In a message dated 8/30/01 2:31:27 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< Once they make it through infancy, hunter-gatherer women live long lives
 unless killed or injured...well past their child-bearing years.  The
 Hobbesian belief that primitive life is/was "nasty, [brutish], and [short]"
is
 simply not true.
  >>
This is quite correct -- there is plenty of evidence of native peoples living
actively into their 90s, and 100 years was not uncommon. One of the great
myths of our times is that we are living longer now and thus become
susceptible to all these modern diseases. Since native peoples do not suffer
from auto-immune diseases to any appreciable extent, and if they live in a
clean environment will not have viral diseases, then there is nothing left to
die from, except injury, and they were pretty good at treating that as well.

Charles
San Diego, CA