View Full Version : Waste
Reading.replying to the Pukka Pidgeon thread made me think (I know rare as it is) about how much our societies attitude to wild life has changed and I WAS WONDERING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE THINK.
Ok my thought was this, When we were hunter gatherers we lived off herds ten of thousands strong, animals stretching from horizon to horizon, and yet we were wise enough to only take what we needed and only to take the old and the weak ect ect (and before you say it - that practise continued even after the native americans got guns so its not a ease of hunting thing) and nothing was wasted, the spirit of the dead beast was respected and the whole thing utilised.
Now when animals are so few and far between that even seeing one is classed as lucky we will kill them and take only the choicest cuts, dumping the rest, road kills arent even given a second though. We have charities set up to protect endangered species and people happily give to these and yet blindly still dont give a second though to the causes of the endangerment (their new mahogany furniture for example).
So my question is what changed us and why? We still know its wrong, we still know the wisdom of the ancient ones so why do we ignore it?
Your thoughts please.
i think it is largly two do with two things.. one is people becoming completely detached from the process for killing/preparing the animal.. "in general conversation with a friend the other day i mentioned i had been trout fishing the previous weekend.. the person asked do i kill the trout i said of course i did i would not fish if it wasn't going to take my catch home and eat it.. how do you do that they asked.. i replayed that i did it as quickly as i could with a priest.. yuck they said thats horrible i asked why and they couldn't come back with much.. i then asked if they ate meat and they said they did.. i left it at this point.. but would have liked to have asked if they thought their beef stake or roast chicken was killed in a "nice" or "horrible" way or if killing the trout was only horrible because i had been present when it happened..
Two this "instant" society where the choice cuts are readily available displayed in a refrigorated in a cabinet and most people have little or no knowledge of butchering technique they don't see or understand the amount which goes to waste..
i am sure i have only touched on a little of what Gary is getting at here, he has a way oh brining up these grate discussions.. but heres my 2p
Tantalus
11-12-2004, 10:24
personally am quite happy to "source" my own supper
and as for waste i am a great fan of haggis and blackpudding
spent last sunday cutting up a lamb for the freezer
admitted it was killed skinned and cleaned by professionals but those are the regs these days
and all the scraps were boiled up for the dog too
i guess in days gone by when every other house had a pig for the table and health inspectors were unheard of ...........it was a fairly normal thing to do
Tant
Excellent question Gary,
In my humble opinion, and if you'll allow me to rant a bit.... this is one of those "onion" questions. In other words there are layer after layer of answers that start very close to the immediate question and end, at the core, with humankind's fundamental problem.
So, you could start by saying that people today have (and use) too much choice. In the case of the carcass this would mean, through an over-use of the intellect, mentally dividing / subdividing everything into good and bad and only taking what is perceived to be 'good', in other words the 'best' bits.
Further into the 'onion' it may become apparent that the root of this is the dualistic thought and choice making that insists on dividing the world into two. What I want, and what I don't want. In other words it's attraction and aversion gone rampant. This neurosis can and does manifest in lots of ways, to the point that some people nowadays get genuinely stressed / depressed about what to wear to tonight's party!
Further still into the core, you could say that the root of this so called "I" making all these choices is "Self Interest", after all most of us perceive ourselves as the most important person in the universe, so we should ensure "I" get what "I" need. Even in a room with a thousand people, or a stadium with ten thousand, "I" am the most important one !!!
Finally, at the core, is the delusion that "I" am separate from everything else. This is clearly not the case, after all we are completely interdependant and inter-related with everything else, but still it's a problem nearly all of us have.
I think the hunters of old had more than just self interest at heart. I reckon they had the interest of the whole environment in their minds because they felt they were part of it, not separate from it.
I'll get off the soap box now.......
:rolmao:
Good answers so far - but it still doesnt come close to the why we changed?
What changed us from hunting for the tribe to hunting for me and me alone. What changed us from wise(ish) creatures who were part of nature to selfish greedy creatures who abuse and waste nature.
What I can not fathom is the fact when we had more game we were good husbands of it - as we grew in numbers and had less and less game we seem to lose that ability.
Squidders
11-12-2004, 13:11
Ok, the hunting bit... I think partly comes down to storage... sure they got guns everywhere but they didn't have freezers to it wasn't worth killing everything in sight and letting it rot.
As for us lot being wasteful... I think it's a matter of some prestige, like a pride of lions or tribe of people. The head of the group will always have the more choice meat or food and what remains would go to the lower ranks. By only eating the finest parts of an animal we're elevating ourselves in our own minds to higher ranks.
I don't think it's a human problem as such, I think that if lions had the ability to kill and store more than they could eat they would (unless they found a comfy spot) You can also see the effects of over eating when looking at owl and rodent populations, the two typically rise and fall due to their numbers but trust me, if the owls could wipe out the rodents, they would have by now... and would have had to find an alternate food source or died out.
What makes things worse is that we think too much... we create factories and we give ourselves the best possible chance to wipe things out. I don't think we're the only ones with the desire though.
I dont know why we changed, and I dont think that we ever will know for sure.
I think that it is inherent from from our nature. If you accept that our curiosity led on to all invention.
Our bodies, although evolving to suit the most suitable form, were "destined" to become "useful" (we had a bone locked away in our genes that would eventually form something useful in the form of a thumb etc - what evolutionary edge did that bump on some organisms have?)
We have been able to take steps that have eased our lives. And it is a modern privilage that we dont have to anymore.
Fire, some think, gave us the time to develop complex forms of language, philosophise and promoted use of time that would not normally be used for anything other than sleep. Experimentation with developing tools, crafts etc.
Agriculture or animal husbandry, in its earliest form, could have heralded a change in our relationships with the land. Although our success or failure was linked to the environemtn and the cycles of the earth, understanding from experience could have been a point where loss of "faith" became evident.
