Thread by @wrathofgnon

Interesting on how Ice Age hunters were able not only to kill huge numbers of animals at a single point, but also to store the meat for later consumption. This must have meant possibilities of very large concentrations of human populations. (Kirkpatrick Sale, After Eden, 2006)

“Roughly 10K years ago—100% of the animals over 2,2K pounds, the large mammals in the mam­moth family (proboscidea), were extinct in Eurasia and the Americas, as were 76% of the mid-sized animals weighing 220 to 2,2K pounds, and 41% of smaller ones between about 10 and 220."—Sale

Did humans turn to gathering and planting seeds (i.e. agriculture) only because they had run out of almost every other major source of proteins? Kirkpatrick Sale, quoting Mark Cohen.

“Nature always ended up having her revenge: of all the places where agriculture started, only one, eastern central China, remains a productive agricultural area today; the rest are deserts or jungles.”
— After Eden, Kirkpatrick Sale, 2006