The problem with tropical vegitation is that edible varieties are actually rather difficult to find in the wild, or requires much specialist processing (like Manioc/Cassava). Temperate climates produce much less variety, but more, as it were, of each when it is in season.
Not true in any way at all.
Meaningful generalistations about tropical vs temeprate are almost impossible, but if we had to generalise we would say that tropical vegetation is usually easier to find, produced in greater quantities and requires less processing than temperate vegetation.
Disagree. On the facts, you could not be more wrong!
In point of fact, there is a debate in the scientific literature as to whether survival by gathering of foods is possible at all without at least some agriculture in tropical environments:
http://www.springerlink.com/content/q780l581727745vh/
While this hypothesis may well be proved incorrect, in that some groups may have, by dint of hard effort, survived in such places by gathering sans cultivation - it is clearly the case that survival by gathering was much, much easier in temperate climes.
Why oh why do people with absolutely no knowledge in the area always insist on arguing issues in the life sciences? It never seems to be a problem for physicists or lawyers.
Oh really. So all those Aborigines must have survived for 40, 000+ years by cultivating gardens in secret. :rolleyes:
What a load of codswallop.
Upon reading your link I see that you have completely failed to understand the article.
I’ll give you a hint: tropical forest and tropical environment are not synonyms.
Now bearing that in mind go back and read the article.
Sigh. No. The only thing that is clear is that you lack the ability and knowledge to even comprehend the science on this subject.
If you had any knowledge if the subject you are attempting to debate you would realise how ridiculous your claim is. It requires us to believe that either Aborigines practiced agriculture for 40, 000 years and hid all evidence of it from the world anthropological/palaeontological community or else that Aborigines never occupied the tropics.
Which of those ludicrous positions are you claiming to be correct?
Or that Aborigines hunted in addition to gathering.
The better comparison, I’d think, would be to other great apes. Gorillas are almost exclusively herbivorous, and they live in the tropics. Are there plant foods that they’re able to eat which we can’t? If not, how do they get enough food where we couldn’t?
Please, come back, bring evidence. Leave snark at home.
Are you seriously claiming that life as an Australian aborigine was richer and easier than life as a West Coast BC native? Both hunted and gathered.
Which “aboriginies” are you talking about? The Negritos? Australian aboriginies?
All of these lived in marginal tropical environments; none were as rich as temperate hunter-gathering in terms of food.
You have made one minor point: yes, tropical forests are not the totality of tropical environments. This does not get you where you want to go, however. That does not, contrary to your apparent assertion, prove that non-forest tropical envirionments were richer in easily available calories to hunter-gatherers than temperate environments. If you have some actual evidence, other than bluster, insult and bombast, to prove this assertion, please provide it and debate it.
There are good reasons why this is not true - namely, the greater biodiversity of tropical environments means that there is less of any one useful, easily accessible food species. Sans human cultivation of course.
As for all your appeals to some sort of personal authority - I take those for what they are worth. 
Gorillas do indeed live in the tropical rainforests. They are not, however, a good comparator for humans, as they are able to eat leaves and even woody bamboo stems (they have large sagital crests to anchor emmense chewing muscles that allow them to in essence eat woody stems and shoots).
No,I am claiming that there is no scientific debate that Aborigines inhabited the tropics and did not practice agriculture. This fact is accepted by 100% of all anthropologists, dietitians and archaeologists.
Thus your claim that “there is a debate in the scientific literature as to whether survival by gathering of foods is possible at all without at least some agriculture in tropical environments” is revealed as ignorant bullshit. Pure and simple
I put it to you again. If scientists are debating whether survival by gathering of foods is possible at all without at least some agriculture in tropical environments then what position do they adopt: that Aborigines practiced agriculture for 40, 000 years and hid all evidence of it from the world anthropological/palaeontological community or else that Aborigines never occupied the tropics?
Since no scientist would ever support either position your position is revealed as ignorant nonsense.
Aborigines dude, not aborigines. See the difference?
oth
Once again your ignorance of a topic that you insist on debating is staggering.
Aborigines occupied an entire continent. You are arguing that the whole of Australia is both tropical and marginal.
Cite!
Oh for Pete’s sake, nobody with an ounce of knowledge of this subject would even ask this question. It’s been as well resolved as such a generalisation ever can be.
"Habitat quality is best measured with phenological studies in which the actual number of plants of a certain size and are counted to estimate the quantity of available foods. Because these type of data do not exist in a comprehensive
form for habitats across the world, we must use other measures… . Archeologists have previously used measures of primary biomass and primary production based on data from weather stations to examine relationships between habitat quality and foraging. However, today we can use remote sensing technology and a more refined algorithm to estimate the habitat quality of any square kilometer of land on earth… NPP [net primary productivity] is a crude estimate of actual human food abundance.
