Random thought of the day

[curgoth]

If we assume that the commonly accpeted idea about early man is correct, that men were hunters and women gatherers, I wonder how much of that was simply because men are much more likely to be colour-blind, and therefore have a harder time differentiating bewteen poisonous and non-poisonous gathered food.

Comments

[alison-in-oh.livejournal.com]

The only place color might come in to play is berries, right? Red is often bad, white is almost always bad, blues and purples tend to be OK.

Well, my color-blind husband can see blue against green like nobody's business. We'll be out berry picking and he's like, there's a huge patch of blueberries! I can't even see them till I'm closer.

Conversely, he doesn't see and walks right by patches of brilliant red lowbush cranberries.

Is this, perhaps, a counterexample for your theory? :D

(In Jean Auel's books, the strict division of labor was part of the downfall of early man leading to the rise of modern man...)

[curgoth]

See, I was thinking in terms of all kinds of good red berries, mainly, as well as some foods that are good to eat when red, but not when green.