evolutionary theories of human origins seen in correlation w/ prototypical foodstyles:
my own views on the issues
(note: correlation is not a cause-effect relation)
the following are some basic changes from hominid to cro-magnon (fundamental differences between apes & humans, too):
~ committed bipedalism
~ decoupled walking & breathing
~ special configuration of the pelvis
~ special configuration of the base of the skull
~ verbal language
~ art
according to ian tattersall (becoming human) changes such as the above are not adaptations (to better achieve a set goal) but exaptations (new uses or functions of apparently random or unintentional changes)
they begin w/ an individual, then spread to a local population, & finally, after at least 3 generations, show up at species level
archeologists, paleontologists, paleoanthropologists, biologists, geneticists, ethnographers, linguists have interpreted the extant physical record from the perspective of 1 of the following theories, which, as i see them from my current angle, are not exclusive planet- or time-wise but might have happen in different geographic areas simultaneously or not:
~ savannah theory of human origin > land meat
acc. to craig stanford (upright) bipedalism developed when apes, which wanted to spend the entire day looking for animals to kill & eat, found this locomotion style to be more efficient than knuckle walking; then protein, mufa, & sat fat consumption, in turn, gave them better bones & muscles
~ aquatic ape > fin & shell fish, seaweeds, lake or river algae
driving force = wading; iodine & dietary long chain pufas (esp. dha) > better brain
~ shore based scenario > land, air, & water animal food + seaweeds & algae
iodine, iron, selenium, copper, zinc, & dietary long chain pufas (esp. dha, aa) > better brain, bones, muscles
~ i wonder whether cordain's or the wai foodstyle (tropical or sweet fruits + lean meat) are correlated w/ a particular evolutionary theory of human origins that accounts for all 6 basic changes i listed above; otherwise, their foodstyle does not differ fundamentally from that of apes & must have been adopted by post-cro-magnon humans in the neolithic or later
~ re. the consumption of animal milk products by humans, here's 1 hypothesis i've been toying with:
in his the tender carnivore paul shepard suggests that farmers & herders, already in the neolithic, would (ab)use their domestic animals as sexual objects; this has lead me to look at human dairy use as a, symbolic or non-conscious perhaps, use of the said animals
in this case the human master functions as a parasite rather than a predator, which contrasts w/ the extermination of large mammals (mammoth, mastodon, giant sloth, rhino, wild horse, cave bear, etc.) by cro-magnons or other carnivore homo sapiens during the late paleolithic