Early Humans Hunting and Gathering

Early Humans Hunting and Gathering
Scientists believe that humans evolved for millions of years before they learned to use fire about 500,000 to one million years ago.

The oldest fossils so far excavated mainly in Africa put the beginning of human like creatures – hominids - at between six and seven million years ago.

From the jaws and teeth of these hominids, scientist deduce that they were primarily plant eaters or herbivores.

Our back teeth the molars, are flat like stones for grinding grain and plants and that is what we still use them for when we chew.

Scientist think that over millions of years, early humans developed two survival advantages:

• Between 4 million and 2 million BC human brain size tripled, growing to what it is today, approximately 1,400 cubic centimeters
  
• They stood upright in two feet - became bipedal - which allowed them to see farther and left their hands free to use weapons for protection and to kill animals for food.

Food historians speculate that early humans learned to like the taste of meat from small animals that could be caught and killed easily, like lizards and tortoise and from scavenging the leftover carcasses of large animals killed by other large animals.

These early humans were hunter-gatherers , nomads who followed the food wherever it wandered or grew.

Between 40,000 BC an 12,000 BC, Asian peoples went east and crossed into North and South America.

The Ice Age had dried up the seas, creating dry land between Asia and Alaska, making it possible to walk from one continent to the other. So the first people in the Americans were Asians.

Work related to food was divided by gender. Men left the home to hunt animals by following them to where they went for food, especially salt.

Women gathered fruits, nuts, berries and grasses because their lives revolved around a cycle of pregnancy, birth and child rearing.

Gathering was more reliable than hunting. Becoming carnivores – meat eaters – probably helped humans survive, too. In case of a shortage of plants , there was an alternate food source.

Scientists believe than invented tools about 1.9 million to 1.6 million years ago. Early humans butchered animal meat, even elephants, with blades made out of of stone, which is why it is called the Stone Age.

Archeologists call this people Homo habilis – “handy man.”

Then, approximately 1,5 million to 500,000 years ago, another group appeared called Homo erectus – “upright man.”

These people migrated north to Europe and east to India, China and Southeast Asia. They had better tools than any of the other groups. And for the first time, they had fire.
Early Humans Hunting and Gathering

Food for Gods

Food lays a role as a commodity within a mutual transactional exchange between humans or between individual and god, a situation that manifests a connection between god, food and life in a cosmological triangle.

The abundance of food in Mesopotamia is evident in the records of what was presented to the gods and goddesses, who needed to eat four times a day.

Their main stay was bread, as it was for humans.

The main god, Anu and three main goddesses, Antu, Ishtar and Nayana, got thirty loaves a day.

The millers, bakers and butchers had to recite prayers of thanks to the gods and goddesses as they ground the grain, kneaded the bread, and slaughtered the animals.

Then the priest placed the food on golden platters and set it before the gods, perhaps on a table.

In Hinduism food plays an essential role in ancient sacrifice, religious speculation, devotional worship, and purity and pollution regulations.

Since the gods only accepted cooked food, the sacrificer is reminded of his inferior status by waiting to consume his portion on the scarifies animals.

In the most ancient scarifies herbs and plants were plucked up y the roots and burnt with their leaves and fruit before gods and this was considered a very acceptable.

By the law of Athenians were required to worship the gods with the fruits. Barley and afterwards wheat were offered in sacrifice to gods.

Sacrifice had its origin in meals, in the offering of food to the gods. This could and did at times become a matter of exchange, of offering food to god or to the gods in order to gain favor and benefit.

The offering also expresses thanks and praise for what had been received, whether the harvest of the fields, the blessing of a child, or the arriving at a new stage in life.
Food for Gods

American Indian Shaman

North American Indian medicine men and shamans have played a large role in the the older literature on North America. The nineteenth century saw the first anthropology description of American medicine men and shamans.

By definitions, all shamans would be medicine man but to all medicine men would be shamans.

Shamanism means traditions of prehistoric origin that are characteristic of Mongoloid peoples, including the American Indians.

They believed and acknowledge one supreme, all powerful, and intelligent Being, or Giver of Life, who create and governs all things.

The Shaman functionary in the chief place in all religious and ceremonial activities, thus making shamanism synonymous with religion.

It is the shaman rather than the priest who is called upon to treat the sick, to foretell the future.

Medicine power is often attributed to a fetish or charm adopted to typify a tutelary demon, or mystery guardian and the superior performance of one “juggler” over another is often attributed to the fact his medicine is the stronger.

Medicine is also associated with magic numbers. The usual sacred number among Indian is four, signifying the cardinal directions, but sometimes six, adding the up and down directions.

The Medicine bundle was perhaps the most important. In the thirties the medicine bundle cult still survive among the Potawatomis along with the more recent religion or drum dance, and peyote religion, as one of the three curing cults still extant.

The medicine bundle was usually made of an animal skin as deer tails, dried fingers, and often the maw stone of a buffalo.

Characteristically, the shaman is a healer, a psychopomp (who guides the souls of the dead to their home in the afterlife), and more generally a mediator between her or his community and the world of spirits (most often animal sprits and the spirits of the forces of nature).
American Indian Shaman