# The natural habitat of humans...if we couldn't use tools?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 23, 2010, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084 "2010-01-23T05:30:13Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2010, 5:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/1 "2010-01-23T05:30:13Z")
Suppose that humans were almost physiologically the same as now (same level of hair growth, metabolism, resistance to heat and cold etc) EXCEPT they had never developed enough higher thinking processes to use tools of any kind - so no clothing, no man-made shelters, no ability to start fires - nor would they ever do so, where on the planet would be our most suitable habitat?
And as a bonus question, is there any evidence that since humans began wearing clothing we’ve become less able, when naked, to deal with temperature extremes?
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### Author:  [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2010, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/2 "2010-01-23T10:36:30Z")
We’d probably still be in Africa. Humans left Africa about 85,000 years ago by building rafts or boats and crossing the [Gates of Grief](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bab-el-Mandeb) (the straight between Djibouti and Yemen). Without tools, we couldn’t have built the rafts. (See [here](http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/journey/) for a site about the expansion of humans across the world. The crossing of the Gates of Grief is on about the 5th page, 90,000 - 85,000 years ago.)
The Sahara became a grassland at the end of the last ice age, so it’s possible humans could have crossed it then. But then we’d be resticted to Africa and southern Asia. Without tools, we are a tropical animal. Europe and northern Asia would be outside our habitable range. Australia would require boats and you need to go through northern Asia to get to the Americas.
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### Author:  [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2010, 1:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/3 "2010-01-23T13:04:12Z")
I sorta feel that if we couldn’t use tools we would not be humans.
Given that, probably the best environment for plains apes would be the African savannah, with some sylvan opoulations.
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### Author:  [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)
#### Post date: [January 23, 2010, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/4 "2010-01-23T13:31:42Z")
I’m interested in this question as well; my guess would be the same [habitats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Chimpanzee#Ecology) as chimpanzees, which is wet savannas in Africa, where our diet would have to be mostly fruit and vegetables since without tools I think we’d struggle to kill for meat or farm crops.
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 12:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/5 "2010-01-25T00:26:12Z")
> [@dtilque](#):
>
> Without tools, we are a tropical animal. Europe and northern Asia would be outside our habitable range.
I’d like to see some evidence for this claim. People lived in Southern Tasmania for over 5, 000 years with no clothing and no ability to make fire. This is an environment with a climate comparable to Northern France. So I’m having a hard time believing that Mediterranean Europe would be outside our habitable range.
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#):
>
> I’m interested in this question as well; my guess would be the same [habitats](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Chimpanzee#Ecology) as chimpanzees, which is wet savannas in Africa, where our diet would have to be mostly fruit and vegetables since without tools I think we’d struggle to kill for meat or farm crops.
1)Our most recent non-tool using ancestors were already inhabitants of the dry savannas, so it’ seems incredibly unikely that modern humans couldn’t live in that habitat.
1. Uncooked vegetables are largely undigestible to humans. So unless you’re saying that fire isn’t a tool, we ain’t gonna be eating a lot of vegetables.
2. Our pre-tool using ancestors were already utilising a high meat diet, judging by their dentition and guts. So it seems a bit of stretch to say that modern humans would revert to a meat free diet.
3. Meat doesn’t mean elephants. Much of the meat eaten by HGs was in the form of eggs, fish, vermin etc.
4. People are probably better able to obtain animal large food without tools then vegetable food. People can and have regularly run animals to death without the need for any tools at all. Obtaining vegetables with only the finger to dig with is very close to impossible.
As far as the OP goes, the question doesn’t make alot of sense. The physiology of the modern human has been shape din large part by our tool use. Asking where we could live without tools is like asking where a tortoise could live without a shell.
We can address the basic physiology of the question. As noted earlier, people existed for millenia with no clothing in a climate equivalent to Northern France, so we could physical exist over most of the world’s surface even without tools.
Addressing the capability is much more difficult. It’s probable that a turtle without a shell couldn’t survive anywhere at all, it’s simply to dependent on that adapatation. Similarly a human without tools might also be unable to live anywhere at all. It may simply be impossible. While a human can survive the environment in most locations without tools of any sort, our ability to find food of any kind is severely limited. We can run down large animals, but it’s going to be tough to even breach the skin without tools. Without tools we can’t dig for plant food, or even forage on the ground for grubs. We can;t crack nuts. Without the ability to use even a simple digging stick our ability to obtain any food at all almost nil.
