Humans Natural/Optimal Habitat

[Iguana]

Francois come here and show me how easy it will be to catch a plant... everything is hard and frozen and ice cold...... 

I guess that’s why bonobos and early hominids did not settle in Scandinavia or Finland… Their wise chiefs and sorcerers must have said “Oh, there’s nothing to eat here and it’s freezing cold, let’s go back down South and let our successors come back once they  know how to make and control the fire, and when they’ll have developed javelins, bows and arrows! We haven’t yet figured out how to wash the tubers before eating them.” 

hahaha.... priceless...!!! I would love Francois to visit me.... and I would love to visit his paradise too and have fresh ripe figs held by his hand up to my nose... 
And yeah... we could make a movie out of it, I am all in 

You’re welcome here first… What animal foods do you find there? Reindeer and fish from the Baltic? Or are you now in Norway near the Atlantic coast?

[golooraam]

That sounds inspiring.

You have the sex appeal of a 20 yr old. 

ain't that the truth :-)
fascinating explanation about the elevated glucose - makes sense

[Inger]

I guess that’s why bonobos and early hominids did not settle in Scandinavia or Finland… Their wise chiefs and sorcerers must have said “Oh, there’s nothing to eat here and it’s freezing cold, let’s go back down South and let our successors come back once the know how to make and control the fire, and when they’ll have developed javelins, bows and arrows! We haven’t yet figured out how to wash the tubers before eating them.” 

You’re welcome here first… What animal foods do you find there? Reindeer and fish from the Baltic? Or are you now in Norway near the Atlantic coast?

 

I find elk, deer (there are lots of deer BTW.. I see them around the house pretty often!) rabbits there are lots of too... ducks, other animals too.. and yeah many kind of fish in the Baltic. Although there is not as much fish as it used to be and the water is polluted too. But it is getting better. I do believe a healthy person is able to clear many kinds of pollutants and poisons! That is why someone get sick and someone not. It has always fascinated me. Why that is. And how you can be one of them that clear stuff effectively -> stay healthy in not so ideal environment too.

I m not so sure our ancestors hated it here... lol There is a certain magic here up north. Something very peaceful.. and the cold aint that bad as you think, ask Tyler!  it is actually pretty nice! It is kind of how you choose to think about it. Everything has its plus and minuses. The summers here are awesome! They are not too warm... and they are just so beautiful.... already the fact that here lives way less people than more south is a very nice thing me thinks. You have so much space! I do not think it is very good to have a too heavy population at all.

It does is something magic about warming around a fireplace in the freezing cold.....  I am also wondering if the cold somehow makes a bit cooked animal food less bad for health than if you eat that stuff in a warm climate. I really wonder about that. At least I know ice baths are very good for health, and everyone who lives so far north knows that too. 3 % of the population do them regularly and there are places / lakes to do it, they are hold open by the government.

I like the seasons, they are so different here! It is so freaking exciting when comes spring... and you can taste the first wild edibles... and walk barefoot again. It is like when you have to be away from your lover.. and then see him again.. it is way more exiting and magic than if he is always by you 

Believe it or not but when summer is about to end... you get really excited about the winter...! 

BTW.. speaking about food sources. I have found a great grassfed Angus beef source not too far away, I have to drive maybe half an hour. It is amazing! They are 100% pastured in summer and in winter they get only hay, nothing else. The meat is awesome! I buy lots of heart.. and other kind of meats too, the liver tastes great too! I love to buy food directly from the producer, it is a couple that own the place, it is a huge place, very beautiful. They are very very nice people. She asked how I cook the heart and I said I eat it raw... the fat too. She was very interested and thought it was cool! Imagine! There was a vet too, her friend, and she said yeah, in Finland we can eat the beef raw without any issues because the meat is so high quality  very nice older lady too. They thought it was a great idea. I said I sometimes make carpaccio out of it too and they said they are going to try!


@ PaleoPhil,
IDK if they have? There are information you can check out different foods with different amounts of AGEs.. but I doubt that is telling the whole truth. Looks like we are able to clear them pretty well too if we are healthy and they are also made by the body somehow.. it is a very complex thing. I think we need a little bit of AGEs too? At least I read that somewhere too. Just too much is bad. And stress makes lots of them too, even sport! yeah... it is always way more complex than one thinks, huh! 

