William wrote:

> On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 09:32:31 -0500, Todd Moody <[log in to unmask]> wrote:


> I see no reason to suppose that paleolithic people were impervious to
>
>> parasites and infections.
>
>
> I see a reason. They had bigger brain cases than us, IMHO it is likely
> that they used the resultant intellignce to avoid afflictions.

Neanderthal had bigger brain cases.  They became extinct.  Did all
paleolithic humans have bigger brain cases?  I doubt it.  Would the
difference in brain case size imply a difference in intelligence that
would make paleolithic people impervious to parasites and infections?  I
see no good reason to believe this variation on the "noble savage"
myth.  Smart people get sick.

> Also at
> least some of the parasites might be symbiotes.

And some aren't.  Some kill you.

> As for infection, I read that a cut can heal without scarring if it is
> debrided and kept clean, which to me means free of dirt/poison. Maybe
> they
> knew.

Maybe they did.  I'm sure that the resources of "primitive" medicine are
often underestimated, but by the same token we know for a fact that
people living in a paleolithic manner are *not* impervious to disease,
infection, and parasites.  We know this because when such populations
have been "discovered" they have not been found to be disease-free.

>> In addition, death by trauma, exposure, and predation would have had
>> some effect on life expectancy.
>
>
> We ARE the predators. We are supposed to have been the reason for
> extinction of sabre-tooth tiger, cave bear etc. Notice also the
> absence of
> grizzly bears in most of North America. Always the same; if a predator
> annoys us, we kill it.


Two points:  Human violence is itself a form of predation.  We kill each
other and always have done so.  And although in the end we may have put
many other predators out of business, I believe this was mainly a result
of taking over their habitat.  Are you suggesting that we *hunted* cave
bears and saber-tooth tigers to extinction?  My only point is that for a
very long time predation was (and in some cases still is) a significant
factor in paleolithic life expectancy.

> As for trauma and exposure, the only model I know
> of is aboriginal Americans, and they seems to have coped well, so those
> were not problems.


I don't follow the reasoning from "they coped well" to "those were not
problems."

> Asssuming a perfect diet, would the reamains (bones) show signs of aging?
> I don't know, but suspect they would not, assuming the normal replacement
> of cells is perfectly supported.


Is this the case for any other vertebrate species?

> How about this postulate: Aging, and the signs thereof, is unnatural. It
> is caused by planetary changes such that the
> air/water/food/sunlight/social conditions are not adequate to support
> perfect health.


You can postulate anything.  The question is whether such a postulate is
believable.  It seems to presuppose an Edenic past when aging and
disease were unknown.  What reason do we have to believe such a thing?

Todd Moody
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