We are even more hopeless when it comes to defence. Without tools our ability to defend ourselves from predators is extremely poor. In a world where humans had no tools, it’s tough to see how we are going to deal with big cats or packs of dogs and hyaenas. Our only possible defence would be to stay in large groups (\>5 individuals) all the time, but very few environments on Earth can sustain humans trying to obtain their food in that manner. None at all could sustain humans without tools trying to live like that.
If we had to find the most suitable habitat, it would presumably nee to be a very large tropical island with no predators. The only possible place I can think of is Madagascar.
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### Author:  [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/6 "2010-01-25T00:45:24Z")
[quote=“Blake, post:5, topic:526084”]
> [@](#):
>
> Meat doesn’t mean elephants. Much of the meat eaten by HGs was in the form of eggs, fish, vermin etc.
I don’t consider eggs as meat, and how do you catch a lot of fish or vermin without tools? Plucking fish from a river or catching mice with your bare hands doesn’t sound particularly easy.
> [@](#):
>
> People are probably better able to obtain animal large food without tools then vegetable food. People can and have regularly run animals to death without the need for any tools at all. Obtaining vegetables with only the finger to dig with is very close to impossible.
So you really think this would be the main form of human diet? Running animals to death? I know there’s some tribes that run specific animals to death, in specific environments (if they can isolate a sick or straggling deer-type animal, they can run it to death on a flat, dry savannah, if they’re very fit). But even then they tend to kill it with spears. How do you run other animals to death? Most large mammals will fight before running themselves to death, at which point we’d lose, and most small animals would quickly disappear into undergrowth, up trees, into the ground or simply outpace us.
Without any tools whatsoever I don’t see how humans would be effective enough as hunters to survive on a diet consisting only, or mainly, of meat.
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### Author:  [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/7 "2010-01-25T01:01:55Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> People lived in Southern Tasmania for over 5, 000 years with no clothing and no ability to make fire.
Tasmanian Aborigines had stone-age tools, and they definitely made and wore clothing, as a glance at any early description of them will demonstrate. I’ve been to Tasmania, and I can tell you from personal experience that hunter-gatherers in that environment would have needed clothing.
According to some accounts the natives didn’t _make_ fire, but they certainly _did_ have permanently maintained fires.
So, they had stone-age technology. Not “no tools”, just primitive tools, the same set of tools that human beings everywhere survived with for tens of thousands of years. Europe was just as habitable with those tools as Tasmania, and just as uninhabitable without them.
Please don’t characterise native Australians as naked savages, they were no more primitive than any other group of human beings in a stone-age hunter-gatherer society, including the ancestors of modern Europeans a few thousand years ago. _Exactly_ the same, and racist fantasies about them being “inferior” to Europeans really ought to have gone out of fashion a long time ago.
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/8 "2010-01-25T01:05:39Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#):
>
> I don’t consider eggs as meat, and how do you catch a lot of fish or vermin without tools? Plucking fish from a river or catching mice with your bare hands doesn’t sound particularly easy.
It’s going to be a hell of a lot easier than obtaining vegetables using just your fingernails.We know that it’s possible to pull a rat out of a hollow log or break up a termite mound or tickle a fish without tools. It’s very close to impossible to dig up a yam.
> [@](#):
>
> So you really think this would be the main form of human diet?
Well no, I don’t, because as I noted, I question whether humans could survive anywhere at all without tools. But in terms of getting food without tools, it’s probably the best option we have available to us.
> [@](#):
>
> Running animals to death? I know there’s some tribes that run specific animals to death, in specific environments (if they can isolate a sick or straggling deer-type animal, they can run it to death on a flat, dry savannah, if they’re very fit). But even then they tend to kill it with spears.
First off the technique doesn’t require or even usually target sick animals. It actually works better on healthy animals.
Secondly the spears are used to kill the animal, but they are unnecessary. the animal will die from exhaustion. In addition Indians in Mexico and the Southern US captured wild horses by running them to exhaustion and then choking them into unconsciousness. So a method of rapid killing at least exists without tools. In contrast digging up tubers buried several feet underground just isn’t possible at all.
> [@](#):
>
> How do you run other animals to death? Most large mammals will fight before running themselves to death, at which point we’d lose…
I’m not sure what you mean by this. Most large animals won’t fight before running themselves to death. The only ones I can think of are the carnivores and the pigs.
But even if it were most, so what? Enough other large animals won’t to make this a viable hunting technique worldwide.
And I’m not sure what the vegetation type has to do with anything.
> [@](#):
>
> Without any tools whatsoever I don’t see how humans would be effective enough as hunters to survive on a diet consisting only, or mainly, of meat.