Religion. With the spread of some, if not all, of the major religions, people were encouraged to follow one god, a specific god, some bloke etc. This could have been one of the reasons that instead of respecting what we have, we respect something/someone who provided.
With the human race continuing to develop at such a high rate, people will continue to loose touch with nature. Be this in the form of distance from the origins of our food and "repulsion" towards those who kill, or not considering that you are draining natural resources without accepting that we probably only get to use them once during our time here.
With the distinction between conservation and integration that we have, you just have to do what you can.
Tantalus
11-12-2004, 13:39
oops i didnt realise you were looking for an answer
how about money being to blame?
i mean there are bits that are just not worth selling if you are butchering animals
and if you kill and sell more animals then you can have more money so obviously you want to sell the bits that people want
in a society without money everyone shares the meal dont they ?
Tant
i mean there are bits that are just not worth selling if you are butchering animals
Tant
We call this Mcdonalds
Mcdonalds does prove a point though. It uses bits of meat that anyone would turn their nose up at in other situations yet people seem to think they taste quite nice (I wouldn't know). this seems to be a way to use up all that meat that otherwise would be wasted. The trouble is they then waste a lot of it anyway. This is becasue it's a fastfood joint (sorry for the pun). The speed of the morden world demands that the food be quickly avaliable. it's cheaper to waste food then time.
Over the top hygene regulations don't help. If a chickin falls off the conveyor belt going to be turned into chicken breast onto a fall hich is cleaned everyday in a place where the workers have to wear plastic bags on their feet the chcken must be thrown away. Surely the floor isn't really any more "dirty" then any other surface and it's going to be cooked anyway. Whats the point
I went veggi after seing the way animals are put ina truck for hours on end to go to a clean place to die. When the foot and mouth thing kicked off I saw a guy walk upto the cows on a farm and shoot them in the head with a bolt gun. They never knew a thing. I wouldn't mind eating them so much.
Good answers so far - but it still doesnt come close to the why we changed?
What changed us from hunting for the tribe to hunting for me and me alone. What changed us from wise(ish) creatures who were part of nature to selfish greedy creatures who abuse and waste nature.
What I can not fathom is the fact when we had more game we were good husbands of it - as we grew in numbers and had less and less game we seem to lose that ability.
Good point Gary,
(Note to self - must try to answer the question actually asked and not simply rant :naughty: )
Firstly, I really don't know the answer, but could possibly guess at post 1800 education systems promoting self interest, or the fact that we (think we) can now afford to be wasteful. Incidently I like Squidders' comment of the prime cuts being "high status food". There's a lot of truth in that.
Also, I think many people in modern Western society are "in denial" as to the long term consequences of their lifestyle. Not to mention the fact that a lot of people have abdicated responsibility for their actions to the State.
However, IMHO the problem with the question "why" is that there is really no end to it. All things depend on previous causes and conditions, so even if we get the answer as to what were the immediate causes of this problem, we might well ask "why did those come about? what caused them?" and so on back in time to the big bang or even further (after all something caused the big bang!)
The way I was taught (and again this is only one opinion here, offered in the hope it might be of some benefit) was that this kind of "why" question is similar to the guy who was shot by an arrow asking who made it, and which bird's feathers were used. It may be more appropriate in his case to concentrate on removing the arrow and healing the wound.
On the other hand though, asking it does provoke thought and learning, so what do I know :?:
With regard to today's excessive wastage, one thing I say to myself regularly when I think the world's gone mad (and this may raise a few eyebrows) is this.....
"Nothing in the entire Universe is unnatural. All of it, every last bit"
:-P
I wonder if our inclination to use/waste has continually changed at various times due to the prevailing circumstances in which society has found itself. Current behaviour may well have its origins in the expansionism which developed following the end of rationing in the 1950's. My dad could never move on from the need to conserve and use whatever resources he had, even though he was able to live very comfortably in later years. People who have lived through the 1940's and 50's talked of "make do and mend....use it up and wear it out...". My grandfather (who had known hardship as a POW during WW1) was an inveterate hunter/gatherer and apparently used to send cooked game by post (!)to both my dad and his brother when they were serving during WW2. But that was before the Nanny state took over....public health laws wouldn't allow that now.
This ethos is reflected by a couple of my favourite country writers, John Humphreys and Fred J Taylor, whose stories of their own activities in the countryside often carry the need for respect which their quarry deserves.
I tend to think that current behaviour has developed because we have not had to live in the way people did in the first half of the 20th century where only the privilaged few had wealth and resources and everyone else appreciated the true value of all types of meat, offal included. Many people can afford to be fussy nowadays and don't bother to respect the fact that an animal has lost its life to feed them.
The other reason that I think attitudes may have continually changed is that whereas early 20thC Brits may have had a culture of make do and mend, the people who drove the native Americans onto the reservations up to 50 years earlier certainly had quite the opposite. I'm sure that there are many more examples of these changes in attitudes and behavoiur at different stages of our development.
I'm far to tired to even start trying to think of an answer to this one...... but having just spent some time living with nomadic hunter gatherers I have some observations that may provoke thought.
the penan have a culture based around sharing all they have, if one penan puts down his parang and another needs a parang to cut something he will just pick it up and use it, when he is finished he will replace it back where the other put it down, he does of course treat it with the respect he would his own parang.
when food is caught or gathered it is divided amongst everyone.
when I arrived in their camp I did not need to ask if I could stay in their shelter, I was expected just enter and make myself a bed for the night
what is yours is theirs, it goes without question.
there are two types of penan in the jungle, those who have given up there nomadic lives and built semi permanent homes (usually those who's hunting ground and enviroment is irreparably changed by the logging companies)
And the those who live a nomadic life moving from sago crop to sago crop.
