930
Domestication (mander.xyz)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 88 points 1 year ago

I know it’s a joke but this is science memes and it plays into a widespread misconception about early humans that we were some kind of blood drenched carnivores. Not true. Humans have always mostly eaten plants supplemented with some meat or other animal foods.

[-] barsoap@lemm.ee 36 points 1 year ago

Also it's not like "getting food is easier" is the only hypothesis out there as to why we settled down. Another one, IMO much more in line with human nature, is that we figured out how to ferment beer and for that reason planted buttloads of grain.

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Since there’s no written record, it’s hard to know for sure but I believe it was because agricultural communities were able to reproduce much faster and live at much higher densities, so they tended to win conflicts and displace societies based on foraging—even though foragers had better quality of life and didn’t normally experience the food shortages people imagine.

That said, modern foraging societies have largely converted to agriculture after being subjugated and not because they were hungry. So there is some evidence to support this hypothesis.

[-] Venator@lemmy.nz 8 points 1 year ago

Also the foraging people might end up living on the periphery of a settlement, foraging and then trading what they foraged with the settlement to make thier lives easier.

[-] Geobloke@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago

It depends so much on location and period, as an example, the Inuit diet consisted of a lot of meat whole the Kaurna in Australia ate lots of yams.

[-] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Yeah you’re right, I probably stated it over-broadly. I’m more talking about the typical prehistoric human diet but there were exceptions.

this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2024
930 points (100.0% liked)

Science Memes

16069 readers
1135 users here now

Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.



Rules

  1. Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
  2. Keep it rooted (on topic).
  3. No spam.
  4. Infographics welcome, get schooled.

This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.



Research Committee

Other Mander Communities

Science and Research

Biology and Life Sciences

Physical Sciences

Humanities and Social Sciences

Practical and Applied Sciences

Memes

Miscellaneous

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS