Gotta Love Them Clams!

Ever since I read a theory that it was seafood, not just an expanded grassy starches diet, which enabled the Homo Sapiens' brain to reach it's present (roughly 3 pound) size, I've been looking for research that supports it.

Well, here ya go.

For early humans, a beach party and clam bake

By Will Dunham Wed Oct 17, 5:23 PM ET

*****
Artifacts found in a cave on coastal cliffs overlooking the Indian Ocean showed that these people 164,000 years ago cooked mussels and other shellfish, used red pigment perhaps as body paint and made small stone blades that could be used at the tip of a spear -- all far earlier than previously thought.

--snip--

The world was in a glacial period from 195,000 to 125,000 years ago, with much of Africa in cold and dry conditions that may have prompted early humans to find new food sources and expand from inland to coastal habitats, the researchers said.

Marean said that the findings support the idea that on the far southern shore of Africa a small population of modern humans endured this glacial period by expanding their diet to include shellfish, harnessing new technologies, and by using symbolism in their social relations.

It may be that this was "the progenitor population" for all modern people, Marean said. Habitation of coastlines is of great interest to scientists wondering about the later spread of modern humans out of Africa.

[Beach Party, Baybee!!!

Funny thing is, I first read about the idea in a Scientific America article about the benefits of Omega 3 fatty acids. The authors point was that our ancestors' brain would never have gotten the appropriate nourishment for such growth as what occurred in the transition from Homo Erectus to Homo Sapiens if it weren't for an unexplored dietary source and the precise benefits which seem to be best derived from Omega 3s via Fish Oils. Grasses, the #1 source of equally important Omega 9 fatty acids (Omega 6 fatty acids are abundant in meat)* would not, according to the Sci Am article, have been enough on their own to encourage the kind and magnitude of growth which took place in the described time period.

Since that time, late July as I recall, I've started poppin' the ol' Fish Oil pills. Enteric coated, to keep away the Fish Burps, thank ya very much. {-; If you get a chance to find that issue, which I do believe was August '07, I recommend it highly.

This article isn't the first, but it is the most astounding supporting evidence for the Omega 3 theory I've found since I read the SciAm piece.

Now if I'd just get them clams an' fishes back in my diet...


* I'm ultra busy at work so just wanted to let y'all know that I may be mixin' up the O6 with the O9. I'll double check it when I get the time, and correct if necessary.