Abushdr:
(in reference to Paleolithic humans)
<< If they were all so healthy why was the life span so short? It was rare for
 these persons to reach the 40th [forty] birthday?  >>

Have you read Ward Nicholson's excellent interview in Health & Beyond? In it
he discusses the issue of the higher rates of mortality from infectious
diseases among modern-day hunter-gatherers, as well as paleopathology studies.
He refers to chimpanzees, who frequently contract such diseases as "pneumonia
and other respiratory infections (especially in the cold and rainy seasons),
polio, abscesses, rashes, parasites, diarrhea, even hemmorrhoids on occasion."
He suggests several reasons for the lower age of death: seasonal food-supply
shortages causing periods of forced famine, unsanitary conditions and inferior
methods of dealing with wounds and injuries, and naturally occuring viral and
bacterial plagues.

Love, Liza

[log in to unmask] (Liza May)