HISTORICAL SURVEY 5 



advance of population towards the cold temperate regions, and the 

 maintenance and continued progress of peoples in colder climates 

 has been due in the main, perhaps, to the opportunities of obtaining 

 such food supplies within them. The most vigorous and the most 

 progressive peoples of our times, namely the nations of North- 

 Western Europe and those descended from them in America and 

 Australasia, are also the greatest consumers of meat and dairy 

 products. 1 



The earlier civilisations of which we have account arose in sub- 

 tropical or warm temperate regions, and animal foodstuffs seem to 

 have formed but a small portion of the total food consumed. In 

 this they are to be distinguished from the semi-barbaric nomad 

 tribes that roamed with their flocks and herds over wide areas and 

 derived much of their food supplies from these animals. These 

 were debarred from agriculture, except in very primitive forms, by 

 their prevailing unsettled mode of life, which, while caused by 

 their dependence upon animal food as their chief form of nourish- 

 ment, was also made possible by the extra vigour derived from such 

 food. Where large populations, however, collected on the plains 

 and built up civilisations such as those of China, India, Assyria, 

 Egypt, Greece and Rome, large supplies of animal foodstuffs, either 

 from hunting or from the pastoral industry were impossible, and 

 the chief reliance had to be placed upon grain crops raised on the 

 fertile stretches along the banks of the rivers upon which the great 

 cities were built. Indeed, until quite recently, wherever dense 

 populations arose in any part of the world, animal products entered 

 but little into the dietary of the great majority of the people. So 

 long as such products were obtainable only by hunting or by local 

 pastoral pursuits, increase of population brought with it as a 

 corollary a decline in the proportion of animal products in the total 

 food consumed. 2 



Down to the time of the development of the New World and, 

 later, of Australasia, under European colonisation and settlement, 

 Europe was the only continent where animal products figured 

 largely in the food of any considerable populations. Europe, with 

 its forests and natural pastures, its damper climate and its general 

 freedom from great extremes of temperature, favoured the exist- 

 ence of extensive herds of meat-producing animals, which lived at 

 first in a wild state and were afterwards gradually reduced in 

 numbers, tamed, or replaced by domestic species, by the invading 

 Aryan tribes. These Aryans appear to have begun as pastoralists, 

 subsisting mainly on the produce of their flocks ; and their ex- 



1 The consumption of meat in the countries inhabited by these peoples 

 ranges from rather less than 50 Ibs. per head per annum to over 200 Ibs.. 

 with an average of about 90 Ibs. 



a The comparatively large proportion of slaves in a number of these popula- 

 tions of the earlier civilisations living at a lower standard of diet and efficiency^ 

 would have the effect of reducing the average level of consumption of animal 

 foodstuffs or fish while maintaining it at a comparatively high level for the 

 privileged ruling class. 



