Dear All,
The interesting correspondence on how many animals are needed by a group
with a subsistence economy rather misses one point - what of the
cereal/carbohydrate component of the diet? Surely nobody now believes in a
'plant gathering pastoral Neolithic? 19th century peasants in my village
near to Cambridge lost the right to keep animals after 1808 and by the mid
19th century they were living on a bread diet, with little else - in fact, a
parliamentary enquiry of 1850 showed that 75% of a farm labourer's wage was
expended on getting enough bread to feed his family. So people don't 'need'
that many animals, especially with archaic high protein cereals. For sure,
there is good evidence that the Neolithic diet had much more meat than my
village peasants ate, but how much is uncertain for the time being. As for
the alleged scarcity of cereal remains in the Neolithic, how often has
anyone looked? Even in the Hambledon / Stepleton Neolithic complex in
southern England, which is of a 'ceremonial' nature, there was a lot of
charred cereal - as you will be able to see if English Heritage EVER gets
round to publishing it.
Best,
Tony Legge
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