Paleo Diet: Raw Paleo Diet and Lifestyle Forum
Raw Paleo Diet Forums => General Discussion => Topic started by: kurite on January 22, 2010, 12:55:49 pm
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Hey im sure some of you already read that other thread that said socialization is the killer of them. No offence to the writer but that is complete b.s. But it made me wonder why do hunter gatherers & neolithic's Have short lifespans?
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because they work hard and therfore wear-out their body sooner than modern people who work not as hard. Hardore excercise will only waste energy and reduce your lifespan-my theory.
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Environment? Dont know much about climate during those
times, but environment surely plays a factor.
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Hey im sure some of you already read that other thread that said socialization is the killer of them. No offence to the writer but that is complete b.s. But it made me wonder why do hunter gatherers & neolithic's Have short lifespans?
Depends on how you do the counting.
today we have:
- no predators
- emergency medical facilities
- less hunger
- civilization
- as for counting of years, the calendars are different
- climate then? who knows?
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there was no way to protect all of the elderly
there was high mortality of babies
there was harsh environment with plethora of predators
if someone got injured (e.g. broken leg) there was no way to protect him/her as it is today
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The Australian Aborigines don't look too young in NAPD. I would say their 70 odd at least. No baldness either but we've already been there.
Maybe bones of Paleo or HG's look appear younger than Neolithic's because of superior diets.
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Women were more likely to die in childbirth in palaeo times. Men went in for perpetual warfare with other tribes which also didn't help. Plus, people would commonly die from what we view as minor injuries such as a broken leg.
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Women were more likely to die in childbirth in palaeo times.
Don't have any data on paleo childbirth, but apparently a properly nourished woman of good genetic stock (with a healthy psychology) can give birth easily. The idea that childbirth was a horrible and deadly affair is only true for early "civilized" women. Now it's just typically horrible (prolonged and painful with intervention required) but not deadly thanks to hospitals
Not that paleo childbirth, or any childbirth, was always easy or without causalities, but childbirth events were probably not a big factor
My guess is that accidents and climate exposure were probably the most deadly
I've also read about and watched a program that depicted the practice among nomadic groups of abandoning the sick and the elderly in "hospice camps" - the group would move on without them, leaving them with a small store of food and some supplies if they couldn't cross a river, climb a mountain, keep up, etc. There were no attempts to help them. In the program, no one, including the elderly, seemed upset about it.
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Don't have any data on paleo childbirth, but apparently a properly nourished woman of good genetic stock (with a healthy psychology) can give birth easily. The idea that childbirth was a horrible and deadly affair is only true for early "civilized" women. Now it's just typically horrible (prolonged and painful with intervention required) but not deadly thanks to hospitals
Not that paleo childbirth, or any childbirth, was always easy or without causalities, but childbirth events were probably not a big factor
My guess is that accidents and climate exposure were probably the most deadly
I've also read about and watched a program that depicted the practice among nomadic groups of abandoning the sick and the elderly in "hospice camps" - the group would move on without them, leaving them with a small store of food and some supplies if they couldn't cross a river, climb a mountain, keep up, etc. There were no attempts to help them. In the program, no one, including the elderly, seemed upset about it.
I'm afraid you're mistaken re this. The reason given for lower female lifespan than men is the increased risk of death from childbirth. You see, female humans, being bipedal and having to give birth to babies with vastly increased skull-size compared to the rest of their bodies, have a greater risk of birth-complications than wild animals as the latter have vaginas more conveniently situated, further back.
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vastly increased skull-size compared to the rest of their bodies
The size and configuration of a woman's pelvis is a critical factor for human birth
I'm not comparing human birth with *other* animal births, I'm comparing paleo, pre-modern and modern human childbirth
In any case, a nourished woman with a properly developed pelvis will have a better chance of ease in childbirth, so go paleo! ;D
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The size and configuration of a woman's pelvis is a critical factor for human birth
I'm not comparing human birth with *other* animal births, I'm comparing paleo, pre-modern and modern human childbirth
In any case, a nourished woman with a properly developed pelvis will have a better chance of ease in childbirth, so go paleo! ;D
Ignore Geoff. He refuses to pay attention to all evidence to the contrary to his idiosycratic view of this subject. I've pointed out Dr. Price's information about Eskimo women giving birth easily on their native diets. He ignores it. I don't know why.
