On Tue, 2 Dec 2003 09:32: Todd Moody wrote:

>william wrote:
>
>>>- so would we do if we
>>>didn't have treatments against parasites and infections and childbirth
>>They probably didn't need such treatments. IMO

>I see no reason to suppose that paleolithic people
>were impervious to parasites and infections.

<snip>

Without resorting to notions of 'romantic primitivism', we should bear in
mind the SARS model which, like many influenza viruses, have proliferated
when humans have forced domesticated animals to live in unnaturally close
proximity to each other.  The viruses jump between species with a slight
DNA mutation.  Before the Neolithic, the risk of cross-species infection
would have been comparitively negligible.  Tony McMichael's book Human
Frontiers goes into this in some detail.

>>>The issue is, I think that they did not die from
>>>diseases inflicted by the food they ate.

>That's one issue.  The other is whether survival
>into old age is itself something for which our species
>has little evolutionary preparation.  If that is so
>(I'm not convinced of it, but I don't think it
>has been refuted either) then we have to consider
>the possibility that the premise that a "natural"
>diet is the best path to longevity is just
>wrong.  Longevity may be as unnatural as corn.
>Humans may be optimized
>for relatively short but vigorous lives.

<snip>

I think there is a lot to be said for Todd's view.  It makes sense.
However, I have heard two counter-arguments which, on their own, do not
overwhelm Todd's speculation, but can be borne in mind:

(1) Todd's e-mail itself is an illustration of the first: 'the wisdom of
the elders' (sorry, Todd!).  That is, bands of early Homos may have been
able to survive better if they had among them people with memories long
enough to cover generations of coping with various adversities - droughts,
diseases, floods, conflicts etc.  This sort of argument is one that
appeals to us modern Westerners who make a living in the world of human
intellectual capital.

(2) The second argument is probably more powerful, though less appealing
to the individualistic modern Westerner.  Feminist anthropologists, not
distracted by the macho side of hunter-gatherer societies which attracted
the attention of male anthropologists, have shown that, in many societies,
grandmothers contribute directly to survival.  Grandmothers who are too
feeble to contribute effectively to hunting or gathering are well-placed
to contribute to baby and child care.  Not only are they more patient and
tolerant (and so give the child free rein to learn through wider
experiences than parents might allow), their reliable child care frees up
both parents to contribute more directly to economic activity.  Our modern
Western societies have turned our back on this resource, despite the
primaeval urge we see (and which we frustrate and condemn as irritating
busy-bodying) in grandmothers to play a more active part in their
grandchildren's upbringing than our individualistic, nuclear families are
prepared to tolerate.  Perhaps this may have some part to play in women
outliving men: they are just more useful to survival than older men.

This is getting off the topic of Paleofood and even beyond the scope of
the Evolutionary Fitness list.  But it illustrates how our partitioning
aspects of life from each other can obscure, rather than illuminate, the
very topic of our enquiry.

Keith