gordon <[log in to unmask]> commented:

>Methinks the truth of the matter is that life for our primitive ancestors
>was damned hard in almost every respect in comparison to modern life. I
>think our paleo ancestors lived in what we would consider a constant
>struggle for the most basic of necessities, with relatively little free time
>to pursue advances in creative disciplines like music and art and language
>and philosophy and science.

Interestingly, anthropologists who have lived with modern day
hunter-gatherers within the past 100 years have seen something quite
different from what you have depicted.  It was not a nasty, brutish, short,
unpleasant life.  Sure they did not have all the *comforts* we have, but
they had a lot we don't have.  Many of our so-called advances in industry
and agriculture haave so changed human exercise and nutrition patterns that
they have promoted tooth decay, dental deformity, the need for orthodontics
and eye glasses, obesity, cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes,
arthritis, asthma, and....  They have also created changes in human
relations that have had dismal consequences.  The bond between parents and
hcildren, and men and women, for example have been stressed, stretched, and
in many cases broken

Many people nowadays have less free time, not more.  I constantly meet
people who work 12-15 hours days and many have spouses who work 6-7 days a
week.  It is not true that everyone has more time.  More people are in debt
up to their eyeballs, have expensive habits (that they think will make up
for the breakneck speed at which they work and live), and live lives that
cost a lot but nourish them little.   See the video AFFLUENZA.

If we have so much  leisure time, why can so few people find time to
exercise, read, study, buy and prepare their own food, educate their
children, or hang out with their spouses and friends? Many modern people
spend very little TIME with their spouses or children.  Many woman say they
don't have the time to prepare food, nor to breast feed.  Yetanthropologists
who have LIVED with modern day HGs find that the average length of breast
feeding is 3 YEARS!!!  They had time to breast feed and home school and
gather food, socialize and dance around the fire at night!!!  The kids
receive so much touching, loving, and nourishment on all levels.  Btw:
Breast fed babies (prolonged breast fed), have so many physical, mental,
emotional advantages of those not breast fed or breast fed for only a few
weeks or months.

Did you know that the average working couple spends just 12 minutes per day
talking to each other?  (From the Tao of Abundance by Laurence G. Boldt). I
can't find the figures, but the amount of time per week (expressed in
minutes!!) that the typical working father spends with his child or children
was appalling; I think it was 17 minutes.  Also, the amount of time for
community was very low.  The average work week has actually increased
drammatially since the 1920s, 30s, and 50s.  We have become a nation of
time-poor people.

The people Dr. Weston Price studied, although not truly HGs, lived a
more primitive existence, had time for social interaction, had far more
nutritious food than modern industrialized peoples, and were vibrantly
healthy, had high moral standards, etc.

If you want to know more about social life and other aspects of HGs, check
out The Paleolithic Prescription, some of the authors actually lived with
HGs and can shed light on a lot of myths about their diets and lifestyles.
THere is much we can learn from them about how to care for our young, how to
space children appropriately so as to avoid draining the mother, producing
weak children, and exceeding the carrying capacity of a given land mass.
(Read Prices book for more on this.... he talks about overpopulation and
what it does to the land and how it weakens the food and the animals and
people who subsist on it.)

If you think food was scarce, you can read books from the early 1800s in the
US and find that rivers and streams were teeming with fish, birds were
abundant, as were land mammals.  It's a myth that earlier man was on the
verge of starvation all the time.  Food was more plentiful the farther you
go back in time, mainly because their were less people to extinguish them or
wreck their habitats.

We modern paleo-enthusiasts are not only working to simplify what we eat but
also to simplify our lives so that the quality of human contact and time to
really LIVE goes up.

>>I think anyone who would actually prefer a real paleolithic
>>lifestyle over this one needs to have his head examined.  :)

I think what many are after is finding the elements of simplier, healthier,
prior ways
of living, and applying them in a modern context.  Some are doing it already
with home births,  home schooling, simple meals prepared at home, unhooking
from the TV generation, mass consumption, etc. working half time or being
self-employed, or stay at home moms, gathering used goods from garage sales,
finding ways to incorporate more fresh air, sunlight, and exercise into our
lives, etc.

I don't think all of us are saying we want to live in a cave, we just want
to strip away what we don't need, nourish ourselves, reduce unnecessary
stress, and realize our human potential!  We can learn a lot from HGs and
other less industrialized people and this can help us carve out a healthier
present and future.

Rachel