Were hunter gatherers healthier than we are?
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BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Hell yeah. Great exercise, less humans around to transmit diseases.
IHaveCandy
Banned
No.
I know they didn't live longer, but in terms of, like, athletic ability and such, I have no idea.
I think in general, yes.
They certainly moved around a lot more than the average person does these days. Also their diet was more in tuned with their bodies. Our bodies didn't evolve to intake animal milk or much wheat, for example, and that didn't really happen until we settled down and were no longer really hunter gatherers.
But our civilization as we know it wouldn't have ever risen up if we had continued to be hunter gatherers. Settling down and farming was necessary.
They certainly moved around a lot more than the average person does these days. Also their diet was more in tuned with their bodies. Our bodies didn't evolve to intake animal milk or much wheat, for example, and that didn't really happen until we settled down and were no longer really hunter gatherers.
But our civilization as we know it wouldn't have ever risen up if we had continued to be hunter gatherers. Settling down and farming was necessary.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Far less diseases. Many of them came about from our interaction with livestock, and in cities and large scale communities there was more opportunity to catch them.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
When we talk of recent improvements in medicine and standards of living raising our life expectancy... that means raising it from the conditions of a dirty city/farm dweller, which was itself a recent and unfortunate turn for our health. Long before that, we were much better off.
I took a class on Amazonian Societies (Indigenous populations in the Amazon), and we were watching this one documentary about what appeared to be a 30-40 something year old dude climbing hundred foot rain forest trees to claim his recently hunted prize, actually turned out to be somebody who was a year shy of 70. They also have ridiculously low body fat, and until contact, little in the way of modern diseases.
I'd say that are healthier, more athletic and nutritious, but due to their obvious deficiencies in technology/medicine and the natural dangers of a Hunger Gatherer lifestyle (Animals, warfare , nature, etc), that long lives are far and few between.
I'd say that are healthier, more athletic and nutritious, but due to their obvious deficiencies in technology/medicine and the natural dangers of a Hunger Gatherer lifestyle (Animals, warfare , nature, etc), that long lives are far and few between.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Yeah that's what I was thinking too.... More deaths through "accidents", but less death through bad health.
toxicgonzo
Taxes?! Isn't this the line for Metallica?
I think the knee-jerk reaction is to say "Yes, they didn't eat McDonalds/KFC/etc.", but I think overall we are still healthier than them (I don't have any sources though)
hydragonwarrior
Member
Given how much we sit around, yes.
Naturalistic fallacy.
"Oh they ate better and were more active, of course they were better".
Wisdom teeth, apendicitis, infantile mortality rates, dying of mundane infections, inconsistant diet leading to food poisoning or stravation.
We are orders of magnitude better and healthier.
"Oh they ate better and were more active, of course they were better".
Wisdom teeth, apendicitis, infantile mortality rates, dying of mundane infections, inconsistant diet leading to food poisoning or stravation.
We are orders of magnitude better and healthier.
Fusion Pizza
Member
A simple scratch or cut could kill you from infection.
An entire group (village sized) could be wiped out by one bad storm.
Death by predator.
The entire day's activity was centered around food gathering or tool making.
A harsh winter or a searing summer could kill of your food supply.
While hunter-gather humans may have been on the individual scale more healthy, because they were running after their dinner and chucking spears at it, or walking a good distance to gather food, overall their health is negated by the fact that their continued existence was very precarious.
There's a theory that we were reduced to as little as 1000 breeding pairs due to a long cooling trend caused by a volcanic eruption.
Toba Catastrophe Theory
I do enjoy your threads however, very stimulating to think about.
An entire group (village sized) could be wiped out by one bad storm.
Death by predator.
The entire day's activity was centered around food gathering or tool making.
A harsh winter or a searing summer could kill of your food supply.
While hunter-gather humans may have been on the individual scale more healthy, because they were running after their dinner and chucking spears at it, or walking a good distance to gather food, overall their health is negated by the fact that their continued existence was very precarious.
There's a theory that we were reduced to as little as 1000 breeding pairs due to a long cooling trend caused by a volcanic eruption.
Toba Catastrophe Theory
I do enjoy your threads however, very stimulating to think about.
BertramCooper
Banned
It's complicated.
Was their diet healthier? Yeah, I'd say so. No shitty breads and sugar. But they were certainly far more prone to malnutrition. If your prey gets wiped out by disease or overhunting, you're fucked.
And of course, advancements in hygiene and medicine have extended our species' life expectancy by a massive margin.
So were they more physically fit? Probably. But healthier? Probably not.
Was their diet healthier? Yeah, I'd say so. No shitty breads and sugar. But they were certainly far more prone to malnutrition. If your prey gets wiped out by disease or overhunting, you're fucked.
And of course, advancements in hygiene and medicine have extended our species' life expectancy by a massive margin.
So were they more physically fit? Probably. But healthier? Probably not.
Technology is necessarily tied to agriculture... Hunter Gatherer lifestyle simply wasn't conducive towards leisure time that could be used to further develop human knowledge.
A person that engages in hunter gatherer like activities now, but has access to all the health care, medicine, legal systems, etc of a 21st century developed nation will live the healthiest life of all...
But that person doesn't exist in isolation.
With that been said, if a hunter gatherer could survive the difficulties of a nomadic lifestyle, they certainly had the capacity to live for a good long while.
