Were we happiest when we were hunter gatherers?

Jane Cold Mumps wrote: »

Gurven, Kaplan et al estimated that 57% of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15. 64% of those reaching 15 live to or past the age of 45. Putting life expectancy at 21 to 37 years. 70% of deaths are due to diseases, 20% from violence and accidents and 10% due to degenerative diseases.

Gurven and Kaplan concluded from their study that hunter-gatherers, in fact, live reasonably long lives, even under their current conditions. “The data show that modal adult life span is 68–78 years, and that it was not uncommon for individuals to reach these ages, suggesting that inferences based on paleodemographic reconstruction are unreliable.” (Gurven & Kaplan)

Jane Cold Mumps wrote: »

I don't know where you got your image of the hunter gatherer from but it seems way off the mark from what we were told in anthropology lectures. The hunter gatherer lived hand to mouth and was at the mercy of seasonal shortages. Family groups were small and subject to many stresses. Hunter gathers did not live longer lives than hits humans in an agrarian settling. The agrarian society allowed for a more reliable food source. Through this society developed, ideas blossomed and were shared, and life expectancy increased. Yes, it had it's downsides but overall it led to the survival of our species through what would have been several catastrophic extinction events over the past 10,000 years.

The average lifespan for pre agricultural human was 26. Post Agricultural revolution was 19. Obviously child mortality caused the average life span to be very low

Eric Pianka

http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/Thoc/Hunter-gatherers.html






© Eric R. Pianka


At the end of the Pleistocene, just 10,000 years ago, only about 500 generations before now, humans were hunter/gatherers, living off the land in small bands or tribes. We had no electricity, no cars, and no supermarkets, let alone fast food joints. We did not live in houses, but found refuge in caves and crude shelters. We hunted animals with spears, bows and arrows, and nooses. We caught fish with crude nets and fish hooks made from sharp pieces of bone. We gathered nuts and berries. We used sinew as twine and made our own ropes. We had no jeans or shirts, underwear, or toilet paper -- we clothed ourselves in animal skins and furs, and wiped ourselves with leaves. We had no television but sat around campfires telling one another stories and passing on vital information from one generation to the next (this was the origin of human knowledge).




Our ancestors were pretty tough, surviving several prolonged ice ages that lasted for millions of years. They discovered fire and spent time huddled together in caves.



Survival through a winter, let alone an ice age, in the temperate zones was no easy feat under such conditions, requiring substantial advanced preparation and food storage, as well as no small amount of good luck. Certain human behaviors critical to survival became hard wired during this period. Some such human instincts include our fear of snakes, greed, revenge, as well as our urge to procreate, all of which were adaptive when there were many fewer of us and we lived in small bands. However, many of our instinctive behaviors have become maladaptive in today's overcrowded world (human nature).

Tribes probably defended territories against other small bands of humans, but must have occasionally exchanged members. Our primitive hunter/gatherer ancestors must have enjoyed a good life during times of plenty in spring and summer when food supplies were bountiful. There was limited "ownership" of such resources, and people could help themselves to whatever they could find. Money had not yet been invented and food was essentially free for the taking. Many fewer humans dwelled on Earth then, and the planet could easily supply their needs.



Paleopathology is the study of signs of disease in the remains of ancient peoples. A skeleton reveals its owner's age, sex, and weight. A population of skeletons can be used to construct mortality tables and to estimate expected life span and risk of death at any given age. Growth rates can be estimated by measuring bones of people of different ages, and teeth can be examined for enamel defects (signs of malnutrition). Scars left on bones reveal injuries as well as various diseases.

The average height of hunger-gatherers at the end of the ice ages was 5' 9" for men and 5' 5" for women. Following the adoption of agriculture, heights crashed, and by 3000 B. C. statures had reached a low of only 5' 3" for men and 5' for women.

A detailed study of 800 American Indian skeletons from burial mounds in Illinois and Ohio river valleys illustrate health changes that occurred around A. D. 1150 when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming (Diamond, 1987). Compared to hunter-gatherers who preceded them, farmers had nearly twice as many enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, four times as much iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition), a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease, and an increase in spinal degenerative conditions, a reflection of hard physical labor. Life expectancy at birth decreased from 26 years to only 19 years.

Agriculture was bad for health for several reasons. Hunter-gatherers enjoyed a more varied diet than early farmers, whose foods consisted of a few starchy crops. Farmers obtained cheap calories, but at the cost of poor nutrition. (Three carbohydrate rich plants -- wheat, rice, and corn -- provide the bulk of the calories consumed by humans today, yet each is deficient in certain essential amino acids or vitamins.) Due to their dependence on a limited number of different crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Because agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, which then traded with other crowded societies, parasites and infectious diseases spread.

andekwarhola wrote: »

Fashionable hankering for a time when violent halfwits eked out a miserable, half-famished battle against the tyranny of the elements and predators.

Hippydom really has reached its farcical apex.

I suggest you move to Antarctica.

Violent halfwits? You reckon you would have survived a week if you were transported back to that time, you think you would have done better?