The nomadic penan make everything they own from the land, if something is irreparably damaged they thow it over there shoulder where it goes back from where it came and they make another.
both groups still hunt and both groups demonstrate the same culture of sharing.
however as you enter the permanent habitation of non nomadic penan you find it surrounded by old batteries and plastic bottles and wrappers.
now modern materials have been made available by the logging roads, and quickly made use of by the penan.
However they do not seem to have grasped the concept that it doesn't disappear when thrown out of the shelter the way stuff made from wood and rattan does.
it appears that the only difference between these two groups is that the settled penan now have the technology to pollute.
the nomadic groups are always on the move so they are not in one area long enough to over use it, and all there equipment is biodegradable.
but the minute they settle down and have access to plastic etc they begin to pollute the area and destroy there surroundings.
it is not the having the means to do so that makes the difference.
I hope this makes sense I really am to tired to explain it more eloquently.
it was also apparent the care with which they treated their equipment.
you take care of things a lot more and are not so quick to throw them away if it means you personally will have to invest time and effort to make another one.
but if somthing is manufactured for you and cheap to obtain.........
RovingArcher
11-12-2004, 17:03
Interesting question Gary. Before I start into this, please allow me to apologize to those that I offend, because I am sure that I will offend some, if not many here.
When man puts himself above Nature, man puts himself into a position above the CREATOR. Of course, it's all just a bad dream, because Nature is the beginning and end of everything, including us.
To me, why we as a people (Western), have become gluttonous and without regard to others, including Nature and even our own children, can't be simply stated and my thoughts may be way off base to many here and are very controversial to be sure, but this is how I see it.
First let me say, that each and every culture, whether ancient or fully civilized, believe that there is an evil that leads men to do certain things by tricking them into believing that it is the right thing to do. It has also been acknowledged that this evil lives in the minds of man, hence, the serpent leading the first humans to eat of the fruit of knowledge in the Bible. The Lakota call this evil Ektomi (trickster) and believe that it comes in the form of a spider. It makes those that the trickster chooses, think and do crazy things and think that it is the right thing to do. Of course, there is always a bad ending to things.
When you take religious beliefs into account, we can't skip over the "dominion over the Earth" part of it all. Most take it that the Bible is saying take without asking, take without consideration or respect and take without care of what future generations will have. Well, my thought is that even in the writing of the religious works, the "trickster" was present and was an active participant.
With all that in mind, I think it all started with agriculture. Agriculture built civilization and with civilization, came greed and the hunger for power. If there is an evil outcome to anything, then the "trickster" is involved.
The larger civilization becomes, the further from Nature humankind becomes. The less we care for nature, the more we abuse her, which in the end, leads to the demise of humankind.
The people start taking on jobs that deal with the growing, harvesting and marketing of food. These people are the ones that still have some contact with a now manipulated nature. Now all the people have to do to gather food is to go to the market, where an abundance of food is awaiting them for the taking, but in order to be able to gather some of it, the people must have something to trade (money).
The need of money puts the people into the position of having to spend their time gathering money, by doing some useful job for civilization, benefiting the greed of others, which further developes the greed in the hearts of the people, because they know that the more money they can get, by whatever means, the better they and their families can live. The better they live, the more status they obtain, so they keep working at getting more money and more power. GREED!
It all eventually gets to the point that all people must do their part to support civilization and entire households start working long hours, to make more money, to afford the ever hungry greed of others and in the process, The people don't have time for lives, let alone nature and their children are left being raised during the day by strangers that don't hold the values of the parents and after school, they are raising themselves, but that's a horse of another color.
It will all just continue to fold in onto itself until man suffocates from all the weight.
Tantalus
11-12-2004, 17:33
of course stories like this (http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3872553)
suggest that we are already suffocating
Tant
RovingArcher
11-12-2004, 19:02
Wow, thats something. There was an example of a similar sort 12 miles from our home, where a bear had walked to the beach in the early morning and on it's way back to it's hiding place (bears are few and far between here), a woman near the beach spotted it and called the authorities. They showed up, frightening the bear and driving it up a tree about 30'.
Soon it was a huge media circus, with crowds of onlookers, news people, camera people, police, sheriff and Fish and Game on site armed to the teeth over an old and very frightened bear. The now very brave woman who called, stood triumphantly with officials as they shot a dart into the bear that paralyzed it, making it fall from the tree, hitting a house and then the ground. By this time there was a group of us trying to get them all to just leave so the bear could calm down and leave on it's own, but their fear based blood lust prevailed and the bear paid the price with it's life.
The only good thing that came out of it is that the local Indian people were allowed to take the bear to a secret place and hold ceremony for it's life and spirit. Then the burial was done and no one but those involved know where this was done, even though the news people tried to follow.
Tantalus
11-12-2004, 19:14
i may be able to understand a bear (though with difficulty you are right)
but for petes sake a sheep ..............
what is next rabbits ?
we have become so removed from nature that it is seen as a threat
and yet society seems to think polar bears are cuddly disney type things
reminds me of the time my little brother tried to rescue a mouse out of the feed bin instead of letting my grandad swat it
one bitten fingertip and one tetanus jab later and mice were public enemy number 1
:?:
Tant
So my question is what changed us and why? We still know its wrong, we still know the wisdom of the ancient ones so why do we ignore it?