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Ignore Geoff. He refuses to pay attention to all evidence to the contrary to his idiosycratic view of this subject. I've pointed out Dr. Price's information about Eskimo women giving birth easily on their native diets. He ignores it. I don't know why.
I don't deny that a HG diet would make childbirth a little easier for women whereas a modern, junk-food diet would make things worse. All I'm saying is that a raw, palaeolithic diet would have been far more effective than most HG diets(most of the latter are neither raw nor palaeo) and that, because of hominid evolution re orientation of the pelvis, human women are poorly equipped to give birth by comparison to wild species.
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We have short lifespans because we are fools.
We read paleo forums in an attempt to become wise.
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My grandmother had a tough life. She worked hard throughout, but most of the work in a house. She didn't have to face lions, tigers or bears. Her husband (my grandfather) worked hard too and could be violent and inflict injury with his bare hands (not to her). They didn't have computers etc. They made me lots of blood aunts and uncles, no bums, with all their appendages, eyes etc. My grandmother gave birth to them at home breach births and all, no still births nor miscarriages, no scalpels, needles nor thread. She led a normal lifespan, and so did he, no short ones. I think the deciding factor is that there were no animals to bite them and there was a roof and walls, and of course working well with society's rules at the time. Also there was no bc pills disrupting sexual hormones and the gov told ppl to completely wrap up bf'ing ea. baby by twenty wks (we ovulate if we stop nursing).
edited at 8:45 AM Eastern to correct grammar of first sentence and add a short sentence near the middle.
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you guys need to get out in the woods and try to build a cabin...on a hillside
hike in basic food and tools(saws/hatchets, ropes to drag trees, these are all tools that can be made from nature as well, another skill in its self) fetch your own water, if you are skilled set traps/fish/hunt, fell your own trees, let them dry or try to drag them freshly cut(heavy!), the process of building a shelter to accommodate a small family is extremely laborious if you are not a hunter with large pelts to throw over your shelter leaves or thatch imagine putting up a roof! and also having wood for nightly fires for heat, even this small portion of labor will be very humbling, the learning curve in nature is very steep you will realize how ill adapted but quick to learn a civilized mind is to the "dangers" and also processes of this work and experience but how with time you ease into nature. this is just one of the small basic hurtles, imagine having to break down shelter and travel miles over and around hills /rivers, hunting food, packing, being in the elements, being part of a small tribe and having to sustain others, spending all time with tribe working on and fixing tools, ropes, clothing, what to do about injuries(dont get them, be smart!)
you will have no question as to why life spans were shorter, yes the bodies and health was much greater, but also the labor more rigorous and consistant....it is extremely humbling to experience this and also helps to solve all these questions without having to ask google! ask the spirit through experience.....
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The point I have tried (and failed) to make is that a mere 90 years of lifespan is not proven to be a long life compared to a reasonable estimate of paleolithic lifespan.
While there is only one record of paleo lifespan, there is no way that these well-fed people living a leisurely life could have had a short life.
Those who truly believe that paleoman had a short lifespan have been fooled.
Those who have been fooled and don't know it are properly called fools.
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you guys need to get out in the woods and try to build a cabin...on a hillside
hike in basic food and tools(saws/hatchets, ropes to drag trees, these are all tools that can be made from nature as well, another skill in its self) fetch your own water, if you are skilled set traps/fish/hunt, fell your own trees, let them dry or try to drag them freshly cut(heavy!), the process of building a shelter to accommodate a small family is extremely laborious if you are not a hunter with large pelts to throw over your shelter leaves or thatch imagine putting up a roof! and also having wood for nightly fires for heat, even this small portion of labor will be very humbling, the learning curve in nature is very steep you will realize how ill adapted but quick to learn a civilized mind is to the "dangers" and also processes of this work and experience but how with time you ease into nature. this is just one of the small basic hurtles, imagine having to break down shelter and travel miles over and around hills /rivers, hunting food, packing, being in the elements, being part of a small tribe and having to sustain others, spending all time with tribe working on and fixing tools, ropes, clothing, what to do about injuries(dont get them, be smart!)
you will have no question as to why life spans were shorter, yes the bodies and health was much greater, but also the labor more rigorous and consistant....it is extremely humbling to experience this and also helps to solve all these questions without having to ask google! ask the spirit through experience.....
