3 days. A week max before actual death.
As long as there will be no solid evidence to back up such absurd claims, the only sensible conclusion to be made is that no human being can stand such intense cold, for such an important length of time, without the use of technology.
I'm pretty confident there never will be any evidence to be found against....
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Juenekoq, I'm betting Inger can do it. :)
Beautifully too.
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Some people really have no idea what a cold climate is like... sigh
here's how we deal with too-cold temperatures: hypothermia/focus bloodflow on vital organs and get frostbite (conserve and spend tons of energy)
here's how we deal with too much heat: sweating (relatively painless, only need to eat minimal energy and some water which is usually abundant in areas with fruit)
even if you have no idea what a cold climate is like, just looking at the facts should make it obvious to you we are not adapted for colder climates, but more on the warm side, despite having some resilience to temporary cold
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Some people really have no idea what a cold climate is like... sigh
That would be me... I admit it.
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this is like some 6th grade debate competition. It is 'obvious' that no one here is saying that someone in the nude could survive an arctic winter. The point here is that man for many thousands of years has lived in the arctic cold just fine, and yes with animal furs, the use of igloos etc. So what! Brown bears in Alaska purposely go to higher mountain ground so that the higher snow falls ensure they will be covered by consistently thicker Insulating amounts of snow. Ok, the rest here can go on. My only point is we can adapt because we have brains and use technology, i.e.. animal furs etc. to aid us. Every animal in the cold figures out how to shelter themselves against the wind, rain, snow and cold.
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My only point is we can adapt because we have brains and use technology, i.e.. animal furs etc. to aid us.
That's exactly what JeuneKoq, Panacea and I are saying... and what Tyler has been challenging all along!
By the way you just said the contrary this morning:
(…) The Inuits, American Indians, tribes or northern Russia, Tibet, Greenland, Iceland, Siberia.... one to two hundred years ago did not have technology, i.e., heated homes. But they existed and thrived. (…) But it does obviously evidence that we can adapt, via intelligence, without so called technology.
;)
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Van, the conclusion to be made here is that humans living in countries with cold climates absolutely depend on "technology" to survive, which is not the case for people living in countries with a much milder, warmer climate. Therefore, can cold regions really be considered an "optimal habitat" for man?
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That's exactly what JeuneKoq, Panacea and I are saying... and what Tyler has been challenging all along!
By the way you just said the contrary this morning: ;)
not really. I don't agree with you that animal furs and animal tents are representative of technology. I just didn't want to get in a futile debate. Thus I'll say it again, using animal furs has little to do with whether or not a cold environment is optimal. There are too many other factors to consider that may have more far reaching benefits for habitat. Notice I said may have. Some ideas that come to mind; in cold environments there are less sugars available. (Do we really need to reopen this can of worms?) There is the notion of resting the body during the winter months. If the cold environment is near the ocean, cold water fish and mammals have superior nutrition to warm water fish, mainly due to the cold water nutrient rich waters which phytoplankton flourish in.. There's the notion of the cold actually creating a strength in the body that warm environments can't begin to induce. And yes, Inger is a testament to what I'm writing about. I myself haven't put myself through the rigors of cold therapy to determine for myself the benefits or not.
So please, let's not get hung up on this notion of the amount of hair on the body as to whether living in the cold is not only possible but beneficial. To do so is not only bad science, but ostrich like inquiry.
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You can disagree with the definition of technology as much as you want, but communicating with other people isn't going to work, as evidenced by posters confusion of your contradictory post (unless we knew beforehand that you have an incorrect definition/meaning of technology), until you accept the actual meaning of the word technology rather than your incorrect version.
The debate here is what is our natural habitat that we evolved in - without technology (or tools), Tyler Durden was incorrectly proposing that our natural naked habitat could extend to cold climates, when it's not even valid as a hypothesis because it's so ridiculous. I postulated that our natural habitat could've been semi-aquatic (coexisting with bodies of water and frequently making use of them), which by itself is not invalid based on ridiculousness, as there is nothing (like death from too-cold temperatures) which invalidates it. My problem was that this topic was taking the direction of ignoring physical evidence (such as our skin, relative lack of thick hair, and ability to sweat to rapidly cool) and proposing contrary ideas which completely lack physical evidence. We might as well just go back to being mayans if we're going to completely ignore logic like that.
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why do you Insist 'without technology'? You do use the descriptive word 'evolved',, meaning over time. And why do you negate a bears digging into a hillside as any different than the technology of a early man using that bears hide as doing the same as the bear did for eluding the cold through the insulating properties of snow. It's beginning to appear as though you already have your opinion formed and are simply looking to debate period.
Yes, early man probably didn't say to himself I will venture up into those glacier mountains dressed like I am with this fig leaf jockey underwear, and sit like yogi master and go beyond the reality of cold. No but he did probably by some act notice the opportunity to hunt big game and fish beyond his local habitat. And then, again, with brains, like the bear, figure out how to survive from the cold. What is so frigging hard to understand about this? This hypothesis, if it happened that way, probably evolved over hundreds if not thousands of years. So then one Could ask the question, if one really wants to explore the question and possibility of what benefits might early man have derived from such possible exploits. Similarly to any explorer who ventures out of their comfort zone. I mean look at the early explorers who ventured into the new world including taking wagon trains across the Rockies. Hard to imagine from my comfort zone. But to refocus, maybe, just maybe, with the use of your defined version of technology, with the use of animal furs, he adapted to an optimal state of health. Again, that's the real question when you look at the title thread. Or I suppose you could choose to only focus on the first half of it and be attached to trying to solve where did early man first live, and not be concerned with where he might most optimally live. But then that might open up the notion that fruit isn't man's optimal source for fuel, amongst other concepts.
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lets discuss the malvinas/falkland islands. climate of the falklands:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Falkland_Islands (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_of_the_Falkland_Islands)
does that strike you as ideal human environment? not too hot, not too cold, maritime climate, access to seafood and rivers, ect
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Incidentally, this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaghan_people#Adaptations_to_climate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaghan_people#Adaptations_to_climate)
points out how one group of people used various non-technological methods to resist the cold. The only technology they used was the various small fires they built. But, for obvious reasons, they could not have spent their whole lives always huddling near fires, and were able to hunt etc. without warmth or clothes or whatever.
Incidentally, the Neanderthals did indeed adapt to cold, Arctic environments without technology. Bear in mind that the Neanderthals came into being 100s of thousands of years before the discovery of fire.
Another point is that most palaeo HGs went in for massive migrations, following herds etc. It makes perfect sense for human tribes to, for example, migrate into colder climes during summer months while leaving for warmer climes in winter.
The absurd challenge to live outdoors is meaningless, of course. I mean I am a descendant of many generations all of whom lived in warm environments due to having fires in their houses etc. Obviously, adaptations to the cold that do not require fur would take some generations of living in progressively colder climates in order to appear, such as the increased metabolic rate of the Yaghans, their higher body temperature etc.
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There's the notion of the cold actually creating a strength in the body that warm environments can't begin to induce.
This is an over simplification of things. What you're actually referring to is called "cryotherapy", and it's a brief exposure of the body to very cold temperatures, in a controlled environment. It has nothing to do with the exterior environment the individual evolves in. Also, it seems that most top athletes of the world happen to originate from the warmer climates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics)
Does living in colder climates really make you stronger then?
Tyler, it's true that the Yaghan people's moderate adaptation to cold is impressive. They might've been slowly on their way to completely adapting to their environments climates, perhaps in (far) future generations.
However, as the wikipedia article states, these people use not one but several technological (as defined by wiki) methods to resist the cold, such as fires, constructed shelters, and covering their body with animal grease. I mean, their territory isn't called "land of fire" (tierra del fuego) for no reason :P, as the article explains.
Obviously their body's adopted method to resist the cold is extra fat layers, as they look "chubby" compared to other ethnic groups/tribes.
Ps: they always look like they're cold as hell!! :D
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Incidentally, the Neanderthals did indeed adapt to cold, Arctic environments without technology. Bear in mind that the Neanderthals came into being 100s of thousands of years before the discovery of fire.
You never gave any satisfactory evidence to your claim. Therefor this is just your opinion. And as it was said before fire is not the only "artificial" method used to resist cold.
Another point is that most palaeo HGs went in for massive migrations, following herds etc. It makes perfect sense for human tribes to, for example, migrate into colder climes during summer months while leaving for warmer climes in winter.
Perhaps. At least it makes more sens than the rest.
The absurd challenge to live outdoors is meaningless, of course. I mean I am a descendant of many generations all of whom lived in warm environments due to having fires in their houses etc.
Damn, too bad for you. I mean my family has been living outside in the artic cold for generations. Just take a look at our recent family picture (I'm bottom right)....
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Nice family, JeuneKoq! I had never heard before of that Arctic great ape species of yours. Are they named Koq? LOL.
Another point is that most palaeo HGs went in for massive migrations, following herds etc. It makes perfect sense for human tribes to, for example, migrate into colder climes during summer months while leaving for warmer climes in winter.
Glad that you finally agree with me on that point :
Isn't it likely that they moved North in summer and either died, barely survived or came back before the winter?
On the wikipedia photo dated 1883, the Yaghans all wear an animal fur on their back and they are closely packed together, apparently to share their warmth. This topic has 6 previous pages in which all this has already been comprehensively discussed, so it can be consulted in endless loop, like the old 8-track stereo cartridges. ;D
(http://fr.academic.ru/pictures/frwiki/56/8track_inside.JPG)
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I so appreciate that tidbit about the Yaghans:
Adaptations to climate
Despite the extremely cold climate in which they lived, early Yahgan wore little to no clothing until after their extended contact with Europeans.[5] They were able to survive the harsh climate because:
1. They kept warm by huddling around small fires when they could, including in their boats to stay warm. The name of "Tierra del Fuego" (land of fire) was based on the many fires seen by passing European explorers.
2. They made use of rock formations to shelter from the elements.
3. They covered themselves in animal grease.[6]
4. Over time, they had evolved significantly higher metabolisms than average humans, allowing them to generate more internal body heat.[7]
5. Their natural resting position was a deep squatting position, which reduced their surface area and helped to conserve heat.[6]
I'm okay with that minimal technology and adaptation.
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This is an over simplification of things. What you're actually referring to is called "cryotherapy", and it's a brief exposure of the body to very cold temperatures, in a controlled environment. It has nothing to do with the exterior environment the individual evolves in. Also, it seems that most top athletes of the world happen to originate from the warmer climates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athletics_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics)
Does living in colder climates really make you stronger then?
Tyler, it's true that the Yaghan people's moderate adaptation to cold is impressive. They might've been slowly on their way to completely adapting to their environments climates, perhaps in (far) future generations.
However, as the wikipedia article states, these people use not one but several technological (as defined by wiki) methods to resist the cold, such as fires, constructed shelters, and covering their body with animal grease. I mean, their territory isn't called "land of fire" (tierra del fuego) for no reason :P, as the article explains.
Obviously their body's adopted method to resist the cold is extra fat layers, as they look "chubby" compared to other ethnic groups/tribes.
Ps: they always look like they're cold as hell!! :D
to the bolded:
1) athletics is not a proper measurement of the all around fitness of a populations, given that sports tend to be quite specialized. whereas an all terrain game hunter(s) would have to be quite well rounded both mentally and physically and built for long term survival in any given environment (without the aid of "protein powders and physical therapy" for example)
2) you say that "most top atheletes of the world happen to originate from warmer climates" followed by a url to the athletes of the summer olympics. well, no kidding you are going to find alot of atheletes from warmer climates in the summer olympics, if you look at the winter olympics you will notice that the athletes tend to come from colder climates (no duh). that was a rather poor argument; unless you are arguing that summer athletes are "more athletic" than winter athletes, in which case i'd take it you've never done any cross country skiing...
also about the "extra layer of fat", well is it any coincidence that the peoples living in some of the coldest and windiest climates on earth ie the inuit, various siberian peoples, the various turko-mongolian peoples of the central asian steppes, etc tend to have copious amounts of subcutaneous fat, which coupled with their squat stature (another cold adaptation) gives them that jovial "puffy" appearance? that right there is an adaptation to the cold, much like pinnepeds for the matter. all of those argueing on the point that "just because people need to wear clothes, they are not fit for a cold environment", is like argueing that "just because people need to use knives and other tools to hunt prey, they are not fit to be predators" (i'm sure we have all seen this arguement on some vegan boards...but astoundinly the same arguement in premise is being used by some posters here). a large part of our adaptability is due to tool making, we have a very ancient structure to our hands that while useless for movement on are very useful for intricate tasks and grasping. couple that with are general body nature and omnivorous gut (leaning more on the carnivore side i would say, but we can still take advantage of a very large source of food without immediate or obvious consequences), and our group ability to plan and speak and track over rugged terrain and distances, and there you have it
but it is important to remember that even though we may have had to use tools to both hunt game and move to colder climates, we have still adapted to these lifestyles nonetheless, as can be seen in the human hunting skill that was so adept as to have become the dominant hunters in paleolithic times, at some point adopting/teaming up with some wolves hence proto-dogs, etc. despite what any vegan would tell you otherwise, human have hunting instincts. just about every person i have ever met does, with the exception of some rather confused people that have had that instincts "beaten out of them" so to speak. and many people on this planet do have some adaptation to cold, skin color is one (to the point where many light skinned people would not be able to return to tropical climates, without damaging there skin; the skin has to be covered up in such intense sun) and subcutaneous fat is another and the comparison is most obvious when comparing europeans with sub-saharan africans; notice which group naturally has more subcutaneous fat (in healthy individuals, it is always important to compare healthy individuals and understand the difference between healthy fat and unhealthy fat). when it comes to asians yes indeed the northern and central steppe asians tend to have more subcunaeous fat still, however some groups like the vietnamese and hmong, which live in tropical climates do have some of this fat, which can be explained by these groups having more northern origins in the past (for the matter there are some species of seals living in warmer climates, that of course still retain some blubber and hence have origins in colder climates). this not even getting into variations in metabolism. bottom line: people have always moved around a lot. and if any given group of people stays in one climate for long enough, they will adapt, and even if they move to a different climate later on, they will retain those adaptations until otherwise adapted out
this whole argument is becoming rather pointless, especially if its going to be on the notion of "technology usage", when many creatures utilize "technology" in its broadest defintion in one way or another, or at least their intellect to survive ie the bear example of how they utilize snow and borrows to keep warm (which is something mountain troops are taught the world over). i know alot of people here would take offense if some vegans randomly cam over spouting that "humans are not natural hunters because they use tools", so why argue the same thing with human adaption to various climates?
even the notion of a "perfect human habitat" is faulty since a habitat that is ideal for one population, would be unideal or even disastrous for another and visa versa. there is far too much regional adaptation that has gone on throughout humanity; some people would go as far as to say there is not such thing as "one humanity". i am not going to argue on that either way, but the reality of regional adaptation and what it means to this discussion, is something to consider
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tyler:
yaghans used:
some minimal clothing to shelter from the elements
rock formations to shelter from the elements
boats to shelter from the elements
fires to generate heat
animal grease to shelter from the elements
defecation position as resting position to reduce surface area to keep warm
if you think this is evident of our bodies natural ability to survive in that climate, you really are as lost as I thought. on the contrary, incidentally, that is all evidence that our naked bodies, even when adapted over a lifespan to build more brown fat (which generates more heat) and have higher metabolisms, is unable without technological aid to survive in that climate. incidentally, you are completely incorrect, still, after all of these posts.
incidentally, it would be nice to know how you propose they "hunted" or got food in any way since we know they at least had knowledge of using rocks, boats, fire, clothes, and animal grease. are you proposing they "hunted" (or fished, or maneuvered) in this climate without those aids? or are you merely using them as an incorrect example to support your ridiculous position?
it is known that humans can adapt to cold and survive in cold weather, just as many other animals can adapt and survive in climates/habitats other than their natural climate/habitat, that doesn't mean that without help, luck, or severe struggle, that we are genetically adapted to that environment! seriously wake up
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panacea, did you not read colore's post? And if you did, which part of it do you not agree with. For me your continual dismissal of our ability to live healthily in the cold over this notion that they'd have to use something other than their own bodies to stay warm is becoming quite boring, redundant, seems to be a waste of our time to keep up with this thread. Could you please agree to disagree if needed, and move on to another inquiry that may allow us to discover something new.
