The original palaeo-diet
One of the many, many, things that annoy me, is the appropriation of archaeological terms for new-age, self-help uitschot. The example in question - the so-called palaeo-diet - this strange premise that if we eat as our distant hunter-gatherer ancestors ate, we will live the full lives that they did.
That is to say:
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for our pre-pottery, pre-agriculture, pre-google ancestors; I just don't particularly want to live the life they had to in the name of a quick fix to life.
Anyway, the point of me rant is this, we played out a nice basic mammoth hunt scenario the other day using a Ganesha based system that really managed interactions between hunters and NPC beasties really well. There were still a few problems, mostly related to how hard it was to keep up with moving mammoths, but these can all be worked on. It was the first time that all of my new prehistoric kit has been on the table, and also the first outing of my new hills!
No real point with a detailed hunt report at this stage, but above you can see the mammoths grazing near a central hillock while the hunters close in. Below, the mammoths are corralled and the spears start to fly. The fire-bearer adds to the confusion by lighting multiple fires and cackling to himself maniacally as the grasslands start to burn...
That is to say:
- having to kill stuff with your bare hands to live,
- no penicillin,
- high infant mortality,
- poor life expectancy,
- spending every spare moment you have crafting tools to eek out your meagre existence,
- competition with numerous dangerous creatures for scarce resources,
- living constantly on the move as dictated by the weather and said scarce resources,
- the constant fear that you have annoyed the sun and it will decide not to rise in the morning...
Don't get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for our pre-pottery, pre-agriculture, pre-google ancestors; I just don't particularly want to live the life they had to in the name of a quick fix to life.
Anyway, the point of me rant is this, we played out a nice basic mammoth hunt scenario the other day using a Ganesha based system that really managed interactions between hunters and NPC beasties really well. There were still a few problems, mostly related to how hard it was to keep up with moving mammoths, but these can all be worked on. It was the first time that all of my new prehistoric kit has been on the table, and also the first outing of my new hills!