:soapbox: We changed us, for a thousand different reasons. One because with the age of technology we've always sort the quickest, cleanest, easiest, most efficient way to harvest things, and that meant centralising them, bigger more efficient slaughterhouses, intensive farming methods etc, etc...which went hand in hand with the impersonalisation of animals and fewer and fewer people actually came into contact with the care/reproduction/killing of a walking larder, so to speak! Another, because if you've had generations upon generations of people having to survive on basic foods, if you said to them in one hundred years time you can have stores filled with amazing foods in ample amounts...whose going to say no? We also have a twisted idea of what is 'clean' to eat and what isn't. Societies obsession with health and germs and what's 'nasty' and what isn't has had a huge affect on what people think is 'safe' to eat and most people have no knowledge of how to kill something or what parts of it are edible. Also, how many of you say...I'm not going to eat that bacon because the animals are treated abissmally until death? How many of you actively promote animal friendly farming? How many of you research where your meat comes from? (and any foods really). It's about a loss of control. Perhaps if we were still farming/culling for ourselves we would think about what we were doing more, but people are gloriously adept and not caring about what they don't see and most of them believe in abundance...why live with just enough when you can have more! I made a promise to myself some time ago not to eat anything I didn't think I could kill myself, or that came from 'intensive' animal agriculture. No, I don't keep this up twenty four hours a day, and yes, I do have relaxed days, the point is, I may not be able to change the world by doing this, but I can have a direct influence on my life and know that I'm living by principles I believe in. So to part of Gary's question...why do we ignore it...you don't have to...live in a way that honours at least some part of that, it's not impossible, it just requires a little effort on your part to find out where the meat you're eating comes from. It's about reclaiming the power you have over what you eat and taking responsibility for accepting how it gets to your plate. You can choose to live with it - most people already do - but don't get all high and mighty about the systems in place because they're so horrible to animals if you continue to support them - and the other choice you have....is don't live with it, change your habits, get to know your food and whether you can live with it arriving on your dinner plate in the way that it has. I'm not saying there's a right or wrong way, but if you make a choice about how to live, don't turn around and say...my, isn't the way those animals are kept/transported/killed just terrible. Why do we ignore the wisdom of the ancients...because most of us are too lazy to do anything about it, myself, included. But I believe in change and I will continue to change so that I can bring such wisdom into my life and not be so much of a hypocrite anymore.
Nice one Kim, :You_Rock_
I thoroughly agree with the practice of making wiser decisions over where we get our food from, and doing our best to ensure that it comes to us from more sustainable & humane methods of food aquisition / production, and not the battery cage or the over worked and pesticide / fertiliser sodden soil.
I think the world changes slowly for the better by individuals making decisions to do what's best for all, and not just for "me".
:biggthump
My parents has this crazy idea that he should retire early and get a small holding and grow most of the food they need. My dad thought working part time with this set up should work.
Does this sound like a TV program to you
:biggthump
God bless Felicity Kendall.
Sounds like a great idea to me... why wait till you retire? :wink:
Squidders
12-12-2004, 22:03
Because it's hard to own a small holding outright until you've been paying for it for a lot of years.
Sounds like a great idea to me... why wait till you retire? :wink:
it's todo with super anuation pension thing that my dads got. He pays more in so can take retirement at 60. He then wait a while (ok think it's about 3weeks) and does the odd bit of part time to pay the bills you can't get around. It's also to do with ben near my their parents.
I was never hidden from the source of meet and we used to get eggs from a little small holding (now get them from someone my folks know) I ended up collecting them a few times. Always had home grown food. I guess I was lucky. Very little food gets wasted back home
While not wishing to take issue with the concepts of not being selfish or that we should take responsibility for our actions or indeed unnecessarily produce waste I do feel that hunter-gatherers weren't so eco-friendly as we moderns like to believe.
When early man was stampeding herd animals off cliffs for food I doubt he discriminated much in what went over that drop. Similarly there are accounts by anthropologists of modern hunter-gatherers torturing animals for amusement.
And whilst hunter gatherers may indeed collect for the tribe they can be incredibly heartless with regards to each other when for some reason it's impossible for them to provide sufficient food for themselves. A particularly harrowing account can be read in 'The Bone People' (I think that's what the book is called). What makes the events of that particularly cruel is that these people were unable to use their hunting grounds due to the actions of their so-called civilised government.
What I'm trying to say is that we shouldn't see hunter gatherers as plaster saints; seeing them only in relation to our feelings of guilt as to what we 'moderns' have done to the Earth. They were and are complicated human beings, as capable of cruelty and kindness as any human is.
Good point Notbob, like most generations we tend to idealize what has gone before...all Native Americans were/are 'in touch' with themselves and the environment, and it was always better in the good old days! Well, maybe it wasn't always so good. Jut like in today's society there are many great things about the way some areas of agriculture are developing and some very worrying ones. No one generation has been perfect and we all have our own wisdom that can be used to make our lives richer.
Keith_Beef
13-12-2004, 12:16
"The Bone People" is a novel by Keri Hulme.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0330296108/qid=1102939779/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_11_1/026-0943958-3992401
Much has been written on "the myth of the Noble Savage".
http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&safe=off&q=+myth+noble+savage&btnG=Search&meta=
There certainly seems to be a tendancy to idealise indigenous people living in a hunter-gatherer society, and to overlook those societies which managed to drive a population to extinction (as the mammoth was supposedly hunted) or destroy a resource by over-use (such as Easter Islanders supposedly did).
"Don't measure another's corn by your own bushel."
Keith.
bambodoggy
13-12-2004, 12:51
Wow...you're all over and around how I feel about this question but there's so many variables that I can't give more than a few of my ideas to Gary's original questions.
I think the Roving Archers is fairly spot on with his "Greed" theories....I tend to agree with most of what he said.
I also agree with our wearing of the old rose tinted glasses when looking at primative peoples....but if we're honest they simply weren't as bad for the enviroment as we are now....that's not to say they were saints either, they just didn't have the methods available that we do now! (daft example: they were capable of firing arrows that might hit another man, we are capable of firing nuclear weapons that will destroy whole countries - both the person holding the bow and the person pushing the botton are both killers, are they really that different if you take away the technology).
