man is carnivore

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/sc...b &ei=5087%0A

Fossils Link Pre-Humans in West Europe to Earlier Date

Excavations in a cave in the mountains of northern Spain have
uncovered the oldest known remains of human ancestors in Western
Europe, scientists reported Wednesday.

The fossils of a lower jaw and teeth, more than 1.1 million years old,
were found in sediments along with stone tools and bones of animals
that appeared to have been butchered. The remains have been attributed
to the previously known species Homo antecessor, a possible ancestor
of Neanderthals and modern humans.

what does this article have to do with man being a carnivore?

"Tunderbar" wrote in message
...
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/sc...b &ei=5087%0A

Fossils Link Pre-Humans in West Europe to Earlier Date

Excavations in a cave in the mountains of northern Spain have
uncovered the oldest known remains of human ancestors in Western
Europe, scientists reported Wednesday.

The fossils of a lower jaw and teeth, more than 1.1 million years old,
were found in sediments along with stone tools and bones of animals
that appeared to have been butchered. The remains have been attributed
to the previously known species Homo antecessor, a possible ancestor
of Neanderthals and modern humans.

On Mar 28, 1:12*pm, "Roger Zoul" wrote:
what does this article have to do with man being *a carnivore?

"Tunderbar" wrote in message

...



http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/27/sc...?bl&ex=1206763....

Fossils Link Pre-Humans in West Europe to Earlier Date

Excavations in a cave in the mountains of northern Spain have
uncovered the oldest known remains of human ancestors in Western
Europe, scientists reported Wednesday.

The fossils of a lower jaw and teeth, more than 1.1 million years old,
were found in sediments along with stone tools and bones of animals
that appeared to have been butchered. The remains have been attributed
to the previously known species Homo antecessor, a possible ancestor
of Neanderthals and modern humans.- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

"stone tools and bones of animals that appeared to have been
butchered"

Sometimes the words give it away.

x-no-archive" yes

FOB wrote:
Or maybe the dogs' willingness to eat a variety of vegetables? As opposed
to cats who will turn their noses up at most vegetables.

All of my cats have liked to eat grasses and cantaloupe. In the wild,
cats and dogs eat the stomach contents of their prey, too, and get
smaller amounts of plant foods into their diets that way.

Lots of humans turn their noses up at most vegetables, too, BTW. ;-)

Susan

"Cubit" wrote:
"Susan" wrote:.
Roger Zoul wrote:

what does this article have to do with man being *a carnivore?

Nothing.
Humans are omnivores, not carnivores.

I think semantic purity avoids the point here. *There may be evidence that
humans were primarily carnivorous.

The evidence from the few remaining hunter gatherer societies
is humans before civilization tended to eat well over half of
their calories from animal sources.

Humanity did evolve from ape species that 5+ million years
ago were mostly herbivores. Modern apes eat something like
5% of their calories from animal sources and the discovery
that chimps organize hunts was huge news in the 1960s. So
our "starting point" diverging from the other apes was already
not strictly fruit eaters.

The evidence is that humanity (being looser than "anatomically
modern humans" to include lots of links in our evolutionary
chain) moved quite far along the evolutionary path towards
carnivore before herding and farming were developed. But
herding and farming *were* developed. Based on the fossil
evidence it appears that humans peaked out at some degree
of "carnivore-ness" within the range of omnivores in ancient
times and have since moved a little towards "herbivore-ness"
within the range of omnivores in modern times. But we are
still closer to the carnivore side than the herbivore side.
Evolution is an on-going process and it's still happening.

The whole herbivose/omnivore/carnivore deal is a grey scale
not a set of sharp divides.

Lots of people feed their dogs vegetables. *Are dogs omnivores, not
carnivores?

As FOB mentioned cats will decline veggies. Give a cat no
choice but to eat vegan food and the cat will eventually go
blind. Cats are quite far along the scale towards the end of
carnivore.

