From: Scott Chase (ecphoric@hotmail.com)
Date: Thu 25 Mar 2004 - 05:50:15 GMT
I'm trying still to envision a solitary hunter dragging a half ton of
meat (sensu Keith) back by himself to camp where his loafing tribal
buddies wait around the fire. A male white-tailed deer can range from
150-310 lbs according to my _National Audubon Society Field Guide to
North American Mammals_. That a far cry short of half a ton. I'm not
sure what a 310 lb. deer weighs out to when the carcass is dressed for
the meat alone. A moose can get up to 1400 lb. How much meat does a
1400 lb moose yield and can a single hunter drag either the moose
carcass or a half ton of moose meat over rough terrain for relatively
long distances? Modern hunters have rifles with scopes or high tech bows
and arrows. What could a primitive hunter do against large prey with low
tech weapons by themselves.
For a solitary hunter in a primitive society to take down an animal or
several animals by himself which yield altogether a half ton of meat,
that's quite a bit of effort in the stalking and killing part of the
task alone if a single primitive hunter is up to it. Then there's
chopping the carcass up so the meat can be removed, unless the hunter
decides to drag the carcass back to camp, however far that might be from
the spot where the prey was hunted and successfully dispatched by the
solitary hunter. I doubt he's going to try the fireman's carry with a
half-ton of dead animal across his back or drag the same animal uphill
or through a stream. If the hunter takes down a single animal yielding a
half ton of meat (pretty darn big animal) or enough smaller animals to
yield this much meat, he's going to be very tired when he gets through
dragging all this food back to camp, if he doesn't pop a lumbar or
sprain an ankle in the process of hunting, killing or dragging.
Where are all his buddies during this unrealistically altruistic effort
of his? How long would it take him to drag all ths meat back to camp? In
this amount of time, his lazy friends are with the girls. Did he not
think of this possibility? After breaking his back dragging half a ton
of meat untold distances across variable terrain during all kinds of
weather conditons, our lone hunter might be too tired or physically
wrecked to care much about extra pair copulations.
If he's lucky a more realistic scenario would be that he happens upon
some small game animal and carries this back to camp to share with a
significant other or some friends or he happens upon a carcass dropped
by a group of predatory cats and makes off with the leftovers, maybe a
couple pounds of meat or so in either case. Maybe he might cooperate
with some friends and take down a large animal and all share in the
tasks of dressing the carcass and bringing all the meat back to camp,
where the women may have already gathered a whole bunch of berries, nuts
or whatever else, just in case the hapless hunters got skunked again. At
least when they're eating their nuts and berries they can brag around
the campfire about the size and ferocity of the ones that got away.
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