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Mammoth meals helped early tribes thrive
The Times ^
| April 18, 2006
| Mark Henderson
Posted on 04/17/2006 7:13:44 PM PDT by george76
REGULAR meals of mammoth meat helped some early human tribes to expand more quickly than their largely vegetarian contemporaries, according to a genetic study.
Human populations in east Asia about 30,000 years ago developed at dramatically different rates, following a pattern that appears to reflect the availability of mammoths and other large game.
In the part of the region covering what is now northern China, Mongolia and southern Siberia, vast plains teemed with mammals such as mammoths, mastodons and woolly rhinoceroses and the number of early human beings grew between 34,000 and 20,000 years ago.
Further south, where the terrain was covered in thick forest, the population expansion began much later - between 18,000 and 12,000 years ago.
Chris Tyler-Smith, of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridgeshire, who led the research, said: "The only robust explanation for the early success of the northern populations is that they enjoyed a better and richer diet: they thrived on mammoths and other large animals."
A diet rich in mammoth meat would have improved overall nutrition, giving people a ready source of protein and fat that would have been invaluable during the last ice age, Dr Tyler-Smith said.
"The mammoths' value would not just have been for food: they would also have provided materials such as skins and bones for use in clothing, shelter and toolmaking.""
TOPICS: Australia/New Zealand; Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: alf; asia; china; clothing; dietandcuisine; earlyhuman; east; eastasia; elf; freepun; godsgravesglyphs; improved; improvednutrition; mammoth; mammothmeat; mammoths; mastodons; meat; mongolia; nutrition; overall; peta; petasucks; protein; rhinoceroses; shelter; siberia; toolmaking; vegans; vegetarianism; vegetarians; woolly; woollyrhinoceroses
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To: hypocritter
Yum. I wonder if it has a wishbone.
41
posted on
04/18/2006 7:09:30 AM PDT
by
pissant
To: george76
42
posted on
04/18/2006 8:13:44 AM PDT
by
Ghengis
(Alexander was a wuss!)
To: RouxStir
The 40,000 year old figure has something to do with the breakdown of DNA components, so it's not just a figure thrown out there. Wanna see what the dwarf humans in the eastern Indian Ocean looked like? Neanderthals? If you clone another species of primate, is that considered human rights advocation? It's not a matter of when, .....You'll see. Here's something scary - Part of the research I did came across a rhesus monkey named ANDi (iDNA backwards). This monkey has the protein gene inserted into it's strand that makes the jellyfish glow. The phosphorescence is created by running a black light across his body, which in turn makes him shimmer like a thousand little fiber optic cables. Look it up,...freaky. He's a few years old now. Another interesting one is that the scientists have taken the protein gene out of several spiders that causes the creation of spider webs, implanted them into the mammary glands of goats and are mass producing spider silk from the milk created.( Spider webs have the highest tensile strength of anything that light)They're being used for sutures and body armor. Another freaky one is that the scientists have discovered the gene that makes the head of a rat, and have created cloned headless rats. Why would anyone want to do this, you may ask? Think about it, if you could clone a headless human, there wouldn't be any human consciousness, and therefor nobody would would be able to argue the whole human rights cloning thing, would they? Protein genes are easy to implant into any genetic structure. Wanna swim faster? Web feet are an example. I think I remember gills being a protein gene, but that seems a little far fetched. They could make us glow though,and learn to express ourselves with it. Hell, they already have fish for sell that change color to identify contaminants in the water, pH, and temperature. That just started this year. Look these up, it'll give you goosebumps. After that, you won't think cloning a mammoth is such a far out thing to do.
43
posted on
04/18/2006 8:40:12 AM PDT
by
DavemeisterP
(It's never too late to be what you might have been....George Elliot)
To: george76
Or, maybe those cold northern climes just made people horny.
To: george76
Mmmmmmmmmm Mammoth meat. (Drooling Homer Simpson)
45
posted on
04/18/2006 2:48:55 PM PDT
by
TheGunny
(Re-read 1&2 Corinthians)
To: george76
Mammoth burgers, just the sound of it has my mouth watering.
Mammoth STEAKS, give me one three inches thick!
Mammoth boudan, Mmmmmmmmm.
Drive 'em over a cliff and "LET'S EAT!!!"
46
posted on
04/18/2006 3:00:58 PM PDT
by
tet68
( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
To: george76
"Four brontosaurusburgers, please."
To: DavemeisterP
Gene for phosphorescence? Cool. Now all we need is to have that implanted in our genome, plus the gene for chlorophyll, and we can generate our own food!
[rimshot!]
48
posted on
05/03/2006 8:23:02 AM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
49
posted on
03/18/2008 10:50:41 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
50
posted on
03/18/2008 10:50:53 PM PDT
by
SunkenCiv
(https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/______________________Profile updated Saturday, March 1, 2008)
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