calyps...@voyager.net wrote:

Read it again, buddy. Some grains were eaten by man, the rest of the
grain became forage was used to feed the animals which were in turn
used for food and field work.

Where there were no larger animals to domesticate, development lagged.
In Asia and Europe, they had more animals they could domesticate, such
as cattle, goats, etc., so they thrived culturally.

You may actually want to read what you critique. That way your comments
wont look quite as stupid.

TC

"Read it again, buddy. Some grains were eaten by man, the rest of the
grain became forage was used to feed the animals which were in turn used
for food and field work."

No, the conversion energy losses when grain is fed to animals is 90
percent, the large populations of humans that resulted when grain was
consumed would not have been possible had they not eaten the grain
directly in various forms. Even today, if we converted all grain into meat
we could not have the population in n. america we have.

As so often, you speak boldly and with authority about matters of which
you have almost no knowledge.  They had animals as meat sources because
they changed the environment with agriculture practices that created
grasslands and by using harvested fields as folder sources, recall the
woman on the show who spoke about this specific point of foraging in
fields.

"Where there were no larger animals to domesticate, development lagged.
In Asia and Europe, they had more animals they could domesticate, such
as cattle, goats, etc., so they thrived culturally."

In asia animals were used almost exclusively as power sources, not meat,
one doesn't eat one's draft animals, except for the pig which is a
foraging animal that lives on agriculture waste and field boundries and
poultry which also self forage and do not eat the products of grains
directly.  This is the source of the e. asian diet where 70 percent of the
diet is carbs from grain.  Your bold expression about cultural progress is
silly and you have no basis upon which to base it except an attempt to
spin that of which you are ignorant.
"You may actually want to read what you critique. That way your comments
wont look quite as stupid."

A little knowledge, even more when befuddled, is a dangerous thing; but
any corner bar any night of the week is filled with such experts.

As usual, long on assertion, short on demonstrated knowledge; one
definition of which is ignorance.  The 90 percent loss in animal feeding
conversion is extremely important to understand the rise of complex
cultures and why animals were not fed grain as their principle food
source, that you are ignorant of this is only added demonstration of what
is perfectly clear about the foundation of your spin on this material.  
Here you are having seen 1/3 of a series and not having read the book and
demonstrating not having understood accurately what you did see, and
suddenly an expert is born.  This particular area of research has been one
of my academic concentrations for probably longer then you have lived. If
I wanted bar talk I would go to a bar for sodden opinions aplenty.

"No one said anything about conversion energy losses. That is irrelevant
to the discussion.

The fact is that grains offered a ready supply of animal feed, in
return the animals supplied meat, milk, fertilizer, and the power to
till more land and grow more crop which in turn fed more people and
more animals, etc.

Grain enabled the formation of small combined farms where animals are
raised along with the crops. The efficiency of that kind of operation
gave rise to cultural and economic development unseen before.

Prior to this they lived as hunter gatherers having to depend on the
hunt for their meat needs. Now they had meat available in their
domesticated animals, which would not have happened without grains and
the resultant agriculture.

The grains enabled them to raise more meat.

And keep your ad hominem to yourself. When you accuse others of being
ignorant of facts and they then prove you to be the more ignorant, you
end up looking like a real idiot. Jackass."

"Why are you so damned rude? You are protesting just a wee bit too much."

Because of a long term pattern of assertions offered on this and other
topics with little or no foundation in demonstrated research.  Perhaps if
you were to start such posts by saying, " it seems to me that perhaps"  
etc. one would not bother.  Your opinion is as good as another when little
is known about some topic, and maybe even useful.  But the bulk of your
posts are assertions of fact, or nearly so apparently unquestioned
information, when they are clearly not.  Opinions are fine, they are the
starting point, not the conclusion based on demonstrated knowledge.  You
got the show wrong about grain and animals, now go in peace.

Mucho reassertion not supported snipped

"These "assertions" were simply my statements repeating what was said in
the program. You got a problem with it, contact the guy making the
assertions in the program. You've got the link to PBS."

Ok, here is all that is said on the topic of animals being fed grain as
being the basis for the rise of complex cultures, you went in with a bias
and yu heard what you wanted to, and you didn't hear what was really
said; thus the baseless assertions:

"We know that the communities which first started to
  have domestic animals already had cereal crops, so they were
  cultivators, and the combination of these particular animals and
  plants becomes an extremely attractive package, in that they're
  complementary. After the harvest period, animals could be turned out
  on the stubble, and they can actually eat the remains of the cereal
  crop harvest. In their turn, animal dung can be used to provide sort
  of a fertilizer for the cereal crops as well, the crops, so the whole,
  the whole package, you know, is seen to be mutually beneficial, both
  for the animals and the plants and of course for the humans."