Showing posts with label fishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fishing. Show all posts

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Going Feral: Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Proenneke

Going Feral: Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Pr...

Subsistance Hunter/Fisherman of the Week: Dick Proenneke

Dick Proenneke may be the ultimate modern subsistence hunter and fisherman in so far as the Western World is concerned.

Proenneke was born in Iowa in 1916.  His father was sort of a jack of all trades laborer, which is and was common to rural areas.  His father was also a veteran of World War One.  Dick followed in his father's footsteps prior to World War Two, leaving high school before graduation, something extremely common in that era (less than 50% of males graduated from high school prior to World War Two  He joined the Navy in World War Two and took up hiking around San Francisco while recovering from rheumatic fever contracted in the service.  Having the disease was life altering for him, as he became focused on his health.  He received a medical discharge from the Navy in 1945.

After the war he became a diesel mechanic, but his love of nature caused him to move to Oregon to work on a sheep ranch, and then to Shuyark Island, Alaska, in 1950.  From 1950 to 1968 he worked for a variety of employers, including the Navy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.  He moved to the wilderness in 1968, at age 52, the year that in many ways gave us the Post Post World War Two World we are now seeing collapse.  He lived there, as a single man, until 1999, when old age forced him out of the woods and to his brother's home in California.  He died in there in 2003, at age 86.  His cabin now belongs to the Park Service.

Proenneke loved photography and left an extensive filmed record of his life in Alaska.

There's a lot that can be gleaned from his life, some of which would probably be unwarranted, as every person's life is their own.  Having noted that, however, it should be noted that Proenneke is not the only person to live in this manner in Alaska's back wood, including up to the present.  So he's not fully unique, but rather his high intelligence and filmed record has made him known.

It's also notable, fwiw, that he was a single man.  Basically, if looked at carefully, his retreat to the woods came in his retirement, as he had very low expenses up until 1968, and had worked for the government for many years.  He never married, so he never had a family or responsibilities of that type.  Many of the men who live in wild Alaska have married into native families, so their circumstances are different.

Probably every young man who loves the outdoors has contemplated doing something like what Proenneke actually did, while omitted the decades of skilled labor as a single man that came before it.  And in reality, Proenneke, had lived over half his life as a working man with strong outdoor interests, rather than in the wilderness.  People really aren't meant to live the way he lived, in extreme isolation, save for a few.

Related Threads:

Dick Proenneke in Alone in the Wilderness


Saturday, November 18, 2023

Going Feral: This is why we can't have nice things:

Going Feral: This is why we can't have nice things::   

This is why we can't have nice things:

 


The above is a case caption of a lawsuit brought in Montana in which Wilderness Watch is suing the U.S. Forest Service over the Forest Service program to use rotenone to take out non-native trout species so that cutthroat trout, the native species can be reintroduced in the Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness.

So, in the name of wilderness, Wilderness Watch, it acting contrary to nature.

Sigh.

Saturday, September 16, 2023

Going Feral: Fishing season is over, and hunting season has begun.

Fishing season is over, and hunting season has begun.

I am, by vocation, a hunter.  A hunter of wildlife and fish.  And I'm not exaggerating.

This isn't a hobby with me.  I'm stuck in a feral past, or perhaps a more feral future, but lving in the present.  

And I'm more of a hunter than a fisherman, in contrast with my father, who was the other way around

The first two seasons of the year open on September 1.  Like most years, due to my occupation (which most people, at least who are professionals, would claim as their vocation, although I'd wager that it is with less than half, very conservatively), I worked.  Opening weekend for me, therefore, is usually when I first get out, and I first get out for the greatest of the wild grouse, Blue Grouse.

They are, I'd note, delicious.


This is a somewhat complicated story, but because of the route I take in, I need permission to cross, which is always forthcoming but I didn't hear back in time this year. That meant that I needed to drive into a location a good two miles further from my normal jumping off point.


And the road, due to the heavy rains this year, and the winter snow, was eroded to impassable. So the walk was further than expected.


But still very pretty, in the morning light.

Because of the very long hike, and my recent surgery, I armed myself with a kids model 20 gauge and buttoned my shirt up to my neck.  Because my old M1911 campaign hat was a casualty of a rattlesnake event two years ago, I wore a replacement United States Park Service campaign hat.  I don't like it nearly as much as my old M1911.

