----- Original Message -----
From: gordon
>. The evidence for it is not so strong as it may appear.
>

The evidence is much stronger than you assume.  I suggest you read:


                                                         Cohen, Mark Nathan,
        The Food Crisis in Prehistory: Overpopulation and the Origins of
Agriculture.
                                            New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1977.
                        (How environmental changes led man to seek new food
sources.)
                               ______, Health and the Rise of Civilization.
                                       New Haven: Yale University Press,
1993.
                                       (How man's new food sources produced
new diseases.)
                                        ______ and G. J. Armelagos,
                               Paleopathology at the Origins of Agriculture.
                                       New York: Academic Press, 1984.
                                    (A collection of papers that document
the differences between Paleolithic and Neolithic remains.)

Ray Audette
Author "NeanderThin"
http://www.neanderthin.com