How Hunting Changed Everything ~ MIKI BEN-DOR

[@yaala467]

Thank you for this channel in general, and for this captivating interview, too.

[@EvolutionSoup]

Our pleasure!

[@jamesabernethy7896]

A fascinating interview with a fascinating man. Although nothing in terms of Evolution or anthropology happens overnight. I often wonder how much development came within those first few generations of eating meat and fats regularly. In essence, making the most of the genes you currently have vs longer-term evolution and natural selection.

[@jamestodd2323]

Amazing work and a great hypothesis! I really enjoyed this. I have seen Micky on other interviews but this was wonderfully digestible (pun intended🎉)

[@thorium222]

He really is a poster boy for that it is never to late to do what you are actually interested in!

[@hektor6766]

Not just bees, but dolphins and orca definitely use sonic communication-language-to collaborate while hunting. Certainly a good energy investment for their high-fat nutrition sources: Fish and aquatic mammals.

[@johantimmer3467]

AS a biologist, I well understand Miki's feeling that financial economy and biologial econmy are closely akin. In 1990 during a marketing course economy was one of the subjets. I was struck by the similarity between economics curves and the ones I'd seen notably in fishery biology. So I showed the general ecology manual we'd been using at university to our economy teacher, who was very interested. This book is called "Ecology, the expermental analysis of distribution and abundance" I often say that if everything were as as well distributed and as abundant as human supidity, nobody anywhere in the world would be hungry...

[@Grey_Ocean2023]

Great interview. I find Dr Ben-Dor's hypothesis highly intuitive. Indeed, I've long thought there may be a connection between the out of Africa hypothesis and food resource scarcity. And yes, as Ben-Dor points out, smaller prey are indeed a more difficult target. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if some of those prey were fish: if you want fatty foods-and large-bellied ungulates are becoming harder to find-it probably wouldn't be a bad idea to develop strategies to harvest water-based resources. I suspect easy to capture mollusks had long been on the menu for our ancestors, but fast moving fish are trickier to "hunt"-and the ability to tap into this plentiful and fatty source of calories might well have been a critical technique (same goes for sea mammals).

[@terrymiller4308]

I think the engravings of "H" shaped channels on T pillars at Gobekli Tepe support your idea of people exploiting fish using fish traps to catch catfish in nearby wetlands. Fish were trapped by digging mazes of channels next to a stream that can be open at night (maybe some fish guts thrown in for bait) then closed with rocks before sunrise, then spearing fish caught in the narrow maze channels. Have fish for breakfast then repair and reset the traps before nightfall. There are videos on youtube that show the T pillar engravings and discuss the fish trap idea. Other T pillar engravings show the animals that were hunted like antilope, wild pigs, cattle, and wetland birds. I think Gobekli Tepi was more likely used as a school room where people were taught hunting skills than it was a religious site.

[@Drew-Hill]

Very interesting guest. I enjoyed the talk.

[@MarkKnightbooks]

I love the artwork of Tom Bjorklund!!

[@Zorglub1966]

Very interesting hypothesis. Personnally i'm ready to fully agree, but i'd like to see a bit more of the debate in the scientific community.

[@johnferguson3918]

one of the best books on calories is Burn: The Misunderstood Science of Metabolism By: Herman Pontzer - In the book he highlights that the Hadza tribes caloric intake is broken up into: 15% sugar (honey), 65% carbs and 20% proteins and fats. The Hadza also have extremely low LDL levels, also indicating that their diet is low in saturated fats

[@w4rsh1p]

I run a subreddit called r/Meatropology dedicated to Miki's hypotheses and other supporting science.

[@jurgenschurr6737]

It is very impressive what a retired person can achieve in a very different field of work. I am a layperson in this field of work but find this topic very interesting. If other experts disagree, there are two possibilities: (i) You are wrong. (ii) The other experts are wrong and still have to accept that. In both cases, scientific debates are the best way to come closer to the truth so that they all profit from the debates.

[@earthknight60]

His paper, "Man the Fat Hunter", is one that I've read a number of times and is very good. In that paper he stays away from the 'unifying theory' idea though, which is good as you need to be extremely careful when it comes to proposing any unified theory since there are pretty much always exceptions to it and peer review would eviscerate it.

[@TheTamriel]

Miki's hypothesis of protein constraints of metabolizing energy proves that for all the excitement of hunting, for all the importance that people placed on meat (protein) and fat and especially on the meat and fat of big game, the mainstay of the people’s diet was carbohydrates in vegetable food, and most of it was gathered by women.

[@togodamnus]

H neandertalensis were hyper carnivorous, with isotopic profiles similar to hyenas and big cats. Not all bi pedal hominins were same or similar to H sapiens and within past 200,000 years there were several species of upright bi pedal hominins. Different ear bones and teeth and brain morphology.

[@tconcotelli]

Our digestive system suggests otherwise.

[@vthompson947]

Scavenger-Gatherers

[@cipaisone]

Why all the cuts?

[@EvolutionSoup]

Hi - Miki had a bit of a cough during the interview . :-)

[@HoboHabilis]

@@EvolutionSoup

[@mihaskocir5544]

Nice episode and thanks. However I disagree with this theory, regarding the big mammals hunting, it was rather rare we did, it was extremely dangerous and almost impossible to kill such an elephant, they did it when they did and when they did it, question is where and how to store it beside a weekend of feast. I have another theory and I don't understand why no one from the scientists is getting into it, it is kind of weird I have been scanning them for a while now. But regardless, again, thank for your Episodes I truly appreciate your work

[@luisochoa731]

So, NOT kosher NOR halal food made us smarter....

[@asage5801]

Darwin is in trouble; like all science, improvements and overturns are inevitable

[@mikealcock4034]

What makes you think that? Nothing that's mentioned here!

[@asage5801]

@@mikealcock4034 “…here” is not the end all and be all. Pls check out the works of Denis Noble, PhD. There are many things Darwin did jot explain. Because RNA and DNA was not known/understood, He was not aware of implications of DNA anomalies and how that bring natural selection into question. We are not talking about creatuonism; there seems to be a stimulus that do not fit NS. Even Dawkins cannot explain in the context of NS. Several youtube videos will give you the summaries.