I will say that those wearing synthetic hats are, well, missing the point, and the boat.


The entire trip involves some mountain climbing for the dog.


The dog won't eat in the morning (poodles and doodles are strange about this) due to excitement, so I packed his uneaten breakfast with me. When we hit the high country, he was by that time hungry, in spite of his excitement.


Those boots?  White's smoke jumpers.  Best boots ever.


We hike a fair amount. The dog drank out of a few streams, but I also carry a canteen and he's learned to drink out of a canteen cup.



We found and bagged two young grouse.




And ate them one that evening.  I fried both, that night, and had the second one, reheated the second evening.
 

Saturday, September 2, 2023

Jerks.


I've been going through my camera roll on my computer, as frankly the organization was a mess.  In doing so, I stumbled back across this photograph from last season.

This depicts some Colorado fishermen who nearly ran over my dog, which they could see, in their haste to get to the river before me.

Keep in mind, this is one of those classic acts that depends on me being rational.  They were headed right for the dog at quite a speed and nearly hit him.  I was caring a shotgun.  No, I'm not going to shoot somebody over a dog, but in my legal career I've twice had instances in which a person very nearly did just that.  

I went ahead and loaded up in the howling wind and hunted this stretch of the river anyway.  They looked like they weren't doing well in the high winds.

And people wonder why us natives resent Colorado sportsmen.

Friday, August 11, 2023

Saturday, August 11, 1973. American Graffitti

American Graffiti was released on this day in 1973.  It's on our Movies In History list, which discusses it here:

American Graffiti

Like The Wonder Years, I've made frequent reference to this film recently.  I was surprised when I started doing that, that I'd never reviewed it.

American Graffiti takes place on a single night in Modesto California in 1962.  It's the late summer and the subject, all teenagers, are about to head back to school or already have, depending upon whether they're going to high school or college. Some are going to work or already working.  They're spending the summer night cruising the town.  That's used as a vehicle to get them into dramatic situations.

The story lines, and there are more than one, in the film are really simple.  One character, played by Richard Dreyfus, is about to leave for college and develops a mad crush, in a single night, for a young woman driving a T-bird played by a young Suzanne Summers.  Another plot involves a young couple, played by Ron Howard and Cindy Williams, who are struggling with his plan to leave for college while she has one more year of school.  Another involves an already graduated figure whose life is dedicated to cars, even though its apparent that he knows that dedication can't last forever.  The cast, as some of these names would indicate, was excellent, with many actors and actresses making their first really notable appearances in the film.

What's of interest here is the films' portrayal of the automobile culture of American youth after World War Two. This has really passed now, but it's accurately portrayed in the film.  Gasoline was relatively cheap and access to automobiles was pretty wide, which created a culture in which adolescents spent a lot of time doing just what is depicted in this movie, driving around fairly aimlessly, with the opposite sex on their minds, on Friday and Saturday nights.  This really existed in the 1960s, when this film takes place, it dated back at least to the 1950s, and it continued on into the very early 1980s. At some point after that, gasoline prices, and car prices, basically forced it out of existence.

For those growing up in the era, this was a feature of Fridays and Saturdays either to their amusement or irritation.  As a kid, coming into town on a Friday or Saturday evening from anything was bizarre and irritating, with racing automobiles packed with teenagers pretty much everywhere.  Grocery store parking lots were packed with parked cars belonging to them as well.  "Cruising" was a major feature of teenage life, and nearly every teenager participated in it at least a little big, even if they disavowed doing it.  While they did this, in later years they listened to FM radio somewhat, but more likely probably cassette tape players installed after market in their cars.  In the mid 1970s it was 8 track tape players.  In the 50s and 60s, it was the radio.

So, as odd as it may seem to later generations, this movie is pretty accurate in terms of what it displays historically.  And, given that the film was released in 1973, a mere decade after the era it depicts, it should be.  The amazing thing here is that by 1973 American culture had changed so much that a 1973 film looking back on 1962 could actually invoke a sense of nostalgia and an era long past.

The music and clothing are certainly correct, as is the cruising culture.  I somewhat question the automobiles in the movie, as most of those driven by the protagonists are late 1950s cars that wouldn't have been terribly old at the time the movie portrays, but a person knowledgeable on that topic informed me once that vehicles wore out so fast at the time that people replaced them fairly rapidly, which meant that younger people were driving fairly recent models.  Indeed, looking back on myself, I was driving early 1970s vintage vehicles in the late 1970s.