[PaleoPhil]

Yes, I agree Inger, thanks.

[TylerDurden]

Err, exercise has actually been shown to reduce the levels of AGEs:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19608208

[LePatron7]

Err, exercise has actually been shown to reduce the levels of AGEs:-

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19608208

Awesome. Exercise is likely a contributing factor in why some people who eat junk diets fair better than those who don't exercise.

[Inger]

yeah... there we see how complex it is LOL

I totally agree exercise is great for health! And I do not doubt it lowers AGE levels too... But. I have no doubt too much exercise do the opposite!
(and for certain people, with burned out adrenals etc. any exercise except maybe Yoga and the like, probably is not good)

[AnopsStudier]

Ive been wondering about where humans should be living. Where is our actual natural habitat?
I know all about Blue Zones and the longevity that humans have who live there....but

Where should we be living?
For years I have been pondering about Homo Sapiens natural habitat. This includes all aspects from lifestyle to nutrition to sun exposure, etc....

It started when i was getting into instinctive nutrition. I was eating a lemon thinking... Why does my body love citrus so much? Did my ancestors love citrus! Where did they live? Did they live in some type of bountiful utopia? Where they nomadic travelers?

So, after a few few more weeks of studying diet, nutrition and human instincts I started heavily researching evolution again.. in attempt to shed some light on some questions Ive always had about where we are meant to live. One theory that will always make the most since to me is the most popular "Out of Africa" theory. Simply stated some of our ape like ancestors stumbled out of the African Rainforest (for what ever reason) and onto the African savanna. Here they adapted and explored new ways of living and surviving. So a big part of our evolutionary history happened in the African Savanna! So is the African Savanna where we should be living? Is this where all the food we should be eating is?

Arent all the other primates in optimal habitats for there specific needs?


Or does each specific nationality or "type" of person have a location that fits them best?
I am tall and skinny and have the body type built for the African Savanna or somewhere hot...
but I am Caucasian and would my skin not be best suited for a northern climate?


So once again
Where is our natural/optimal habitat
Where should we be living?
Would we thrive best in Africa?

All I know is that we were meant to live somewhere warm... Somewhere with a constant tempearture around 70 degrees or so
Anopsology

[JeuneKoq]

The separation of our lineage in two, with on one side the homo lineage and on the other the great ape family, is due to the formation of the Great Rift Valley some 8-9 million years ago -according to a book co-published by famous palaeontologist Yves Coppens-. Pre-humans evolved on the East side of the Rift Valley, where forest started to rapidly disappear due to the drying-out of the region, being then replaced by something similar to our present day savannah; Great apes evolved on the West side, in the vast humid tropical forests of Africa.

[AnopsStudier]

Yes Yes, I was just talking about the Great Rift Valley with a past science teacher today!


Since we all started in Africa would that still possibly be our natural habitat?  Or have climate chancge and what not made it no longer suited for thriving?

[nummi]

Since we all started in Africa would that still possibly be our natural habitat?  Or have climate chancge and what not made it no longer suited for thriving?

We did not start from Africa... Our ancestors have moved around the globe, many times. Our ancestors came out of Africa just as other ancestors of ours came from Asia, and many other places.
The "out of Africa" myth is honestly a total idiocy if even a little bit of objective thought is put into it. It simply makes no sense.

Animals have migrated from one place to another for as long as legs and wings, and snaking around, have allowed. The ancestors of our ancestors moved around, so did theirs, and theirs, etc. Not one species has ever been in just one place (some exceptions of course for obvious reasons), especially apes with their legs and arms. Evolution takes so long that by the time the ancestors of "humans" were around their ancestors in turn would have traveled far and wide. They travel, find each other again, they interbreed.

Imagine Tolkien's "middle-earth", or whatever it was, and the different races there. The elves, the dwarves, the hobbits, the humans, etc. You do that you got a rough estimate of our true ancestry. We are a mix of something similar. Even now there are different races with different features, although far less apart-looking as we have had easier ways of traveling for quite long. Presently we don't end up as isolated over such lengthy periods to form as disparate features.

