Paleophil:

We're a long way from Wrangham yet!  He posits that cooking began at appx. 1.6 MYA, and we're only to perhaps 2.9 MYA just yet.  Of course, our ancestors' brain size was already increasing by 2.9 MYA (not to mention by 1.6 MYA), we had already started occupying habitats outside the forest, we were already eating meat -- and even the most optimistic archaeologists won't claim evidence for control of fire that far back.

There are many more conflicts between "Catching Fire" and the evidence -- but as I said earlier, I don't want to interrupt this narrative to debunk alternatives.  I'd rather present the current consensus interpretation first, so that we have something solid with which to compare the "cooked tuber hypothesis".

JS

Mike:

I'll keep doing my best to make science understandable.

Block out some uninterrupted time for TGC: it's an intense book.

Neal:

Do you have any idea what that animal might be?

"I have often wondered how the elves got their bread..." 

Orcs, too.  As far as I can tell, every orc is either in the military or on the Middle-Earth equivalent of a chain gang.  For that matter, what are all the creatures in Sauron's realm eating if the whole area is such a fiery wasteland?  Each other?

(Note that I'm not slagging on Tolkien's work: those sorts of details would have bogged down the story.  I'm just pointing out that LoTR is a movie set for an Epic Quest, not a functional universe people could actually live in.)

JS

garymar:

Remember back when National Lampoon was funny?

eddie:

Most likely.  Tolerance for members of another species competing for your environmental niche would seem to be strongly selected out of the gene pool. 

Neal:

It's admittedly been a while since I read it...but those armies of Mordor are pretty big.  I figure Soylent Green had to have been a frequent menu item.

Neandertals were definitely bigger and heavier than H. sapiens sapiens of the time, though they were perhaps 6" shorter on average -- and we're reasonably sure that they did, in fact, mature more quickly than we did.

LeonRover:

According to the statistics I've seen, over 3 million Irish -- more than 1/3 of the population -- were wholly dependent on the potato for food at the beginning of the Great Famine.  This statistic is bolstered by the fact that over a million Irish died and over a million emigrated to escape it.

Note that Ireland still has not regained the population it had previous to "the bad times" -- and, in fact, its population continued to fall until 50 years ago.

Vizeet:

Unlike almost any other vegetable food, it's apparently possible to stay alive for extended periods on a 100% potato diet.  I wouldn't recommend it...but historically it's been done by many.

JS

LeonRover:

The presence or absence of qualifications depends on which source you're reading.  I don't know enough about Irish history to make a firm judgment — and I'm certainly not advocating an all-potato diet!  I'm just pointing out that unlike an all-grain diet, which produces beriberi, pellagra, kwashiorkor, or some other deficiency disease in relatively short order, an all-potato diet contains reasonably complete protein and enough other nutrients to avoid deficiency diseases for quite a while.

That's the main reason the Irish population increased so dramatically AFAIK: not only are potatoes more productive per acre, they don't require nearly as much supplementary nutrition from other sources as the grain crops (e.g. oats) grown previously to the potato.  The combination led to the farm splitting you mention: farms that could only support one family on oats and sheep could suddenly support several on potatoes.

JS

Jeffrey:

We already know that it's headed to anatomically modern humans.  The interesting question is "by what route?"

Fortunately, by stopping at "anatomically modern" instead of "behaviorally modern" we simplify the problem dramatically...otherwise I'd be writing a textbook instead of a series of articles!

JS