Study: Britons quickly dropped seafood for meat in Stone Age

Associated Press ^ | 9/24/2003

[presidio9]

Surf or turf? If you've faced that decision in a restaurant, consider what Stone Age people in coastal Britain went through, with a traditional seafood diet on one hand and newly domesticated plants and animals on the other. A new study says that about 6,000 years ago, they chose turf in a big way.

[Hermann the Cherusker]

Well duh! Who'd be some dumb as to take a slab of Haddock over a nice juicy prime rib?

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

They probably never lived long enough to die from the effects of high cholesterol.

[Servant of the 9]

They changed because meat and carbs taste better. Seafood is just one step up from eating grass.

SO9

[Chi-townChief]

Damn right! Why sit there with a fishing pole when you could go out and grab a tasty cut of mastodon!?!

[johnb838]

Beefeaters.

6000 years, hmmm... About the time of the start of biblical history.

I wonder if maybe the fishing wasn't so good for a few generations resulting in people having to find other ways to feed themselves. The Law of Infinite Substitutability at work.

[ctlpdad]

and they've been eating bangers & mash every night for the last 6000 years

[Hugin]

Richards said it's not clear why coastal people turned away so abruptly from successful fishing and gathering of shellfish, turning instead to crops like wheat and barley and domestic animals like cattle, pigs and sheep.

Because it's a lot easier and more reliable to go out back and slaughter a pig than spend the day gathering shellfish. Expecially in the winter.

[Interesting Times]

Or maybe the clam-eating tribe was wiped out by some early farmers...

[Oberon]

They switched because of the invention of farming, and the transition from hunting/gathering to agriculture.

If you're limited to stone age technology, it's easier to raise cows than fish. Farming cows means that you can feed your family fresh meat in large quantities in January and February. That's much easier than catching and salting a whole winter's worth of seafood during the summer, and tastes better, too.

[LibertyAndJusticeForAll]

This new breeding of Talapia fish is not a bad idea. And, Talapia tastes good too.
Maybe there's an unemployed freeper interested in a new business opportunity? There are quite a few links to be found on Talapia Aquaculture.

[doodad]

Meat certainly keeps better than fish or other seafood.

[mikesmad]

Actually, they did it for the children. The local genius decided that cow farts would lead to global warming so he instituted a plan to kill all methane producing animals. The local entrenpreneur decided to create a market for all of the stinking meat that was laying around. Thus was born the local butcher, the t-bone, the bar-b-que, and the tailgate party.

[MineralMan]

"and they've been eating bangers & mash every night for the last 6000 years
"

Bangers and mash! Yumm! Had them on Sunday night.

[Blzbba]

"Or maybe the clam-eating tribe was wiped out by some early farmers..."


I didn't know there was a lesbian tribe in Britain that long ago...

[Defiant]

Or maybe the clam-eating tribe was wiped out by some early farmers...

LOL. I was just going to suggest that. The meat made people larger and stronger and gave them an advantage when dealing with the stone-age seafood lovers.

[adam_az]

Richards said it's not clear why coastal people turned away so abruptly from successful fishing and gathering of shellfish, turning instead to crops like wheat and barley and domestic animals like cattle, pigs and sheep.

It's awful hard to drown to death in a pasture, meat is easier to preserve, and domesticated animals had a lot of other useful parts like hide, bones, etc.

[kAcknor]

Because it's a lot easier and more reliable to go out back and slaughter a pig than spend the day gathering shellfish. Expecially in the winter.

kAcknor Sez:

Sometimes the lack of common sense from those in academia is just overwhelming. "Richards said it's not clear why coastal people turned away so abruptly..." 

To paraphrase: What part of cold, wet, windy, icy, North Atlantic/North Sea/English channel in an open rowboat with hand lines and nets don't they understand?

"bISovbejbe'DI' tImer" (When in doubt, surprise them.)

Have you checked the *bang_list today?

[CaptRon]

Hard to cook. Fish falls of the stick to easily.

[ffusco]

Cows are walking refridgerators. Grazing animals self forage, produce milk, some produce wool, leather, milk and fertilizer for agriculture and some are pack animals and help till the soil. It seems that it was more economical for society to turn to animals instead of fish. The rise in agriculture was the first step towards civilization. Growing foodleads to surplus wich encourages specialization among former hunter gatherers, surplus leads to trade among humans and the need to keep records. Records lead to a written language, math skills, the need to schedulel planting and harvest. A weritten language leads to a written history or culture that is not oral. So each person needs not learn everything that has come before. He can learn what he needs to acomplish his goals.