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your ignorant assumption has made you look like a fool, I never claimed we couldn't live healthily in a cold environment when aided by technology.
the topic's title is natural/optimal habitat, I'm talking about the natural part of that topic title, not "healthy living in a cold environment with technology" as you are, please stay on topic you're filling this thread with irrelevant posts. read more slowly if you're so confused and stop applying your own little viewpoint to my words.
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as to what colorles contributed, it is obvious humans expanded to colder climates with the aid of technology, but this is a relatively recent change, and not the natural habitat for our bodies, the bulk of our body is still adapted to our past before that change, the climate and conditions we lived in before technology/cold climates.
when you compare the differences between caucasian, asian, etc, you can clearly see the differences - but they are not major in terms of environmental adaptation
our adaptation of paler skin for areas away from exposed areas with intense sunlight is not in itself an indication of cold adaptation - it is an indication of sun(vitamin d etc) adaptation in those areas. there are many such areas which are not cold climates, yet still have little sun. even the rainforest is an example, or a typical less-thick forest with tree cover like on many islands and mainlands. To be clear, colorles is completely wrong about Caucasians being unable to live in exposed areas, as our skin can tan quickly and there is always shade some of the time (sleeping). Furthermore, people did not jump on airplanes and hop over to africa from far away back then, you gradually migrated to some other place like to a more exposed area slowly increasing sunlight exposure.
the reason all of this is important is another matter
one that has to do with even more advanced logic than people here are displaying they are capable of
for example, if we adapted to colder environments on the fast track using technology (shortly followed by cooking, farming, etc), then our digestive system has not had a chance to genetically catch up all the way
meaning the best foods are still ones we adapted to pre-technology, as well as countless other logical deductions you can make from the truth rather than speculations on fantasies
to be completely clear, skin color (or color of hair, eyes, etc) is one of the first genetic adaptations to take place to a new environment as it isnt a complex change (white bunnies, brown bunnies, black bunnies), changing a digestive system's workings is a slower adaptation. even so, skin color has nothing to do with cold/hot climate, and everything to do with sun exposure
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2) you say that "most top atheletes of the world happen to originate from warmer climates" followed by a url to the athletes of the summer olympics. well, no kidding you are going to find alot of atheletes from warmer climates in the summer olympics, if you look at the winter olympics you will notice that the athletes tend to come from colder climates (no duh). that was a rather poor argument; unless you are arguing that summer athletes are "more athletic" than winter athletes, in which case i'd take it you've never done any cross country skiing...
Okay, first of all any person from any states of this planet can theoretically take part in the "summer Olympics". Unless you live on a 10 meter diameter island in the middle of the pacific, you probably have the possibility to train for a 100 meter sprint, a 400 meter race, or a marathon, and anything in between.
However, there's something missing in warmer regions that makes it quite difficult for athletes native to these environments to properly train for the "winter Olympics": that's snow, and ice. Shocking, I know. I've never heard of people gone skiing on the Kilimanjaro top either. I guess you already acknowledged that (like you said, duh)
The point is that even though everybody on this planet is capable of training for the "summer Olympics", still a vast majority of Olympic champions originate from the warmer parts of our globe. And I doubt they get higher quality coaching compared to European athletes, for example.
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your ignorant assumption has made you look like a fool, I never claimed we couldn't live healthily in a cold environment when aided by technology.
the topic's title is natural/optimal habitat, I'm talking about the natural part of that topic title, not "healthy living in a cold environment with technology" as you are, please stay on topic you're filling this thread with irrelevant posts. read more slowly if you're so confused and stop applying your own little viewpoint to my words.
I have asked you politely to refrain from using words like 'fool' and to a lesser degree 'ignorant'. I am asking any moderator to strike his post and keep a check on panacea's future posts. And now, you are the one who is mistaken, for if you read an earlier post I stated and pointed out the differences you have accused me of. I am focused on what environment might just be most healthy for one to live TODAY, and that is why I included to strike this wasteful discussion of technology, since it will continually keep us looking at how much hair we have underarms or on our chests and backs.
I am also of the strong opinion that what was done in early times may only had to do with keeping one alive, and not necessarily contributing to a long healthy disease free life,, and the example I have given in the past was gorging on excess protein ( due to not knowing when you're next meal will come along) and similarly gorging on fruit. Thus I give little credence to following some prehistoric bible of how someone lived or what they ate.
You repoint to the word 'Natural' in the title. I say Natural to what time period. None of us here are going to go into the wild anywhere and live there without a knife, tent, mosquito netting, clothing, shoes, and the obvious list of techno gadgets goes on.. But we could go anywhere in the world, just as early man did, and survive. In this time period, today, where might it be optimal for someone to live? And again, that is where I hope the focus of this thread will go.
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Okay, first of all any person from any states of this planet can theoretically take part in the "summer Olympics". Unless you live on a 10 meter diameter island in the middle of the pacific, you probably have the possibility to train for a 100 meter sprint, a 400 meter race, or a marathon, and anything in between.
However, there's something missing in warmer regions that makes it quite difficult for athletes native to these environments to properly train for the "winter Olympics": that's snow, and ice. Shocking, I know. I've never heard of people gone skiing on the Kilimanjaro top either. I guess you already acknowledged that (like you said, duh)
The point is that even though everybody on this planet is capable of training for the "summer Olympics", still a vast majority of Olympic champions originate from the warmer parts of our globe. And I doubt they get higher quality coaching compared to European athletes, for example.
you said close quote that "the best atheletes tend to come from warmer climates" followed by url of summer olympic athletes. i simply pointed out that you using such an arguement, is no different than if i were to say "the best atheletes tend to come from colder climates" followed by url of winter olympic atheletes
its pretty simple: people from warmer climates tend to be better at "summer events", people from colder climates tend to be better at "winter events". why make this into anything more than it has to be? unless of course you are argueing that you could bring a bunch of Jamaicans to Austria and expect them to be as proficient skiers as the latter, or visa versa bring a bunch of Austrians to Jamaica and expect them to be just as proficient sprinters (with "proper training" both ways of course). either way this is a pointless arguement given the whole entire reason tropical peoples do not have access to "snow" and "ice" while more northernly people do, is do to the fact that said northernly people were able to move and adapt to day to day life in these colder climates to begin with; you seem to have taken way too much offense to my post than was intended...and sport is not real life anyways
as to panacea, well i will clarify on what i was saying about skin color: i am well aware it is an adaptation to sunlight, ie lightskin is an adaptation to less intense sunlight regions, while dark skin is an adaptation to intense sunlight regions. the point i was making though is that you cannot simply throw a bunch of light skinned people in a tropical environment and expect them to do well, much less thrive. you vastly overestimate the ability of northern peoples to tan; and no i am not talking about Iberians. you seem to be insistent that any given humans alive today, could do well in a tropical environment; i quite disagree, as some people on this planet cannot even exist in such intense sunlight without covering there skin: why do you think the relatively light skinned peoples of the arabian peninsula or the bedouins of the sahara cover their skin head to toe, even in hot climates? its protection from the sun. protection that darker skinned people need far less of, if any/ oh but i thought people only needed to wear clothing in cold climates, and all people just ran around naked in the hot sun? the whole arguement of humans being "non-adapted" to cold climates on the notion of "having to wear clothes" can be flipped on you considering the various human populations that need to wear clothes to cover and protect there light skin (which was previously as adaptation to less intense sunlight of course, and hence either a different region or a different climate in the past) from the scorching rays of the sun
point being, while the adaptation of light skin is not directly a result of colder temperatures, it tends to go hand in hand with colder temperatures due to intensity of sunlight decreasing the farther north. and although many caucasians/indo-europeans retain the ability to tan to various proficiencies, many of the more northernly ones and populations from very cloudy climates like scotland for instance, cannot. and hence they would struggle immensely in a tropical climate. not to mention things like malaria, which is clearly of more risk to caucasians
either way between you and jeune i feel like i'm being jumped on for no reason. i mean come on, are you really going to claim that i am "completely wrong" about the ability of caucasians to tan? i should know my own ability to tan, and i can tell you i quite despise tropical climates, even sub-tropical climates. i don't like intense sun exposure in general, it depresses me. now do i acknoledge that some indo-european populations can tan quite well (including the fact that some are quite dark skin to begin with)? of course, never said i didn't. in fact i never even intended to discuss this, you just insisted on making assumptions about by knowledge of indo-europeans. again: i simply said in that some caucasians could not survive well in tropical environments. i never said that "all indo-europeans cannot tan". you are putting words into my mouth
bottom line though: the prevailing notion in this thread between panacea and jeune, is that even the most cold adapted and/or least intense sunlight adapted people, could still survive quite well in tropical climates. i quite contest this, there are quite a few human populations that would struggle on a day to day basis in "hot" climates, just as there are quite a few human populations that would struggle on a day to day basis in "cold" climates. this has nothing to do with me supposedly saying "all indo-europeans cannot tan"...
either way i'm just taking what you guys give me, lets not put words into each others mouths
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I think it is a matter of what people's definition of "natural" and "optimal" is. And what is considered as "technology" to be considered "foul". And at what "era" and which humans or which human ancestors.
I think this is a good discussion that just needs to not use derogatory expletives.
There is also the question of racial origins.
I think human races were engineered... a good number of you hate that.
And some think of aquatic ape.
And some think of a multi region hypothesis.
And then there is this latest thing I just stumbled on where the theorist thinks white people are an albino mutation. And when there were enough albino mutations of the whites they were sent off or trekked off to the colder climates and reproduced.
Albinos--The Origin of the Caucasian Race?
http://stewartsynopsis.com/chapter_7.htm (http://stewartsynopsis.com/chapter_7.htm)
The falsity of White history begins and ends with their desire to hide their true nature; that being that they are derived from Albinos.
http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/White_people.htm (http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/White_people.htm)
This is important to discuss as to what is OPTIMAL.
I do not think we have talked about this angle of White people coming from Albinos of other races.
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the "albino origin theory" is a rather afro-centrist one, proposing a bunch of albino-africans as the "origins of the white race". these people completely ignore the indo-europeans line, and the notion that bone structure and other built in features, not skin color, is the supreme marker of race
as to:
-human engineering
-aquatic ape
-multiregional
they all make points in their own way, all three could very well be a part of human history in one way or another. same thing with how evolution does not discount creationism, and visa versa. it is what it is any way
one thing i'm quite sure of though, is that humanity has been around longer than is "officially" acknowledged, and that advanced civilizations have risen and fallen over and over again. more advanced than is being "officially" let on. there are secrets being kept (for better or for worse), and many more things still unknown maybe forever unknown. and this just in the history of our own species on our own planet, let alone in the rest of this vast cosmos. so many things we will never know, what is going on on the other side of the universe as we speak and all in between, in aspects of existence we do not even understand (oh but of course, any random scientific theory is always "the absolute truth" amirite? until some other "absolute truth" comes along and supplants it). believe me on not a "crack pot", nor am i some drum beating hippy...there is simply so much more out there/ and while i do have a certain degree of curiosity like most other creatures, if anything this feeling makes me more content, more at ease with existence. just take things as they go, its not the "end of the world" either way so to speak
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The albino theory is easily disproven. One only has to look at photos of albinos of non-Caucasians to realise that ethnic differences occur not just in the skin but everywhere else in the body.
Re Neanderthals:- There is already plenty of evidence to show that Neanderthals were adapted to the cold, on a genetic level:-
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12203812 (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12203812)
Neanderthals seem to have appeared c.400,000 years ago, so that was well before the advent of fire which was at least 100,000 to 150,000 years later.*sorry, that was fire used for cooking. At any rate, the ancestors of the neanderthals , would not have had access to fire at all.
I see panacea still hasn't been able to admit he was wrong re the Yaghan reference. For one thing, they are mentioned as having "little or no clothing", in other words, some of them must have gone around without clothing of any sort. Also, they were not always surrounded by fires, for obvious reasons, since they had to hunt etc. At any rate, I did point out how the Yaghans had indeed genetically adapted to the cold somewhat in that they had faster metabolic rates and higher body temperatures.
Incidentally, panacea does not seem to grasp the difference between using natural methods to resist the cold such as using rock formations to shelter in, and the use of non-natural technological methods like fire. Wild animals frequently use natural methods to resist either excess heat or excess cold in their environment. For example, sea otters are known to raise their paws out of the water when resting, in order to keep warm.
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Colorles, could you explain your views in shorter wording? If everyone were writing such lengthy blocks of text like you do, we would spend all of our time in reading this thread.
Say a maximum with a minimum number of words… rather then a minimum with a maximum number of word, please. Otherwise, most won’t bother to read and care about what you wrote.
By the way, I stumbled upon this part in your tirades, which couldn’t be more wrong. You confuse science with religion!! (I didn’t take the time to read the rest, sorry.)
(oh but of course, any random scientific theory is always "the absolute truth" amirite? until some other "absolute truth" comes along and supplants it).
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About Yaghans, being somewhat adapted to cold climates (as everyone is somewhat) does not equal being adapted to cold climates. This is basic logic, even the youngest kindergartner can understand that. I'm somewhat adapted to cold, and somewhat adapted to heat, yet I cannot live in the desert heat without technology, or the arctic wtihout technology, and therefore can't evolve naturally in the desert or arctic without technology. The yaghans can't evolve naturally in their cold climate without technological aid, there is no evidence to say they can, none, no matter how much you want to believe it's possible, they just didn't. Of course, with the aid of technology, humans are able to survive harsh climates and adapt to them, that is not the same as being completely independent of technology to live in those climates as you would be if your body was completely adapted to that climate. These are obvious deductions, why aren't you getting it Tyler?
The complete disregard for logic on Tyler Durdens part makes it impossible to debate anything with him and get anywhere. He is citing abstracts from http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/) which are nothing more than propositions of an anthropologist, not based on proof or evidence, but guessing or speculating as he is doing.
Furthermore, neanderthals are not modern day humans, they are different, we are talking about modern day humans. Regardless, neanderthals died out because of a cold period, and they had one of the shortest existences of any large primate in terms of years of survival. Hardly a case story for "successful adaptation".
Tyler, your inability to reason is causing you to continually spew nonsense. You need to read quietly on your own, rather than keep posting incorrect information. It is well known that humans can adapt, no one is debating this, feral human children behave like dogs, baby squirrels adopted by cat mothers learn to purr, all animals can adapt. Many people generate more brown fat, muscle, and fat to stay warm in colder areas of the globe, and while this makes it more comfortable/tolerable to live in colder climates, it doesn't allow them to do so without technology, as the first humans to migrate to colder climates had technological understanding to help them - there is no evidence otherwise. Meanwhile, this topic is about modern day humans, not neanderthals, and our natural habitat, not the one the Yaghans have been slowly adapting to but not reached adaptation to yet without technological aid over the past 10,000 years. Use common sense. Re-read it over and over again if you have to.
Furthermore, the early Yaghan people were driven to their inhospitable area due to enemies, yet, they survived, despite great uncomfort. That is not the same as being optimally adapted as a chimpanzee is to a rainforest. A chimpanzee is quite comfortable in its natural habitat - Yaghans aren't, surely you know what adaptation means? Surely you know that a thread talking about a natural/optimal habitat isn't asking under what most severe conditions can a human survive with great discomfort/struggle? Surely you have the ability to grasp that much? You wouldn't have brought up the Yaghans and Neanderthals in the first place unless you were talking about natural/optimal habitats for humans right?
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.... These are obvious deductions, why aren't you getting it Tyler?
Is that what this is about, panacea? You need Tyler to agree with you, or else you are going to repeat yourself and call him names until he comes around to your point of view?
As many of us have seen, you are a top-notch Philadelphia lawyer, but this is not a courtroom and the topic at hand is not a point of law. I fail to see the practicality of your intense need to have someone agree with you.
You've made your point. Others have made theirs. The world is full of dichotomy.
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you said close quote that "the best atheletes tend to come from warmer climates" followed by url of summer olympic athletes. i simply pointed out that you using such an arguement, is no different than if i were to say "the best atheletes tend to come from colder climates" followed by url of winter olympic atheletes
its pretty simple: people from warmer climates tend to be better at "summer events", people from colder climates tend to be better at "winter events". why make this into anything more than it has to be? unless of course you are argueing that you could bring a bunch of Jamaicans to Austria and expect them to be as proficient skiers as the latter, or visa versa bring a bunch of Austrians to Jamaica and expect them to be just as proficient sprinters (with "proper training" both ways of course).
(...) you seem to have taken way too much offense to my post than was intended...and sport is not real life anyways
Colorles, it wasn't my intention at all to sound hostile against you. Now that I've reread the stuff I wrote to you, I can understand why you would think I was being cynically aggressive or something. It wasn't that, believe me. That's the risk taken with forum chatting: not being able to actually observe the body language and emotions of the person on the other side of the screen, therefor stuff written sometime happens to get subject to misinterpretation.
Aside from that I feel you still don't get the point I was making about olympic athletes. But since it's kind of out-of-subject, I would rather PM you about it.
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@eveheart
your post itself is a contradiction to the point you're trying to make
tylerdurden has replied just as many times as I have to the discussion (with much more repetitive "neanderthal and yaghan" themes which don't relate to the vast majority of humanity) we are debating
furthermore you are off topic, you can PM me with these personal issues you have instead of derail an ontopic debate
(posting this here so that everyone can learn from your mistake, otherwise I'd pm you)
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Colorles, could you explain your views in shorter wording? If everyone were writing such lengthy blocks of text like you do, we would spend all of our time in reading this thread.
Say a maximum with a minimum number of words… rather then a minimum with a maximum number of word, please. Otherwise, most won’t bother to read and care about what you wrote.
By the way, I stumbled upon this part in your tirades, which couldn’t be more wrong. You confuse science with religion!! (I didn’t take the time to read the rest, sorry.)
my posts are not that long. certainly not "tirades"
science is like religion in many ways. how many times over the centuries has something been "universally accepted as truth", only to be proven wrong later on? a simple example would be the earth formally being presumed to be center of the universe, the earth being flat, etc, really just as simple as that let alone getting into physics and such. it was a simple point i was making, nothing to really get into a considerable discussion over
but back to the discussion at hand, i brought up the malvinas/falkland islands for discussion, as a potential example of "ideal human climate" ie maritime, low fluctuating range of temperatures (not too hot not too cold), with access to both fresh water rivers and the ocean. i mean with everyone argueing the merits of cold climate adaptation vs warm climate adaptation, wouldn't somewhere in the middle all things considered seem more ideal, to everyone?
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Were the first humans black?
From the various human origins hypotheses can we safely assume humans started out black?
The other colors just came out later on?
I think this is important.
Are we talking about the original black humans?
Or are we talking about the neanderthal + original black humans which are whites and asians?
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The original ancestor of both chimpanzees and modern humans is said to have had pale(ie white) skin. Chimps also have pale skin underneath the fur. So, white skin appeared long before any dark skin appeared in some hominid groups.
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But Tyler, humans have no fur. So which humans are we talking about?
And we shouldn't be inserting chimps in this discussion.
They are not humans.
And they are not our ancestors.
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It is irrelevant as to whether humans have no fur, their ancestors certainly had white(pale) skin:-
http://www.skinwhiteningscience.com/skin_types_evolution_of_skin_colour.html (http://www.skinwhiteningscience.com/skin_types_evolution_of_skin_colour.html)
There is a claim that hominids in Africa started developing darker skin colour after losing all their fur, but what about all those apemen/hominids which left Africa millions of years ago? Obviously, their skin did not darken if they left for colder climes.
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OK, so I will address pamacea's ramblings:-
1) The original argument we had ages ago had you contending that we could never adapt to the cold without needing to develop fur after generations of further breeding. Obviously, I have easily managed to debunk this "notion" as I have shown via the Yaghans, that one can indeed adapt to the cold more without ever needing fur, just requiring a higher metabolic rate and a higher body temperature.
Then, panacea, you use a lot of equivocation to get round the fact that I have already won the argument. Incidentally, most wildlife are not perfectly adapted to their environment either. Just like the Yaghans use rock formations to sometimes shelter in, so do sea otters raise their paws out of the water in order to keep warm, and so do bears need to hibernate each winter in a warm burrow, leopard lizards have to avoid the heat of the midday sun while living in the desert etc.. If not even most wildlife are ever 100% adapted to their environment, just like the examples I gave, then one cannot expect humans to be at 100% perfect adaptation either in order to claim they are fully adapted. In other words, Neanderthals likely could not arbitrarily survive on the open glaciers during a month-long blizzard without a shelter, say, but they were still able to adapt to the cold far better than modern humans(simply because of many generations of genetic adaptation).
Re Neanderthals:- Get your facts straight for once. No, the Neanderthals actually died out during a warm, mild climate:-
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202323.html (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/12/AR2007091202323.html)
leading people to suggest that humans were the cause of Neanderthal extinction.
The scientific study you pathetically try to debunk gives a perfectly good explanation for the greater Neanderthal resistance to the cold. Incidentally, it has been scientifically proven that Neanderthals were virtually identical to humans genetically, only differing by 0.12% difference:-
http://www.delhidailynews.com/news/Neanderthals---humans-genomes-only-0-12-percent-different-1398169437/ (http://www.delhidailynews.com/news/Neanderthals---humans-genomes-only-0-12-percent-different-1398169437/)
Then you claim, as usual wrongly, that the Neanderthals had a much shorter average lifespan than early palaeo humans: Easily debunked :-
http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/01/11/3110388.htm (http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/01/11/3110388.htm)
The current notion is that humans simply outbred them while mixing with them. This makes sense. I mean, a cold-adapted hominid like the Neanderthals would likely have had far fewer children due to the harsh environment they lived in. Plus, if Neanderthals were more intelligent than modern humans(as seems likely), well it is a known fact in this day and age that the less intelligent generally have more children than the more intelligent.
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Or are we talking about the neanderthal + original black humans which are whites and asians?
This does not make sense. I mean since Neanderthals were white(ie had red hair and white skin), any interbreeding between Neanderthals and any black-skinned humans would presumably have resulted in what are called "mulattoes"(ie people who are roughly half white half black). Obviously, Europeans, Orientals and South Asians cannot be described as being half-black, half white by appearance, by any means.
That is, unless one believes in the multiregional hypothesis whereby hominids are supposed to have left Africa c.800,000 to c.2,000,000 years ago and subsequently evolved to become other ethnic groups. Still does not necessarily mean that those groups that left Africa had to have had darker skin.
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From the complicated discussion of so many many things we know now and still yet to discover, it is no wonder that Aajonus Vonderplanitz the healer concentrated his efforts on what works TODAY.
We all know more than we did a few years ago, but knowing more only shows we know so little still and have yet to learn many things.
I've enjoyed the debates in this topic which have brought to light many things I didn't know. Thanks to you guys and gals debating on this.
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Without having read every post:
the whole arguement of humans being "non-adapted" to cold climates on the notion of "having to wear clothes" can be flipped on you considering the various human populations that need to wear clothes to cover and protect there light skin (which was previously as adaptation to less intense sunlight of course, and hence either a different region or a different climate in the past) from the scorching rays of the sun
In any case, you need much less cloth (or animal hides) to protect yourself even from the tropic sun than you need to protect yourself from arctic cold. Moreover, if there are forests, you are protected from the sun in a perfectly natural way, without having to resort to technology (however defined). A simpel shelter will protect you from the sun, but not sufficiently from the cold. So to me it seems clear to which environment we are better adapted so far, even if we have a fair skin.
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seems to make complete sense. And, or, But, that 's only one small part of the equation. As the title suggest,, "optimal". I live in northern Ca. on the coast. Rarely does it freeze, and even more rarely does it get over 80F.. I tend to think it doesn't tax or stress my body enough. Kind of like a retired person moving to florida and living inside their air conditioned apartment, and only walking outside after the sun goes down and it's cooled off, or early morning.
check out on Utube these 80 year olds who swim in frozen waters. My gut tells me those people are a heck of lot better off from having done so.
So yes, without any clothing, and little hair, from that perspective I too would choose a temperate environment. But tribes for a very long time have had clothing and more hair. Just a fact. So I think the real question, given the obvious that people's will find something to wrap around their bodies when it's cold,, which environment is most conducive for health?
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Tayler:
Neanderthals are suggested to have had fur. The only evidence to the contrary is the yaghans which used technology to survive their climate from the start (not having natural evolution free of technology), the neanderthals which used technology were not found to always have used it and evolved fur before their technological advances and have been found to share the fur-grasping traits of their hands with chimpanzees. Neanderthals differing by .12% is still a lot different from a modern human when you realize the difference between humans and some other apes alive today is also less than 1%. I agree that an animal has niche adaptations and isn't immune to all conditions of an environment all of the time, but the naked modern human body has never been found to be adapted to cold even marginally as well as it's adapted to other climates, even the yaghans would fare better elsewhere. The yaghans haven't had hundreds of thousands of years to develop fur, and have made use of what they can over such short time periods, yet still weren't energetically efficient or thriving or "adapted" in their forced environment. Body fat is a good insulator, especially in water as you can see in marine life, but it is an expensive insulator - it costs a lot more energy to maintain body fat (especially brown fat which generates heat) than it does to maintain body fur. This is why the yaghans depended on technology to sustain that high energy demand. And obviously, yaghans don't represent the majority of modern humans and are useless for figuring out what the natural habitat is/was for the rest of us.
I never claimed neanderthals had a shorter lifespan. I never implied it or discussed anything about lifespan of neanderthals.
About the "study" you posted, the abstract is some scientists suggesting, proposing, and guessing at adaptations of neanderthals, there isn't a shred of evidence in the abstract, and you have not read the actual full source and nor can we.
The link you posted about neanderthals dying out in a warm period is outdated information. You need to look at the dates. Carbon dating has become more accurate since then, and it's known neanderthals went extinct ten thousand years before that article estimates. I would hardly trust something talking about a warm period extinction for neanderthals when the extinction of the neanderthals themselves was off by at least 10,000 years in that article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction)
In summary, modern humans are not well-adapted to cold. Even when better adapted, as yaghans are and pretty much no other peoples, the bodies of those humans are still more suited/fare better in warmer climates, whereas true cold-climate adapted animals don't fare better in warmer climates.
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Tayler:
Neanderthals are suggested to have had fur.
This is, as usual, utter nonsense, and I'm surprised that you compare Neanderthals to chimps when such link-comparisons have already been fully discredited years ago. In fact, Neanderthals, according to current scientific thought, are not thought to have had fur at all, with hominids having lost their fur c. 1.2 million years ago, well before Neanderthals arose:-
http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/15/science-seat-you-could-have-been-a-furry-beast/ (http://lightyears.blogs.cnn.com/2013/03/15/science-seat-you-could-have-been-a-furry-beast/)
I never claimed neanderthals had a shorter lifespan. I never implied it or discussed anything about lifespan of neanderthals.
You had previously, quite wrongly, stated:- "Regardless, neanderthals died out because of a cold period, and they had one of the shortest existences of any large primate in terms of years of survival. Hardly a case story for "successful adaptation"." In that text, you make it rather clear that you thought that Neanderthals had shorter lifespans(re "shorter existences").
Your insinuations re the Yaghans are also nonsense. The only "technology" they used was fire and, for obvious reasons, they could not near fire all the time as they had to hunt etc. So, in other words, they had indeed adapted to their cold environment for survival purposes as a result of their increased metabolism etc., they simply used fire and other methods in order to feel more comfortable, that's all. In the same way, foxes can survive outside, and do so mostly, but they prefer warm burrows when, say, bad weather arrives.
There are plenty of other studies showing that Neanderthals were adapted to the cold. This article details some studies showing that the limbs of Neanderthals showed cold adaptation , there is even a study indicating that Neanderthals had a higher longevity than Cro-Magnon-era humans:-
http://www.icr.org/article/neanderthals-are-still-human/ (http://www.icr.org/article/neanderthals-are-still-human/)
The link you posted about neanderthals dying out in a warm period is outdated information. You need to look at the dates. Carbon dating has become more accurate since then, and it's known neanderthals went extinct ten thousand years before that article estimates. I would hardly trust something talking about a warm period extinction for neanderthals when the extinction of the neanderthals themselves was off by at least 10,000 years in that article. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction)
The recent claim re those Spanish-based Neanderthal remains being much older is considered highly dubious, however, by scientific researchers, with the new carbon-dating methods considered doubtful methods, at best:-
"But Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, who was not involved with the latest study, said: "Radiocarbon methodology on bone will not resolve the question of the last Neanderthals.
"What they have done is look at two sites in Iberia where - using my own models - I would never have predicted a late Neanderthal extinction. One is up in the high Meseta of central Spain, at 1,000m or more, with a very harsh climate and the other is in the mountains of Granada - again in a very harsh environment.
"These climates are so cold and dry, that is where the collagen in the bone has preserved and they have been able to get dates... What I think the method is giving us is a skew, a bias, towards older dates by the very nature of the preservation." taken from:-
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-21330194 (http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-21330194)
So, it is still likely that Neanderthals died out in a warm climate. Whatever the case, obviously, even if Neanderthals had died out during a period of cold, the very fact that they had already survived for hundreds of thousands of years in cold environments during the Ice Age means that it is extraordinarily unlikely that they died out due to the cold temperatures in the very Late Palaeolithic.In summary, modern humans are not well-adapted to cold. Even when better adapted, as yaghans are and pretty much no other peoples, the bodies of those humans are still more suited/fare better in warmer climates, whereas true cold-climate adapted animals don't fare better in warmer climates.
This is a nonsense conclusion. I have already debunked your absurd notion that the Yaghans were not well-adapted, as I had pointed out that the various methods they used (ie fire, huddling in rock formations etc.) could not possibly have been used all the time since they had to hunt and forage etc., meaning that such methods were not needed for actual survival per se, but just for added comfort. The only thing you got nearly right was the last part "whereas true cold-climate adapted animals don't fare better in warmer climates". So, in the case of the Yaghans, for example, their higher metabolic rate and higher body temperatures would have meant they would have become increasingly uncomfortable as they entered into hotter and hotter climates.
I can actually be an example of the above. I used to have appalling health problems, and one side-effect in those past days was that I could not stand temperatures above 10 degrees Celsius without sweating heavily, and would happily go around in a very flimsy T-shirt in cold, snow-covered terrain(full blown nudity being somewhat frowned on by the law!). Even once my health problems got sorted out, I still, though to a lesser extent, stayed more adapted to colder than hotter environments. I checked my glands and the doctors all state they function fine, so I suspect I am simply more of an evolutionary throwback to my Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal ancestors, in this one regard.
Whatever the case, fur is not needed as an adaptation if one has a higher metabolism, higher body temperature, shorter limbs adapted to the cold etc. etc. Another clincher is the fact that chimps and many other animals dwelling in hot climates have fur; yet, by your strange logic, they should have lost it all by now.
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Tyler your post is full of logical fallacies again,
Neanderthals most likely had fur, it's not nonsense. I didn't compare Neanderthals to chimps, you compared Humans to Neanderthals, I reminded you that slight DNA differences mean dramatic physiological changes (less than 1% goes from human to chimp).
I never said or implied Neanderthals had short or long lifespans, I was talking about their survival (extinction). They went extinct relatively rapidly, from when they came into existence. They didn't last long as a species when compared to other species alive today that have been around much longer than they ever were.
When I stated Neanderthals went extinct because of cold periods, I was using the latest scientific knowledge to support it, it isn't wrong. Your less-likely opinion is based on outdated information, there's no other way to look at it.
The Yaghans didn't just use fire, they used boats and animal grease also, they also were reported by early Europeans to have used "many fires." You keep insinuating they didn't as if you knew, when the only people who know are the people who actually saw and wrote about it, you're not one of those people. The records indicate "many fires", don't downplay something because it goes against what you want to believe.
It isn't likely that Neanderthals died out in a warm climate, as the most recent scientific data suggests. While no data is perfect from "what ifs", we can only go on the data we have. Everything else is absolutely meaningless speculation. If you don't agree, then don't use Neanderthals which we don't have enough data about yet in your opinion to support your flakey claims.
Fur is simply the most energy efficient method to maintain body heat on land for mammals of any significant size, which is why most land-based animals have fur no matter the climate. Subcutaneous body fat, being more expensive even though a great insulator particularly in water, is typically hoarded by aquatic or semiaquatic animal life, since they tend to have more food available to them. You can see this in many land animals that wade in water like the hippo.
In conclusion, your seemingly infinite incorrect assumptions about what I'm saying as well as your logical flaws appear to make it impossible for you to realize the common sense right under your nose. Modern humans natural/optimal habitat is not arctic or subarctic climates or anything close to it, even if we can somewhat adapt to live in those climates (with some technology) in less than 10,000 years like the Yaghans did, our population would dwindle from billions to thousands since there isn't that many cold climate areas with as much easy to find food as the Yaghans had, and their survival depended on their unique circumstances, isolated to a tiny area still with the help of boats, animal grease, fire, and language technology (practical knowledge).
There is no reason for our body to evolve subcutaneous body fat instead of fur to conserve body heat, unless we were partly aquatic. There is no land animal that has subcutaneous body fat that doesn't or didn't have a recent habitat in water or partly in water.
There is no reason for our body to evolve conscious control of our breathing (and therefore ability to speak) unless we were partly aquatic. While there are advantages to this, one person doesn't just evolve conscious breath control on land and have a great advantage (still not speaking) and then carry this genetic change over to the rest of the species. Conscious breath control doesn't directly evolve for purposes of communication, it evolves for water-survival.
Higher metabolisms and higher brown body fat equates to much higher energy needs. Much higher energy needs equates to depending on much higher food supply in any given area. Colder climates, unless accompanied by water-sources, are the world over much less rich in food supplies than warmer climates. It doesn't make any evolutionary sense to evolve higher nutritional demands, while relocating to a less abundant food supply area, unless, like the Yaghans, you are forced out of your natural habitat by enemies or some other force and forced to adapt over thousands of years (which still hasn't been shown that humans even back then could survive without technological aid, despite Tyler's fantasies about it), like modern humans today haven't been and therefore aren't adapted to such climates.
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Albinos--The Origin of the Caucasian Race?
http://stewartsynopsis.com/chapter_7.htm (http://stewartsynopsis.com/chapter_7.htm)
The falsity of White history begins and ends with their desire to hide their true nature; that being that they are derived from Albinos.
[/quote] My god...I can't believe someone as intelligent as you would believe such a retarded theory. This theory has its origins in racism and xenophobia. Do some research on black albinos in Africa and you will see that these poor people are treated like witches - unfortunately the human race hasn't evolved very much.
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Tyler your post is full of logical fallacies again,
Neanderthals most likely had fur, it's not nonsense. I didn't compare Neanderthals to chimps, you compared Humans to Neanderthals, I reminded you that slight DNA differences mean dramatic physiological changes (less than 1% goes from human to chimp).
I have already shown that current scientific thought is that Neanderthals did NOT have fur, and that loss of fur is estimated to have occurred c. 1.2 million years ago - all explained in the link I showed previously. As before, you got things wrong re your claim that chimps and humans have less than 1% genetic difference. In fact, the genetic differences between chimps and humans are much larger:-
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html (http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/08/0831_050831_chimp_genes.html)
https://answersingenesis.org/genetics/dna-similarities/what-about-the-similarity-between-human-and-chimp-dna/ (https://answersingenesis.org/genetics/dna-similarities/what-about-the-similarity-between-human-and-chimp-dna/)
I never said or implied Neanderthals had short or long lifespans, I was talking about their survival (extinction). They went extinct relatively rapidly, from when they came into existence. They didn't last long as a species when compared to other species alive today that have been around much longer than they ever were.
Well, you certainly were unclear re this. Of course, the claim re Neanderthals not lasting that long compared to other species, that is a particularly foolish and meaningless remark. After all, Neanderthal DNA still exists in modern humans to some extent(up to 20% of the Neanderthal genome so far has been detected in modern non-African humans as a whole). Also, as should be obvious, species can arbitrarily die out for all sorts of reasons such as plagues while still being perfectly capable of surviving in their environment. Besides, most anthropologists now think that so-called Neanderthal extinction did NOT happen due to any climate-change but that it was solely due to Neanderthals interbreeding with early humans - since the latter population was much larger they simply outbred the Neanderthals.
When I stated Neanderthals went extinct because of cold periods, I was using the latest scientific knowledge to support it, it isn't wrong. Your less-likely opinion is based on outdated information, there's no other way to look at it.
No, obviously you did not bother to read the info I provided, as the info was clearly based on current information. Indeed, the so-called "latest scientific knowledge" you had cited was shown to be seriously flawed in its mistaken assumptions and badly-chosen "evidence".
The Yaghans didn't just use fire, they used boats and animal grease also, they also were reported by early Europeans to have used "many fires." You keep insinuating they didn't as if you knew, when the only people who know are the people who actually saw and wrote about it, you're not one of those people. The records indicate "many fires", don't downplay something because it goes against what you want to believe.
I did not dispute that they used many fires, I merely pointed out that they did not have access to rock-formations or grease or fire all the time when hunting or foraging or whatever, which means that they were sufficiently cold-adapted re survival to cope without them. Sure, they would have used fires etc, for additional comfort but that's all. At any rate, the Yaghans and the Neanderthals, the Inuit, some animals etc. are sufficient as examples to prove that there are plenty of other ways to adapt to the cold, such as shorter limbs, increased body temperature, higher metabolism etc., hibernation(re certain frogs) without ever needing to grow fur.
Fur is simply the most energy efficient method to maintain body heat on land for mammals of any significant size, which is why most land-based animals have fur no matter the climate. Subcutaneous body fat, being more expensive even though a great insulator particularly in water, is typically hoarded by aquatic or semiaquatic animal life, since they tend to have more food available to them. You can see this in many land animals that wade in water like the hippo.
The aquatic ape theory is largely discredited, incidentally:-
http://www.aquaticape.org (http://www.aquaticape.org)
If having fur was so useful then why did humans lose it?
The rest of Panacea's comments I can disregard since the aquatic ape theory has been so extensively debunked by many scientists and there are plenty of online sites with evidence debunking it. I would just like to add that the fauna of the Ice Age was likely far greater in terms of biomass, even in cold climates, compared to modern times. I mean, mammoths were hunted in Siberia, clearly providing a lot of meat/energy for primitive humanoids.
Also, there is some obvious misunderstanding here. I see humans/hominids as being highly versatile re adapting to extreme conditions, but with some types being better suited to one type of climate, and other types being better suited to another climate due to ethnicity or some other factor etc. It is you who seems to think that there was one natural climate(warm aquatic environment?) for all humans.
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Percentages whether 1%-4% (it's disputed, your article is one among a sea of them, some with more recent dates / better equipment / better methods) that state anywhere from 1-6% genetic difference depending on what you compare etc. As well, the genetic difference between humans/neanderthals isn't absolutely known. The point I was trying to make still stands - small genetic differences can mean dramatic physiological differences, we weren't the same species as Neanderthals, and having 1-4% of neanderthals still in us (as an article suggests it, even though you can always find one that says 10-20% to support your side of the argument) doesn't mean we are Neanderthals.
Neanderthals did have fur according to current scientific thought, your article is one among a sea of them. Again, we have two different viewpoints both backed by science, so it's useless to use these unreachable Neanderthals to support either side of the argument. All we can really use is logic. Not posting links to "consequently discredited theories" as they aren't discredited, that's just what your logical filter interpreted. I can't fix that problem you have, of not having good logical filters to interpret information. If you actually want to contribute something, then show a single reason we would evolve subcutaneous fat while not being semiaquatic animals. In case you're confused, subcutaneous fat doesn't just mean "lots of fat", it means our fat is under our skin directly, like a dolphins, rather than around our organs, like true land based animals.
Furthermore, I was not unclear about Neanderthals extinction vs. lifespan, your ignorant assumption did all of the muddying of the water for you.
I could cite book after book for you to read and it will get nowhere, your defense is looking up articles to support your view on google knowing no one has the time to read all your useless information. This is a common stance used by religious zealouts for example, quoting "just read the bible/quran/etc and you'll understand my point of view".
Again, your assumption is that Yaghans used fires for "extra comfort and that's all". You don't know this, you weren't there, yet you give facts as if you were, this is the foundation of all your problems leading to a view of reality which is based on imagined ideas assumed to be facts without ever having given a logical deduction to the idea.
Your logical fallacy in your question "if having fur was so useful why did humans lose it?" is a simple one - you are assuming that we traded fur for fat (or fur for nothing) in order to adapt to a cold environment, when this is backwards, and makes no sense obviously, and is supported by the majority of land animal life out there, you don't even need an article to know that. The logic is sound that fur is cheaper energy-wise (and therefore food-wise) than fat to keep warm. There is no reason to use fat instead, unless you are partly aquatic, since fur isn't a good insulator for vital organs in water.
There's no misunderstanding, there are of course some humans Yaghan derivatives, which are better adapted to cold climates, but there are no humans which are better adapted to cold climates than warm climates (speaking of temperatures only, not sunlight exposure), giving the obvious and unwavering fact that humans in general are better adapted to warm climates(our natural climate is therefore a warm one, even for Yaghans, even though they have been living in a cold one for 10,000 years, which to some puny minded individuals seems like a long time, but it isnt on an evolutionary scale), what the ideal warm climate is remains to be deduced.
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By the way, it's quite funny you think we aren't semi-aquatic when the majority of humans the world over frequently (usually daily sometimes multiple times in a single day) bathe in water (showers, baths, rubbing down with wet cloths/hoses, or going oldschool with rivers/beaches/ponds/lakes), when we all know pets which are kept indoors and fed just as much processed food as we are, don't need or desire baths every single day unless they get really dirty from mud etc.
Is anyone else here not semi-aquatic and able to live nakedly without fires unless you want extra comfort in the subarctic climates without bathing except when it rains like a true terrestrial animal?
How about anyone here who could really rough it up and go all natural and live on a mild climate island with a beach you can bathe in every day, tropical fruit hanging from trees, not to mention the shade the trees provide, full of mussels, crabs, insect life etc you can feast on, without any fires (as what would be the point?) I mean, I've never heard of people getting stranded on tropical islands and surviving without fire, it's just not our natural habitat! But getting stranded in a subarctic climate with no fire that's a guaranteed survival right there.
In any case, you must not be very popular with the ladies when they come over and you tell them "by the way, I don't have a working shower, as I'm a land animal, not semi-aquatic. I don't need to bathe in water, I bathe in body odor."
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By the way, it's quite funny you think we aren't semi-aquatic when the majority of humans the world over frequently (usually daily sometimes multiple times in a single day) bathe in water (showers, baths, rubbing down with wet cloths/hoses, or going oldschool with rivers/beaches/ponds/lakes), when we all know pets which are kept indoors and fed just as much processed food as we are, don't need or desire baths every single day unless they get really dirty from mud etc.
Is anyone else here not semi-aquatic and able to live nakedly without fires unless you want extra comfort in the subarctic climates without bathing except when it rains like a true terrestrial animal?
How about anyone here who could really rough it up and go all natural and live on a mild climate island with a beach you can bathe in every day, tropical fruit hanging from trees, not to mention the shade the trees provide, full of mussels, crabs, insect life etc you can feast on, without any fires (as what would be the point?) I mean, I've never heard of people getting stranded on tropical islands and surviving without fire, it's just not our natural habitat! But getting stranded in a subarctic climate with no fire that's a guaranteed survival right there.
In any case, you must not be very popular with the ladies when they come over and you tell them "by the way, I don't have a working shower, as I'm a land animal, not semi-aquatic. I don't need to bathe in water, I bathe in body odor."
Filipinos are semi aquatic. We shower 1 or 2 times a day. And we shower before sex and after sex. Sex in the shower is good too.
Some of the foreign employers comment about this Filipino penchant to consume too much water.
YES! Semi aquatic! Good call.
On the flipside, we Filipinos comment about foreigners who do not shower daily, just use perfume to cover up their stink, or don't change their underwear daily.
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Percentages whether 1%-4% (it's disputed, your article is one among a sea of them, some with more recent dates / better equipment / better methods) that state anywhere from 1-6% genetic difference depending on what you compare etc. As well, the genetic difference between humans/neanderthals isn't absolutely known. The point I was trying to make still stands - small genetic differences can mean dramatic physiological differences, we weren't the same species as Neanderthals, and having 1-4% of neanderthals still in us (as an article suggests it, even though you can always find one that says 10-20% to support your side of the argument) doesn't mean we are Neanderthals.
This is really getting nowhere. I mean, I keep on debunking your nonsensical claims, yet you still desperately try to equivocate and circumvent my points without putting forward any valid points of your own.
Take the 1st claim quoted above:- I pointed out that we already have 20% of the Neanderthal genome within us. The point being that if Neanderthals could interbreed with us then the differences between Neanderthals and humans must be negligible or they would not have been able to interbreed - plus the ability to interbreed means that Neanderthals are not much different from modern humans in terms of genetic distance than the various current human ethnic groups are from each other. I have also shown that recent, more scientifically advanced studies concerning supposed "junk DNA" among other things have shown that the genetic difference between humans and chimpanzees is much larger than the absurd, outdated <1% figure you gave, namely a 4 to 6 % difference. Which is pretty large compared to the pathetic 0.12% difference between Neanderthals and humans.
At any rate, my point still stands:- current scientific research makes it clear Neanderthals did not grow any fur and had other methods re cold-adaptation such as shorter limbs etc. etc.
Neanderthals did have fur according to current scientific thought, your article is one among a sea of them.
The trouble is that current scientific thought is that Neanderthals did not have fur, your notions are hopessly outdated. It is true that, decades ago, the notion of Neanderthals being furry apelike monsters was prevalent, but, in recent years, this has all changed with Neanderthals now being presented as furless humans, now that it is known that fur would have been a physiological problem for them(as I explained previously) and now that Neanderthals have been shown to have been at least as intelligent as early humans :-
http://s.ngm.com/2008/10/neanderthals/img/neanderthal-615.jpg (http://s.ngm.com/2008/10/neanderthals/img/neanderthal-615.jpg)
http://hugequestions.com/Eric/Neanderthals/Neanderthal-2.jpg (http://hugequestions.com/Eric/Neanderthals/Neanderthal-2.jpg)
If you actually want to contribute something, then show a single reason we would evolve subcutaneous fat while not being semiaquatic animals. In case you're confused, subcutaneous fat doesn't just mean "lots of fat", it means our fat is under our skin directly, like a dolphins, rather than around our organs, like true land based animals.
OK here goes:- pigs have subcutaneous fat but are not known to be semiaquatic animals, let alone aquatic ones.
Also:-
http://www.humansexualevolution.com/blog/?p=276 (http://www.humansexualevolution.com/blog/?p=276)
Furthermore, I was not unclear about Neanderthals extinction vs. lifespan, your ignorant assumption did all of the muddying of the water for you.
No, you just, as usual, explained things so badly that you effectively were writing about something quite different.
Again, your assumption is that Yaghans used fires for "extra comfort and that's all". You don't know this, you weren't there, yet you give facts as if you were, this is the foundation of all your problems leading to a view of reality which is based on imagined ideas assumed to be facts without ever having given a logical deduction to the idea.
Unlike you, I simply used logic and common sense to make my point. If the Yaghans had to depend on fires ALL the time to survive, then they would have swiftly died out long before because , in times of scarcity, there might not be enough wood for a fire or the current weather(eg:- flooding) might prevent a fire from being lit - therefore, since the Yaghans must at some stages have been without access to fires, they must have been able to adapt to their environment. Now, unlike you, I do not assume some form of so-called "perfect" adaptation as plenty of cold-adapted wild animals do not even have such an ability, I just mean that the Yaghans obviously could survive without fire, they just used fire in order to warm themselves up more, that's all.
There's no misunderstanding, there are of course some humans Yaghan derivatives, which are better adapted to cold climates, but there are no humans which are better adapted to cold climates than warm climates (speaking of temperatures only, not sunlight exposure), giving the obvious and unwavering fact that humans in general are better adapted to warm climates(our natural climate is therefore a warm one, even for Yaghans, even though they have been living in a cold one for 10,000 years, which to some puny minded individuals seems like a long time, but it isnt on an evolutionary scale), what the ideal warm climate is remains to be deduced.