At least we know that in theory it is possible to do so. In contrast it seems it would be completely impossible to obtain vegetables in a savanna without the ability to dig. The only above-ground vegetables will be leaf vegetables, which have almost no food value. Soft fruit is so seasonal and so rare that it simply can’t provide enough food. Nuts are effectively impossible for humans to open without tools. There’s a good reason why most of our vegetable foods are root vegetables and nuts. But without tools root vegetables and nuts really aren’t an option for humans.
And this is the problem. While it is going to be damn hard to obtain meat without tools, it’s going to be even harder to obtain vegetables. I really have to question whether a modern human could survive at all without tools.
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 1:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/9 "2010-01-25T01:13:07Z")
> [@Shakester](#):
>
> Tasmanian Aborigines had stone-age tools, and they definitely made and wore clothing…
Cite. because this contradicts everything i have ever read about the Tasmanians in over 20 years of amateur research.
So if you can provide any evidence at all that Tasmanians made clothing then i would be very interested in seeing it.
> [@](#):
>
> I’ve been to Tasmania, and I can tell you from personal experience that hunter-gatherers in that environment would have needed clothing.
Great, you give me your credible reference to the effect that the Tasmanians made clothing an we will both be very happy. And of course this news will shock the anthropological community.
> [@](#):
>
> Please don’t characterise native Australians as naked savages, they were no more primitive than any other group of human beings in a stone-age hunter-gatherer society, including the ancestors of modern Europeans a few thousand years ago.
Oh what a load of crap.
One thing that every single anthropologist in the world agrees on and always have agreed on is that the Tasmanians were vastly more “primitive” than any other group of human beings in a stone-age hunter-gatherer society.
That “primitive” state was secondarily derived, but it is indisputable that the Tasmanian toolkit was vastly reduced compared to any other humans group. Not only did they completely lack clothing, they lacked any hafted weapons at all aside form spears, they lacked fishhooks, they lacked microlith tools. The toolkit was out of date by at least 60, 000 years. That is how primitive it was
> [@](#):
>
> _Exactly_ the same, and racist fantasies about them being “inferior” to Europeans really ought to have gone out of fashion a long time ago.
Dude when you present your evidence for the risiculous claism you just made then you can call me racist.
Specifically your claim that Tasmanians wore clothing and your claim that they were not vastly more primitive than any other HG group in the last 60, 000 years.
Politically correct bullshit doesn’t belong in GQ buddy.
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### Author:  [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/10 "2010-01-25T02:52:42Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> Cite. because this contradicts everything i have ever read about the Tasmanians in over 20 years of amateur research.
>
> So if you can provide any evidence at all that Tasmanians made clothing then i would be very interested in seeing it.
>
> Great, you give me your credible reference to the effect that the Tasmanians made clothing an we will both be very happy. And of course this news will shock the anthropological community.
I don’t have time to do that right now, but I’ll see what I can find later. My knowledge tends to come from books more than websites, but I’ll see what I can do.
I’ve been to Tasmania, I’ve read a lot of Australian history in book form, and I’ve personally met and known quite a few Aborigines, including descendants of Tasmanian aborigines - have you ever met one? I suspect that whatever it is you’ve read, it’s way out of date and not particularly reliable.
> [@Blake](#):
>
> One thing that every single anthropologist in the world agrees on and always have agreed on is that the Tasmanians were vastly more “primitive” than any other group of human beings in a stone-age hunter-gatherer society.
I’m not saying they were technologically advanced, but they had the same primitive tools that _every_ human group started out with. They hadn’t advanced from there, but the very fact that they _were_ there and doing OK until Europeans showed up proves that they had what they needed to survive.
They weren’t somehow “_more_ primitive” than any other group, they were exactly _as_ primitive as every other human group when humans first started being human.
> [@Blake](#):
>
> Dude when you present your evidence for the risiculous claism you just made then you can call me racist.
>
> Specifically your claim that Tasmanians wore clothing and your claim that they were not vastly more primitive than any other HG group in the last 60, 000 years.
>
> Politically correct bullshit doesn’t belong in GQ buddy.
It’s not political correctness, it’s experience of those people as actual human beings, not as some kind of exotic footnote to history. They were not “vastly _more_ primitive than any other HG group in the last 60, 000 years” and since you’re calling for cites, show me any reliable _modern_ source that says they were.
They were on the bottom rung of technology, but there have been, in historical times, plenty of other groups that were no further along, and my point here is that saying they had stone-age tools is a long way from saying they had _no_ tools. They had the tools they needed to survive. My cite is the fact that they _did_ survive.
