The first people... (soul, evolution, recall, God, Adam and Eve)

[Sunstone]

Originally Posted by kai

i read somewhere that mans ability to manipulate fire and consume cooked meat gave an added intake of the needed proteins etc that boosted the use of the human brain, could be rubbish i don't know has anyone else heard of this theory

There is more than one guess about where the needed protein for larger brains came from. As of now, I think it's pretty much a mystery.

[kai]

Originally Posted by Sunstone

There is more than one guess about where the needed protein for larger brains came from. As of now, I think it's pretty much a mystery.

well theres one clue that might help the solving of that mystery IE cooking food that was inedible in a raw state what do you think? plausible ?

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by kai

well theres one clue that might help the solving of that mystery IE cooking food that was inedible in a raw state what do you think? plausible ?

The neolithic revolution was accompanied by the emergence of domesticated food crops that were high in protein and took off especially well in places where higher protein grain crops were domesticated alongside legumes.

If you want to now a TON of details about diet and its role in the emergence of human civilizations, I highly recommend Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.

[kai]

ok doppleganger but food crops are not much good if you cant cook i was thinking of a bit further back like eating meat cooked over a fire

[doppelgänger]

Originally Posted by kai

ok doppleganger but food crops are not much good if you cant cook i was thinking of a bit further back like eating meat cooked over a fire

I didn't say otherwise. Just pointing out that it doesn't have to be meat consumption for your cooking theory to be plausible, and in terms of the available evidence, the earliest civilizations tended to explode around the domestication of high protein food crops rather than animals. I'm just adding a little more supporting detail for your theory that protein consumption and cooking were part of the contribution to bigger brains. It might be a feedback loop - more protein leads to bigger brains which leads to better solutions for obtaining more protein and so on . . .

[kai]

i see where you are coming from doppleganger


Advent of cooking may have promoted further encephalization by reducing digestive energy required. Finally, in what will be controversial to raw-fooders, Aiello and Wheeler, after arguing that the first major increase in encephalization was due to increased consumption of animal foods, next propose that the second major increase in brain size (with the appearance of archaic Homo sapiens) was due to the appearance of cooking practices. (Archaic Homo sapiens coincides with a timeframe of roughly 100,000 to 400,000 years ago.)

source
Relationship of Dietary Quality/Gut Efficiency to Brain Size

[sandy whitelinger]

Originally Posted by Jay

By whom? (just curious)

From Human evolution - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Until about 50,000–40,000 years ago the use of stone tools seems to have progressed stepwise: each phase (habilis, ergaster, neanderthal) started at a higher level than the previous one, but once that phase had started further development was slow. In other words, one might call these Homo species culturally conservative. After 50,000 BP, what Jared Diamond, author of The Third Chimpanzee, and other anthropologists characterize as a "Great Leap Forward," human culture apparently started to change at much greater speed: "modern" humans started to bury their dead carefully, made clothing out of hides, developed sophisticated hunting techniques (such as pitfall traps, or driving animals to fall off cliffs), and made cave paintings.[28] This speed-up of cultural change seems connected with the arrival of behaviorally modern humans, Homo sapiens. As human culture advanced, different populations of humans began to create novelty in existing technologies. Artifacts such as fish hooks, buttons and bone needles begin to show signs of variation among different populations of humans, something that had not been seen in human cultures prior to 50,000 BP. Typically, neanderthalensis populations are found with technology similar to other contemporary neanderthalensis populations.

[Seyorni]

I doubt that such a sudden cultural explosion was the result of better nutrition. Hominids had been around for a couple million years. If they were chronically malnourished they'd have had plenty of time to adapt physiologically to whatever diet they were managing to obtain.
I also don't see a relationship between protein intake and larger brain size, though a high-protein diet in children is known to produce a larger body size in general.

I suspect one or more major structural neurological changes, likely beginning with reduplication mutations, resulting in: A. Language -- enabling an unprecedented ability to store, transmit and manipulate knowledge, and, B. Proliferation of mirror neurons -- giving hominids vastly improved learning abilities plus, perhaps more importantly, the ability to actively teach, which is not found in other primates.

I think the challenges brought in by the vicissitudes of the Pleistocene climate changes and the concomitant great migrations were major factors as well. This new species suddenly moving into new environmental regions could produce a significant island effect, for example.