Let us return to our consideration of the dietary habits of early man. Since he was not able to cultivate cereals except on a very small scale he derived most of his sustenance from other pursuits. No one will question the statement that during the tribal stage in human history, hunting and fishing were the principal means of obtaining a livelihood. But in this stage of his development very different degrees of proficiency existed at different times, depending upon the weapons, water craft and fishing devices he knew how to construct. With no better arms than a stone or club he could not successfully hunt the larger animals. Lewis and Clark tell of a tribe of Indians that they visited during their journey to the Pacific coast in 1804-7, who were in a state of starvation while surrounded by thousands of antelope which they were not able to kill except through running to exhaustion by men on horseback, pursuing them in relays. This condition existed even with the bow and spear in a high state of perfection.

Hunting in temperate or torrid regions offered but a very precarious means of existence for man except in a few favored regions where animals such as the bison or other stupid grazing animals of large size were abundant. The seal in the Arctic regions formed an easy prey. It was largely for this reason that very early man, whenever possible, dwelt near large bodies of water where fish and shell-fish were abundant, for they were easier to secure, and offered much greater certainty of a food supply than did hunting for large quadrupeds. A carnivorous diet derived from fish, oysters, clams, and other living creatures which the sea or the large rivers afforded, encouraged primitive man, whenever possible, to become a shore dweller. The numerous enormous shell heaps or kitchen middens, which are found along the Atlantic coast of the Americas and Europe are an illustration of this mode of life on an extensive scale on the margins of these continents. These sites of human habitations were built up through many generations of people casting aside the shells of mollusks which served them as food. Here we have an illustration of a carnivorous type of diet in which all parts of the animal were eaten. This practice was highly satisfactory from the nutritive standpoint, and very superior to the present one of eating muscle meats to the exclusion of other tissues which would make good its deficiencies.