We have many different natural/optimal habitats. As well the reason why we have many different looking "races".
In our case, in comparison to other animals, the mind plays a very big role as well. People have lived in places where without their mind they would die - the mind enables ways of survival we otherwise wouldn't and couldn't have.
Also, the habitats our ancestors lived in are still reflected by our genetics, although ever more fading. Qualities not used for very long will eventually "evolve out" or adapt for new conditions.

We are opted to survive, this is what matters not where we live or where we came from. Find a place you like or what feels good, and live there (if you can...).

[panacea]

Pretend you are Sherlock Holmes and deduce our natural habitat and optimal habitat (as they are different things) like it was a crime scene.

That is what I have done and I've explored more information than most people who only conceive about continents and other apes.

1. We can deduce from our furless body, location of fat stuck to our skin, natural underwater instincts since birth, and voluntary breath control that we lived in an aquatic environment that was so persistent and long lasting that such profound evolutionary adaptations emerged. We are relatively unique from other apes in this way (our skin and breathing).

2. We can deduce from our upright walking ability that we lived on the ground (as opposed to trees), that it must have been very mild/warm and humid (for without fur and without clothing, we would not survive cold winters).

3. We can deduce that we probably ate a wide range of foods, including aquatic food like mussels on beaches, to fruits, based on our aquatic adaptations and the adaptations of our eye to see in color (necessary for navigating terrain to find colorful food). One of the main reasons we ate fruits was probably for hydration. Unlike modern diets, if you eat fruits with high water content, and raw food such as mussels or insects, you don't need to supplement with pure drinking water.

So in rapid conclusion, it is easy to see through deduction that we spent most of our evolutionary past (in the stage that we are in now), before widespread use of tools, in a semi-aquatic warm/humid environment. Probably this environment was along beaches, rivers, or most likely swamp lands with tropical forests nearby. Back then, carbon dioxide levels would have been much higher and as a result, plant life would have been much richer and the environment slightly more stable in terms of temperature. We are one of the only species that I know of that survived given our dependence on mild climates due to our eventual exploitation of tools, which led to our ability to kill larger animals, and using those animal furs for warmth.

As far as what our optimal habitat is, a good example would be Norfolk Island (without the modernization of course).

[TylerDurden]

I heartily agree with nummi. The out of africa hypothesis has always been very flawed. That theory  used to claim that it was impossible for modern humans to have mated  with Neanderthals and other  so-called "apemen", yet this  stupid notion was debunked in recent years once Neanderthal etc. DNA was found in modern humans.
 
Given that Orientals/East Asians/Inuit  are admirably well adapted to cold, not hot environments re their physique, it is  absurd to suggest that we are all  still adapted to a hot African climate.

The aquatic ape theory has been extensively debunked elsewhere:-

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/topics/pseudoscience/aquatic_ape_theory.html

[Iguana]

The multiregional hypothesis  also places our origin in Africa (and I suppose the "aquatic ape theory" too):

This species arose in Africa two million years ago as H. erectus and then spread out over the world, developing adaptations to regional conditions.

[Projectile Vomit]

I think humans can live in many places, we just have to take care to adapt ourselves to those places once we're there. This includes adjusting to the seasonality of those places, which includes adapting to seasonality of the foods and medicines that are available as well as the temperature changes. In my opinion this is the missing element in paleo (and raw paleo) theology. It attempts to transplant bits and pieces of ancient eating patterns into modern life without honoring geographical and seasonal contexts.

[Inger]

I think humans can live in many places, we just have to take care to adapt ourselves to those places once we're there. This includes adjusting to the seasonality of those places, which includes adapting to seasonality of the foods and medicines that are available as well as the temperature changes. In my opinion this is the missing element in paleo (and raw paleo) theology. It attempts to transplant bits and pieces of ancient eating patterns into modern life without honoring geographical and seasonal contexts.

Excellent Eric,
exactly what I think too and also have personally experienced!

[TylerDurden]

The multiregional hypothesis  also places our origin in Africa (and I suppose the "aquatic ape theory" too):

The  whole point re the multiregional hypothesis is that hominids left Africa c. 2 million years ago, which is such a long time, evolutionarily,  that such hominids which  further evolved outside Africa since then must have by now long adapted to entirely different non-African environments etc.