The music, which is a big feature of the movie, is also correct, which ironically often causes people to view this as a movie about the 1950s, rather than the early 1960s.  The music of the early 60s was the same as that of the late 50s, and music from the 50s was still current in the early 1960s, so this too is correct.

This movie was a huge hit, and it remained very popular for a very long time.  It's justifiably regarded as a classic.  More than that, however, it's one of the few movies that influences its own times.

Already by the 1970s there was some nostalgia regarding the 1950s.  Sha Na Na, the 50s reprisal do wop band, actually preformed at Woodstock, as amazing as that seems now.  By the late 1960s seems felt like such a mess that people were looking back towards an earlier era which they regarded as safer, ignoring its problems.  American Graffiti tapped into that feeling intentionally, although it has some subtle dark elements suggesting that not all is right with the world it portrays (the film clearly hints that a returned college graduate student is involved with his teenage female students).  George Lucas, when he made the film, couldn't have guess however that it would fuel a nostalgia boom for the 1950s like none other.

From our entry:

Movies In History: American Graffiti, and other filmed portrayals of the Cultural 1950s (1954-1965).

One of the really remarkable things about this film, well worth noting, is that it depicted a night in 1962.  That means, of course, that it was depicting, with nostalgia, something that had happened only ten years prior and yet already seemed like an earlier era.

Do we feel that way about 2013?  I doubt it.

This demonstrates that our perception of the decades not only depends upon years, and the years we've lived but also on events and eras.  What made the 1962 seem like history in 1973?

Well, probably quite a lot.  The US entered the Vietnam War and had just left the country in defeat, although the collapse of South Vietnam was yet to come.  The US had landed men on the moon more than once.  The Great Society had come and gone.  A U.S. president had died violently.  Inflation was racking the nation.

And 1968, which is to say "the 60s" had come, and was just leaving, although that was not apparent.

By the 80s, those who had "experienced the 60s" were looking back on some of it fondly, although they weren't looking back on the Vietnam War fondly.  So the process slightly repeated itself. But by 1973 people were really aware that the post World War Two world had really passed.  It wasn't as carefree as depictions of the 1950s would have it, not by a long shot.  But a lamenting of what had been lost was starting, and in some ways, has very much returned.

Looking forward, it was on this day that "hip hop", or "rap" was born when Jamaican born Olive Campbell introduced the form under the stage name DJ Kool Herc at a party organized by Campbell and his sister, that being the Bronx, New York, Back To School Jam.

The Soviet Union sentenced for men to death and three to prisoner terms for collaboration with the Germans while they were members of the Red Army during World War Two.

The Icelandic Coast Guard ship  ICGV Óðinn rammed the Royal Navy's HMS Andromeda off the Icelandic coast in a violent exchange in the Cod Wars.

Saturday, April 29, 2023

Sunday, April 29, 1923. No to the World Court


No to the World Court was the GOP theme.  Probably not a lot different from it would be now.

Out Our Way depicted a man and a boy hunting for night crawlers, no doubt to use as bait fishing.


I recall doing the very same thing as a kid.

Saturday, March 18, 2023

Going Feral: Salmon Season Suspended.

Going Feral: Salmon Season Suspended.

Salmon Season Suspended.


From UPI:

March 13 (UPI) -- The recreational and commercial salmon fishing season has been canceled along the coasts of Oregon and California, through the middle of May, due to dwindling numbers of Chinook salmon in the states' largest rivers following years of drought.

Not good.  Not good at all. Even with all this years rain and snow. 


Monday, March 6, 2023

Tuesday, March 6, 1923. The Halibut Treaty. Formation of the Egyptian Feminist Unioin (الاتحاد النسائي المصري), Irish blood borthers.

Canada and the United States signed the Convention for the Preservation of Halibut Fishery of the Northern Pacific Ocean, referred to commonly as the "Halibut Treaty".  It was the first treaty Canada signed without involving the United Kingdom.  The environmental treaty was a pioneering treat regulating the fishing of halibut.

Halibut are just about the tastiest fish ever.

Alaska fishermen cleaning halibut.