Descriptive statistics for all subsistence categories Entire sample
Forager Mean NPP:600 Median NPP:466 Min 85 Max 1727
Descriptive statistics for all subsistence categories warm climate subsample
Forager Mean NPP:879 Median NPP:790 Min 189 Max 1730"
Claire C. Porter and Frank W. Marlowe, 2007 “How marginal are forager habitats?” Journal of Archaeological Science, 34-1
Warm climates provide more food for hunter gatherers. They provide more food on average and both the most and least productive warm climates provide more abundant food than the corresponding temperate climates. There’s also a tonne of evidence stating that it provides more reliable food supplies and that it supports higher population densities. Once again, these are all gross generalisations, but to the extent that we can generalise at all about tropical vs temperate regions those are the outcomes.
And these arguments were all settled decades ago and are taught in undergard classes. Nobody with an ounce of actual knowledge of this subject would be arguing otherwise.
Malthus, at this point your ignorance of this topic is staggeringly clear. If anyone wants to believe a man who doesn’t understand that the entire tropics are not forested, who thinks it debatable that Aborigines survived well in the tropics without agriculture and who believes that the entire continent of Australia is marginal and tropical then more power to them.
I simply repeat : why do people with absolutely no knowledge in the area always insist on arguing issues in the life sciences? We’re supposed to be here to fight ignorance, not promote it.
This is known as ‘making much over nothing’. The debate, as you well know, is whether such subsistance is possible in tropical forest environments. It is clear that there is in point of fact such a debate.
Some cites:
http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/wildyam.htm
http://www.sil.org/~headlandt/foragers.htm
[Emphasis added]
I really would appreciate, well, a minimum of decency in response. This is a debate I presume between adults. If I am wrong in that presumption, or have somehow offended you by presuming to differ, please take your insults to the Pit.
There, did beating the shit out of that straw-man feel good?
Come back, bring evidence for your position - which, as I’ll remind you, is as follows:
The fact that there is a strong debate over whether hunter gatherers could srurvive at all in tropical rainforests. I know well that they can survive in non-rainforest tropical environments - but even there, they do not, apparently, produce comparable population densities to those existing hunter-gatherer groups in temperate locations such as the coast of British Columbia.
I’ve proved you wrong in one environment - tropical forests. I admit that I have not proved you wrong in all possible tropical; environments. If you have evidence that (say) tropical savanahs or dry forest environments were more productive for human gatherers than temperate - and again I’ll remind you, that your assertion is that “in general” they were easier environments to forage in (a generality that includes tropical rainforests, btw) - please produce it.
I am of course insisting on no such thing.
Are you adicted to straw-men or what?
Too bad I’m in the habit of asking questions then. :rolleyes:
Finally, some references!
Too bad that ‘habitat quality’ derived from primary biomass production tells one nothing about how available those plants are to human exploitation.
Also too bad that while you insist on differentiating “tropical forest” from “tropical”, when it suits your purpose you are not above generalizing from “warm climate”. 
Again I repeat: you have produced no evidence to demonstrate your original point that I took issue with - that “…that tropical vegetation is usually easier to find, produced in greater quantities and requires less processing than temperate vegetation”.
If it was all so settled, surely you would have no problems finding some source to back you up …?
All this 'proves" is your ability at straw-man generation. Come back, bring some proof.
I mean really, why the vehemence? Have I somehow stepped on your dick by proving you wrong or something? Sheesh. :rolleyes:
You may well be right - I’m no expert in this area - but your antics aren’t convincing, they are not good debate tactics and you have produced exactly nothing to support your point of view but a bunch of bluster.
Actually it’s generally the opposite I understand. In most hunter-gatherer societies ( the exception being whale hunters ), you can generally get more meat faster hunting smaller game. Yes, it’s smaller but there’s far more targets. Focusing on hunting big game appears to be more about status; they get fewer calories but more bragging rights.
[Moderating]
Ok, guys, let’s dial it back a bit. Make your points without getting personal.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
I’m all for that. 
Malthus, you are a bit unclear. Are you interested in the relative contribution of animal vs plant foods to the diet, or the energy yield of activities of women vs men?
What types of food are collected and who is responsible for collecting them varies significantly from culture to culture, but averaging across societies, men bring in about 60-65% of the total calories and a slightly higher percentage of the animal protein. Typically only about half of the total animal protein is taken from “hunted” (as opposed to foraged) sources; large-game hunting in particular is energetically inefficient in most environments (low yield-per-effort compared to hunting small game and foraging) and probably functions primarily in establishing status and male bonding. Men in hunter-gatherer societies forage as well as hunting, and women and children can and do collect invertebrates, eggs, reptiles and amphibians, and typically also small mammals and fish, as well as plant foods. Although women are generally prohibited from using male-restricted weapons (bows, spears), they are at liberty to pursue animals that can be successfully captured or trapped in other ways, and in many societies are also permitted (or required) to assist in group hunting efforts with the men.