Seriously, you’re acting like you’re an expert here because you’ve read books, I’ve \*been to \*Tasmania and I’ve _met_ descendants of the actual people in question. Perhaps, instead of reading some biased old colonial version of history, you should read something current. I don’t know why you’re convinced that Tasmanian Natives are some kind of special case that are different to the rest of humanity just because they were technologically isolated, but I can assure you, they’re modern human beings, no different to you or me.
In an Australian context, calling them “the most primitive people on earth” was _the_ excuse for dispossessing them and for various terrible things that were done to them. It was, to a great extent, a very convenient fiction that allowed our 19th century predecessors to come close to wiping them out without having to take the blame for it. Now, people who accuse colonial Australia of deliberate “genocide” are talking politically correct bullshit - it was never official policy, and generally more harm was done trying to _help_ Aborigines than by deliberate attempts to harm them - but calling them “the most primitive people on earth” is no different in Australia to calling them untermensch. A: false, and B: racist.
If you’ve never lived in Australia, you really shouldn’t assume you know about local history in the same way as someone who grew up here. I know the context of those statements, it doesn’t look to me like you know anything more than some outdated and racist material.
They were no lower on the scale of humanity than anyone else, whatever the level of technology they had. They adapted to harsh environment and survived. The fact that they did it with only the most basic of tools is a credit to them.
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### Author:  [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Philosopher)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/11 "2010-01-25T03:10:44Z")
You seem quite angry about all this Blake. There’s much more important things to be angry about! All I was suggesting is that without tools it would become very difficult for humans to hunt game (granted persistence hunting and strangling is one method, but it’s difficult and requires very specific environmental conditions. Catching and killing fish or vermin with the hands is also difficult but possible), so I would imagine we’d have to focus on eating other foods like fruits, nuts, berries, eggs, insects and certain vegetables more than real hunter-gatherers did. Either way the question is hypothetical and moot.
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### Author:  [@Shakester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shakester)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/12 "2010-01-25T03:33:02Z")
Just to clarify - and I really should be doing more productive things right now - the people that claimed Tasmanian Aborigines didn’t have clothes were mistaken, if not lying.
Having - as I keep saying - actually been to Tasmania (I spent a fair bit of time with relatives there when I was younger) - I can tell you anything you wish to know about the climate. It _does_ get cold there, though not to the point of snow anywhere except up in the mountains. For much of the year going naked wouldn’t be any more of a problem than doing it in any other temperate place. So Tasmanian Aborigines _were_ naked _most_ of the time.
But that’s a lot different to saying they didn’t _have_ any clothing. They did: animal skin cloaks, which they used when it was particularly cold. Early explorers _assumed_ that the natives didn’t have any clothing because it fitted in with the idea that these were “the most primitive people on earth”, but there _are_ eyewitness accounts of them using animal skins, and there are - I’ve _seen_ them - examples in museums, as well as illustrations done by later explorers.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 5:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/13 "2010-01-25T05:56:23Z")
> [@The\_Great\_Philosopher](#):
>
> Plucking fish from a river or catching mice with your bare hands doesn’t sound particularly easy.
I’ve caught fish with my bare hands, I’ve also caught birds that way. All it takes is being sneaky.
As to the OP. If by “natural” habitat you mean something like “original habitat”, it’s a strip from the rift valley, down through the subtropical East African coast, along the South African coast & interior to the SW Cape. That’s where we find evidence of both [primitive hominids](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cradle_of_Humankind) and [anatomically modern](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Footprints_of_Eve) humans, as well as the [oldest evidence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blombos_Cave) of modern human thought and behaviour. I know from experience it is possible to live most of the year near-naked in the South Cape, as long as you can take getting rained on.
But I think the OP is misguided - “humans without tools” is a ridiculous premise, considering monkeys, otters, birds, hell, even octopuses, use tools. You’d restrict our ancestors way beyond the bounds of their own predecessors.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/14 "2010-01-25T06:03:11Z")
ETA: I meant “apes”, not “monkeys”
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### Author:  [@armedmonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/armedmonkey)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/15 "2010-01-25T06:18:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> ETA: I meant “apes”, not “monkeys”
You got a problem with me using tools, **MrDibble**?
On a more serious and scholarly note, monkey tool use has been observed and a good article is [here](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4083517.stm)
> [@](#):
>
> The monkeys used tools for digging, for cracking seeds and hollow branches, digging for tubers (nutritious plant storage organs such as potatoes that often lie below the ground) and for probing tree holes or rock crevices.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/16 "2010-01-25T06:27:57Z")
**Blake** , it’s pretty easy to find cites for Tasmanian Aborigines wearing (unsewn) skin cloaks. Hell, you can even find paintings of them.