In some unrealistic alternative version of me, in the summer I travel to Alaska to fish for salmon and halibut, before working my way south through the Yukon and Alberta to catch the early game seasons there, before returning to the Cowboy State.  Due to multiple citizenship, I'd never touch a foreign land.

But, in reality, Monday through Friday I'll be in my office.

On the same day, German Chancellor Cuno told the Reichstag, smarting over the Belgian and French (the Belgian part is typically forgotten) armed occupation of the Ruhr, that Germany would not negotiate with the French directly, but only through an intermediary.

While the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr is now nearly universally condemned, it should be recalled that the two Francophone countries had seen substantial armed occupation at the hands of a non-repentant Germany, which in both instances had killed civilians in ways that would foreshadow the Second World War.  Had the French simply remained in the Ruhr, it might be recalled, or enforced their treaty rights at the time that the Germans under Hitler reoccupied it, the Second World War would not have occurred.

British Prime Minister Bonar Law, for his part, was being pressured on the same day to form a more definitive stance to the situation.

The Egyptian Feminist Union  (الاتحاد النسائي المصري),  was founded at the home of Egyptian activist Huda Sha'arawi.

تأسس الاتحاد النسائي المصري في منزل الناشطة المصرية هدى شعراوي.

It still exists.

Five Irish soldiers were killed by a Republican booby trap at Baranarigh Wood in Kerry.  The following day a bloody reprisal was carried out by the Free State against nine IRA prisoners.

Pilots of the United States Army Air Corps posed for this photograph:


Dapper men in an extremely dangerous job.

Children had fun with an elephant in Miami, before fun suckers took the joy out of all such things, and out of much of daily life as well.


Sunday, March 5, 2023

Lex Anteinternet: The 2022 Season Ends, the 2023 Season Begins.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2022 Season

So on to 2023!

I decided to go ice fishing today.

My daughter is the real ice fishing aficionado in our family.  I had some experience with it as a boy, but oddly enough, my father didn't really engage in much ice fishing.  He was a dedicated fisherman, so that's surprising.  Indeed, he probably was slightly more of a fisherman than a hunter, and I in contrast I am definitely more of a hunter than a fisherman.  I know that his father did both, as we all do, but I don't know how that scale balanced.  I've really only heard about my father's father in regard to bird hunting, although I know that he fished the streams as well, like we all do.

Anyhow, back when I was young, in the 70s, I recall ice fishing at Alcova, which I'd be a bit afraid to do today, but it wasn't very often.  I also recall people parking their trucks on the ice, which I'd never do today.  My father chopped a hole in the ice with a spade, which I don't recall anyone doing since that time.  

It was fun.

We have a hand auger.  Much better than a spade.  And little ice fishing poles, which isn't what my father used.

I didn't make it out last year.  I hunted geese until the end of January, not terribly successfully, and it warmed up too much to ice fish.

Not this year.

In fact, today, going out by myself, as my daughter lives in Laramie now, I found myself flagged down going in, after I passed the snow plow.  A really nice fellow I know, having called him as a witness on the Reservation, and a city councilman, formally one of my kid's religious education teachers, informed me the road was drifted in.  I thanked them and pulled off

The dog wasn't pleased.


The dog believes that he's integral to fishing, and that without him, the endeavor will fail.  He's very serious about his hunting occupation, and fishing is of course fish hunting.

I pulled off to let him wee. .. okay and I needed to wee too.  After that, in spite of being warned, I drove down the road toward the lake.

Oh man, was it ever drifted in.

I went back down the road and met a fisherman from Douglas near the highway.  He was waiting for me for a road report.  He'd driven a long ways and had a lot of poles, a true ice fisherman.  I gave the road report to him. He decided to try Alcova.  I decided to try a different high mountain lake.

And yes, I'm not going to mention it.

Before I left for that one, I received a call from my son's girlfriend. She's a dedicated fly fisherman, a rare quality in a girlfriend and one to be seriously admired.  My pickup, which my son is driving, she related, had been rear ended in a Laramie blizzard.  I have his truck right now as it's having a complete mechanical breakdown.

Turns out it wasn't bad.

Couldn't make that other high mountain lake either.  It was also drifted in. 

Oh well.

The 2022 Season

The 2022 hunting season has ended.