I also agree 100% with Kim's coments about her lifestyle and I'd like to think I try to do my bit too.....however, I have a good job now...so good that I have money left over each month to buy bushcrafti bits and bobs to play with, so I can afford to buy organic produce.....when I was a kid my parents weren't that well off and while we never ever went hungry, there was a lot of beejams own produce in our freezer because it was all my parents could afford, and beans on toast was a meal, not just a snack....I'm sure the same is true today, while I can afford to do my bit I'll bet there's plenty of people that can't and still use the Tesco blue and white stripe stuff.....is factory farming their fault for being poor? No, of course not but we have to be careful in how we frase the above or that is basically what we're saying..... "Look at me, I eat Organic stuff, do I not do well for the enviroment"...."poor you the poor person having to eat that processed stuff"....or worse yet "Don't you know that processed stuff is bad for you and the enviroment?"....until the reply comes back "maybe it is but marginally better than starving to death because I can't afford the nice stuff".
Back to Gary's question:
As humans we have the ability to think about things and observe things...we must have watched the wild plants growing and thought "I can control that by doing X, Y and Z" and then tried it....when it worked we thought great...I've created farming. Our hunters might have been out one day hunting when some bright spark saw a animal cornered (by a cliff maybe) and thought...mmmmm, "the little blighter can't run away, wouldn't hunting be easier if they always couldn't run away.....hey, hang on, if I catch a few and put them in pens, they can still live and breed and I can "hunt" them much easier as they can't run away".....bingo...livestock were created.
And my reason for the above....and subtle mixture of Greed and Laziness, if we're honest most of us have a little too much of both, myself included.
Oh, also...somebody mentioned animals storing food.....whoever it was you're quite right. Bobcats and Lynx are often known to try to bury the remains of their meal in the frozen snow/soil in the hope of it still being there for a second meal later....although often another preditor/scavenger has sniffed it out by then.....I'm also told Croc's like to store their food a little while before they eat it..... and on a simpler note, all animals that hibernate build up stock piles of food for the winter whether as the food itself or as a fat layer on themselves.
Very good points guys, maybe this is a case of us (me) over laying my own ideas onto the subject, selective hunting may or may not have taken place.
Maybe selective killing is a moden thing and not a characterisitic of our ancestors at all.
Maybe by have huge herds to choose from they did carry out whole sale slaughter if so, Why did they slaughter 'en masse' when other animals hunt the weak or the old (remember I am talking paleo people here) ?
Very good points guys, maybe this is a case of us (me) over laying my own ideas onto the subject, selective hunting may or may not have taken place.
Maybe selective killing is a moden thing and not a characterisitic of our ancestors at all.
Maybe by have huge herds to choose from they did carry out whole sale slaughter if so, Why did they slaughter 'en masse' when other animals hunt the weak or the old (remember I am talking paleo people here) ?
I'd have thought they hunted in the easiest safest way they could. For animals that are running away you take the weak ones at the back that fall behind. YOu only take what you need. If there's a cliff to drive them off they'd have done that.
Historically we all trace our roots to hunter gatherers. Evolutionarily, I don't think we have changed much. What has changed though, is our culture. Civilization began with intensive agriculture, which created surplus food stores. This allowed some members of the tribe to "do other things." Now days, most people "do other things" and only a small percentage of people provide food through agriculture. Hunting and fishing have become a "sport," no doubt satisfying some genetic drive that is still part of our gene pool, but the process is filtered through 10,000 years of cultural drift.
remember that weather out ancestors were eco-friendly or not the human population is now, 10times greater.. or more, so the point is how can we afford to be less eco friendly them? we cant!!
and with regards to the method of driving buffalo(or bison as we also learned from QI this week) over a cliff as a hunting method.. the the buffalo heards were such that a single heard could cover the land as far as the eye could see a few hundred over a cliff had significantly less effect on the buffalo population than it would do today!
so you see we can only look at the situation as it stands with us now.. and act accordingly!
Keith_Beef
13-12-2004, 13:17
Very good points guys, maybe this is a case of us (me) over laying my own ideas onto the subject, selective hunting may or may not have taken place.
Maybe selective killing is a moden thing and not a characterisitic of our ancestors at all.
Maybe by have huge herds to choose from they did carry out whole sale slaughter if so, Why did they slaughter 'en masse' when other animals hunt the weak or the old (remember I am talking paleo people here) ?
Maybe there's something in the "famine and feast" system.
:ramble:
Our bodies seem to have evolved to work on this system. Food is available in large quantities at particular times, and then becomes scarce for a while. When a population has a wide range of food resources, and the availability is staggered, this is a very good situation. Imagine having fruit and nuts in profusion in autumn, then hunting birds and big mammals as they migrate south through your territory, sitting out the winter with maybe a bit of fishing, then along comes springtime and the game migrates north. By following the game, the society can lengthen the huting season.
:ramble:
Further management of the livestock, and a bit of farming leads to a more sedentary society.
:ramble:
But still, there is not much possibility of storage, unless you can salt or dry some of the produce. So individuals will tend to overeat whenever possible, in the anticipation and fear of a probable forthcoming shortage. Every now and again, a herd will be wiped out by disease, or will change migration routes, or a winter will be too harsh or too mild, and there will be dire famine. This will tend to strengthen the "eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we will diet" approach.
:ramble:
Sacrifices to propitiate the primitive gods (manifestations of seasons, elements) will be offered, and the cycle continue, so long as there is balance.
:ramble:
But a surplus for several years, leading to a complacent "golden age" myth and population explosion will lead to a population crash at the first return to the "boom and bust" cycle.
:ramble:
Our modern industrial and post-industrial society is going through the same cycles, but has subsituted the hunter-gatherer a more abstracted system based on fiduciary economy (arbitrary values attached to objects of no intrinsic worth) and hyperspecialisation; the division of labour leading to individuals capable of a limited range of specialist tasks and yet without the knowledge necessary to grow or catch food.
