Posted on 08/24/2005 10:06:07 PM PDT by LibWhacker
I'll buy that the idea of shoes may have spread in the mentioned 14,000 interval (40,000 - 26,000 BCE). But I can't buy the notion that the necessity to wear shoes due to evolutionary changes in human anatomy happened world wide in that period.
Ah, but it wasn't an evolutionary change, according to the article. The lesser toes on shoe-wearers are weaker because they aren't exercised as much, and this shows up in the anatomy.
By time of the emergence of modern humans (175,000 - 200,000 years ago), we had evolved the capability of running/jogging 35-50 miles per day on a near perpetual basis. An attribute Darwinism tells us wouldn't have occurred unless this ability was necessary to survive. IOW, those who couldn't keep up didn't live to mate. The one question I have about this running man theory of mine is the practical necessity of shoes or some type of foot protection to run that consistently. I seem to have found the answer in Steven Oppenhiemer's "The Real Eve" which postulates that modern humans were almost exclusively beach combers up until at least 60,000 years ago. It's a lot easier to run barefoot on soft sand than inland terrain.
He found Neanderthals and early moderns living in Middle Palaeolithic times (100,000 to 40,000 years ago) had thicker, and therefore stronger, lesser toes than those of Upper Palaeolithic people living 26,000 years ago.
Since again, Darwinism implies that physical evolution wouldn't occur unless it was necessary to survive over an extended period, the stretched dates seem logical for the inland move away from the beach for modern humans, the cold weather suggestion seems more appropriate for the neatherdhals?
This is absurd. People stopped growing strong toes because shoes came along? No one could make that argument with a straight face. They would need to argue that strong toed people were not sexually desirable so didn't pass along their strong toes...that would at least make evolutionary sense.
How can they tell how strong a toe was without having muscle tissue to examine? Bone size seems irrelevant. Europeans typically have larger bones in their feet than Asians do. So what?
First question, which kind of toes are recessive & which are dominant? Second question, is it different for the different populations?
Before shoes, weak toed people would get killed off in greater rates, cuz they ran slower when the beasty chased a tribe, so fewer people would pass along weak toes. After shoes, more weak toe people would live to reproduce. Could be that smart weak toe people invented shoes, giving smart weak toe people an advantage over all strong toe people & stupid weak toe people.
It's NOT an evolutionary argument. The claim is that people stopped growing strong toes because with the advent of shoes their toes no longer got the same amount of exercise. Presumably, we've still got the genes for big strong toes and if we were to spend our lives barefoot running through the forest and climbing trees and rocks all day we'd have big, strong toes again.
Can similar shifts be seen in finger sizes?
Did we just keep the little ones (fingers) for digging bugs and various substances out of bodily orifices?
Why not just have bigger toes to retain heat during the ice ages, whereas smaller toes with less unit volume per unit of surface area would be more prone to freezing?
After the climate mediated, big, hairy toes would sweat more and smell bad, where delicate toes would be less prone to getting funky and driving Og-ette out of the cave.
Thus, a shift in mating habits brought about by foot odor....
$ound$ like it would need to be $tudied.
I guess I could consider that notion but as far as the shoe angle goes, aren't there some tribes that never really devised shoes for themselves that have no members with "strong toes"?
Good question. $omething el$e needing to be examined.
If you don't find the "strong toes" in the primitive shoeless tribes, you can throw out the shoe theory.
He found that with one tribal paring. Further inve$tigation will need to be done.
Feet without shoes don't get that funky foot smell.
Not this girl! Shoes shaped like those would never have left my closet, if I had a momentary lapse & actually bought a pair. Some women get foot bones removed to wear things like those? Get real!
LOL!
*Looking* at them made my feet hurt....:))
How come nobody is studying hillbilly feet?
In my formative years, unless I was in school, I was barefoot nearly year round.
Thanks to that, I "evolved" the ability to write with my feet, pick up things as small as a dime with my toes [to hubby's continual amazement/amusement] and can deliver a pretty good pinch with them, if necessary....:))
[I've deigned to wear slip-on sneaks when out in the yard now so I have become somewhat more "civilized" in my old age]...;D
Yeah, I know...danged b'arfoot, ridge-running, bog-trotting hick....LOL!
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