If We Only Had the Grain

(To be sung loudly to the tune of If I Only Had a Brain)

We've been ponderin' the question
Of hominid digestion
Of temperature and rain.

It'd be fact, not a rumor
That we learned it all in Sumer
If we only had the grain.

We'd link diet to migration
Of human populations
That's easy to explain.

And we'd prove in the dailies
Amerinds are all Israelis
If we only had the grain.

Oh, we could make 'em see
Diffusion solves it all!
We could demonstrate the Sauk are from Nepal
And then we'd show Thor Heyerdahl!

We could prove domestication
Was strictly ideation,
A figment of the brain.

We'd succeed, we'd have made good!
We could be another Braidwood!
If we only had the grain!

Or maybe we could say
Diffusion's from the stars!
We could prove instead that Mayans come from Mars,
And help Von Daniken sell cars!

We'd have shown imagination's
The only true vocation
For academic brains.

It'd be truth, it'd be science!
NSF would have to finance
If we only had the grain!

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