Calling all experts...

[Janeydi]

Is there any evidence anywhere that would indicate that Paleo people stored ANY kind of food for the winter? Either vegetables, meat, grain, anything?

Thanks, Amy

[razzle]

yes, plenty of evidence, including evidence in remaining modern hunter-gatherer groups. Dried fruits, cured meats, nuts are likely storage items, though surely those stores were running out for many groups by late winter and the diet became nearer 100% meat in the coldest zones in late winter and spring. Meat can be gathered at any time of year--in fact, if it's a terribly hard winter, you're fairly likely to run across frozen carcasses and be able to scavenge rather than hunt--a very smart energy choice. Root vegetables such as carrots and hardy leaf vegetables such as kale and dandelion (as I just mentioned elsewhere) are available all winter long where I live and would have been many places we evolved. We did a lot of evolving along seashores in tropical locales after the last ice age receded, so indeed fresh fruits and veggies would have been available to many of our ancestors.

Our ancestors were plenty smarter than us about finding ways to gather and preserve food supplies, I suspect. They didn't have a Safeway down the street, so they had to be smarter!

[kjturner]

Well, also bear in mind a lot of our pre-agriculture ancestors lived at the bases of glaciers, so I'd kinda doubt they even had things like dandelion in winter. My way of thinking is to try to eat according to what your personal ancestors may have eaten. If you are of Northern European stock, I'd think you should be less inclined to go for tropical fruits and fish as your basis and more to red meats, nuts and dried berries during winter...lots of greens in spring and summer. If you are of Pacific Island stock, well then you probably shouldn't eat too much red meat other than the occasional pig every now and then and concentrate on fish and fruits and roots year 'round. I'd love to eventually get myself to eating according to the way my European/Scottish ancestors did, but I have a good bit of research to do. (BTW, I adore the Jean Auel novels! And I know how to knap out a few stone tools too!!)

[Janeydi]

I just finished Plains of Passage, wanted to read them all again before I got the new one. I do enjoy them. That's why I was asking about the food storage, I was wondering what she was basing the stories on. I'm most particularly interested to know if food storage caches had been found. (I'm wondering if grains were really stored.)

Knapping your own tools? Cool! After reading those books, I realize what a sissy and how dependent I am, although I do garden and try to grow a lot of our veggies.

I am of Northern European descent, and have a definate problem with grains. Or at least wheat. Oats don't seem to be as bad, although I haven't eaten them in ages.

Thanks again,

Amy

[kjturner]

"Valley of Horses" is still my favorite. There is a LOT of info on food gathering and storage in there. Jean Auel actually has done a lot of the things she writes about. Not on an ongoing basis, of course, but how can you write about flint knapping if you've never done it? Or washing your hair with soaproot? Or know how herbs taste and what they are for?
As for me, on the occasion where I'd made some stone tools was back in high school where I'd done a project on early man and I read up on stone tools and thought I'd rap out a few. I made a chopper, a scraper and a kind of planer for shaving/smoothing arrows. They were crude, but serviceable. I also had found a piece of obsidian which made a nifty knife, but I can't take credit for 'making' it. It was sharp when I found it. We don't have flint where I live so I had to use ordinary rocks. I have since found several old arrow and spearheads and compared to them, I don't think I did too badly. With some practice, I think I'd be a fair tool knapper.