You have again overlooked the obvious conclusion. The Yaghans have been shown to have a higher body temperature and a higher metabolism. This means that if they had moved to a much hotter environment(such as East Africa), then they would have suffered far more than an East African Negro who was better adapted to such a warm climate.
In the case of Caucasians, most would prefer temperate climates even without access to technology. After all, without technology, there is no air-conditioning with strong chances of sunburn etc..For whites living in warm climates like Saudi Arabia minus air-conditioning is pure hell. I experienced that once.
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Re PC's last post:- Although I am not a member, there is an unofficial world community out there who do not wash at all. Some wash with water but without soap.
I do not see using a shower as a sign that my ancestors used to always be by the coast or swimming in rivers or whatever. Plenty of evidence exists to show that a lot of palaeo humans lived far inland anyway. And all animals need water to wash or drink, they do not have to originate from an aquatic environment.
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Filipinos are semi aquatic. We shower 1 or 2 times a day. And we shower before sex and after sex. Sex in the shower is good too.
Some of the foreign employers comment about this Filipino penchant to consume too much water.
YES! Semi aquatic! Good call.
On the flipside, we Filipinos comment about foreigners who do not shower daily, just use perfume to cover up their stink, or don't change their underwear daily.
Well, you lot live in a humid, tropical country so one would expect you to wash frequently!
Then, of course, there is the issue of number of sweat glands. I believe Japanese find that we caucasians smell a bit even if we thoroughly wash ourselves every day.
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I really appreciate it now that there is a more civilized debate between you two.
It gets us readers informed when I read that one is coming from another paradigm which has another definition of terms and defending that.
You guys need to define terminologies and words.
Like what is defined as warm weather place, what is defined as cold weather place.
As far as research on neanderthals go, it flip flops year to year.
Rest assured that some of us appreciate what you both write and really, think about it as information exchange.
Knowledge porn.
I would also look into the point of view of the prehistoric WOMEN and their NEW BORN CHILDREN.
In what environment would it be ideal for naked pregnant women and new born babies to be?
Tiny help less little cuties.
Where would they survive?
Where would they flourish?
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Not in the palaeolithic era, given the mass infanticide practised in palaeo times.
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Ah yes, East Africans have developed elongated limbs and bodies which make them better adapted to the heat. The fact that neither Caucasians nor East Asians have such characteristics means they are unlikely to be suited to warm climates. Indeed East Asians have extra characteristics, such as a lack of facial hair which helps against the cold(stops ice forming in hair).
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Why is without technology even part of this discussion? Paleo humans had a short lifespan. Surviving anywhere without technology is going to be very difficult.
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Why is without technology even part of this discussion? ... Surviving anywhere without technology is going to be very difficult.
I think your question and statement illustrate the point of this discussion. The use of technology broadened the range (habitable regions) of paleolithic people. Here, we are discussing to what extent the body is able to physically adapt (such as by means of an increase in brown adipose tissue) to a region on earth without technology (such as fire and the craft of building a shelter).
There are various definitions of technology (the Greek base means the study of a craft), so you may define picking up a stick to dig in the ground as early technology... or you may be more specific - perhaps because many non-human primates use very simple tools.
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The mind is like a limb. It enables the manipulation of the environment and objects. In this regard what the mind helps create is not technology but simply the result of using the limb. Us being who we are.
Why is without technology even part of this discussion?
To make truth clearer.
Our mind defines us.
What was once, long ago, however long ago, is in truth rather irrelevant in practical terms, because these are not those times and also in between there and now lies so much.
Instead of looking how our ancestors lived it is best to look what is best for us right now. What was best for our ancestors somewhere down the line does not immediately mean it is best for us right now, because down to the smallest detail it is not, only generally speaking it applies to a large extent but still is not a perfect fit (can't live in the conditions and environments of the past because they do not exist in the present).
The world is not what it was, we are not who our ancestors were; if we live in the past then we do not move on. And if we don't move on then we're nothing, as the past from this perspective of ours' does not exist and us clinging to something nonexistent makes us what exactly?
What was optimal for our ancestors is not optimal for us.
There are many possibilities and probabilities, some likelier than others. Plus many (most?) key pieces of knowledge not available to us... at the moment...
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"when you don't know where you are going, look back at where you came from"
African proverb.
;)
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well, guess we are fucked then. try not to be a cunt.- the buddha
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Try to hold your breath underwater and then tell me humans are semiaquatic. :) I am ignorant on the subject, but I don't believe we fit the definition.
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Pigs and other "land animals" which are relatively naked either live partly underground like naked moles or are wallowers. Wild humans aren't underground animals or wallowers, so all that's left is aquatic or semiaquatic. Aquatic makes no sense, so all that's left is semiaquatic. You found an example of a land animal that has subcutaneous fat that is a wallower, which a human is not. You still cannot find an example of a land animal that does not wallow, yet is still relatively naked with subcutaneous fat, because that's just not how animals evolve. Basically, you found a way to meet the minimum requirements of what I asked you to find, without actually finding something to discredit the overwhelming evidence we are semiaquatic. Therefore, your finding is useless, although a great waste of your time.
You are resorting to posting more wild claims by cherry picking articles from Google, anyone can do that to support any crazy viewpoint. This is useless to everyone. Use your own brain for once Tyler and see what's staring you in the face.
As about the people who don't use showers, I never said they had to use showers, I also said washing with wet cloths (when bodies of water aren't around), however this is a technological substitute that doesn't exist in nature, so therefore can't be our natural habitat. Similar logic follows for wallowing in mud.
About Yaghans, if there was no wood for fire, then where did all of the plant life suddenly go and how did the Yaghans feed themselves? You completely lack the ability to use logic and reason, despite fantasizing you have the ability.
Of course, your brain is simply unable to admit you are wrong, but the others here might benefit from such an obvious fact.
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Try to hold your breath underwater and then tell me humans are semiaquatic. :) I am ignorant on the subject, but I don't believe we fit the definition.
We are one of the few partly land based animals with the ability to voluntarily hold our breath, giving us temporary underwater survival.
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Panacea and Tyler,, how about taking it off line, or pm each other,, this is getting to be quite the waste of time,, this back and forth over seemingly nothing. Each your seeming need to prove to the other, or insist the other say 'I was wrong' is not productive anymore. Also can we move on past this techno stuff. Peoples have been putting something on their backs probably since day one, either to block the wind or cold, or to block the sun, wind blown sand, mosquitos, flies, and other biting bugs. People's have also lived all over the world, cold and hot, so what is the point of this redundant obviousness? The question really is Optimal, and may I please assume Optimal for Us,, not someone who is already dead.
Newcomers to this forum are going to think we're way off kilter.
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Me, off kilter? I DON'T WANT TO BELONG TO ANY CLUB THAT WILL ACCEPT PEOPLE LIKE ME AS A MEMBER. - groucho
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Newcomers to this forum are going to think we're way off kilter.
This is not nearly the most credibility-damaging thread we've had recently. Not even close. I don't know what to say about that fact.
At least this thread is raising some semi - relevant points, if not showing fully coherent discussion of those points. *sigh*
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I don't know why you fellas care so much what "normal" people think of you. I hate to burst your bubble, but raw paleo, and even cooked paleo diets are still very fringe. I would have never tried the diet if it wasn't for desperation. Anyway...enough posting for me today.
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Van, I understand why you're tired or irritated about this- I am too in some way. The thing is, it's also very bothering when you see someone that's so obviously (at least according to yourself) in the wrong. So some may handle it in a more aggressive manner or not, the point at the end of the day when answering something that you believe is a false statement, is to make the other person actually realize that they were wrong. The key is to be open for correction of your own mistakes, and not close your mind to anything that would go against your original idea. But that's a personality thing (and hopefully it can be corrected).
Now, about this techno stuff, you might think it has no importance in defining a natural/optimal habitat for humans, while others believe it definitely has its place in this matter. So if you're unhappy that this discussion is not being handled the way you wish it was, you can go ahead and start a new subject of your own called "human's natural/optimal habitat !!!No discussing technology here!!!".
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I like this thread. And I like the arguments and points made in this thread. Maybe I'm abnormal and fringe.
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Pigs and other "land animals" which are relatively naked either live partly underground like naked moles or are wallowers.
This is pure nonsense as usual. Wild boar, from which domesticated pigs are descended from actually prefer to live in forests but are so highly adaptable that some can even live in deserts:-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_boar#Habitat (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_boar#Habitat)
So this nonsense re living underground and "wallowing" is meaningless given wild boars' preference for forests and ubiquitous adaptation, like humans, to a multitude of diverse environments like deserts.
As about the people who don't use showers, I never said they had to use showers, I also said washing with wet cloths (when bodies of water aren't around), however this is a technological substitute that doesn't exist in nature, so therefore can't be our natural habitat. Similar logic follows for wallowing in mud.
You are getting confused here. After all, plenty of wild animals like to occasionally swim or even sometimes douse themselves in water without their being considered to be either aquatic or semi-aquatic. Similiarly, modern humans using a shower or bath are not indications that early hominids used to always live in swamps or other aquatic environments. It just means they wish to clean themselves.
About Yaghans, if there was no wood for fire, then where did all of the plant life suddenly go and how did the Yaghans feed themselves?
Again, you miss the point. Wood would not always have been available for fire. After all, the available wood could have been soaked by storms or flooding, for example, plus the Yaghans could not always have been in a position to light a fire during every single activity they did such as hunting and foraging. So, if fire was so absolutely essential to their survival, as you claim, how come they were able to survive at times during periods with no access to any fires, such as when hunting or foraging?
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Van and co have a point:- PC and I were talking about at cross-purposes. I was trying to make it clear that humans and ancient hominids are/were highly adaptable to all sorts of varying environments without need of extra technology, while PCA was talking about the original habitat that humans supposedly came from, which he thinks was an aquatic environment.
Ok, if as van and co suggest, we ignore all references to technology and focus on modern humans, not early hominids, then, obviously, East Asians are best suited for a colder climate, Caucasians for a more temperate climate, and SubSaharan Africans for a hotter climate. Seems awfully straightforward, given the various different physical adaptations of the three groups.
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Lol Tyler, from the same wikipedia page and paragraph you posted:
In order to survive in a given area, wild boars require a habitat fulfilling three conditions: heavily brushed areas providing shelter from predators, water for drinking and bathing purposes and an absence of regular snowfall
(http://i.imgur.com/g8o5Mmu.png)
Talk about having an egg on your face.
The requirement for wild boars to survive is to be able to wallow, it's not a "I like to do it thing." They can and will die off eventually if they never do it. You're simply wrong. It's a requirement for survival. Boars need to wallow/live part of their lives submerged in water (or water in the form of muddy water) to survive, just like humans. There are no humans that live without wallowing/dousing/living without routinely applying water on the surface of their skin, besides many animals like wolves who can.
I never said humans lived in an aquatic environment, I said our natural habitat is semiaquatic. That means living partly on land and partly in water. That is what boars and humans do. You can say that just bathing/wallowing doesn't make boars semiaquatic, but you'd be wrong, because it's essential for survival. No matter what boars are defined as on wikipedia, their actual natural habitat defines their actual natural nature, and their actual natural habitat includes wallowing in water, and roaming around on land - semiaquatic, semiterrestrial, they mean the same thing.
So, in conclusion, unequivocally, humans depend on water, not just for drinking but for the exterior of our bodies, which defines us as semiaquatic (relying on bodies of water to exist), and our bodies reflect that with our evolutionary adaptations of subcutaneous fat, voluntary breathing, natural breath-hold instincts of children, relatively naked skin, etc.
About AAH (aquatic ape theory):
Proponents of AAH suggest that many features that distinguish humans from their nearest evolutionary relatives emerged because the ancestors of humans underwent a period when they were adapting to a semiaquatic existence, but returned to terrestrial life before having become fully adapted to the aquatic environment. Variations within the hypothesis suggests these protohumans to have spent time either wading, swimming or diving on the shores of fresh, brackish, alkaline or saline waters, and feeding on littoral resources
What part of that do you not understand is obviously backed by a mountain of tangible evidence, and is not "consequently debunked" or "discredited" in any way whatsoever? What part of you are wrong are you not getting?
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Just finished reading the rest of your post Tyler, more flimsy logic:
Again, you miss the point. Wood would not always have been available for fire. After all, the available wood could have been soaked by storms or flooding, for example, plus the Yaghans could not always have been in a position to light a fire during every single activity they did such as hunting and foraging. So, if fire was so absolutely essential to their survival, as you claim, how come they were able to survive at times during periods with no access to any fires, such as when hunting or foraging?
If it flooded, the wood would be the least of their problems, but alas they lived near cape horn so it wasn't a problem (use your brain).
As about rain, they had rock shelters, language, boats, and fire, but weren't smart enough to protect the wood from rain? Are you kidding me? They had at least as much intelligence as you, and even you could understand the concept of protecting your firewood from rain. Your attempts to support your imaginary facts (that they didnt use fires a lot, even though reports say they did, and you weren't there) are just getting ridiculous.
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Ok, if as van and co suggest, we ignore all references to technology and focus on modern humans, not early hominids, then, obviously, East Asians are best suited for a colder climate, Caucasians for a more temperate climate, and SubSaharan Africans for a hotter climate. Seems awfully straightforward, given the various different physical adaptations of the three groups.
It's impossible to ignore technology because east asians and caucasians especially rely on technology to survive in those climates. The only significant adaptation those three groups have is adaption to sunlight exposure intensity, not temperature or the various other climactic differences. The obvious truth still stands that all modern humans the world over are better adapted to live nakedly and without technology in temperate or hot (but still close to bodies of water and tree shade) climates, not cold ones. This is without any technology whatsoever. That lets us know what our bodies are actually adapted to, regardless of where we can comfortably survive with technological aid or uncomfortably survive without technological aid. Where can thrive, be comfortable, with our naked bodies - that's our adapted natural habitat. See what common sense looks like?
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It's impossible to ignore technology because east asians and caucasians especially rely on technology to survive in those climates. The only significant adaptation those three groups have is adaption to sunlight exposure intensity, not temperature or the various other climactic differences. The obvious truth still stands that all modern humans the world over are better adapted to live nakedly and without technology in temperate or hot (but still close to bodies of water and tree shade) climates, not cold ones. This is without any technology whatsoever. That lets us know what our bodies are actually adapted to, regardless of where we can comfortably survive with technological aid or uncomfortably survive without technological aid. Where can thrive, be comfortable, with our naked bodies - that's our adapted natural habitat. See what common sense looks like?
At last, you have, very grudgingly admitted that some humans might be better adapted to temperate climates than hot ones. Well, that is at least a start.
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Good, can we have a cease-fire now? :)
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Lol Tyler, from the same wikipedia page and paragraph you posted:
(http://i.imgur.com/g8o5Mmu.png)
Talk about having an egg on your face.
The requirement for wild boars to survive is to be able to wallow, it's not a "I like to do it thing." They can and will die off eventually if they never do it. You're simply wrong. It's a requirement for survival. Boars need to wallow/live part of their lives submerged in water (or water in the form of muddy water) to survive, just like humans. There are no humans that live without wallowing/dousing/living without routinely applying water on the surface of their skin, besides many animals like wolves who can.
This is particularly short-sighted an opinion given that it is already known that pigs have too few sweat glands so need to wallow in mud or water primarily in order to cool off. They also use mud as sunscreen and it is claimed they may use it for scenting. This does by no means mean they are adapted to aquatic or semi-aquatic environments. Similiarly, the fact that humans and many other land mammals may routinely wash themselves in water or swim does not make them adapted to an aquatic environment, let alone a semi-aquatic one. Besides, what about those humans who have adapted better to desert environments than aquatic ones?
Here's more detailed stuff debunking the aquatic ape theory. Not difficult to find since the Aquatic Ape theory is long discredited due to having major flaws in it:-
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1991/did-humans-descend-from-aquatic-apes (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1991/did-humans-descend-from-aquatic-apes)
So, in conclusion, unequivocally, humans depend on water, not just for drinking but for the exterior of our bodies, which defines us as semiaquatic (relying on bodies of water to exist), and our bodies reflect that with our evolutionary adaptations of subcutaneous fat, voluntary breathing, natural breath-hold instincts of children, relatively naked skin, etc.