:still rambling:
Our bodies are still craving energy-rich, sporadically-available foods like honey (and other sugars) and oils and fats; this explains why so many people eat sugary, starchy, fatty foods. McDo type burgers are the exemplar:
animal fats and proteins in the burger,
sweet, soft bread,
sweetened sauces containing corn oil
But now, this is available all the time, for little outlay. The body can't get enough of it!
:still rambling:
We are reaching the end of the boom years that really began with the first industrial revolution, accelerated with the second industrial revolution, increased in pace exonentially with the development of the oil economy, and has reached a critical level.
:still rambling:
Our society is reacting to consumer goods (once called "consumer durables" :rofl: ) in the same way as the McDo Glutton; gimme gimme gimme.
:still rambling:
People still seem to have faith in the notion that "science will find a fix for [pollution, water and food shortages, whetever]".
:still rambling:
But we need to address the question of "how can we make less waste", rather than "what should we do with the waste".
:enough rambling:
What was the question, again? :confused:
Keith.
bambodoggy
13-12-2004, 13:34
This is a link to the River Cottage website, Mr Fernly-whittonwhatsitthingy seems to have what I'd call the right idea (isn't that bad for human laziness...I'm going to post a link to his site but can't even be bothered to look up his real name!!!!! that's how factory farming started you know).
This is how I look at killing for the pot....that's not to say I am able to do it like he does...I live in Surrey not Dorset and in a town (albeit a small one) and not in the middle of knowhere.....but I do shoot the odd bunnie from time to time and I only do it if I know I'll use the body and the skin etc.... I'm a very good shot, I used to shoot for my entire cadet corp against the other two services and in the TA I specialised in Long range fire interdiction BUT....when out with mates shooting if I know I have no need of the bounty at that time, you wouldn't believe how badly my shots are off that day....I just can't seem to hit a thing :wink: Doesn't stopping me having fun, I just don't have to kill anything...I still stalk and set up the same. The rest of my mates....they just kill it and leave it for the fox... who's the more right, me or them? answer: I don't give a damn, I can only justify myself to myself and that's enough for me.
Anyway, here's the link....take the time to read it...he may have a double barrelled name but he talks a lot of sense:
http://www.rivercottage.net/foodmatters/article.jsp?ref=foodmatters.20 0304111830
What's odd about the above is that in a micro-climate sort of way...Hugh has done exactly what Gary is asking why we've done....he likes hunting and gettign his own food BUT he still keeps livestock and grows stuff....because: It's easier! Which, brutally put = lazy/greedy.
I think one of our evolutionary legacies is that selection has never put a premium on long-term thinking. We are basically short term thinkers as a species, designed to deal with the here and now. Thus it is very easy for us to want to satisfy ourselves and survive the moment without thinking about ultimate consequences. This is exemplified in what is called the "tragedy of the commons (http://dieoff.org/page95.htm)."
A good example of this phenomenon is in the story of Easter Island (http://www.eco-action.org/dt/eisland.html).
Maybe, ok another thought/question is a wolf or lion a long term thinker? Do they kill whole herds?
What is wrong with our psyhicy that we do when they dont?
Being devils advocate here bte - I find these 'debates' interesting.
Ooops, not 'The Bone People' sorry.
arctic hobo
13-12-2004, 17:26
It seems to me that it's just a nasty imbalance in nature. You watch food chains and ecosystems that do not include humans and there's a beautiful balance that means everyone just keeps going.
Whereas we have got too clever. Rather than fight every year for survival, we are very good at it. This means that over time we become incredibly good at surviving, with the result that we survive too much, ie very few people die and we can expect to survive on very little effort at all. And we have no conception, as Hoodoo suggests, of our long term happiness. Having studied evolutionary sociology for three years I have found that the further we are removed from our "intended" state the less and less happy we have become. I mean western society by the way. People now would rather have cars than children, which to me is the final straw to break the race's back. What happens if we all end up wanting big houses more than children? Psychology tells us that (it's true I swear) women are much more attracted to men who act normally than men who try to impress them. They are also more attracted to men with fame and money - which in neolithic times, would be a good reason - but today? It's warped beyond all recognition.
We've gone far far beyond surviving, and we've lost our impetus. We waste a huge amount, just because we can.
My take :?:
Rant over :wink:
Maybe, ok another thought/question is a wolf or lion a long term thinker? Do they kill whole herds?
What is wrong with our 'brains' that we do when they dont?
Being devils advocate here bte - I find these 'debates' interesting.
Maybe they would if they could. We couldn't either prior to major technological innovations.
There are some ecosystems that are controlled from the "top down" which means that predators limit population growth in the prey population. This is found more commonly in aquatic ecosystems than terrestrial, imo. At any rate, there are certain situations when the predator population becomes so dense that prey populations are driven down to extremely low densities. Of course, after this occurs, then the predator population crashes as well or migrates.
I don't think that our brains are much different than hunter-gatherers who lived 20,000 years ago. However, our culture is much different and we are all raised within a cultural filter and it affects the way we think with our brains. What our brain thinks is determined not only by our genetic predisposition but our cultural heritage as well. Mostly our culture has told us that the wilderness stretches before us as a vast unending resource that we can exploit. Only recently in our post hunter-gatherer history have we thought about how our profligate consumption might affect our children's children.
When we became dependent on agricultural technology to feed us, we began to grow exponentially which has put a huge demand on the environment for resources. However, technology has been able to meet those demands in most industrialized nations--for the time being. In essence one might argue that we exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet a long time ago via the utilization of technology. If there is ultimately a breakdown in technology, then it is likely that human populations will decline or go extinct. Whatever... :wave:
Squidders
13-12-2004, 22:07
I agree with Hoodoo... I think that wolves given the chance would decimate a given population, not Lions because they're lazy and actually hate getting out from the shade of a good tree.
