The story of early man can offer many exciting artifacts, hunting points, weavings, even the first use of clay and efforts to make pottery. But there is always missing the one part of man's life that made it all possible, the food he ate. Without nourishment, man was no more advanced than any other creature on earth.Here we will offer a bit of man's history, not often to find it's way into a museum. Not only how he hunted but what he hunted for. Please don't judge his diet by yours. While he may have lacked our hot dogs and pizzas, he did have one up on most of us. He often dined on bats and lizards. There had been at least three millennia or more prior to man entering the Zueberbueler shelter, that he had and the many generations of his species had roamed the continents both North and South. Referred to as the big game hunters, this was a title earned by man hunting and pursuing the several large mammals that were present during this period. |
Foremost were Mammoth and the Mastodons. These massive animals are today known to have ranged over most of North America. Their size would require man to hunt with points, developed for just the needs of their time. To complete his hunt in ways, that also matched the problems his quarry offered.The Clovis point, recovered today, has become the better known of the era. Mounted on a shaft, it was used as a lance. Made with an outline that offered little restriction on either entering or being withdrawn, from the flesh of the beast, the lance could deliver unlimited wounds to the game. Joined by several other hunters, a harassing of the mammoth would soon lead to it's death. |
But now man was being denied his normal hunt, the large game was fast becoming extinct. A similar fate to other species would have led to their eventual demise, to extinction. But this was man, a creature with a brain superior to other species of the time, man would adapt.Man the hunter would now be man the gatherer. It was now between 9,000 and 10,000 BP (before present), the need of shelter, a shelter like he had not needed before, this faced man. West Texas. Radiating north from the confluence of the Pecos and Rio Grande rivers, there were thousands of natural over hangs, caves. The many small washes and side canyons were now the places man would use to meet his new need of permanent shelter. Along with the need to avoid the trial of nature, there was the need to find new foods to replace the big game. How long this would take man is not known, but his artifacts demonstrate only a short history without the hunting tools he had used, and the ones he would now need. The lance was all but useless to him. The only game now available to him were the buffalo, the deer, and numerous small creatures. Unfortunately the buffalo proved all but impossible to hunt. Fast and dangerous, this game would all but avoid man for the next nine plus thousand years. Not until the horse was introduced to the Americas, was man to become a real threat to the buffalo. Even the deer would elude man at the start of this new era. Today we call it the Archaic period, the "old way". But man was now demonstrating he had undertaken one more evolution, his large brain was offering him the use of his subconscious mind. He would enter a time of development of his crafts, only surpassed by man of the twentieth century. Below are several listings of suggested foods man may have turned to, as he spent his time as a cave dweller. Please note, while these remains were noted in shelters as used by man, we are missing definite information that he did indeed consume them. This list of plants is offered by the University of Texas A&M Anthropology lab., in both english and latin. The offering here are in english, the common names. The latin names, are given a ** to note them. In addition please note and be warned that many of these foods could be not only harmful, but deadly. Please do not consider emulating early man, a trip to Burger King or McD's could be far more enjoyable. Plant parts used as food and their preparation * Many on this list also used as Medicinal or Narcotic
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Texas Desert Foods
1977
A view of plant, click the icon
Agarita, Agrito |
