On Mon, 29 Jun 2009 03:57:06 -0600, Geoffrey Purcell  
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:


> Not that I believe that hunter-gatherers were entirely free of many  
> types of modern disease. I tend to favour the "nasty, brutish and short"  
> theory,
> myself.     Geoff

Most of the modern communicable diseases have been passed to humans from  
domestic
animals.  Paleo man didn't domesticate animals or live in close contact  
with them,
except as hunters.  That's one reason why the European diseases decimated  
the
paleolithic and early neolithic nations of North and South America, which  
had no
pastoralism until modern times.

Most of the degenerative diseases are caused by faulty diet (that's why  
we're
here on this list, right?).  Paleo man would not have had faulty diet.

The risk of accident would certainly have been higher.

As I have read many times on this list, the signs of disease (especially  
degenerative disease) in the bones are almost entirely missing from paleo  
skeletons.  That has caused some researchers to believe that their lives  
were short, but could equally
well indicate a basic level of health far above the modern average.

	Lynnet