PBS Eons on real paleo diets for National Fossil Day on World Food Day

Happy National Fossil Day and World Food Day! As I suggested twice, today's topic is PBS Eons videos about the prehistory of food, beginning with The Risky Paleo Diets of Our Ancestors.

We can track our history of eating just about anything back through the fossil record and see the impact it’s had on our evolution. Throughout time, part of the secret to our success as a species has been our early - and sometimes fatal - experimentation with food.

I couldn't resist revisiting paleo diets, a topic I haven't blogged about in a decade, today. Retrieving this video and the next when searching PBS Eons for "food" made it an easy choice.

Speaking of the next video, here is Why The Paleo Diet Couldn't Save The Neanderthals.

These relatives of ours lived in Eurasia for more than 300,000 years. They were expert toolmakers, using materials like stone, wood, and animal bone. They were also skilled hunters and foragers, and may even have created cave art. So what caused the decline and disappearance of their population? Well, in a way...it could’ve been us. But maybe not in the way you might’ve heard.

Hearing the fates of the Neanderthals from Spain, France, and Belgium reminds me of what I wrote about how Westworld treated evolution.

My wife and I are quite impressed at the depth of the ideas explored in the show. The creators have also done their research. Every time they mention something about evolution in Ford's dialog, they're right. This is especially true about the more disturbing concepts mentioned, like sexual selection contributing to the development of the human mind and what humans did to our nearest relatives. As someone who knows the field, that's both gratifying and unsettling.

"Do you know what happened to the Neanderthals, Bernard? We ate them."

Maybe, but it looks like the Neanderthals were eating each other as much or more than our ancestors were eating them.

Today is also Hagfish Day, so I conclude with Days and Dreams describing Hagfish Day (third Wednesday in October), Activities and How to Celebrate Hagfish Day.

As one of the sea's most hideous creatures, the hagfish represents all nature's bizarre little creatures. Seek out the icky and disgusting on Hagfish Day.

This video even mentions a 300 million year old hagfish fossil, so it connects to today's theme, although it didn't mention that people also eat hagfish. Maybe next year.

That's a wrap for today's multi-holiday post. Stay tuned for a driving update tomorrow, as Pearl's odometer will turn over 66,000 miles today.