Shins said:

How does anyone even know what they ate?  How do you design a diet when you can't even know?

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Stonehenge said:

We have a vague idea what they ate - whatever they could find that was edible. For sure they will eat roots, leaves, even bark if it contains nutrients. Some plants have to be cooked to be edible like the potato or processed like tapioca but just about anything else will work. When you are hungry you eat insects, the eggs or grubs of insects, anything. They pulled up plants and sniffed the roots, if it didn't make them sick it became a part of their diet. If you are starving you will eat dirt if you think it'll take away the hunger.

Paleo man did not get that much meat, meat requires a knowledge of traps, or else fairly advanced weapons, at least the bow which did not come along until perhaps 5000 years ago. Since they couldn't run down many animals or kill them with clubs and crude spears, meat was a rare treat. They probably scavenged a good part of the meat they did eat, driving predators away from their kill with a group armed with clubs and spears. Or stalked sick and weak animals. Some groups learned to create pit type traps and put sharpened stakes in the bottom then herd an animal toward it or put bait in the middle. The modern day "paleo" diet is a sham.

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Stonehenge said:

>purely curious; Is this hypoethesis or based on your logic/theory?

Mostly, plus they have done analyses of ancient garbage dumps which gave some clues.

>It makes sense, but I would imagine that fish were a regualar find

They would eat them when they could catch them. Its pretty hard with bare hands and the fish hook is a later invention along with line strong enough to fish with. Nets can be woven but that too is a somewhat advance tec.

Meat was hard to find and harder to catch and kill. Veggies did not run away, and had few defenses so they made up the bulk of the diet in most cases. Now and then they would find an old and feeble or sick animal and club it to death then all would feast. Animals fight back and there are risks. Getting injured in olden times often meant infection which lead to death or crippling broken bones.

Spend the day gathering nuts and berries, edible roots and leaves and you will still be alive and well at the end of the day. Chasing an animal trying to kill it can lead to a different ending. A bite often gets infected, no antibiotics to use, no way to stich up a wound. It was a brave man who went out hunting. Most hunting would involve looking for nests with young and eggs, or immature animals. A deer will run away long before you get very close to it and deer can fight back, lots of people have been killed by deer.

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