All these silly claims on behalf of the Aquatic Ape theory have already been extensively and throughly debunked in the previous link I gave:-
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1991/did-humans-descend-from-aquatic-apes (http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/1991/did-humans-descend-from-aquatic-apes)
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If it flooded, the wood would be the least of their problems, but alas they lived near cape horn so it wasn't a problem (use your brain).
As about rain, they had rock shelters, language, boats, and fire, but weren't smart enough to protect the wood from rain? Are you kidding me? They had at least as much intelligence as you, and even you could understand the concept of protecting your firewood from rain.
The point re storms sometimes soaking wood is perfectly valid. I mean, it makes sense that sometimes storms might soak a wood-supply(this has happened to me at times in my Italian home, for example, despite protection from rain, as storms, amazingly, can actually blow down roofs at times etc.). Whatever the case, it is clear that the Yaghans could not have had direct access to fires while hunting or foraging so they were quite clearly able to survive quite well during those times minus fire.
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It's impossible to ignore technology because east asians and caucasians especially rely on technology to survive in those climates. The only significant adaptation those three groups have is adaption to sunlight exposure intensity, not temperature or the various other climactic differences. The obvious truth still stands that all modern humans the world over are better adapted to live nakedly and without technology in temperate or hot (but still close to bodies of water and tree shade) climates, not cold ones. This is without any technology whatsoever. That lets us know what our bodies are actually adapted to, regardless of where we can comfortably survive with technological aid or uncomfortably survive without technological aid. Where can thrive, be comfortable, with our naked bodies - that's our adapted natural habitat. See what common sense looks like?
Truly absurd. The adaptation of those 3 ethnic groups is, of course, much more than just due to skin-colour/ sunlight exposure intensity. For example, East Africans have long, elongated limbs in order to better withstand the heat. East Asians, by contrast, have no facial hair which helps plus short noses, short limbs, flat faces, epicanthic fold etc., all of which help to adapt to the cold. Indeed, East Asians are supposed to be best adapted to cold desert climates from which they first originated as early hominids. Since Caucasians usually fall between subSaharan Africans and East Asians in almost every category, it makes more sense to assume that Caucasians evolved in a temperate climate.
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All right I will admit I roll naked in the snow in my back garden. I am glad you do not know my address or I might find I had an audience!!! Freeeeezing Frank!
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At last, you have, very grudgingly admitted that some humans might be better adapted to temperate climates than hot ones. Well, that is at least a start.
It's actually a completely different thing than a cold climate, lol. My opinion on this hasn't shifted in years, your delusions of me admitting something as if I ever said anything to the contrary is truly disturbing. Do you have any recollection of what we're debating?
This is particularly short-sighted an opinion given that it is already known that pigs have too few sweat glands so need to wallow in mud or water primarily in order to cool off. They also use mud as sunscreen and it is claimed they may use it for scenting. This does by no means mean they are adapted to aquatic or semi-aquatic environments. Similiarly, the fact that humans and many other land mammals may routinely wash themselves in water or swim does not make them adapted to an aquatic environment, let alone a semi-aquatic one. Besides, what about those humans who have adapted better to desert environments than aquatic ones?
Here's more detailed stuff debunking the aquatic ape theory. Not difficult to find since the Aquatic Ape theory is long discredited due to having major flaws in it:-
First of all, did you wipe that egg off your face yet, because in case you missed it, in your routine ability to google something in 5 seconds and post a link, you posted something that contradicts your entire point. Just wanted to make sure that sank in. By the way, pigs/boars also need wallowing to cleanse themselves of parasites/insects . This is just how pigs/boars are, you're the one who brought it up attempting to use them as an example of an animal with subcutaneous fat that doesn't routinely submerge in water (or mud, which is soil+water, I made it easy on your brain, see?) There is simply no other reason to be relatively naked and have subcutaneous fat, do you see that now? Or have you found an animal which is an exception? Really, just answer, because you keep avoiding these great milestones your mind must be grudgingly admitting to, yet you skip them every time to save face.
Yes, our skin (external part of our body) is adapted to water, that is exactly what wallowing/swimming indicate. Do you see that now? Don't dodge the question now Tyler (;
I realize you have an irrational fear of the term "semi aquatic", as all defensive people get this way when they are wrong and not humble enough to admit it. So let's see if you can clearly state for the record that you now see that humans require water routinely applied on the surface of their skin, like all other above-ground animals with relatively naked skin and subcutaneous fat, so that we, humans, are typical in that the skin of our bodies relies on touching water. Whether or not your ignorant mind understands the connection that our natural behavior seeks out water particles so that they can routinely come into contact with our skin (all over) makes us semiaquatic is not my problem. I can't teach you common sense.
As about the adaptations of the 3 ethnic groups, I said the only dramatic difference is skin color - elongated limbs or slightly stubbier noses/body builds don't equate to major heat losses/gains. At least not anything in comparison to skin color due to sunlight intensity in those varying areas.
What you seem to fail to comprehend is the striking similarities between all three groups - all three have extremely fat infants for example, with lots of white fat (which is the worst form for insulation and body heat, but the best form for buoyancy). I know that's a shocker to you because you're wondering how babies are floating with wet cloths being scrubbed on them. There must have been some evolutionary reason though, think hard Tyler!
By the way, hilariously, the two links you've posted as of yet to "discredit" the aquatic ape theory is one website created by a single man who personally attacks elaine morgan/AAH proponents more than he pays attention to the theory itself and the other is by cecil adams which you can read all about what kind of character he is, in his own words here, http://www.straightdope.com/pages/faq/cecil (http://www.straightdope.com/pages/faq/cecil) or maybe click the link "Ask the master" on his website.
Tyler, you're a joke. I'm done debating with you out of pity for you, everyone here can clearly figure it out for themselves with the information I've given and some light reading. Have fun believing your right but actually being wrong for the rest of your life, just because you have know-it-all syndrome (when really we both know that's a look-up-contrary-information-on-google-read-it-for-5-secs-then-post-it-as-if-you-read-it-before-today syndrome)
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Ok Tyler, he said he's done. Now, what else can we discover? How about, why did humans venture into areas that weren't optimal for them,, that's assuming they knew or would soon find out that traveling too north or too far to the south, and to go stark raving naked was going to cause them to be looking for their gonads? But wait a minute, women's nipples get hard in the cold, don't they? Maybe that's why? No that's silly, because women would just turn around and go back and the men would follow. Hmm. I wonder why then?
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How about, why did humans venture into areas that weren't optimal for them
This question makes me think about what Jack Kruse says about the physiological changes when someone takes to cold therapy. He says, among other changes, the body lays down more brown adipose tissue, especially when the body is cold and in ketosis. He uses the term cold thermogenesis - thermogenesis meaning "the production of heat, especially in a human or animal body." You might as well think of BAT as a human's version of blubber, but it not only insulates, it up-regulates the metabolism.
Babies have a lot of BAT, which accounts for how much less clothing they need to keep their body surface warm.
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The adult cold-exposure brown fat adaptation happens in many mammals, not just humans, however it is one of the most energy-expensive type of tissue you could store/generate, as merely 50 grams of it can use 20% of your normal daily intake. From an evolutionary perspective, it only makes sense to have brown fat if you are a hibernating animal, or are frequently cold and have access to a lot of food to sustain its energy cost (much more food than you would typically find on land without speed and tools, which you wont have if you have a lot of fat and are naked). However such food is abundant near bodies of water. Brown fat is still mostly useful for infants though, although we retain this ability through adulthood.
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Here is my 2 cents about the search for warmth in my country (Philippines) where I am involved in pregnancy care, birthing and child care.
The midwives are obsessed with warmth.
They do not like it when the pregnant woman's back and shoulders are exposed.
The midwives have it easier when the pregnant woman is muslim and she is wrapped all over.
The midwife wants mornings of warm tea of ginger every day.
When a child is born, the very first measure of importance is to wrap the child in warm clothing, to give the child body warmth, especially of the mother.
Babies should always be kept warm... wrapped... cold is bad. Babies are attached to mommy in the first months of life while awake and while asleep. No we do not ever think of putting baby in a crib in a different room with a baby sound monitor... no freaking way.
Yet I live in this tropical climate https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=Manila+weather&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8 (https://www.google.com/search?client=ubuntu&channel=fs&q=Manila+weather&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)
Currently says 29 Celcius / 85 F and 68% humidity
Water births are superior to dry births... very hot water is an anasthetic so the woman feels no pain in the hot water. All she needs to do is push. At the same time her vagina is perfect, no tears, when doing water births.
I'd follow babies' needs... they have no politics and no "learned" hypotheses in them.
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I don't know your experiences, but have know several woman who have switched over from cooked carb heavy diet to raw and their body temps have increased, as in warmer hands and feet and less complaining about cold weather. One's diet may have a lot to do with environmental temperature preferences and needs. Totally agree on the warm water birthing. My daughter was born that way.
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Are we capable of living in peace with our surroundings? Forget the past; the entire world is on the verge of an ELE by the looks of things.
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Are we capable of living in peace with our surroundings? Forget the past; the entire world is on the verge of an ELE by the looks of things.
I am looking forward to humans going out in space and colonizing other planets.
But this is off - topic.
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Back on topic... I think Van and I have gone in and looked at the angle of BIRTHING. Where is it conducive for our human females to give birth? Where would they be more prolific? Where would they get maximum nutrition? For themselves and for their babies?
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Are we capable of living in peace with our surroundings? Forget the past; the entire world is on the verge of an ELE by the looks of things.
There is a fascinating theory called "The Great Filter Theory". The idea is that the further a species gets, the more likely it will encounter an extinction level event. This theory explains why no interstellar aliens have ever reached our planet, as it suggests that other species before us have become extinct as their technology-levels progressed. There are so many ways to become extinct, some not so obvious. For example, universal immortality would lead to a collapse in the birth-rate to near-zero levels. Plus, we might easily wipe out the Earth´s ecosystem via continued pollution and so on....
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It's actually a completely different thing than a cold climate, lol. My opinion on this hasn't shifted in years, your delusions of me admitting something as if I ever said anything to the contrary is truly disturbing.
You do not understand quite what happened. Earlier, you had stated with fanatical certainty that all humans originated from a warm climate, no ifs or buts. Now that you finally accept some humans have temperate climates as their natural/optimal climate, that is an amazing admission from someone who is otherwise such a fanatic. I'm impressed. Maybe in a decade or so you may be able to come to accept that some humans are best adapted to colder climates, who knows?
I realize you have an irrational fear of the term "semi aquatic", as all defensive people get this way when they are wrong and not humble enough to admit it. So let's see if you can clearly state for the record that you now see that humans require water routinely applied on the surface of their skin, like all other above-ground animals with relatively naked skin and subcutaneous fat, so that we, humans, are typical in that the skin of our bodies relies on touching water. Whether or not your ignorant mind understands the connection that our natural behavior seeks out water particles so that they can routinely come into contact with our skin (all over) makes us semiaquatic is not my problem. I can't teach you common sense.
Sadly, you are completely lacking in common-sense if you think that an animal has to be adapted to water in order to be able to splash itself with water every so often. What you fail to grasp is that it was only until recently that humans had regular access to showers or baths. Before that point, many humans, such as in deserts, would be very unlikely to be able to wash themselves at all.
As about the adaptations of the 3 ethnic groups, I said the only dramatic difference is skin color - elongated limbs or slightly stubbier noses/body builds don't equate to major heat losses/gains. At least not anything in comparison to skin color due to sunlight intensity in those varying areas.
Obviously this is nonsense. if skin color was all that effective at reducing or increasing heat levels as you claim, then the multitude other cold-/hot- adaptations would not have been needed. Read up on Allen's rule which shows that humans increase in mass when originating from cold climates with those from hotter climates developing elongated limbs etc. as the greater surface area helps dissipate heat better.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen's_rule (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen's_rule)
What you seem to fail to comprehend is the striking similarities between all three groups - all three have extremely fat infants for example, with lots of white fat (which is the worst form for insulation and body heat, but the best form for buoyancy). I know that's a shocker to you because you're wondering how babies are floating with wet cloths being scrubbed on them. There must have been some evolutionary reason though, think hard Tyler!
Extra fat in humans has been ascribed to sexual selection pressures, nothing to do with water.
By the way, hilariously, the two links you've posted as of yet to "discredit" the aquatic ape theory is one website created by a single man who personally attacks elaine morgan/AAH proponents more than he pays attention to the theory itself and the other is by cecil adams which you can read all about what kind of character he is, in his own words here, http://www.straightdope.com/pages/faq/cecil (http://www.straightdope.com/pages/faq/cecil) or maybe click the link "Ask the master" on his website.
Ultimately, it really does not matter what anti-Aquatic Ape theory sites I cite. The Aquatic Ape theory has been widely discredited by palaeoanthrologists and, so far, has produced no credible evidence to support it, just guesses that are easily explained via other evolutionary explanations. Plus, there are so many differences between humans and aquatic animals that the Aquatic Ape theory cannot explain away.
Incidentally, though, you have the famous David Attenborough on your side now. He is, needless to say, not a genuine scientist, but I am sure he will boost this kooky theory in terms of popularity for a few more years before it dies a well-deserved death.
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How about this human need for Magnesium?
Why many people are magnesium deficient? And you cannot get enough magnesium via diet. You get magnesium through your skin. Thus the effectivity of rubbing magnesium oil daily in some people.
Humans get enough magnesium if they live beside the ocean, walk on the beach daily, swim in the ocean daily.
What do the anti aquatic ape have to answer for this magnesium issue?
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Does that mean all the native american indians who lived inland in the US were mg. deficient? I am assuming they were not rubbing mg. oil on their skin.
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Any modern magnesium deficiency is easy to explain. If the body absorbs too much calcium in the diet, such as via dairy, and not enough magnesium, then magnesium-intake into the body is blocked, and magnesium-deficiency occurs:-
http://www.rense.com/general87/magnes.htm (http://www.rense.com/general87/magnes.htm)
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Any modern magnesium deficiency is easy to explain. If the body absorbs too much calcium in the diet, such as via dairy, and not enough magnesium, then magnesium-intake into the body is blocked, and magnesium-deficiency occurs:-
http://www.rense.com/general87/magnes.htm (http://www.rense.com/general87/magnes.htm)
If too little magnesium is taken then it does not matter how much or little calcium you take, because you are taking too little magnesium already anyway! Basic logic, "common sense", c'mon now!
You say calcium intake is "high" but magnesium intake is too low and then calcium somehow inhibits magnesium that already is deficient? Get it? Basically what you said is magnesium intake already is low, but that doesn't yet matter because calcium has to come into play as well and inhibit the already deficient magnesium! There already was magnesium deficiency before calcium came into play!
Calcium intake does not block magnesium! Think objectively, analyze what is said objectively, and try to compare it to actual reality. Try to recognize nonsense as nonsense!
And holy fucking shit! I actually took a look at that text you provided. Recommended calcium intake 1000mg a day? Are you joking??? It is at least double that amount.
And It gets even worse... Optimal use perspective 750mg a day? That text you gave is garbage!
And magnesium need is not 270-400 mg, it is 1-2 grams!
Do you actually read through and think through the information you provide? It certainly seems you do not.
Just because somewhere is something written does not immediately mean it is true, you also have to verify the origin of that text, and then that one and so on. Otherwise, what are you doing?
Personally, my daily calcium intake is around 2 grams, magnesium intake around 1.5 grams.
Anyway... another thing to look at when considering magnesium and calcium need is that those minerals are also used for neutralizing many toxins of which there are more and more as time goes by. Also to heal the damage done by those toxins, which again takes more. Older times, our world was not polluted, so not as much was needed from this perspective as is now.
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Whether you like it or not, the calcium:magneisum ratio is a fact of life. Indeed, I once came across one guy on the rawpaleodiet yahoo group who experienced severe magnesium-deficiency because had been consuming too much calcium-rich dairy. His magnesium-intake had been sufficient, it was just because he had switched to consuming too much calcium via raw dairy that he developed magnesium-deficiency.
And I did not suggest that magnesium-intake of HGs or whatever was too low, merely suggesting that excessive calcium might block the uptake of magnesium, thus leading to magnesium-deficiency.