The same applies today, you have farmers & settlers to this day, using traditional methods of labour, build cabins, huts etc., by hand, AND still subsist on raw paleo foods, with NO electricity, still live as they did hundreds of years ago, yet theyre lifespans easily hit 80-100
They still contend with predators & natural prey, especially in the thicker areas like jungles & open landscapes
As for emergency medicine, most tribes & primitives, have far superior health & medicine, thanks to their access to REAL medicine in the wild, such as herbs & salves they pick fresh
As a rule, i never trust anthroplogists, they continously come up with crackpot theories based on very little real world evidence
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As a rule, i never trust anthroplogists, they continously come up with crackpot theories based on very little real world evidence
from David Macaulay's Motel of the Mysteries
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The same applies today, you have farmers & settlers to this day, using traditional methods of labour, build cabins, huts etc., by hand, AND still subsist on raw paleo foods, with NO electricity, still live as they did hundreds of years ago, yet theyre lifespans easily hit 80-100
Who are these who eat raw paleo foods?
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I'm afraid you're mistaken re this. The reason given for lower female lifespan than men is the increased risk of death from childbirth. You see, female humans, being bipedal and having to give birth to babies with vastly increased skull-size compared to the rest of their bodies, have a greater risk of birth-complications than wild animals as the latter have vaginas more conveniently situated, further back.
Not true, if a woman gives birth in the correct position, risk of birth complications drops quite low
The most dangerous way for a woman to give birth is on her back, do the research
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Not true, if a woman gives birth in the correct position, risk of birth complications drops quite low
The most dangerous way for a woman to give birth is on her back, do the research
Even taking that into account human childbirth is still more difficult than birth among wild animals. The simple fact is that for women to walk upright they can't have pelvises that are wide enough to allow large-skulled human babies to pass through easily.
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Those who truly believe that paleoman had a short lifespan have been fooled.
Those who have been fooled and don't know it are properly called fools.
dude honestly 90 years?
there were elders but how many attempts at birth and also percentage that died at a younger age and what is the ratio of those that survive to old age and those that perished earlier? i am not going to say i know but i am going to say that, for paleopeople, life was difficult in the most fulfilling of ways
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dude honestly 90 years?
there were elders but how many attempts at birth and also percentage that died at a younger age and what is the ratio of those that survive to old age and those that perished earlier? i am not going to say i know but i am going to say that, for paleopeople, life was difficult in the most fulfilling of ways
I thought we were referring to lifespands, not infant mortality rates
Tribal & primitives always have superior infant mortality
Pelvis & childbirth's have very little to do with complications, i can go into specifics if you like, healthy women rarely have complications, tribal women laugh at childbirth ...
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...As a rule, i never trust anthroplogists, they continously come up with crackpot theories based on very little real world evidence
Yet I tend to trust the input of anthropologists who study hunter-gatherers or the Paleolithic era more than physicians and most other scientists, because they've seen the low levels of chronic disease among hunter-gatherer people or skeletons and they therefore tend to know that much of today's conventional wisdom about eating tons of cooked grains being healthy is bogus. From what I've seen, the majority of scientists who support Paleolithic nutrition are anthropologists.
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Yet I tend to trust the input of anthropologists who study hunter-gatherers or the Paleolithic era more than physicians and most other scientists, because they've seen the low levels of chronic disease among hunter-gatherer people or skeletons and they therefore tend to know that much of today's conventional wisdom about eating tons of cooked grains being healthy is bogus. From what I've seen, the majority of scientists who support Paleolithic nutrition are anthropologists.
Anthropologists get a large number of factors wrong, mainly because its a field based on theories based on very little evidence, its basically a pseudo science
Archaeology & more recent evidence based fields are far more accurate & far more useful
Check out lloyd pye, he lists the fields & sciences which correctly date & catalog
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Anthropologists get a large number of factors wrong, mainly because its a field based on theories based on very little evidence, its basically a pseudo science
Archaeology & more recent evidence based fields are far more accurate & far more useful
Check out lloyd pye, he lists the fields & sciences which correctly date & catalog
More than any other field, anthropologists tend to get diet right. Below is a partial list of anthropologists who advocate some form of Paleo Nutrition. It includes Boyd Eaton, who is the scientist that developed the very theory that underpins Paleo nutrition and is both an anthropologist and a radiologist (interestingly, Dr. Kurt Harris is also a radiologist and Paleo diet advocate). Show me a list of achaeologists or scientists from any other field that has as many advocates of Paleo-type nutrition as anthropology and then I'll take your claim seriously. The proof is in the pudding.
> Eric B. Ross, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Institute of Social Studies, co-editor of Food and Evolution: Toward a Theory of Human Food Habits
> Geoff Bond, Nutritional Anthropologist and Evolutionary Biologist, "Natural Eating: The Bond Effect," http://www.naturaleater.com/index.htm; “Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Link Between our Health and Our Food,” Square One Publishers, New York, March 2007.
> H. Leon Abrams, Jr., MA, EDS, Associate Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, ECJC, University System of Georgia, "ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH REVEALS HUMAN DIETARY REQUIREMENTS FOR OPTIMAL HEALTH," Journal of Applied Nutrition, 1982, 16:1:38-45, http://www.empowerfoods.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2676&start=0&sid=fedadaa4655393a180573cf0cb436634
> Jeanne Sept, Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University, teaches "Prehistoric Diet and Nutrition," http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/teach/P380/P380read.html
> Katharine Milton, PhD, professor of physical anthropology at the University of California in Berkeley, ucjeps.berkeley.edu/Endangered_Lang_Conf/Milton.htm
> Kristen Hawkes, Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah, hawkes@anthro.utah.edu, http://www.anthro.utah.edu/hawkes.html
> Lionel Tiger, Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University, "The Caveman Diet," Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2002, http://www.karlloren.com/diet/p81.htm
> Magdalena Hurtado, Associate Professor of Anthropology, a human evolutionary ecologist who has spent many years studying the Ache, a group of hunter-gatherers who live in the South American country of Paraguay; her story is told in Anthropologist: Scientist of the People, by Mary Batten
> Mark F. Teaford, Professor of Anthropology, Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, co-editor of Human Diet: Its Origin and Evolution
> Melvin Konner, Ph.D., Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Emory University, www.anthropology.emory.edu/FACULTY/ANTMK
> Peter S. Ungar, Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah, co-editor of Human Diet: Its Origin and Evolution
> S Boyd Eaton, MD, Professor of Radiology and Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, author of The Paleolithic Prescription: A Program of Diet and Exercise and a Design for Living
I tell people, when it comes to nutrition, you're better off listening to an anthropologist (especially one that specializes in hunter-gatherers or the Paleolithic era--i.e., a Paleoanthropologist) than nutritionists or physicians (who have been indoctrinated in the standard erroneous dogma re: nutrition).
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Pelvis & childbirth's have very little to do with complications, i can go into specifics if you like, healthy women rarely have complications, tribal women laugh at childbirth ...
I think you're right. My pelvis was tiny before pregnancy and after. I gave birth ok, even though I was on my back. I did not like being on my back at all, but it was doctor's orders and I listened. I used no medication and there were no forceps involved. I have plenty of friends with much bigger pelvises than me who had to get c/s's because their pelvises would not respond properly to their hormones when it was time. I know other small pelvised women who gave birth to large babies easily and quickly. I think birth has more to do with hormones and mother's health than size. I am not a midwife nor doula though. Which tribal women do you know who laugh at it?
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I think you're right. My pelvis was tiny before pregnancy and after. I gave birth ok, even though I was on my back. I did not like being on my back at all, but it was doctor's orders and I listened. I used no medication and there were no forceps involved. I have plenty of friends with much bigger pelvises than me who had to get c/s's because their pelvises would not respond properly to their hormones when it was time. I know other small pelvised women who gave birth to large babies easily and quickly. I think birth has more to do with hormones and mother's health than size. I am not a midwife nor doula though. Which tribal women do you know who laugh at it?
You increase your rate of complications by about 50% if you give birth in bed, on your back
All modern home birth techniques are now virtually based on tribal women's technique's for childbirth, most homebirth midwives are surprisingly well informed on how successful primitive tribes techniques of childbirth work
Just goes to show what happens when health professionals reject modern medicine & embrace real as nature intended medical knowledge
BABIES IN THE CORNFIELD
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20282597/Babies-in-the-Cornfield-Stories-of-Maternal-Health-and-Death-from-Around-the-World (http://www.scribd.com/doc/20282597/Babies-in-the-Cornfield-Stories-of-Maternal-Health-and-Death-from-Around-the-World)
"I remember the first time I did a vaginal exam on a woman in labor during a “house call” in the mountains of western Bolivia. When I turned my back to wash my hands, she ran out the door, waddled up the hill, and birthed her baby in a dense cornfield.
