Well, researchers have suggested that the main reason why palaeolithic tribesmen experienced less (communicable) disease than neolithic tribes was primarily due to the fact that they all lived in small tribes that were heavily isolated from each other, thus greatly limiting the chance of mass epidemics. of course, Neolithic peoples were more likely to settle into more populous communities and indulged in higher levels of trade with other Neolithic communities, thus speeding up the rate of communicable disease.

 

Re native americans:_ Well, at the very least, the Inuit domesticated dogs(and presumably other tribes did as well?) so they could have got disease via that route. I note, for example, that the pre-Contact Inuit had tuberculosis.

 

Geoff







 
> Date: Mon, 29 Jun 2009 07:14:55 -0600
> From: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Paleo Diet offers the net-base balance needed
> To: [log in to unmask]
> 
> 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

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