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Neanderthals Feasted on Seafood, Seabirds, Perhaps Even Dolphins
- droithomme 7y agoThe poor little dolphins! Ha ha just kidding, I've had dolphin it's very very good, but I feel it's immoral and a little like cannibalism since they are probably smarter than us.
- chrisco255 7y agoAre you sure you didn't have dolphin fish AKA mahi mahi?
- clort 7y agoAKA Dorado but I have seen a smallish dolphin or porpoise for sale in a roadside market in the caribbean, about 20 years ago so its not unknown for people to eat them. (I forget exactly where it was but perhaps Bequia - I don't know if Bequia still does it now but they were subject to aboriginal rights of whaling)
- gridlockd 7y agoDolphins are awful creatures, it is perfectly acceptable for them to be killing and raping their own and other species, just for fun. They're the humans of the sea, some might say. Why should it be immoral to eat them, just because they're smart or smarter than us? If they're that smart, they should figure out how to not get caught. It's immoral to fool the far less intelligent farm animals into getting slaughtered.
- DonHopkins 7y agoSame goes for people! If God didn't want us to eat people, we wouldn't be made out of meat. But remember: it's only moral (and more nutritious) if you eat the rich ones, first. What was the title of that SF story where the aliens harvested stupid fat humans to eat by making fake casinos and cruise liners advertising all-you-can-eat buffets?
- gridlockd 7y agoCannibalism in humans is unhealthy. A species that is engaged in eating itself as a staple food has poor chances or survival anyway. > What was the title of that SF story where the aliens harvested stupid fat humans to eat by making fake casinos and cruise liners advertising all-you-can-eat buffets? I don't have any moral objections to that scenario.
- DonHopkins 7y agoCannibalism in humans is not as unhealthy as not eating the rich. Nothing universal heath care can't mitigate.
- Libeste 7y agoYou just ate the CEO of the company doing prion research.
- DonHopkins 7y agoIf you eat Martin Shkreli's brain, maybe you'll inherit his skill with spreadsheets! Worth a try. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12450070 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12450070 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI_riscmviI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VI_riscmviI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poyf3Cnb-MQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poyf3Cnb-MQ
- contingencies 7y agoPigs are supposed to be as smart as chimps, making them in essentially the smartest animals out there except for dolphins and humans. However, we as humans design, build and run industrial systems that breed, feed and torture hundreds of thousands of them constantly, so we can eat them.
- slothtrop 7y agoThey're intelligent, but I've never heard that suggestion. It's not as though they use tools. Years ago I thought the reason we didn't kill certain animals is they're cuter than others. Maybe, but there's a perceived scale of demonstrated consciousness. If an animal appears more intelligent and compassionate (e.g. chimps), we're more put off on slaying them.
- fanatic2pope 7y agoTool use in animals is fairly common. Generally we haven't seen it in the past because we simply weren't looking. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S1616504719300333 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S16165...
- Libeste 7y agoThe cost/benefit of simple tools favors chimps more than pigs.
- droithomme 7y agoSome pigs are pretty smart. Not sure if smart as dogs. Pig parts have been transplanted into humans for medical reasons with good results. So we are kind of similar. I don't eat pig for these reasons. I don't have a problem with others eating it though. There's no shortage of pigs and they are domesticated so it's easy to make more. When I ate dolphin I didn't know it was dolphin. It was so good. Then I found out it was dolphin. I think no one should eat dolphin because if they do soon dolphins will be extinct because they are that yummy. Dolphins don't do well in captivity and haven't been domesticated. So we can't just ramp up the number of dolphins. Eating them is a real risk to their survival as a species.
- ppadron 7y ago"And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade that, with it, Thou mayest blow Thine enemies to tiny bits in Thy mercy.' And the Lord did grin, and the people did feast upon the lambs and sloths and carp and anchovies and orangutans and breakfast cereals and fruit bats and..."
- dmos62 7y agoI like it, but I don't get it.
- antepodius 7y agoIt's a quote from 'Monty Python and the Holy Grail'.
- KineticLensman 7y agoYes, a reading from the Book of Armaments, Chapter 4, Verses 16 to 20 ... Skip a bit, Brother
- asdf21 7y agoGoogling quotes is hard
- ncmncm 7y agoI read a claim the the most reliable distinguishing quality between neanderthalensis and sapiens was that the former was never found in possession of something traded from far away. Would welcome correction or enlargement.
- dntbnmpls 7y agoNot sure about possession of something traded from far away, but apparently, neanderthals traveled long distances. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22486912 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22486912
- bad_user 7y agoAnother distinguishing trait is that Homo Sapiens are dreamers (e.g cave paintings). Not sure how relevant or true the claim is, but it's surely romantic. Or we might simply be more aggressive and that's it. A species determined on dominating its environment will win against one that's not, all other things being equal. Otherwise Neanderthals were larger than us and had similar cognitive capabilities, they were also using tools and language etc.
- ncmncm 7y agoNeanderthals made cave paintings. Probably non-cave paintings too, but those didn't last.
- ajdegol 7y agoCan’t help but feel we wouldn’t have to go too far back in time to discover people ate whatever they could. Are you likely to find evidence of fruit having been eaten?
- bad_user 7y agoOf course, the Homo family are very adaptable and fruits and honey have been eaten where available. Evidence of fruits or tubers or seeds is harder to come by from the Paleolithic era because plant fossils are rare (vs bones that are common), but more recent tests looking at dental tartar does confirm a very diverse diet.
- TSiege 7y agoI think it's safe to say yes, given that human's evolutionary ancestors lost the ability to produce vitamin C ~60 million years ago and there's no reason to assume they didn't require a similar diet to our own. To your larger point, that has always been the case from what I've seen from archeological and anthropological studies. Take Pokeweed for example which is toxic unless it's boiled three times in salt water. However, the larger point of the article is that Neanderthals were a much more intelligent and adaptable species than we've given them credit. Given this evidence of food it would not be surprising if they found net sinkers or other tools associated with fishing. It seems every time we learn more about Neanderthals the more they resemble our species than not.
- zelly 7y agoNot only were they smarter than we give them credit for, they were smarter than modern humans. There's nothing about intelligence that guarantees not becoming extinct.
- chippy 7y agoIts really too much of a leap from they were "more smart than we give them credit" to "smarter than modern humans" really with no evidence.
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- dmos62 7y agoIs it widespread to only call mammals meat? I.e. is "fish meat" widely understood to be a contradiction?
- topspin 7y agoFood snobbery does occasionally induce enough cognitive dissonance that fish gets promoted to "not meat," yes. Such faux pas are expected to be politely ignored, especially when serving to distinguish our polite selves from the hoi polloi. You can even get away with pretending chicken isn't quite meat when you can't pretend to have the means to afford a fish diet. For the purposes of social status beef and pork are the meats that are understood to be low class.
- aaronblohowiak 7y agoThis is an awful take. What is “meat” is culturally mediated, and in many places around the world the views are different. So too is your view that beef is lower class than chicken(!) So some people, “meat” is just red meat. But to still others the phrase “coconut meat” is sensible, meaning the soft white part of the coconut. “Fish meat” would make sense to someone who says coconut meat, but probably not to someone who wonders if pork counts as meat..
- KMag 7y agoI'm pretty sure the GP was being sarcastic, especially since they started out referring to such distinctions as snobbery.
- Havoc 7y agoSomehow I can't picture that being a very feast like affair.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- onetimemanytime 7y agoWhy is it shocking, you don't have the luxury to pick and choose...eat all you can, including your own kind, if needed.
- magwa101 7y agoDolphins?? I draw the line there those damn Neanderthals!