I have no exact recollection of place names or species but I saw many years ago a program about an island that contained millions of crabs, pink ones that periodically spawned all over the sea rocks of the island. Perfectly “balanced” and at one with everything that hadn't died off there or been killed by harmony over the last few hundred thousand years. However, a fairly mean species of ant has found its way there and is eating everything including the crabs that are now nearly gone... or were when I saw the program.
I'm not sure the ant was introduced by man or not and it's not the point, if the ant was introduced by man it wouldn't make the ant meaner somehow. There’s a good chance that it or one of its cousins would have made it there sooner or later anyway.
It's an example of the false harmony we insist on giving everything. In truth, everything is out to get everything else! We’re just the only ones with the means to make it hurt… well, until the planet decides to wipe a load of stuff out with another harmonising dose of ice age. :nana:
It's an example of the false harmony we insist on giving everything.
Define harmony. :wave:
I think there is a good case to be made that nature lives in harmony, but I would want to redefine the term from its usually understood meaning where everyone and everything are just one big happy family. Except for plants (and that's most plants, not all plants) most everything else on the planet is heterotrophic, meaning they eat or consume things, either things that are already dead, things they have killed, or things that are still living. Plants as well are at war with each other and the things that eat them. Tall plants and vines choke the light off from the understory so other, shorter plants can't compete with them. Many plants secrete toxic chemicals into the soil around them so other plants can't live near them. And lot's of plants are toxic or have some kind of "barb wire defense" to deter feeding. This is not the kind of harmony you might see in a Disney movie.
Yet in the grand scheme of things, we have fairly long periods of evolutionary stasis where organisms over time become supremely (but never perfectly) adapted to their niches, making it very difficult for mutant species to outcompete them. However, throw in an asteroid or volcanic eruption or flood or some other major disturbance and sometimes the playing field changes. Humans, with their incredible ability to affect the planet over vast landscapes, may in fact be destroying our current "harmony." We have had at least 5 major extinctions in the history of our planet and we now appear to be undergoing a 6th major extinction of species. The current rate of species extinction is exponential and therefore warrants our investigation.
Squidders
13-12-2004, 23:03
I don't think I can define harmony in that context... but you know what I mean, people have an overly romantic outlook on what is a completely harsh planet to live on.
If the world wasn't that harsh would we have bothered getting out of the caves/trees?... Why is it that Gary asks all the really thought provoking questions?!?
What's your answer to your own question Gary?
Maybe, ok another thought/question is a wolf or lion a long term thinker? Do they kill whole herds?
What is wrong with our psyhicy that we do when they dont?
Being devils advocate here bte - I find these 'debates' interesting.
western culture does tend to have this romantic view that animals and native peoples live in total harmony with nature because they are enlightened.
given the technology to kill entire herds with ease i am sure the lions and wolves would, their drive is to kill when the opportunity presents itself for an easy meal.
they don’t because they cant, the effort involved to make a single kill is huge, they could never kill them all
if they could they would wipe out there food source very quickly, whilst becoming fat and unable to hunt. ultimately self destructive.
the same goes for humans. (I'll use the penan again since I’m here) the penan live a nomadic life in small family groups obtaining food by hunting with blowpipes and gathering edible plants. there life is hard (though they seem very comfortable) and they can be expected to live till there late 40s.
they simply cannot kill enough animals to make an impact on there environment, and there life is such that they don’t live long enough to have any increase in population.
given the technology we have though they would quickly rise in population and kill much more efficiently wiping out there environment whilst forgetting the skills they had for living in it. they would become fat and ultimately self destructive.
bit like us westerners really.
lets not get Disney about it, nature keeps the balance though disease, death and famine, living a life by natures rules is not all fun and games.
native peoples do not live in harmony with nature because they are enlightened, our ancestors did not live in harmony with nature because they were enlightened.
if the penan had the choice to live an extra 30 years, stop there family dieing of disease and provide food for there children when they were hungry.... they would in a heart beat.
just as our ancestors did.
Until science finds a magical answer to our problems, we will have to accept that unless we are happy to live with famine, disease and hardship keeping our population down we cannot live in natures balance.
I don't think I can define harmony in that context... but you know what I mean, people have an overly romantic outlook on what is a completely harsh planet to live on.
If the world wasn't that harsh would we have bothered getting out of the caves/trees?... Why is it that Gary asks all the really thought provoking questions?!?
What's your answer to your own question Gary?
I am fascinated by the way our ancestors did things almost as much as I am by the thought patterns of the members here.
One thing for sure is that on BCUK you will get a view of all sides of an argument, and every time someone brings up something I hadn't considered.
My thoughts on the subject - animal husbandry by our nomadic ancestors was an insurance policy against hunger. Lacking the tools to deep freeze food they drove their prey off cliffs ect in the autumn when they were storing food for the winter (remember even in the dark ages people were afraid to leave there settlments in winter, as much because of evil spirits as because of the cold) they did this knowing it would give them food for the whole winter and they also did it because in that manner they risked the least danger to themselves. The rest of the time they probably only hunted what they could kill and easily carry back to their camp. maybe not intentational husbandry but it was so nine the less.
Mass extinction of mammoths was a combination of the global warming at the end of the ice age and predation although I am sure our ancestors (being small in number) hardly made a dent. I AM SURE OUR ANCESTORS WERE JUST AS WORRIED ABOUT THE DWINDLING NUMBERS OF THE MAMMOTH - but possibly lacking global tracking initially they probably thought the migration routes had changed or some such either way it was something beyond their control and had they stopped hunting the mammoth that did remain eventually it would still have died out.
Mass extinction (or the near) of the plains buffalo was the us governments idea to starve out the indians!