But dogs have seen a huge amount of forced evolution since
they started hanging out with humans. While pre-humans
evolved to eat more and more meat and then developed
farming and have since started drifting back towards the
omnivore center, dogs didn't start out as completely carnivore
as cats and for thousands of generations they have had
intense evolutionary pressure pushing them from somewhere
in the carnivore part of the spectrum to near where humans
are in the omnivore part of the spectrum.

So, calling dogs omnivores or carnivores depends on where
you put the boundary. Watch what ferral dogs eat and it
isn't all meat. Watch what ferral cats eat and it is all critter.

Lab animals, such as rabbits, are commonly fed fats and proteins for
experiments, but does that mean that rabbits are omnivores, not herbivores?

Sure, but it is about what they'll eat when allowed to go ferral.

Put a few humans out in the wild with nothing but their own
witts and no sign of civilization and what will they figure out to
eat? Pretty much anything and a lot of gross stuff at that.
Humans seem to be able to eat anything up to and including
rocks. Okay, not actually rocks but still pretty much anything.

But what's the chance a few ferral humans will turn out
vegitarians? Vegitarianism is a social choice available within
society that would not be an option without civilization. I think
that's part of Thunderbar's "man is carnivore" subject line. That
and the fossil evidence looks like our ferral ancestors ate more
meat as a percentage of total calories than we do now.

"Doug Freyburger" wrote

But what's the chance a few ferral humans will turn out
vegitarians? Vegitarianism is a social choice available within
society that would not be an option without civilization. I think
that's part of Thunderbar's "man is carnivore" subject line. That
and the fossil evidence looks like our ferral ancestors ate more
meat as a percentage of total calories than we do now.

The article he points to provides no evidence of such that I could see....

And it's "Tunderbar"

"Roger Zoul" wrote:
"Doug Freyburger" wrote

That
and the fossil evidence looks like our ferral ancestors ate more
meat as a percentage of total calories than we do now.

The article he points to provides no evidence of such that I could see....

Ah. What I saw in the photo was the shape of the teeth.
Paleontologists make judgements about diet based on
the shape of the teeth relative to modern human average.
Something about shovel shaped indicating a larger percentage
of calories from meat than modern humans. Not mentioned
in the article but it did remind me of older articles about
shape of teeth. So I made the connection based on that
memory.

And it's "Tunderbar"

Sure, but it's just as valid to say - And it's "Doug". I get
your point but I resemble it too much for that to be enough.

Susan wrote:

All of my cats have liked to eat grasses and cantaloupe. In the wild,
cats and dogs eat the stomach contents of their prey, too, and get
smaller amounts of plant foods into their diets that way.

Lots of humans turn their noses up at most vegetables, too, BTW. ;-)

Susan

So true. I have a friend, and the only vegetable he eats is french
fries. The rest is meat and junk food.

Becca

On Mar 29, 6:35 pm, "Roger Zoul" wrote:
"Doug Freyburger" wrote

But what's the chance a few ferral humans will turn out
vegitarians? Vegitarianism is a social choice available within
society that would not be an option without civilization. I think
that's part of Thunderbar's "man is carnivore" subject line. That
and the fossil evidence looks like our ferral ancestors ate more
meat as a percentage of total calories than we do now.

The article he points to provides no evidence of such that I could see....

And it's "Tunderbar"

Nice ad hominem.

"Tunderbar" wrote in message
...
On Mar 29, 6:35 pm, "Roger Zoul" wrote:
"Doug Freyburger" wrote

But what's the chance a few ferral humans will turn out
vegitarians? Vegitarianism is a social choice available within
society that would not be an option without civilization. I think
that's part of Thunderbar's "man is carnivore" subject line. That
and the fossil evidence looks like our ferral ancestors ate more
meat as a percentage of total calories than we do now.

The article he points to provides no evidence of such that I could
see....

And it's "Tunderbar"

Nice ad hominem.

Asking a question is an attack?