As a midwife, I had been trained to investigate, to prepare. How many centimeters dilated? Is it time to “deliver” the baby? Hot water and warm towels in the room?
This was her seventh baby, a baby that would be born at home, without help, and drop onto the waiting sheepskin floor cover just like the first six before him.
She didn’t need me telling her when it was time to give birth. Her body knew. I was the one who didn’t know anything. This rural woman was shamed by me, made nervous by me, and risked her life and her baby’s life by running away from me. Some midwife. Some “authority on childbirth.”Those of us who have a university education think we know what’s best for those who don’t. "
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More than any other field, anthropologists tend to get diet right. Below is a partial list of anthropologists who advocate some form of Paleo Nutrition. It includes Boyd Eaton, who is the scientist that developed the very theory that underpins Paleo nutrition and is both an anthropologist and a radiologist (interestingly, Dr. Kurt Harris is also a radiologist and Paleo diet advocate). Show me a list of achaeologists or scientists from any other field that has as many advocates of Paleo-type nutrition as anthropology and then I'll take your claim seriously. The proof is in the pudding.
> Eric B. Ross, Ph.D., Professor of Anthropology, Institute of Social Studies, co-editor of Food and Evolution: Toward a Theory of Human Food Habits
> Geoff Bond, Nutritional Anthropologist and Evolutionary Biologist, "Natural Eating: The Bond Effect," http://www.naturaleater.com/index.htm; “Deadly Harvest: The Intimate Link Between our Health and Our Food,” Square One Publishers, New York, March 2007.
> H. Leon Abrams, Jr., MA, EDS, Associate Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, ECJC, University System of Georgia, "ANTHROPOLOGICAL RESEARCH REVEALS HUMAN DIETARY REQUIREMENTS FOR OPTIMAL HEALTH," Journal of Applied Nutrition, 1982, 16:1:38-45, http://www.empowerfoods.com.au/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2676&start=0&sid=fedadaa4655393a180573cf0cb436634
> Jeanne Sept, Professor of Anthropology, Indiana University, teaches "Prehistoric Diet and Nutrition," http://www.indiana.edu/~origins/teach/P380/P380read.html
> Katharine Milton, PhD, professor of physical anthropology at the University of California in Berkeley, ucjeps.berkeley.edu/Endangered_Lang_Conf/Milton.htm
> Kristen Hawkes, Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah, hawkes@anthro.utah.edu, http://www.anthro.utah.edu/hawkes.html
> Lionel Tiger, Charles Darwin Professor of Anthropology, Rutgers University, "The Caveman Diet," Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2002, http://www.karlloren.com/diet/p81.htm
> Magdalena Hurtado, Associate Professor of Anthropology, a human evolutionary ecologist who has spent many years studying the Ache, a group of hunter-gatherers who live in the South American country of Paraguay; her story is told in Anthropologist: Scientist of the People, by Mary Batten
> Mark F. Teaford, Professor of Anthropology, Center for Functional Anatomy and Evolution at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, co-editor of Human Diet: Its Origin and Evolution
> Melvin Konner, Ph.D., Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Emory University, www.anthropology.emory.edu/FACULTY/ANTMK
> Peter S. Ungar, Professor of Anthropology, University of Utah, co-editor of Human Diet: Its Origin and Evolution
> S Boyd Eaton, MD, Professor of Radiology and Anthropology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, author of The Paleolithic Prescription: A Program of Diet and Exercise and a Design for Living
I tell people, when it comes to nutrition, you're better off listening to an anthropologist (especially one that specializes in hunter-gatherers or the Paleolithic era--i.e., a Paleoanthropologist) than nutritionists or physicians (who have been indoctrinated in the standard erroneous dogma re: nutrition).
I'm not refuting the paleo diet & the research behind it, or its historical research, i was referring to the anthropology profession as a whole, as its tries to find links & patterns & then tries to theoretically explain them, alot of the theories it claims about other cultures & races, are usually simple junk science
Unfortunately i havent got the time to go into the pro's & con's, just stating my experience with having researched anthropology for a few years
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Haha :).
I assisted a woman give birth in a wildly rural area. She did lie down, but it was no soft bed, it was more like a concrete block. This (sigh) was her choice. She had a hard time. I didn't like that they were using herbs to speed up the labor either, but I just gave support, as I had less experience. I believe if she would have let labor come as it may, it would have been easier. She thought she couldn't nurse either. I had to show her how. She was amazed it was possible. She thought she wasn't built right for her baby. I don't know why so many women go in to these things with modernish pharmaceutical type ideas. Oh, she was on a neolithic diet, lots of grain that weren't even indigenous to her area.