In 2022, when I wrote about the 2021 season, I started off with this:

 It wasn't a great one, for a variety of reasons.

And that statement was true once again for 2022, but for different reasons, a lot of which had nothing much to do with the hunting season itself.

That's because 2022 has been the year of the field of Medicine, or age, or perhaps lifestyle, or whatever, catching up with me.

Self portrait, and a bad one, turkey hunting.  I was wearing a coat under this coat, and frankly I don't look like I was feeling particularly well when this photo was taken.

In the Spring I wasn't feeling well, which after much delay and finally responding to a demand from Long Suffering Spouse, caused me to go into the doctor's office, which lead in turn to a prescription for some medicine.  I'll spare you the details, but like most medicines and me, I didn't really respond terribly well to them physically. They did their job, but they also made me a bit ill, and made me ill just in time for Spring Turkey Season.  I hunted turkeys, as I always do, and I did see some, but I never got up on them (I tend to stalk them, rather than lure them in).  I did get a turkey call, which I'd never had before, but that failed to bring any in.  

A couple of weeks later, by which times things had warmed up enough to wear my Park Service dress campaign hat, the replacement for my long serving but now lost M1911 campaign hat.  I miss the old hat.

I also had the joy, and I won't detail it, of being pretty sick while hunting.  Something I rarely have experienced.

It was fun anyhow, but not something for a subsistence hunter to write home about.

That takes us to fishing season, and here too, for one reason or another, I just didn't get out over the summer as much as usual.  Indeed, "didn't get out as much as usual" was the theme of the year.

I fished the river several times, and one of the mountain streams I fish.  I attempted to take my daughter and her boyfriend down a significant local canyon, where I'm sure there are big fish, but we failed at that.  I hadn't scouted the route, and ours was pretty impassable.

I did try something I have not for several years, however, which was fishing from a kayak.


The doctor's visit mentioned earlier lead to a colonoscopy, which I wasn't too quick to get set up.  That ended up getting scheduled for early Fall.  And that lead to a major surgery in October.

The North American Retriever getting a cool drink from a mountain stream while blue grouse hunting.

Prior to that, I got out for blue grouse, but failed to see a single one.  I never made it out sage chicken hunting.  I didn't draw antelope, but my son did, and I went out with him.  None of us drew limited deer, but my daughter and I went out opening morning and nearly got a couple of really good deer in a general deer area until some fool blasted right by us in a truck, scaring them off.  We went back out a couple of weeks later and my son got a nice deer in a very distant area.  So at least that was a partial success.  


I went out for antelope with my son, and he was successful.

I drew an elk tag, but I only got out twice, once before surgery, and once after.


Surgery put me out of action in a major way for well over a month.  When I got back on my feet, only waterfowl was open.  



It's been a pretty good waterfowl season, however.  The weather has been right for it (lousy) and lots of waterfowl have been in the area.  I've shot more geese this year than I ever have before.


I thought about closing this entry out with a quote from Kristin Lavransdottir about Lavran, when he last rode away, or the video clip from No Country For Old Men at the ending with the sheriff protagonist is recalling his father.  Instead, I'm just going to note that I still don't really feel up to speed, but I'm putting in for everything.


Tuesday, November 22, 2022

Lex Anteinternet: Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago...A few observations.



A few odds and ends on this story:
Lex Anteinternet: Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago...:   Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel Yup.  And. . .  The early Middle Pleistocene site of Ge...

By most reckonings, the humans, and they were humans, who were grilling up the carp were not members of our species, Homo sapiens.

They likely would have been Homo Heidelbergensis or Homo Erectus, the former having at one time been regarded as a subspecies of the latter.

No matter, these people were a lot closer to you than you might imagine.  Their brain capacity, for one thing, is just about the same as modern humans at 1200 cc.  FWIW, the brain capacity of archaic Homo Sapiens was actually larger than that of current people, members of the species Homo Sapien Sapien. Our current brain sizes are pretty big, in relative terms, at about 1400 cc, although Neanderthals' were bigger, at 1500cc.  

