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