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Another major factor in dietary magnesium deficiency is magnesium depletion in the soils of agricultural fields. Crops are bred to do well in magnesium-deficient soil, so we are often not aware that the deficiency persists when we eat so-called magnesium-rich foods. Mineral depletion of agricultural fields affects many life-sustaining minerals. NPK (nitrogen-phosphorus-potassium) fertilizers mask the problem by encouraging robust crop growth in spite of mineral deficiencies. Bottom line: if the mineral is not in the soil, the plant cannot uptake that mineral.
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Whether you like it or not, the calcium:magneisum ratio is a fact of life. Indeed, I once came across one guy on the rawpaleodiet yahoo group who experienced severe magnesium-deficiency because had been consuming too much calcium-rich dairy. His magnesium-intake had been sufficient, it was just because he had switched to consuming too much calcium via raw dairy that he developed magnesium-deficiency.
And I did not suggest that magnesium-intake of HGs or whatever was too low, merely suggesting that excessive calcium might block the uptake of magnesium, thus leading to magnesium-deficiency.
This was not the aspect of your post I was referring to. Why would you not notice it?
You have anything else aside a "straw man" to provide?
You say you met one, but no details about how much magnesium he consumed. How did he know he was deficient in magnesium? You do notice the problem with such assertions, right? Now I don't care about "scientific" anything as I know science is mostly nonsense itself as it's founded on principles that don't accord actual reality, but I do care about actual objective logic and reasoning.
I do recognize nonsense. So no point nonsensing me.
You said excessive calcium might block magnesium uptake when magnesium already is deficient while talking about what causes magnesium deficiency! If this were true it would suggest further very obvious issues that simply make no sense at all.
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Yes, soils are deficient, on top of toxins everywhere. Deficiency rather unavoidable if doesn't have an abundant source nearby, daily, in some form. A problem that also did not exist in the past in such extremes as now.
Plus many of the toxins in the environment are probably designed to make magnesium unavailable, by reacting with it and making compounds life cannot use easily if at all.
Starts sounding like those who want to rely on just "real food" are "crazy" as they will never get enough magnesium in our present world (nor some other nutrients). Except perhaps in some areas of the planet, like near not too polluted water.
Personally, for me it's impossible to get enough from just food (tried it, and not just magnesium, potassium and iodine as well). So I use MgCl2 daily, along other salts and stuff.
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To clarify, I had actually stated that if there was an excess of calcium, as long as magnesium-intake was much less than the calcium-intake, there would be a magnesium-deficiency even if the magnesium-intake had been sufficient for health.
As for the person I mentioned, he had been on a rawpalaeodiet(low carb) for some time so must have been getting enough magnesium.
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To clarify, I had actually stated that if there was an excess of calcium, as long as magnesium-intake was much less than the calcium-intake, there would be a magnesium-deficiency even if the magnesium-intake had been sufficient for health.
You have said no such thing.
As for the person I mentioned, he had been on a rawpalaeodiet(low carb) for some time so must have been getting enough magnesium.
Sorry but this says nothing about his magnesium intake. Refer to what eveheart said about soils and I said about toxins in our environment and in our body and the damage done by toxins that requires healing and thus extra magnesium along other stuff - it is obvious what all this means. Or does/did he live near water and ate lots of sea food or go swimming often, or did he get his food from some specifically magnesium rich place? Otherwise, sorry, but he was deficient in magnesium already prior to consuming excess calcium.
That someone goes low-carb does not mean they are abundant in all the nutrients they need, especially magnesium. It's not just how they eat, it's more to do where the food comes from and in what conditions it was grown.
With all your supposed experience in dieting and health, how can you still miss such fundamentals? What are you doing?
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You have said no such thing.
I had indeed said just that. I cannot help it if you became confused re the meaning.
Sorry but this says nothing about his magnesium intake. Refer to what eveheart said about soils and I said about toxins in our environment and in our body and the damage done by toxins that requires healing and thus extra magnesium along other stuff - it is obvious what all this means. Or does/did he live near water and ate lots of sea food or go swimming often, or did he get his food from some specifically magnesium rich place? Otherwise, sorry, but he was deficient in magnesium already prior to consuming excess calcium.
That someone goes low-carb does not mean they are abundant in all the nutrients they need, especially magnesium. It's not just how they eat, it's more to do where the food comes from and in what conditions it was grown.
With all your supposed experience in dieting and health, how can you still miss such fundamentals? What are you doing?
I am always leery of hysteria or conspiracy theories whether in the RVAF diet or elsewhere. A typical conspiracy theory is that all soils are depleted. I do agree that some foods are deficient in nutrients if they are intensively farmed but the very fact that we eat the various foods raw means that we are eating foods much higher in nutrient content than cooked foodists would be doing, generally. So, it is very unlikely that my acquaintance RVAFer had low magnesium levels, that is until he started consuming raw dairy.
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It is true that often farmers will add ca. rich supplements to the soil before adding mg. Also with many waters, spring, well etc.,, you can sometimes get 1000 mg. ca. in a days worth of water consumed. Mg, in water is usually very low. For now I tend to believe the un-scientific literature that talks about getting minerals from food (bound up organically vs. rock dust). And tend to believe that excess ca. from food or rock sources do accumulate and in the body. And some write about using mg. to 'flush' out deposited ca. Ca. is pretty much in all foods. Mg. isn't
My food grade sources of mg. include sea weed, greens, and nuts and seeds. Pretty hard to find good sources in meat. Seafood is rich almost in all cases. Maybe that's why salt was so valuable, for the amounts of mg. it has.
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Do you actually read through and think through the information you provide? It certainly seems you do not.
And make sure you read the full text of the studies he cites before accepting his interpretation, because the full text sometimes contradicts his interpretation, which does raise the possibility that he quickly scanned just the abstract, looking for what he wanted to see. At least he does cite studies and articles, though, which is more effort than many make.
Just because somewhere is something written does not immediately mean it is true, you also have to verify the origin of that text, and then that one and so on. Otherwise, what are you doing?
Yeah, isn't Rense.com a conspiracy/UFO site? I see it get linked to every now and then on the Internet and it's usually relating to some off-the-wall stuff like that (though that doesn't necessarily mean it's all wrong, of course). Tyler even trashed one of their articles as mindless propaganda here: http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/hot-topics/my-6-favorite-fat-lies-by-alan-graham/msg43982/#msg43982 (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/hot-topics/my-6-favorite-fat-lies-by-alan-graham/msg43982/#msg43982)
I think there was even some strange Neo-Nazi stuff in something there someone had linked to? Or maybe I'm confusing them with another kook site? At any rate, you can tell when someone links to Rense.com that they didn't put a lot of effort into it. LOL
Beware any time someone writes assumption-tinged language like "must have been." It often means they don't have evidence to back up their claim.
My food grade sources of mg. include sea weed, greens, and nuts and seeds. Pretty hard to find good sources in meat. Seafood is rich almost in all cases. Maybe that's why salt was so valuable, for the amounts of mg. it has.
Yup, and perhaps it's not mere coincidence that many LC/carnivore dieters report taking Mg supplements?
Here's an ancestral inland food that interestingly complements red meat by being rich in Mg (86.88 mg/100g) and some other nutrients that red meat and liver are relatively low in:
http://freetheanimal.com/2014/01/tigernuts-tuber-tubery.html (http://freetheanimal.com/2014/01/tigernuts-tuber-tubery.html)
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://diet.es/alimento/chufa-cruda/ (http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=es&u=http://diet.es/alimento/chufa-cruda/)
That same food is also high in fermentable dietary fiber, which has been found to enhance Mg absorption:
Effects of Dietary Fibers on Magnesium Absorption in Animals and Humans
http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/1/1.long (http://jn.nutrition.org/content/133/1/1.long)
And check out the wide range of its original habitat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_esculentus (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyperus_esculentus)
Of course, I'm not trying to imply that we all have to eat that specific food, just that it's interesting how complementary it appears to be to red meat--one of the favorite types of Paleo foods.
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Thanks for the links, just read throughout them. I have always been curious when I read zero carb forums comments,, how they don't really tend to suffer, especially those who have been there some time, and really just eat cooked meat. Yes, I do read where many only poop every several days or so. but then that might be 'normal' since they aren't creating miles of bacteria from carbs. But particularly how most will go through some sort of cramping, and then it will end,, as if the body is adapting somehow and coming to some state of balance. Charles is always quick to point out that a meat and fat diet only doesn't waste nutrients ( mentions Vit-c quite often ). But somehow their hearts are still beating without supplementing with mg. etc. Just pointing this out, as a curiosity. I know you'll most likely point out the one time members who did not fair well. Ok. But the one's that are able to seemingly flourish makes one wonder, at least me. And my wondering has mostly to do with possibly how the body can create and or ration what it needs if it isn't having to deal with putting out fires in the rest of the body.
have you found a good source or truly raw organic chuffs? I'd love to try them. thanks
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I have always been curious when I read zero carb forums comments,, how they don't really tend to suffer, especially those who have been there some time, and really just eat cooked meat.
I was too until I noticed that Charles silenced or banned anyone who reported bad results from ZC. LOL The ZIOH forum is a lot like the 30bananasaday forum in the way that coctivore ZCers do.
Yes, I do read where many only poop every several days or so. but then that might be 'normal' since they aren't creating miles of bacteria from carbs.
If you check out the work of Jeff Leach, Graham Rook, Juliette C. Madan and others who study microbes, you'll discover that those bacteria are very important and it doesn't make sense to cavalierly deplete them.
Charles is always quick to point out that a meat and fat diet only doesn't waste nutrients ( mentions Vit-c quite often ).
Yes, Charles did talk about vitamin C and scurvy quite a bit and I questioned Charles face-to-face on it years ago and he didn't have a good answer. Wish I could remember the exact question. I do remember that he wasn't as knowledgeable about it as he pretended, but his devoted followers ate up what he said anyway. I didn't pursue it further to avoid stirring up a hornets nest of anger at a friendly gathering. :)
But somehow their hearts are still beating without supplementing with mg. etc.
Boy, if hearts still beating is the new standard for healthy diets, then I guess they all pass muster. ;D
have you found a good source or truly raw organic chuffs? I'd love to try them. thanks
I didn't care much for the two Internet sources I tried, though I didn't hate the better one (which was more raw, unsurprisingly). I was told that fresh tiger nuts are much better, but don't have access to those. I was surprised that the people I gave some tiger nuts and horchata to liked them quite a bit. They do have a bit of an almond taste I could probably get used to if they weren't also relatively expensive. So I currently eat other tubers, roots, fruits, nuts and legumes that contain some of the same or similar stuff--not just RS, but also the other fibers you have discussed. I suspect that Jeff Leach is right that there is some benefit to diversity of foods. It's a boring heuristic, but research and anecdotal reports do appear to support it.
One of the early clues I had that all was not well in VLC-ville was when LC "experts" and devotees responded to questions about the low levels of Mg in meat-heavy diets and resulting negative symptoms with answers along the lines of "No problem, just supplement with magnesium." WTF? It reminded me of the vegans who said that B12 deficiency is not a problem with vegan diets because all you have to do is supplement by injecting B12 into yourself with a needle. l)
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I had indeed said just that.
You indeed did not. But either way, completely irrelevant because that was not the aspect of your post I was referring to.
Why are you going around the issue? Are you aware that you are going around the issue, ignoring it completely? Are you doing it on purpose? How about you "mature up" and start acting like an "adult" should?
I cannot help it if you became confused re the meaning. I am always leery of hysteria or conspiracy theories whether in the RVAF diet or elsewhere. A typical conspiracy theory is that all soils are depleted. I do agree that some foods are deficient in nutrients if they are intensively farmed but the very fact that we eat the various foods raw means that we are eating foods much higher in nutrient content than cooked foodists would be doing, generally. So, it is very unlikely that my acquaintance RVAFer had low magnesium levels, that is until he started consuming raw dairy.
Why are you using the typical "troll tactics" here? By the way, this isn't the first time I've noticed you do this, in fact I noticed you're doing this about ten months ago. And you haven't changed. The funny thing is that genuine persons, individuals, they actually learn and grow from mistakes they make but you persistently are not admitting and accepting the mistakes you make and instead you take a defensive position and attack that which proves you are wrong and persistently try to go around the issue, instead of correcting yourself as you should be doing. Genuine people learn and change, you don't seem to exhibit such qualities.
Why are you doing this? Are you aware you are doing this?
"Conspiracy theory"? Not conspiracy theory, but merely a theory or a suggestion, and yes some are wrong, and also there is deliberate misinformation (oddly very similar to the kind you are spewing here...).
Just because something is branded as a "conspiracy theory" does not immediately, without any investigation or analysis or reasoning into it, mean it is not true or is true. Just as with any information, you have to verify it. If you don't even consider the possibility that some "conspiracy theories" might be true, then you are severely missing out on actual reality, because many of them actually are true. If you write them off as impossible and nonsense before even looking into them, then you can never know whether they are true or not, which makes you saying "they are not true" what exactly?
"A typical conspiracy theory is that all soils are depleted." Oh wow... generalization evidently without actually thinking over what you just wrote.
Why are you bringing in cooked foods in comparison to raw? Why are you again trying to go around the issue? This here was never about cooked foods! I will simply repost the part you completely ignored, as obviously it refuted your nonsense as you are trying to go around it, trying to ignore the issue: "Sorry but this says nothing about his magnesium intake. Refer to what eveheart said about soils and I said about toxins in our environment and in our body and the damage done by toxins that requires healing and thus extra magnesium along other stuff - it is obvious what all this means. Or does/did he live near water and ate lots of sea food or go swimming often, or did he get his food from some specifically magnesium rich place? Otherwise, sorry, but he was deficient in magnesium already prior to consuming excess calcium.
That someone goes low-carb does not mean they are abundant in all the nutrients they need, especially magnesium. It's not just how they eat, it's more to do where the food comes from and in what conditions it was grown."
I will say it again. Just because someone eats a specific diet, does not immediately mean the person gets all the nutrients he/she needs. Just because someone eats raw and low carb, does not immediatelly mean the person gets enough magnesium.
Obviously you do not care not one tiniest bit about honesty nor veracity. As when it is shown that you are wrong you simply try to go around the issue of you being wrong, ignoring your own mistakes completely and bringing in irrelevant points as if that was what was discussed.
What are you doing here?
The entire time I've been here I have not noticed you change not one bit, but I have noticed others change, and myself change. People learn, people change, people grow. So why are you not? Are you aware you are not? Are you aware not changing is a problem?
It is obvious you do not care about anything but spewing nonsense and misinformation and irrelevant points. So I'm just gonna leave it at this.
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Well, that was the biggest amount of b*llsh*t I have read in a long time, all emotions and zero backable facts.
I will correct the very few actual claims made:-
1) I did not troll, I simply quoted anecdotal evidence and used a bit of common-sense, which you dismissed without providing any genuine evidence to back up your claims. Indeed, you appear to be trolling.
2) I, ages ago, checked into this soil-depletion theory and the more extreme proponents of this theory go haywire and claim that all, absolutely ALL, soils on this planet are mineral-deficient and therefore need lots of artificial adding of minerals before the soils can be said to be sufficiently full of all the right nutrients. This is obviously not true as there are plenty of pieces of land which are not touched by humans which clearly have all the right nutrients(that is, unless the craziest soil-depletion advocates are trying to claim that soils in palaeo times were also deficient in nutrients, which is truly crazy).
I used to be 100% against this soil-depletion theory but have come to accept that it is accurate as regards intensive farming, hardly a sign of unchanging attitudes. Obviously, overfarming land will have consequences. I just am reluctant to be paranoid and assume, like you, that the problem exists absolutely everywhere.
3) Why am I bringing in cooked foods in comparison to raw? Very simple, really. The vast majority of the soil-depletion advocates are talking about nutrient-poor foods from the context of cooked foods. Since raw foods have a much higher nutrient content(including magnesium) than cooked foods, it is obvious that a raw foodists' intake of magnesium will be much higher than in the case of a cooked foodist.
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I used to be 100% against this soil-depletion theory but have come to accept that it is accurate as regards intensive farming, hardly a sign of unchanging attitudes. Obviously, overfarming land will have consequences. I just am reluctant to be paranoid and assume, like you, that the problem exists absolutely everywhere.
The first soil-depletion studies in the US occurred in the 1930s, I think in connection with the Dust Bowl, in which intensive farming and high winds led to severe erosion in intensively-farmed agricultural land.
Mineral concentrations also have natural variations. For example, they say that Brazil nuts from Brazil are high in selenium, but the same cultivar grown elsewhere won't have the same high amounts of that mineral due to normal soil variation.
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Tyler, it is a very sad thing that you actually believe your own nonsense. You obviously lack self-awareness, and awareness in general to a significant degree. Sad, very sad.
Neither are you consciously in control of yourself, as is obvious. The outbursts are the evidence of this.
You as well are incapable of understanding what others are saying and suggesting with their posts, as you are also misinterpreting what I have said. Thus you make conclusions of me that simply are not true at all. Evidence is in your posts.
Emotions? Oh really? Care to compare your own posts to my "emotional" posts? Why are you lying here like this? Are you even aware you are lying? Stupid to ask really... of course you are not aware.
I addressed something I noticed, I brought it out, something obvious and fundamentally logical that you missed. And what did you do? Completely, 100% ignored it and "straw manned" and still do.
I've been on forums and argued quite a bit. I know a troll when I see one. I know how a troll conducts and behaves - exactly like you do. "Textbook trolling" is what you do. Now you might not be aware of it but you are doing it.
I've said quite enough to you. But you cannot understand... so to you it's all empty words.
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Tyler, it is a very sad thing that you actually believe your own nonsense. You obviously lack self-awareness, and awareness in general to a significant degree. Sad, very sad.
Neither are you consciously in control of yourself, as is obvious. The outbursts are the evidence of this.
You as well are incapable of understanding what others are saying and suggesting with their posts, as you are also misinterpreting what I have said. Thus you make conclusions of me that simply are not true at all. Evidence is in your posts.
Emotions? Oh really? Care to compare your own posts to my "emotional" posts? Why are you lying here like this? Are you even aware you are lying? Stupid to ask really... of course you are not aware.
I addressed something I noticed, I brought it out, something obvious and fundamentally logical that you missed. And what did you do? Completely, 100% ignored it and "straw manned" and still do.
I've been on forums and argued quite a bit. I know a troll when I see one. I know how a troll conducts and behaves - exactly like you do. "Textbook trolling" is what you do. Now you might not be aware of it but you are doing it.
I've said quite enough to you. But you cannot understand... so to you it's all empty words.
Well, so far in your post(s) you have merely spouted rubbish without backing it up with evidence. Err, as regards "lying", this is rather stupid. I mean in order to lie one has to be aware of it to do so. Never mind, perhaps English is not your strong point.
I am also highly amused by your post since it is YOu who is behaving like a troll. I , at least, provided some data to back up my claims.
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Well, so far in your post(s) you have merely spouted rubbish without backing it up with evidence. Err, as regards "lying", this is rather stupid. I mean in order to lie one has to be aware of it to do so. Never mind, perhaps English is not your strong point.
I am also highly amused by your post since it is YOu who is behaving like a troll. I , at least, provided some data to back up my claims.
Good luck finding reality, and yourself.
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Here's an article about early people in the high Andes: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/23/us-science-andes-idUSKCN0IC26U20141023 (http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/23/us-science-andes-idUSKCN0IC26U20141023)
What I really found interesting was a comment posted on Yahoo's news feed: I wonder if they were avoiding insects. In some parts of the world today, the far north of Scotland for instance, anything alive that can make the trip, heads up into the hills around dusk because the biting insects come out at lower elevations. It looks like a black smoke whisping up from the ground in the distance. Countless insects. Anything in their path will find themselves in distress very quickly.
Insects and insect-borne diseases played such a large role in global circumnavigation, slavery, and colonization in the last 600 years, so I can easily buy in to the idea that perhaps insect-avoidance played a role in where prehistoric people chose to live.
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I would agree with insect avoidance as another factor.
See how the Europeans could NOT migrate to equatorial Africa because of Malaria.
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GS, are you sure Europeans are less resistant to malaria than people native to these equatorial regions?
I will look into this, but it doesn't seem totally right...
To begin with French Wikipedia says malaria was present in Northern Europe till the Nineteenth century, when most humid zones and swamps were dried out. That's only two centuries ago, so Europeans must still be at least partly "adapted" to the parasite.
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paludisme#Europe (http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paludisme#Europe) (For those who read french)
BTW, I heard that malaria disease was able to develop and spread so vastly because of Neolithic man-made humid zones (plant cultures, cutting down forests, water reservoirs...) and other factors linked to Neolithic lifestyle, such as human settlement. Insect-born diseases probably has had a much greater influence on humanity since the beginning of the Neolithic age, than it might've had in prehistorical times.
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Absolutely true:
Diseases at the Dawn of Western Civilization
(excerpts) by Mirko D. Grmek, published by Payot, p. 125-126
“Spondylitis is indisputably the disease paleontologists most commonly diagnose. In the vast majority of cases, talking of actual disease is mistaken, in view of the fact that documented changes in bone structure cause no major functional disorder. Paleopathological bony processes due to rheumatism were first diagnosed in pre-historic bears. Initially, the cold and dampness of caves were thought to be causative factors. This appeared borne out by a description of like lesions on the vertebrae of Neanderthalian skeletons (...). However, evidence piled up, corroborating that the disease was also common in Neolithic European population groups who were fairly well sheltered from what the weather could throw at them. This especially holds true for the inhabitants of Pharaonistic, Hellenistic, and Roman Egypt. (...) Acknowledgedly then, spondylitis was neither climate- nor germ-bound.
Note: Do not confuse spondylitis with ankylosing spondylitis, which is a serious spinal disease (that joins the vertebrae, completely stiffens the bottom of the spine, causes pain, and so on) of the modern age. Switching to an uncooked diet appears to prevent the condition from getting worse and may even possibly improve it. It will, therefore, come as no surprise that our prehistoric forbears were not prone to ankylosing spondylitis.
pp. 208, 209, 212, 228, 229, 230, 263, 400, 404.
Venereal syphilis, endemic syphilis, and yaws cause bone lesions that often unfailingly warrant diagnosing treponematosis (...).
No bone remains pre_dating 1,500 CE and showing incontrovertible signs of treponemal infection have been found in Europe, Africa, or Asia (...). The Ancient Greek World was free of any kind of syphilis or treponematosis.
Leprosy made its lasting mark on bone remains (...). In France, out of 1,000 skeletons examined that covered the period ranging from the Neolithic Age to the year 1,000, only a single skull and which dated back to the sixth century, was found to bear leprous stigmata.
It is worth noting that there is no trace of leprosy on human remains of the pharaonic period in Egypt (...). Out of some 20,000 samples (...) from three different countries, leprous stigmata were detected on eight individuals who lived before the year 1,000 (...). All those cases date back to a surprisingly recent period, i.e. the sixth century C.E.
Likewise, no TB suspect lesion was detected on human Paleolithic bones (...), the oldest TB-ridden samples dating back to 3,000 B.C. The falciparum type of malarial fever correlates with porous hyperostosis. In the Greek World, porous hyperostosis definitely appears in the Mesolithic Period, reaching a high point beginning with the Neolithic Period.
If malaria was a time-old feature, it didn’t necessarily erupt in every period with the same intensity. Admittedly though, in prehistoric times, its radius of effect was rather restricted. But, subsequently, definite factors presumably caused endemic bursts. This extended the area infiltrated and worsened the clinical outlook (...). Starting at the end of the fifth century B.C., malaria became a standard Greek disease.”
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GS, are you sure Europeans are less resistant to malaria than people native to these equatorial regions?
I will look into this, but it doesn't seem totally right...
It was said that lack of prior exposure to malaria, therefore lack of malaria antibodies led to higher mortality rates for Europeans when they were first exposed to such tropical diseases. In the western hemisphere, the good tobacco/sugar cane/cotton growing regions were also the malaria zones. European plantation owners could have easily gotten impoverished Europeans to work as slave labor, but the life expectancy of a non-malaria exposed European was often less than one year in the New World, so pre-exposed peoples from tropical and sub-tropical regions were used instead.
This is a strongly-supported theory, In those days, diseases and disease vectors were not well understood, so many reports from that time did not name diseases so much as they named symptoms, such as "he started trembling and shaking, and his skin was dry and hot" might be used to describe malaria.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm)
This explains why Africans have developed greater resistance to malaria compared to Europeans.
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http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm (http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110428123931.htm)
This explains why Africans have developed greater resistance to malaria compared to Europeans.
I've heard about this.
However it doesn't look like such a "healthy" defensive adaptation against the malaria parasite, IMO. The life expectancy of people with this special blood condition being significantly lower than average...
Is there any other way to protect oneself against the negative outcome of being host to the malaria parasite? As in getting the body to manage it's excessive proliferation, through diet? How do wild animals "manage" it?
If I remember correctly, some instinctos experimented with this, but it didn't end well for them, am I right?
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I lived and traveled in the tropics quite some years altogether and never got any tropical disease, even when I was still eating cooked food. I’ve just always avoided the places known as being very much infested with malaria, such as Halmahera in Indonesia. A raw diet doesn’t make you immune to malaria: as a matter of fact its’s about the only disease which doesn’t heal with instinctotherapy. Take the proper medicine in case you get it: chloroquin should be ok if it’s malaria vivax, but if by bad luck you get the deadly falciparum, stronger and more specific drugs are absolutely necessary. But I would never take anything preventively, it’s stupid and all the tourists taking drugs uselessly make the plasmodium more and more resistant.
From this thread, which is very similar to this one: ;)
Please vote: Are we meant to live in the tropics?
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/please-vote-are-we-meant-to-live-in-the-tropics/msg79334/#msg79334 (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/please-vote-are-we-meant-to-live-in-the-tropics/msg79334/#msg79334)
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The point is that if they carry only one sickle cell gene they are fine but well-protected specifically against malaria. They only have problems, I think, if they have two sets of sickle cell genes.Same goes for Caucasians as regards tuberculosis.
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From this thread, which is very similar to this one: ;)
Please vote: Are we meant to live in the tropics?
http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/please-vote-are-we-meant-to-live-in-the-tropics/msg79334/#msg79334 (http://www.rawpaleodietforum.com/general-discussion/please-vote-are-we-meant-to-live-in-the-tropics/msg79334/#msg79334)
Wow, you guys had the exact same discussion back in 2011 :P.
The point is that if they carry only one sickle cell gene they are fine but well-protected specifically against malaria. They only have problems, I think, if they have two sets of sickle cell genes.
Yep, that's what the study says:
"Only those individual that inherit two copies of the sickle mutation (one from their mother and the other from their father) develop sickle cell anemia. If untreated, these individuals have a shorter than normal life expectancy and as such it would be expected that this mutation would be rare in human populations."
"Individuals carrying just one copy of the sickle mutation (inherited from either the father or mother) were known not to develop sickle cell anemia, leading rather normal lives. However, it was found that these same individuals, said to carry the sickle cell trait, were in fact highly protected against malaria, thus explaining the high prevalence of this mutation in geographical areas where malaria is endemic"
I wonder however if this sickle mutation can be potentially unhealthy in other situations, even if the individual only has one copy of it. Regarding good transportation of oxygen by the blood cells and whatnot.
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Wow, you guys had the exact same discussion back in 2011 :P.
You see why I get fed up, sometimes...
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You see why I get fed up, sometimes...
Absolutely ;D
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There are two different issues here: acquired immunity and genetic immunity. The mention in this thread about insect avoidance is about acquired immunity. The old discussion had more of a basis in genetic immunity. If one has genetic immunity to insect bites, for example, there would be no need to avoid biting insects because the body would not react to the bite. If one has acquired immunity to some pathogen in an insect bite, that means that one (or one's mother) has been bitten by the insect before, gotten sick, developed antigens, and recovered. And (of course) it's not that simple!
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I was too until I noticed that Charles silenced or banned anyone who reported bad results from ZC. LOL The ZIOH forum is a lot like the 30bananasaday forum in the way that coctivore ZCers do.
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Yes, Charles did talk about vitamin C and scurvy quite a bit and I questioned Charles face-to-face on it years ago and he didn't have a good answer. Wish I could remember the exact question. I do remember that he wasn't as knowledgeable about it as he pretended, but his devoted followers ate up what he said anyway. I didn't pursue it further to avoid stirring up a hornets nest of anger at a friendly gathering. :)
That doesn't surprise me in the least.
I'm ZC most days of a year, and among the other days I'll probably be VVLC 80% of them. That tells you a lot.
But I totally agree about the similitudes between ZIOH and 30Bananas, in those regards.
Many ZIOH members are delusional, first and foremost their leader.
For sure, the fact that you cannot gain weight, or that you'll lose weight on the long term, just by eating only animal foods, is easy to refute.
Type of meat, cooking, salting, flavoring, and such, have a lot more to do with it.
In spite of being ZC/VLC, on the subject of weight loss, I lean more towards the importance of "reward" of foods vs. "insulin" effect.
Everyone can try eating bacon, ribs, cream, butter, and so on, "at libitum", for 6 months in a row, and most people will eventually get fat.
Simply, meats, on average, are less rewarding than many carbohydrate rich foods, plus eliminating variety, as one does being ZC, helps in that sense too.
Of course if you were obese you'll generally drop weight.
ZC foods take you to a lower "set point", than including foods like pizza, icecream, sodas, nice pastas, fries, and so on.
But thinking that eating bacon vs. raw suet, or even grilled ribs vs. raw ground beef, would make no difference, weight wise, in my opinion is almost laughable.
Same thing for the stance that the reason nuts and dairy might cause weight gain is because of their small carb content.
INSULIN INSULIN INSULIN INSULIN
And there's no way that they'll let you point it out things like that.
Even if you actually eat ZC.
I know plenty of ZC's aren't, after a long time by now, even close to the weight they'd like to be at.
Nonetheless, no one should dare question ZIOH efficacy.
I pointed out the weight (loss) aspect, because, again, it's a pretty easy one to refute.
from today's entry:
facebook.com/groups/zioh2/permalink/940930345949198/
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You eat meat and drink water in crazy quantities. You don't gain. No obese person ever gained significant weight on ZC. They didn't lose what they wanted sometimes but they did NOT gain. You can eat as much meat as you wish to yet you don't gain!
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Yeah, sure... try that with bacon and let me know how it goes.
;D ;D
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I pointed out the weight (loss) aspect, because, again, it's a pretty easy one to refute.
Quote
from today's entry:
facebook.com/groups/zioh2/permalink/940930345949198/
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You eat meat and drink water in crazy quantities. You don't gain. No obese person ever gained significant weight on ZC. They didn't lose what they wanted sometimes but they did NOT gain. You can eat as much meat as you wish to yet you don't gain!
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Yeah, sure... try that with bacon and let me know how it goes.
Yeah, Lex Rooker tested that claim that one cannot gain weight on ZC and reported in his journal that he did. I did also meet some of the ZCers who had been doing it for years and were still overweight and not losing weight.
More concerning were some of the negative health effects that some reported and then were deleted/banned.
It is possible for some to lose weight on it and Charles became quite thin on a combination of ZC and long distance running. Despite frequently admonishing those with weight loss stalls to eat more (as the 30BAD people also advise) and claiming that CICO is wrong and calories don't count, I think he contradictorily reported that he had cut his consumption (and therefore calories), but my memory is fuzzy on that.
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If I recall correctly, Lex had to eat around 90% fat before he gained weight. But that may differ from person to person.
I do imagine, though, that mono-eating raw grassfed or wild meats, including organs, with at least 20% of calories from protein, would be a nearly foolproof way to lose excess weight. Overeating would be extremely difficult. I'm not sure even those people who get up to 900+ lbs could avoid losing weight that way.
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Yes, Lex's fat intake was huge during the weight gain experiment--I think it was at least over 80% of calories, IIRC.
Yes, raw carnivory is probably more effective for weightloss than cooked.
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Yes, Lex's fat intake was huge during the weight gain experiment--I think it was at least over 80% of calories, IIRC.
Yes, raw carnivory is probably more effective for weightloss than cooked.
No, I believe he said that 80% fat maintained weight, but 90% caused weight gain. Anyway, we can check his thread when we have more time.
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Ah yes, I think it was something like that.