About the "archaic" members of our species, it's been said that they're not regarded their own species as they have been "admitted to membership in our species because of their almost modern-sized brains, but set off as ‘archaic' because of their primitive looking cranial morphology".1  Having said that, some people say, no, those are Homo Heidlebergensis.  It can be pretty difficult to tell, actually, and as been noted:

One of the greatest challenges facing students of human evolution comes at the tail end of the Homo erectus span. After Homo erectus, there is little consensus about what taxonomic name to give the hominins that have been found. As a result, they are assigned the kitchen-sink label of “archaic Homo sapiens.”

Tattersall (2007) notes that the Kabwe skull bears more than a passing resemblance to one of the most prominent finds in Europe, the Petralona skull from Greece. In turn, as I mentioned above, the Petralona skull is very similar to one of the most complete skulls from Atapuerca, SH 5, and at least somewhat similar to the Arago skull.

Further, it is noted that the Bodo cranium from Africa shares striking similarities to the material from Gran Dolina (such as it is). This suggests that, as was the case with Homo erectus, there is widespread genetic homogeneity in these populations. Given the time depth involved, it is likely that there was considerable and persistent gene flow between them. Tattersall (2007), argues that, since the first example of this hominin form is represented by the Mauer mandible, the taxonomic designation Homo heidelbergensis should be used to designate these forms. This would stretch the limits of this taxon, however, since it would include the later forms from Africa as well. If there was considerable migration and hybridization between these populations, it could be argued that a single taxon makes sense. However, at present, there is no definitive material evidence for such migration, or widespread agreement on calling all these hominins anything other than “archaic Homo sapiens.”2

 Regarding our first ancestors, of our species, appearance:

When comparing Homo erectus, archaic Homo sapiens, and anatomically modern Homo sapiens across several anatomical features, one can see quite clearly that archaic Homo sapiens are intermediate in their physical form. This follows the trends first seen in Homo erectus for some features and in other features having early, less developed forms of traits more clearly seen in modern Homo sapiens. For example, archaic Homo sapiens trended toward less angular and higher skulls than Homo erectus but had skulls notably not as short and globular in shape and with a less developed forehead than anatomically modern Homo sapiens. archaic Homo sapiens had smaller brow ridges and a less-projecting face than Homo erectus and slightly smaller teeth, although incisors and canines were often about as large as that of Homo erectus. Archaic Homo sapiens also had a wider nasal aperture, or opening for the nose, as well as a forward-projecting midfacial region, known as midfacial prognathism. The occipital bone often projected and the cranial bone was of intermediate thickness, somewhat reduced from Homo erectus but not nearly as thin as that of anatomically modern Homo sapiens. The postcrania remained fairly robust, as well. To identify a set of features that is unique to the group archaic Homo sapiens is a challenging task, due to both individual variation—these developments were not all present to the same degree in all individuals—and the transitional nature of their features. Neanderthals will be the exception, as they have several clearly unique traits that make them notably different from modern Homo sapiens as well as their closely related archaic cousins.3

Well, what that tells us overall is that we were undergoing some changes during this period of the Pleistocene, that geologic period lasting from about 2,580,000 to 11,700 years ago.

And that, dear reader, points out that we're a Pleistocene mammal.

It also points out that we don't have yet a really good grasp as to when our species really fully came about.  We think we know what the preceding species was, but we're not super sure when we emerged from it.  And of course, we didn't really emerge, but just kind of rolled along mother and father to children.

Which tells us that Heidlebergensis may have been pretty much like us, really.

Just not as photogenic.

On that, it's also been recently noted that the best explanation for the disappearance of the Neanderthals, which are now widely regarded as a separate species that emerged also from Heidelbergensis disappeared as they just cross bread themselves out of existence.  Apparently they thought our species was hotter than their own.

Assuming they are a separate species, which I frankly doubt.

Here were definitely morphology differences between Heidelbergensis and us, but as we addressed the other day in a different context, everybody has a great, great, great . . . grandmother/grandfather who was one of them.

And another thing.

They ate a lot of meat.

A lot.

I note that as it was in vogue for a while for those adopting an unnatural diet, i.e. vegetarianism, to claim that this is what we were evolved to eat. 

Not hardly.  With huge brains, and cold weather burning up calories, we were, and remain, meat eaters.

Foonotes:

1.  Archaic Homo sapiens  Christopher J. Bae (Associate Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Hawaii-Manoa) © 2013 Nature Education  Citation: Bae, C. J. (2013) . Nature Education Knowledge 4(8):4

2. By  James Kidder, The Rise of Archaic Homo sapiens

3.  11.3: Defining Characteristics of Archaic Homo Sapiens

Sunday, November 20, 2022

Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel

 


Evidence for the cooking of fish 780,000 years ago at Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel

Yup.  And. . . 