[Iguana]

Yes, I understand that.

[JeuneKoq]

Okay but I think it's clear we are not totally adapted to cold(er) climates. We've got the sensible light skin all right, but where's our bodily fur? No mammals could survive without fur in such regions, unless it has naturally a lot of body fat like seals. Then there's the question: are we supposed to wear clothes or not? Is it "natural"? Should homo have stayed a bit longer in the medium-hot regions before deciding to move to the not-so-hot regions?
BTW 2 million years is a long time but not such a long time evolutionary-wise, or else us northern Europeans would look more like Star-Wars' wookies, IMO. We're not totally adapted to northern seasons too because in that case we would probably hibernate in winter like other animals of the region.

[Iguana]

That's what I would have said too, but I left that point open as it had already been discussed. You wrote it better than I could have, thanks!

[nummi]

Being totally adapted to a specific condition would require the specific condition to remain the same forever. Our world is in constant change, we are always in adaptation mode; we can never be fully adapted.

When our ancestors moved northward they must have already had enough brains to use animal fur as cold shielding, at least to some extent.
Our brains seem to be the priority. Our brain can and does compensate that which in comparison to other animals we no longer have. Our brain enables us to neutralize severe effects of nature, like cold by wearing clothes, and so we will not adapt to cold but adapt to the condition wearing clothes create. Our mind does adapt and evolve by figuring out how to bypass difficulties without it taking millions of years genetically.
People don't just evolve to the natural conditions they live in but also to the conditions their minds create. The mind adapts to better manipulate the world, as it is in constant use and there's always something new to come up with and improve.

And honestly, looking at it this way. "Back to the wild" is a definite no. It would be moving backward, to conditions where you don't need to use your mind after a point. Our mind is a necessity, it has to keep evolving, which means it has to be used for bypassing difficulties. But this doesn't mean we have to mess up what is already here. It'd be best to see where we are, what we are adapted to, then decide what would be even better, and create conditions that bring us closer to that goal.

As well, keeping warm without clothes would require massive amounts of energy. How could our brains work if most energy goes to keeping warm? Sure, eat more - more energy. But... we would eat our world empty this way, or either choose one and ditch the other or starve to extinction. There's an energy issue here. There is food to enable both, but for how long? Our world is dying, overall energy is fading, the planet is slowly coming to a halt already naturally. The longer it goes the less it can sustain life in general. This planet will die one day, but we can bypass that.

[TylerDurden]

The previous posters have all made some rather illogical assumptions. First of all,  humans are not the limp-wristed  sun-worshipping weaklings you claim them to be. I, for example, due to past health-issues, am very well adapted to the cold, to the point where I can cheerfully walk around for long periods in  a T-shirt and shorts  in very cold temperatures  while others seem to freeze. Given my own experience, I am sure that palaeo humans simply adapted themselves to the cold by improving their blood-circulation etc. I know a Primal Dieter, for example, who stated that his resistance to the cold grew every year after he switched away from a cooked diet to the Primal Diet. Take the Neanderthals, they were well-adapted to the cold due to slight differences in physical shape, and I seriously doubt that they  wore furs in palaeo times, that's just a movie myth because hollywood was not allowed to show naked people.

The notion re brains seems to be wrong. There is a theory, the cold-climate theory, which states that it is very difficult to maintain a large brain in a hot climate as it is  very difficult to get rid of  the resulting heat from all the brains' processes,  whereas cold climates allow brains to become much larger due to better heat-dissipation - this makes sense when one realises that the cold-dwelling Neanderthals had larger brains than modern man.

Other aspects posters are forgetting is the issue of migration to slightly warmer climes in summer. Birds  in Siberia etc. do that in order to avoid winter without having to hibernate.As regards extra body hair, Caucasians have more body hair than other ethnic groups. Though I do not believe that body hair had anything to do with the cold but more to do with sexual selection. Cold-dwelling humans could just as easily have survived better in those days due to having much deeper fat-layers under the skin in those days, so the assumption that humans would grow fur to ward off the cold is likely wrong.

