Non-Biological Evolution?

[Minimalist]

Have archaeologists detected another of those pesky "transitional forms?"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 150619.htm

recent excavations at Dhra' near the Dead Sea in Jordan that provide evidence of granaries that precede the emergence of fully domesticated plants and large-scale sedentary communities by at least 1,000 years.

"These granaries reflect new forms of risk reduction, intensification and low-level food production," Kuijt said. "People in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic Age (11,500 to 10,550 B.C.) were not using new food sources, but rather, by developing new storage methods, they altered their relationship with traditionally utilized food resources and created the technological context for later development of domesticated plants and an agro-pastoralist economy.

[JSteen]

non-biological evolution? pesky transitional form? Please, consider this a teachable moment ...

[kbs2244]

Collecting and storing wild grains was common among the hunter gathering tribes of Indians in the Minnesota and Manitoba area of N A.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/wildlife/sha ... drice.html

http://files.dnr.state.mn.us/publicatio ... ldrice.pdf

While I doubt it was rice in Jordan, the concept applies.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Collecting and storing wild grains was common among the hunter gathering tribes of Indians in the Minnesota and Manitoba area of N A.

When?

[kbs2244]

I don’t know when they started, but they taught the Europeans how to do it when they showed up.

They still do it in State Parks and such.
The Indians can do it at will.
A white man needs to get a permit and has a weight limit.

The white man has turned it into a mechanized, paddy, type crop though.

[Minimalist]

In the case of the original article the suggestion is that humans developed a means for gathering and storing grain somewhat before they began actually growing it themselves on a large scale.

Interesting idea. Or perhaps, they simply haven't found the fields yet?

[dannan14]

That is probably the case Min, but i would still bet that grain storage came before agriculture.

[Rokcet Scientist]

That is probably the case Min, but i would still bet that grain storage came before agriculture.

Agree. If 'grain' storage is replaced with 'food' storage.
I bet they did (try) it – storage – with meat, fruit, berries, and (edible) roots as well. As they did with potable water.

[Minimalist]

Which would indicate that a degree of settlement had been attained. Would pure HG groups have any use for such an installation?

[Sam Salmon]

Which would indicate that a degree of settlement had been attained.

Depends how one defines settlement-groups some would categorise as hunter/gatherers would make caches here/there in traditional territory knowing they'd have use of them at some point as they hunted/gathered/travelled.

Would pure HG groups have any use for such an installation?

Yes if you use my definition.

[dannan14]

Yes Min, i was working under the assumption that storage of other types of food was already going on. At some point, grains were added to their diet and were stored too.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Which would indicate that a degree of settlement had been attained. Would pure HG groups have any use for such an installation?

That would depend on the definition of "pure HG groups" then. American prairie indians (of the 19th century) e.g. strike me as "pure HG groups". But they didn't move their tipis every day. Or even every week. Afaik they stayed put – camping – in one place for a whole season at least. So they would have plenty use for food storage, and thus would develop 'technology' for it.

The "pure HG groups" that would not "have any use for such an installation" would be HG groups that moved every day. What HG groups do that?

[Minimalist]

Every "day" is probably a little overstated. I suspect there are no hard and fast rules for how long a group would remain in a given spot. Some environments could be picked clean fairly quickly...others might take a while.

A model which sets up a "depot system" like an 18th century army is probably unlikely.

[Rokcet Scientist]

So then we may conclude that all HG groups – 'pure' (whatever that means) or otherwise – would have developed, or at least tried to develop, food storage technologies! And we don't need to theorize or speculate about it, because we know they did: we're always looking for pottery, ceramics, shards, aren't we? That was their food storage technology!

[Minimalist]

I don't know....what's the earliest known pottery? Jomon? 10,000-ish BC?

At what stage of development do people begin to settle down and build permanent or at least semi-permanent dwellings?

It was always assumed that it was the beginnings of agriculture but this find suggests that the process may have been a bit more drawn out....or "evolutionary" as I quipped at the beginning.