The early Middle Pleistocene site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel (marine isotope stages 18–20; ~0.78 million years ago), has preserved evidence of hearth-related hominin activities and large numbers of freshwater fish remains (>40,000). 

People like to eat fish, and save for the oddballs who like to eat sushi, for which there is no explanation, they like their fish cooked.

Most places, people like to eat carp too.  For some odd reason, there's a prejudice against carp in at least the Western United States, but elsewhere, not so much.

So, our human ancestors 780,000 years ago. . . put another carp on the barbi. . . 

Saturday, November 12, 2022

Evolutionary Biology and Resources. Mysteries that aren't.


The famous journal, The New Yorker notes:

During the coronavirus pandemic, pediatric endocrinologists saw a new surge of referrals for girls with early puberty—the number of these referrals doubled or even tripled during the lockdown periods of 2020, recent studies show.

So their conclusion?

Well, I don't know, as I couldn't get past the paywall.  I think I know the answer, and I'll get to that in a moment.

Mostly I'm posting this, however, due to the stupid anti-scientific comments that followed the Twitter article.  

Witness:

Nov 7

Replying to @NewYorker

Wonder how many were vaccinated- i think that's an honest and fair question no one is willing to ask

Mark Yerger@yerger224

Replying to @HoltonMusicMan and @NewYorker

its fair to ask anything.  it is a fact that this all occurred during the Trump presidency! its fair to ask what his administrations involvement was in all this.  yet he continues to evade this issue. I havent seen any denials or documents showing me otherwise.

Well played Yerger.

The same dipshittery appears in this comment:

BiancaD 🇺🇦🌻🤪❣🐷@rigbydan

Nov 8

Replying to @NewYorker

How many were vaccinated, since it was now confirmed that those of us who said the vaccine affected our cycles were proven correct?

Janice's Magic Wand@leighleighmw

Nov 8 

Replying to @rigbydan and @NewYorker

There was no vaccine available to children under 12 in 2020.

Again, good, if obvious, comment there to the apparent memory impaired and scientifically bereft BiancaD.

And:

Nov 8

Replying to @NewYorker

One reason is the hormones in the milk. I always bought organic milk and my daughter did not have early puberty like some of her friends.

Lone Stranger@LoneStr06411351

Nov 9

Replying to @Persona49820853 and @NewYorker

You got taken for a ride, then. Pediatric associations have firmly established the actual reason in the vast majority of situations is abundant nutrition. Puberty is delayed in environments of food scarcity. Which predominated much of human history until the last 100 years.

And that is exactly it.

In reality, the onset of puberty ages for girls isn't getting depressed due to hormones in your GMO cheese or mystery chemicals in your Blue Bunny, it's because human beings, or at least girls (one poster raises the good point that these stories seem to omit boys) are genetically programmed for lower onset of puberty ages in times of:1) high nutrition and 2) low physical output.

What were people doing during the pandemic?

I submit to you, they were sitting at home, eating.

In a state of nature, if girls are sitting around eating, their genes think "wow, we're in a super abundant period right now. . . move her up on the reproduction scale".

Now, I'm not claiming that's a good thing, but I am claiming that it's obviously the opposite of this?

Nov 8

Replying to @NewYorker

Does that indicate our future ability to reproduce is questionable?

Lone Stranger @LoneStr06411351

Lone Stranger, did you skip biology class?  Girls going to puberty earlier has the polar opposite effect.

Sheesh.

And that's why it's not a good thing.

What this is really evidence of is; 1) too much food, much of which is high calorie bad food, and 2) too little exercise.

Feed girls real food and get them involved in physical activity, the onset age will go up.

Better yet, get them out hunting and fishing, and learning how to produce their own food, and the onset age will go up, their health will improve, and the few who will be taken advantage of will decline in number.

Or, as noted:

Depends. In mammals at least the drift is to delay reproductive capability in times of stress or famine, so as to limit the population numbers straining already critical shortages.

When nutrition is abundant & ubiquitous is when sexual maturity manifests earlier.

Rage quitting this timeline@kesskessler401