And while I agree with Stuart, any body who could improve their life would - I still am curious as to what malfunction happened in our brains that we suddenly (if at all) lost the ability to interact with nature. Farming = lose of habitat and less game for all other animals and while we could still feed ourselves all our fellow creatures suffer because we farm (to a lesser or greater extent) and I think this is really the fault, we suddenly switched priorities, that and the later arrival of non nature based religion, after all if god made man in his image surely that means man is a god unto himself and beyond the laws that govern the beast and bird!!?
I am glad some of you find these little debates thought provoking.
Keith_Beef
14-12-2004, 09:09
..snip..
I saw many years ago a program about an island that contained millions of crabs... that periodically spawned all over the sea rocks of the island. ..snip..
However, a fairly mean species of ant has found its way there and is eating everything including the crabs that are now nearly gone... or were when I saw the program.
I'm not sure the ant was introduced by man or not and it's not the point, if the ant was introduced by man it wouldn't make the ant meaner somehow. There’s a good chance that it or one of its cousins would have made it there sooner or later anyway.
There's a "super-colony" of ants, effectively a conurbation made up of a large number of interconnected nests, that stretches all along the French Mediterranean coast, from the Spanish border to the Italian border. Or thereabouts... I don't seriously think the super-colony stops dead at the borders ;)
This is an aggressive ant, that arrived from Argentina in cargo ships.
Now, in South America, there is rivalry between ants of the same species, but different nests. Call them "tribes", if you like. They are in constant competition, and will carry out destructive raids againt each other's nests. This limits the growth of individual nests, and no single "tribe" gains absolute dominance of the territory.
But when a fertile (princess or queen, I don't know) arrived in Europe, she founded a tribe which wasn't faced with this competition, and so proliferated to fill the whole of the territory, at the detriment of indigenous species.
A similar thing may have happened with your pink crabs and the ants, Squidders. The ants, in their original location, might not have been particularly "aggressive", because their numbers couldn't boom (through local constraints). Arrived on an island where these constraints are not present, the ants proliferate; so without increased aggression, simply increasing their numbers increases their impact. Or then again, maybe the ants, faced with a seemingly inexhaustible source of crab meat, got the "kid in a sweet shop" syndrome ;)
Keith.
Mr Cissey
14-12-2004, 11:14
Not Bob
The book I presume you're thinking of is 'The Mountain People' by Colin Turnbull. It's about the Ik of northern Uganda and I'd recommend it though it can be a bit heavy going at times. Very moving book!
arctic hobo
14-12-2004, 17:23
Now, in South America, there is rivalry between ants of the same species, but different nests. Call them "tribes", if you like. They are in constant competition, and will carry out destructive raids againt each other's nests. This limits the growth of individual nests, and no single "tribe" gains absolute dominance of the territory.
I never knew ants could be so interesting! :super:
Maybe, ok another thought/question is a wolf or lion a long term thinker? Do they kill whole herds?
What is wrong with our psyhicy that we do when they dont?
Predators aren't forward thinkers, but the co-evolution of predator and prey has struck a natural balance between predator and prey. One factor is that the availability of prey controls the population of the predator.
This balance does not apply to us because, the extinction of a given food species will not result in a decline in our population and because we have the ability to cause mass extinction in the absence of self control.
So my question is what changed us and why? We still know its wrong, we still know the wisdom of the ancient ones so why do we ignore it?
Returning to your original question, civilisation has changed us. Our prehistoric ancestors may have had the same intelligence as us, but not the structure of civilisation.
Through civilisation humans can work together in large numbers and using incremental technology to do things on a scale that affects entire species or ecologies.
But why do we individually and collectively act in ways that are detrimental in the long-run? Because our base decision processes are stronger than our intellect. We may worry about the future, but that mahogany furniture feels good today ... and I'll have another helping of that cheap chicken, too.
And why do most people find pictures of game with their innards hanging out so repulsive? Because it speaks directly to our deepest-rooted fears and reminds us of our own mortality.
Keith_Beef
15-12-2004, 10:07
I never knew ants could be so interesting! :super:
I can't edit my own post about the super-colony, so I'll post a reply to correct a few errors and omissions (I was posting from memory, that most fallible of faculties).
The ant species (Linepithema humile) arrived around 80 years ago from Argentina, and the supercolony stretches 3,700 miles (6,000 km) all round the Portuguese, Spanish Med, French Med, to Northern Italy.
Ants from one end of the colony recognise members from the other end, by smell, and so do not attack and fight to the death, as they would when encountering an ant from a different colony.
Here's the article that I first read in April, 2002:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1932509.stm
Keith.
greg2935
15-12-2004, 14:01
To throw my 2 pennies worth in, Elephants tend to expand in population and destroy large areas of bush until the point where they starve to death, this used to be okay as there were always other populations who would replace them over time, however, most large elephant populations now live in closed areas (national parks etc,) and it is not possible for new populations to come in from outside because in general there are none, the same goes for hippos. Additionally all game is affected equally which cannot be allowed if you are relying of rich brits and americans to give you money. Consequently this is why the populations in both Botswana, Zimbabwe and South Africa are controlled by culling. As an aside, other methods were looked at but deemed too expensive. The bushmen I knew, all use modern materials, it makes their life easier. The reason these tribes are decreasing is complicated but major factors are governments do not like nomads (you cannot control them, they do not pay tax etc), and it is easier to not be a nomad.
Greg
bambodoggy
16-12-2004, 13:27
Just been buzzing around on google looking for foraging tips to help Andy on the 2006 trip to Scandinavia as he's worried about carrying veggie food and came across this page.....thought it might be interesting to a few on this thread.
http://voyager.dvc.edu/~frickenbach/classes/anthro130-f04/unit2/B.html
Wasn't any use for foraging tips though! lol :o):
Just found another one too:
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/prehistoric/reviews/03_02_stafford.html