[JeuneKoq]

In that case TylerDurden can you explain to me why animals possess fur? And why does this fur gets thicker the colder the animal's environment gets?
For example my dog is a Lapin Koira, a breed that originates from the Lapland region of Sweden. Compared to other breeds of dog native to warmer regions, it has much thicker and longer fur. Does that make my dog more resistant, better adapted to colder regions compared to shorter furred dogs? I think it does.

It is of course possible to go outside only wearing shorts or a T-shirt even when it's freezing. People that go bing drinking in my campus do it all the time. It only means that as long as they stay "active" their body will produce enough body heat to not suffer from hypothermia. Meanwhile their body is consuming a lot of energy trying to keep warm. However try and go sleep outside in Austria (I believe you live there) when it is not -a very hot- summer and you might not feel the same about this "cold adaptation". Same if your sleeping in a hole like a fox or in a cave or something of the like.

Sure it is true that Neanderthals had a larger brain than us and where more muscular. One must really wonder why they did not come out as the "evolutionary superior", compared to the tall skinny Homo Sapiens. The fact is the environment changed in the regions where they previously thrived, and Sapiens turned out to be winner of the last true "Darwin Award".
According to the book "born to run" (which I highly recommend the lecture), environment changed in EurAsia in a way that made Neanderthal style hunting less efficient than Sapiens style hunting, which was mainly persistence running. A group of homo Sapiens that would use this hunting technique would have more chance of killing a prey than a group of Neanderthals.
The Second would have to run in average another ten miles before catching up with our ancestors in a same period of time.

Also Neanderthals had a much more restricted diet than Sapiens. They mainly relied on animal flesh, whereas Homo Sapiens ate from a much broader range of food, making them more apt to survive if meat became scarce, for example. Therefor Homo Sapiens not only came out as more efficient than Neanderthal hunting-wise, but also more adaptable to its new environment "thanks" to his omnivorous diet.

Finally I want to point out that Caucasians may have more body hair than other ethnic groups, but obviously not nearly enough to claim to survive in cold areas without the use of clothing, and -heated- shelter.

(I hope all this is understandable and I apologize if I have made some grammar mistakes. I'm grateful that such a forum exist because it also helps me train my english writing skills, which have been left unpracticed for a long time before joining  )

[TylerDurden]

The claim that Neanderthals almost wholly ate meat has been debunked by recent scientific findings that showed that they actually ate a lot of plant foods as well. Palaeoarchaeology, is, after all, in its infancy still.

The Neanderthals did not die out. They interbred with other hominids to form modern humans(well, outside Africa, anyway). There is DNA evidence for this.

Orientals are way more adapted to the cold than Caucasians despite Caucasians having more body hair. You are forgetting that such things as small stature and other features are way more important re adapting to very cold environments.

Also, I do NOT "need to stay active" in order to survive the cold.  Also, I have indeed slept outside in Austria, and similiar cold temperate areas,  outside the summer season when it was rather cold, and I was fine(during army exercises at night etc.).  I  suspect that my ability to adapt is, however, tiny compared to palaeolithic man who never had access to central heating etc. so would have been forced to habituate himself to the cold more efficiently and easily than me.

[JeuneKoq]

The Neanderthals did not die out. They interbred with other hominids to form modern humans(well, outside Africa, anyway). There is DNA evidence for this.

Yes, I am aware of that. However it is clear that not all Neanderthal interbred with homo Sapiens and some of them must have died out, maybe because they were less able to adapt to new environmental conditions and thus survive as opposed to Homo Sapiens.

Orientals may be able to resist cold better than caucasians, but they still have to wear clothes and sleep in fabricated shelters, right? They are not completely capable of resisting colder temperatures, and when they do stay in frigid areas they must preserve the most energy they can by not moving too much, as some monks would in a meditative position.

I really think Neanderthals used other animal's fur to protect themselves against great cold, because unlike other animals surrounding them in these northern regions they lacked this exact thing: fur.

Fur enables the animal to capture and keep a certain part of their own bodily heat. Without this concentration of  hair, internal heat quickly leaves the body and dissipate in the surrounding air. If an animal lacks bodily fur, two choices are given to him: either live in an environment already warm enough to not have to produce -much- internal heat, or try and survive in a cold environment and waste a lot of energy trying to keep its body at an acceptable temperature.