Neanderthal dental DNA shows us the true paleo diet (we've got it a bit wrong)

I’m pretty sure that the paleo diet mostly consisted of “whatever edible things people were able to get their hands on.”

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Including, when times are rough “long pig”.

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I would love to add woolly rhinoceros to my diet!

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DNA analysis certainly supports that theory.

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I think Tom handled this well right here on BB

http://boingboing.net/2014/12/10/tom-the-dancing-bug-the-paleo.html

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If the diet was so great, why are they extinct? Hmmmm?

Take that, smarty pants…

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You are what you eat. :slight_smile:

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So basically, what I can forage in the back of the fridge is a paleo diet?

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Headlines like

Possible Genetic Proof That Cannibalism Was Disturbingly Common in Our Past

don't really bother me. I'm more concerned about ones like

Economic Forecast Predicts That Cannibalism Will be Disturbingly Common in Our Future

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Yes, and life expectancy was around 30 years, and everyone had every kind of parasite all the time. Idyllic times, and an excellent pattern to apply to modern living.

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Don’t forget to supplement it with whatever you can find in the back of your yard.

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Are you kidding? Have you seen the Paleo Diet sales figures?

So is it wrong to think ahead and start eating people now? Just wondering. [whistling suspiciously]

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Er, no. We are so genetically close to H Neanderthalensis that we have been regarded [edit - by some biologists] as just different races of the same species*. (An alternative way to look at this is that the very notion of a “species” has been superseded by DNA analysis.)

What is true is that if you take DNA from Neanderthal specimens, and DNA from some African people, and look at the differences, and then take a typical European, the European will have a few percent of the Neanderthal genetic markers, i.e. there has been some limited interbreeding in the past. But we’re talking about tiny differences, genetically speaking.

*i.e. homo sapiens sapiens vs homo sapiens neanderthalensis. But increasingly I have doubts about the sapiens bit. What’s the Latin for “easily fooled by psychopathic narcissists”?

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facile delusus ab psycopathic narcissists

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So - homo faciledelusus trumpodelusans?

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Speak for yourself! I have lots, and I am not even wearing makeup.

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At the risk I’m missing an obvious joke somewhere: Paleolithic era ran from ~2.6 million years ago to ~10,000 years ago; Neanderthals arose ~250,000 years ago and went extinct ~40,000 years ago.

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This is Trump’s plan to feed the poor. Feed them to the rich.