E.P. Grondine wrote:Hi simon -
You have to remember that in North America, cultures based on nut use emerged long before those based on domesticated crops.
As a matter of fact, the nut use probably allowed a sedentary lifestyle wherein crops were domesticated.
Attempting to tell you or tiompan that two comet fragments hit at the start of the Holocene is probably a fool's errand.
But those who actually work in the field of impact studies have no problem with it.
OMG EP... ALL hominids, from ALL eras, exploited ALL food sources in their environment. They hunted or fished for animal protein & gathered plant based foods within their nomadic range. They rotated their location throughout the year by following the foods sources in season. When they tapped out food resources in one location they pulled up stakes & moved on to the next location where other food sources were becoming available for use. It would have be senseless to live in an area where wild grains grow if the grain wasn't yet ripe. They probably passed down knowledge of where the next exploitable food was located through story telling/oral transmission. I can imagine something like: "there is a place where there are berries & trout at a lake that is 5 days walk towards the rising sun from here"... Of course the use of wild foods emerged before crops & animals were domesticated... But how in the hell can a culture be 'based on nut use'? That's like saying a culture is based on pigs or pansies. Culture is a human trait, not a food source or a crop. Learn the definition of culture for Pete's sake!

A food source can drive & define a local economy but it doesn't create a culture.

cul·ture
/ˈkəlCHər/
noun
1.
the arts and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement regarded collectively:
"20th century popular culture"
synonyms:
the arts, the humanities, intellectual achievement, literature, music, ... more
2.
the cultivation of bacteria, tissue cells, etc., in an artificial medium containing nutrients:
"the cells proliferate readily in culture"
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