But the fundamental error you’re making is in assuming that the state of Tasmanians found at contact represented their highest level of cultural achievement. This is not the case. From Flannery’s “The Future Eaters”:[
> [@](#):
>
> "Until very recently, many people found no reason to doubt the conclusions of nineteenth century science concerning the Tasmanians. But detailed archeological research, much undertaken only in the last few decades, has now shown conclusively that there was nothing primitive about the Tasmanians at all. They were, instead, a highly specialized offshoot of the Australian Aborigines, whose culture evolved under the extraordinary constraints that 10,000 years of solitude would place on any small band of humans.
>
> "The most striking evidence concerning the evolution of the culture of the Tasmanians has come from the study of campsites occupied over the last 7,000 years. Deposits that date to 7,000 years ago or more are full of bone tools, including awls, reamers and needles. There seems to be little doubt that these implements were used for sewing, probably to make skin cloaks similar to those used by the Aborigines of southern Australia right up until the nineteenth century.
>
> "The variety of bone tools found in Tasmanian middens dwindles with time, until eventually, about 3,500 years ago, the last of them disappear from the archaeological record. This suggests that stitched clothing was lost from the material culture of the Tasmanians at about this time. "
]([The Future Eaters by Tim Flannery](http://www.ecobooks.com/books/futureat.htm))
So it is more right to call the culture of contact-era Tasmania “degenerate”, I think, rather than a snapshot of the state of the art 60 000 years ago, as you seem to imply.
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/17 "2010-01-25T06:34:19Z")
> [@A Monkey With a Gun](#):
>
> You got a problem with me using tools, **MrDibble**?
🙂 I would never argue with an armed monkey
> [@](#):
>
> On a more serious and scholarly note, monkey tool use has been observed and a good article is [here](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4083517.stm)
That’s cool, thanks - I only knew about chimp & bonobo use for certain, which is I corrected myself, but that’s good to know.
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### Author:  [@Blake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blake)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/18 "2010-01-25T08:05:29Z")
> [@MrDibble](#):
>
> **Blake** , it’s pretty easy to find cites for Tasmanian Aborigines wearing (unsewn) skin cloaks. Hell, you can even find paintings of them.
Then do so.
> [@](#):
>
> But the fundamental error you’re making is in assuming that the state of Tasmanians found at contact represented their highest level of cultural achievement.
The fundamental mistake you are making is not being able to comprehend plain English.
“That “primitive” state was secondarily derived, but it is indisputable that the Tasmanian toolkit was vastly reduced compared to any other humans group.”
Damn good thing you pointed out my mistaken assumption that this state wasn’t secondary. Or something.
Yet again, pointless, erroneous content free sniping from Mr Dibble directed at me.:rolleyes:
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### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/19 "2010-01-25T09:39:38Z")
> [@Blake](#):
>
> Then do so.
I already posted one cite. But here you go, [knock yourself out](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=tasmanian%20skin%20cloak&hl=en&safe=off&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=ws),and I’ll just note that so far \*you \*haven’t posted anything to back up your “amateur research”.
> [@](#):
>
> The fundamental mistake you are making is not being able to comprehend plain English.
>
> “That “primitive” state was secondarily derived, but it is indisputable that the Tasmanian toolkit was vastly reduced compared to any other humans group.”
So - the references to 60 000 years, the repeated use of “primitive” with and without quotes, these are not chosen to invoke a certain image in the reader’s mind that the Tasmanians now use the same toolset they would have used 60 000 years ago?
> [@](#):
>
> Damn good thing you pointed out my mistaken assumption that this state wasn’t secondary. Or something.
Why the hell is “secondary” supposed to jump out at me more than your repeated use of “primitive”? I take back that you didn’t address it, but still take issue with you characterising the Tasmanian material culture as “primitive”, a word which has \*continuity \*connotations that words like “degenerate”, “devolved” or “attenuated” wouldn’t have. You did say “reduced”, which is better, but totally overwhelmed by all the “primitives”.
So you keep up enough with the literature to know there are finds of a more sophisticated toolset, but not enough to know about their wallaby-skin cloaks?
> [@](#):
>
> Yet again, pointless, erroneous content free sniping from Mr Dibble directed at me.:rolleyes:
Take it to the Pit.
---
### Author:  [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)
#### Post date: [January 25, 2010, 9:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-natural-habitat-of-humans-if-we-couldnt-use-tools/526084/20 "2010-01-25T09:45:59Z")
Apologies -I see now that I hadn’t hyperlinked the word “paintings” in my earlier post. I meant to link it to [this painting](http://catalogue.nla.gov.au/Record/351591).
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