[skanky]

Lend me your years, then your tongues.

So there's this nice lady that works next to me, who eats pretty healthily for an omni. She's supportive of my diet whenever it comes up. The one thing she's said a few times now though is something she picked up along the way in her years of studying archaeology and paleontology.

Apparently, scientists have definitively been able to identify the following. Man began as a vegetarian; a gatherer and then a farmer. But then man began to eat meat, probably at first by scavenging what carnivorous animals left behind, then hunting for himself. This moment in history directly coincides with the time that man's brain began getting bigger and more complex. From an anthropological/medical standpoint one is the effect of the cause. The new proteins developed the brain like never before.

Now what I'm gathering from her saying this is probably a little more than just interesting conversation. It might be posing the question, "What say you about the evolution of man with regard to vegetarianism? If we as a race were to revert back to such a diet, would our brains likewise revert to a less sophisticated state as well? Over much time of course."

So I pose the same questions to you. To my mind, I figure the modern vegetarian eats a more balanced diet than early man and could probably sustain the necessary nutrition needed.

[xrodolfox]

From what I know from my anthro classes is that the human brain began to grow when humans had to deal with increased social interaction. That social interaction tends to follow hunting, since unlike with gathering, huge ammounts of calories could be ingested in what were occasional bonanzas of meat. This led to an increase in the complexity of social behaviors, including finding how to rise in rank with procurement of meat and other animal products, which were rare, and a luxury... since meat was not nessesary for growth or development; but it was a rare case of having large ammounts of fats+protein calories for the group. It was the gatherings that resulted from harvests (of veggies) and finding meat that led to increased brain complexity, not the item being eaten. By that logic lions would be the most intelligent (at things like math and reading of all) animal on earth.

Thus, from what I learned, the correlation is less with the advent of hunting and meat, and more to do with the need for a larger brain to handle the complicated social orders that humans develop. This also coincides with other animals that have relatively large intelligence. Macaws and gorrilas, for example, do not eat meat, but do have a complex social network that nessesitates complex brains. Dolphins and crows aren't intelligent because they dine on meat, but because they have very intricate and shifting social systems which nessesitate a complex brain to handle the ever shifting and changing needs to the group, and of the individual.

Either way, the nutrituion for human healthy development is more than adequately met with a plant based diet. So the need for huge ammounts of protein on a single meal is really unnessesary, including for social interactions.

[marleah]

xrodolfox - I was thinking that too, that brain development occurred because of increased stimulation due to the challenges of hunting and also because of the social aspect.

[4EverGrounded]

Increase in brain size doesn't mean increase in intelligence.

[skanky]

In this case it did.

[Mskedi]

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Either way, the nutrituion for human healthy development is more than adequately met with a plant based diet. So the need for huge ammounts of protein on a single meal is really unnessesary, including for social interactions.

That sounds like how I would answer that.

I don't know enough about anthropology to have any opinion on whether meat eating only correlated or actually caused brain growth.

[borealis]

Shrews are carnivorous, and their brains are bitty.

[skanky]

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Either way, the nutrituion for human healthy development is more than adequately met with a plant based diet. So the need for huge ammounts of protein on a single meal is really unnessesary, including for social interactions.

You make some good points. The basic position is that there is a coorelation between brain size in the fossil record, and evidence of the processing of meat (stone tools, cut marks on bones, etc. -- sometimes even other homo bones, by the way) You're correct that it all probably started with scavenging remains of kills from other predators as a fat/protien bonus in a hand-to-mouth existence that took advantage of such lucky finds as a matter of survival. You're also probably also correct that the increased social complexities (such as hunting) contributed to the increase in brain size. I personally think that such a complex thing could never be attributed to only one cause.

But other than what the fossils tell us, which isn't much, everyone is reduced to speculation. Who's right? I don't think it matters, but it is fun to speculate. I am sure that the increased protien and fat was very helpful in the general health and development of the species overall. Life was not easy.