You increase your rate of complications by about 50% if you give birth in bed, on your back
...
BABIES IN THE CORNFIELD
http://www.scribd.com/doc/20282597/Babies-in-the-Cornfield-Stories-of-Maternal-Health-and-Death-from-Around-the-World (http://www.scribd.com/doc/20282597/Babies-in-the-Cornfield-Stories-of-Maternal-Health-and-Death-from-Around-the-World)
"I remember the first time I did a vaginal exam on a woman in labor during a “house call” in the mountains of western Bolivia. When I turned my back to wash my hands, she ran out the door, waddled up the hill, and birthed her baby in a dense cornfi...this was her seventh baby
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where is the evidence of short lifespan amongst hunter gatherers?
Paleo people aged slower without degeneration of the body (the quality of their bones at the time of death shows this) which could only mean they would have lived longer.
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The trouble with claims of complication-free birth among native tribes is that a) those native tribes often eat lots of unhealthy foods such as fermented grains etc. and b) even wild animals on perfect, natural diets have some trouble with giving birth, although it's much lower than either HG women or women on modern diets. Lying on your back isn't a quick-fix solution.
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The point is healthy women drastically reduce the rate of complications, tribal women & primitives even with grain fed diets, still suffer LESS complications then modern cities
Because of their better midwifery & advanced birthing knowledge
Primitives & primal's have always had better infant mortality birth rates then modern cities, & continue to do so to this day
Their superior natural forms of midwifery & superior forms of natural birth, drastically reduce infant mortality, AT CHILD BIRTH, COMPARED to modern cities
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i guess what i was trying to express was that sure maybe a few elders made it to 90
but they were definitely the exception as many more perished in earlier stages of life
also i think paleo man could have probably aged differently then we did and maybe at 10 years old he is more mature to equal 15 so at 20 of our years he is 30, 40=60 etc.....?
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I'm not refuting the paleo diet & the research behind it, or its historical research, i was referring to the anthropology profession as a whole, as its tries to find links & patterns & then tries to theoretically explain them, alot of the theories it claims about other cultures & races, are usually simple junk science
Unfortunately i havent got the time to go into the pro's & con's, just stating my experience with having researched anthropology for a few years
The anthropology profession as a whole is what produced the Paleo diet movement--a version of which you're following. Surely that is of some value to you? You were unable to produce a longer list of Paleo nutrition advocates from any other field because no other scientific field has produced as many as anthropology. If anthropology is purely junk then why is that? If anthropology is junk then the fields of conventional allopathic medicine and nutrition must be junkier. If you want to pick on a field, I recommend those as worthier targets.
When people ask me who to listen to on nutrition or how physicians and nutritionists could be so wrong about diet, I suggest that they'd be better off in general listening to anthropologists who study HGs or the Paleolithic era than physicians and nutritionists when it comes to diet. The reason anthropologists tend to get more things right about diet than physicians or nutritionists is that instead of basing their knowledge on the dogma that was in their textbooks in school they learned by observing the people who have been eating better than SADers for millennia and by experiencing benefits themselves from partaking of HG diets. Observation, experience and tinkering seem to produce better results than theoretical book learning.
Most or all of us here are also examples of this. We tinkered with various diets and, like the anthropologists, we observed the results in ourselves and others and found we did best on RPD. The quotes in my signature summarize it pretty well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that all anthropologists get everything right or anything like that. I'm just saying that so far anthropologists have gotten nutrition more right than any other field. The results speak for themselves. The proof is in the pudding.
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Given infant mortality rates of 20-30% in palaeo times, I rather doubt that mortlality-rates in modern cities are higher even if one only takes into account infant mortality at birth.
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I'm pretty confident most of the paleo lived alot longer then they do now lol
Re. air, soil quality etc
but those with malformed or dysfunctional communities, like the trading paleo's & tribes, who had to move due to seasonal pressures, did suffer from low age life spans
Those who adapted & learned to use successfully the environment around them did live successfully with ridiculously long life spans
It's ridiculous to state billions of people in a stage of time, & average their lifespans, we simply dont have the data or immense man power & resources to make that assertion
Which is also why anthropology as a whole is largely theoretical, we simply dont have a large enough sample of data to accurately catalog these cultures