3 ms·
That is incorrect. Once you account for infant mortality, life expectancy at birth dropped with the advent of agriculture. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life
by cgh 10y ago
That is incorrect. Once you account for infant mortality, life expectancy at birth dropped with the advent of agriculture.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
That said, diet probably isn't as crucial to longevity as we'd like to think. Hunter/gatherer populations got (and get) a lot of exercise and lead relatively low-stress lives. For example, the Tsimane of Bolivia eat animals and starch and have practically no heart disease. They walk around a lot and are generally a happy bunch. Probably the only thing that would increase life expectancies more would be actual medical care, particularly regarding parasites.
- ptaipale 10y agoDrop of infant mortality (particularly, through having enough food) is what the advent of agriculture achieved, so this is like saying "people died younger, except those who didn't".
- pessimizer 10y agoNo, it's like saying that people who survived past infancy lived long lives.
- deleted 10y ago[deleted]
- deelowe 10y agoWhat does modern agriculture have to do with infant mortality? It makes sense to exclude infants, because the reduction of those deaths are likely due to improvements in modern medicine and personal hygiene.
- ptaipale 10y agoThe thread above was not about modern agriculture; it was about the pre-historic time when agriculture was adopted and the availability of more food enabled more children to survive.
- deelowe 10y agoI dont but that at all. Infants dont eat anything that comes from a farm unless we're arguing that formula is somehow part of all this.
- ptaipale 10y agoInfants eat breast milk, and if the mother does not have enough to eat, there is not enough milk. Sufficient and stable nutrition for mother is important to avoid child mortality. In context of ancient world, nutrition of the family also had other mechanisms that impact the survival of children (strength to build housing, or strength to defend against hostile people, etc).
- deelowe 10y agoAnd your hypothesis is that insufficient breast milk production affects the mortality rates more so than modern medicine?
- ptaipale 10y agoI still did not write about modern medicine; I don't know why you bring that up. This was about the transition from hunter-gatherers to farming, first in Mesopotamia and a few other places, about 10 000 years ago or so. That was the "advent of agriculture", also known as "Neolithic revolution". However, overall I'd say that starvation vs. having sufficient food impacts mortality rates more than modern medicine. You can't eat the best of hygiene and medication doesn't nourish you.