The outliers in those types of societies would've been larger in relative terms than the outliers in our society (i.e. they would've had dudes surviving into their 80s and 90s on rare occasion; even when typical life expectancy is like 35 years old... that's like someone reaching 200 years old now).
Seems like there have been some mild nuggets of insight - I guess it's hard to really know because it was so long ago. Let's talk about illness - the reason I talked about this is because of an interesting argument I was/am having with someone regarding human lifestyle. They threw out that hunter gatherers lived longer and didn't suffer diseases/have cancer. I didn't pursue that angle too much because I am not super knowledgeable - but I want to be.
CornBurrito
Member
Average lifespan shot down after the initial rise of agriculture, but IIRC we now live longer than hunter-gatherers would have due to medical advancements which were made possible by agriculture.
Actually I think hunter-gathers lived well above 30. I could be wrong though. I'm trying to remember the snippets of info from Guns Germs and Steel.
Devolution
Member
No, but they were much healthier than most people think, and were certainly more fit than USA today.
While you were likely trim, more of an athletic build, and infant mortality distorted the life expectancy, you were still at a disadvantage without having modern medicine to patch you up.
I mean how many of you would be alive today without modern medicine? I wouldn't. I had a staph infection that had me persistently at 103 degree fever and I was getting weaker and complacent until I got a prescription of antibiotics. Without it I would have died. That's ignoring quality of life, my vision is shit.
While you were likely trim, more of an athletic build, and infant mortality distorted the life expectancy, you were still at a disadvantage without having modern medicine to patch you up.
I mean how many of you would be alive today without modern medicine? I wouldn't. I had a staph infection that had me persistently at 103 degree fever and I was getting weaker and complacent until I got a prescription of antibiotics. Without it I would have died. That's ignoring quality of life, my vision is shit.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Oh I don't know about that. I'm sure there are a lot of hard answers in anthropology if you dig for them. Seems like it would be pretty easy to figure out based on the bone structure of fossilized remains, remnants of what they ate, etc.
And it depends on the ecology of the place.... There have been places of draught, and then, there have been places with such abundance that they practically built a "state" even without farming: 'affluent foragers' who probably lived the best lives of all.
I don't understand the question. We have hunter-gatherers today.
Vulcano's assistant
Banned
Are Bush-men and Yanomami healthier than the average "civilized" person? it think I would be useful to look at them to find an answer.
CornBurrito
Member
Processed doesn't necessarily mean bad though.
Very few groups of humans are hunter-gatherers anymore. Most have transitioned to agriculture. Mostly because the agricultural societies just wiped out (or forcibly integrated) the hunter-gatherers.
And how do they live?
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
I would probably not have been alive as a hunter gatherer and neither would many of my friends, so no.
It's tough to know how health they were otherwise because not many are around nowadays and over thousands of years humans have shaped plants and animals quite a lot. Then you have all the non physical stuff like living in fear.
It's tough to know how health they were otherwise because not many are around nowadays and over thousands of years humans have shaped plants and animals quite a lot. Then you have all the non physical stuff like living in fear.
Not sure how accurate this site is but this might be relevant: http://www.huntercourse.com/blog/2011/05/amazing-hunter-gatherer-societies-still-in-existence/
Well they mostly died off before they got cancer. It was a brutal life. Nowadays we have the luxury of not risking dying just to get our daily meal so cancer is far more prominent as people live to old age. Hunter gatherers had cancer, but lost far fewer to it.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
What percentage of the world's population is that? And how many of them have traded sneakers and shit from contact with the outside world?
It's not the same as before 10,000-12,000 years ago when we ALL lived like that and probably had a lot of space to roam.
triplestation
Member
muthafucka we got centrum
what do they got
mud
what do they got
mud
Devolution
Member
There is a video on one such tribe in I think it was Guinea. Basically very few possessions. Only get food from some tree that's not very abundant. Hunger is pretty much a regular thing. Not famine or starvation or anything but no one gets full.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
Naw, 80% infant mortality rates and life expectancies of 30-40 tell me otherwise. It was a short, difficult life.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I don't know about infection, but those other problems were negligible to the point of being non-existent.
Devolution
Member
The life expectancies from 30-40 are because of including the infant mortality rates. And honestly? There was probably a lot infanticide.
BocoDragon
or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Realize This Assgrab is Delicious
Hunter-gatherers in a world where sedentary people have locked down 99.9999% of the resources on "property" do not have the same opportunity that a H-G once had.... Before, they could just migrate somewhere else if they weren't eating well. Now, there is nowhere else.
Is that the question now?
And in terms of what? Mental, physical, social well being? And to whom do i compare it to?
D
Deleted member 81567
Unconfirmed Member
Definitely not. Diet is just a minor factor to surviving.
Devolution
Member
These people haven't moved much when they were able to. They're sedentary but gather.
Well, I think that hunter gatherers today are obviously different than the hunter gatherers of 16,000 - unless they live in total isolation, but it's still interesting to see how they live too - it's not an either or question.
As for your other questions, in any capacity, and comparison - dealers choice.
You Are Viewtiful
Member
But even the adults had to deal with injuries, diseases, poor quality of water of food, terrible hygiene etc. How many of them honestly grew past 50? Nowadays dying at 65 seems too young.
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