[log in to unmask] wrote:
> 
> I found the following excerpt in "The Nature of Paleolithic 
> Art" by R. Dale Guthrie.  It follows a discussion of paleo 
> life expectancy, that only 4% of people lived past age 40.
> 

Does it provide a source for that figure? 4% seems pretty small. That would
seem to support the argument of those who say that the Paleolithic evidence
is insufficient because people did not live long enough for much of the
chronic diseases to develop among great numbers of people.

Cordain claimed that "Thirty three years was the AVERAGE life expectancy of
a Paleolithic hunter-gatherer male. A hunter gatherer who survived
childbirth, infectious disease, accidents, battles, and wild animals could
be expected to live as long as we do today."

There would still be the following counter argument to the life expectancy
objection:

"While chronic degenerative diseases generally produce mortality in later
life, they begin much earlier, often in childhood. This allows comparison
between age-matched younger members of industrial and technologically
primitive societies. Biomarkers of developing abnormality such as obesity,
rising blood pressure, nonobstructive coronary atherosclerosis, and insulin
resistance are common among the former, but rare in the latter."

Source: Evolutionary Health Promotion: A Consideration of Common
Counterarguments. S. Boyd Eaton, M.D., Loren Cordain, Ph.D., and Staffan
Lindeberg M.D., Ph.D. Preventive Medicine 34, 119-123 (2002)