So your memory that “present-day hunter-gatherers obtained most of their calories from hunting” is sort-of correct; animal food is energetically important to almost all hunter-gatherer diets, but it is not necessarily obtained through the activity formally acknowledged as “hunting”, and is certainly not provided exclusively by men.
The former; the latter is, as you say, less clear. I am not myself assuming that men collect all the “meat” broadly defined. Rather, I was under the impression that the resistance to the notion that the majority of caloric intake derived from “meat” or “hunting” (again broadly defined) was a reaction against the 19th century paradigm of “Man, the Hunter” literally bringing home the bacon - which (I hypothesize) led some to under-estimate the importance and amount of actual meat consumed.
Again, with the caveat that this obviously varies widely. Innuit subsist on mostly meat.
The claim that was disputed was this:
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Pre-ag societies got more calories from gathering than hunting (and it was strongly implied by the poster that “gathering” meant plant matter),
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Women did the gathering, men the hunting,
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Therefore: women supported the group.
I disagreed with the first assertion. Animals are a denser energy source, and most of the evidence I have seen is that pre-agricultural societies get more energy from hunting than gathering.
P.S.: I would include fishing as a “hunting” activity.
Well, as I was trying to imply in my post, there’s “hunting” as an organized, typically male-gendered activity focused on the specific pursuit of meat animals, and there’s “hunting” as an opportunistic, catch-what-you-can, relatively unisex component of foraging. Insofar as the “men hunt, women gather” distinction is valid, it applies to the first type. In most societies, trapping or netting fish doesn’t attract the same degree of attention, ritual and social control as spearing antelope does, so it isn’t necessarily “hunting” in that sense. If you are going to define all fishing as hunting, then why not include catching frogs and lizards, trapping rodents, and digging up burrowing mammals? If you do that, then all member of most primitive societies “hunt”, regardless of sex.
The debate is not and never has been on that topic. Nobody even mentioned tropical forests before you introduced your erroneous reference claiming that it applied to all tropical environments.
What fucking starwman. You stated that “there is a debate in the scientific literature as to whether survival by gathering of foods is possible at all without at least some agriculture in tropical environments” That is not a mischarcterisation of your position, it is a quotation of it.
And you are completely and utterly wrong on this point and woefully ignorant to even suggest it. There is no there is absolutely no debate in the scientific literature as to whether survival by gathering of foods is possible . That is a well established fact.
You haven’t proved me wrong, you are tyring to teahc your grandmother to suck eggs. If you do a search of my contributions in the just the past 6 months you will find that I havce made this exact point in at least 3 different threads. I have been well aware of the fact that HGs can’t survive in tropical rainforest for at 15 years.
Already done. Try reading it.
WTF? you stated quite cleary that “Australian aboriginies… lived in marginal tropical environments”. Do you even understand the sentences that you have typed?
What strawmen. These are quotes of your position.
Well the editors of one of the most prestigious journals in the field disagree.
But what would they know, huh?
WTF?
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I don’t insist on differentiating “tropical forest” from “tropical”. I do insist that “tropical forest” and “tropical environement are not synonyms. Do you dispute this?”
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I don’t generalise from “warm climate” I follow the authors of the paper.
Yeah, have, the authors stated the same quite clearly and I have quoted them
At this point perhaps you would care to resent your evidence for the ridiculous assertion to the contrary?
Just to recap for the lurkers, Malthus is completely wrong and demonstrating gross ingnorance on almost every point he makes on this topic:
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To the extent that generalistations can be made, edible tropical vegetation is usually easier to find, produced in greater quantities and requires less processing than temperate vegetation.
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There is no scientific debate about whether HGs can live in tropical environments. Don’t know where the hell Maltghus got hat idea from, but it has been well documented for over 200 years that HGs can survive in tropical environments.
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Aborigines did not and do not live solely in marginal environments, no do they or did they live solely in the tropics. Once again, I have no idea where the hell Malthus pulled this piece of ignorant nonsense from.
My advice to any lurkers: do not accept anything that Malthus has to say on this topic. He is demonstrating the most appaling ignorance of the subject.
[Moderator note]
Blake, I asked you to dial it back. You can make your points without turning it into a personal attack on other posters. No warning issued, but unless you moderate the snark one will be.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
Errm, **Malthus **posted a link to an article that is part of that very debate. Are you claiming the article doesn’t exist? Or the other articles it references? If not, then your statement here is provably false.
I think that certain environments (i.e. the California coast) provide a very good living for hunter-gatherer peoples. The California coastal tribes lived off acorns, shellfish, fish, and wild greens. From all accounts, they were very healthy and not undernourished. Later, when the Spanish missions were established, the spaniards introduced grains and european foods-and the indians went into a precipitous decline-and they all died off by the 19th century.