“The
adoption of agriculture, supposedly our most decisive step toward a better
life, was in many ways a catastrophe from which we have never recovered. With
agriculture came the gross social and sexual inequality, the disease and
despotism, that curse our existence…” Jared Diamond in The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race
It has been a few times that I
have found myself arguing in defence of hunter gatherers or propagating the
empirical realities of non-agricultural societies that are all too
misconceived. One intensive example happened on the first day of semester
holidays in 2011 whence I found myself arguing about cooperation in human
nature with two others at 2AM in the cold morning in the Great Court of the
University of Queensland. Thus I have been proverbially labelled at parties and
such as the one who advocates the Palaeolithic lifestyle, and what a brutish,
improvised and unhealthy one it is assumed. Let the record show that I do
not advocate and am not advocating for a return to the hunting and gathering of
our Palaeolithic ancestors. I do not advocate for such on normative and
empirical grounds. Firstly, this would require an immense amount of death and
suffering due to the inevitable nature of the low population density of
subsistence living and the large population struggling over resources.
Normatively, I believe this is morally indefensible to advocate for. Secondly,
even if it were morally defensible, it is empirically physically impossible for
the wholesale return of the human species to hunter gathering due to the
obvious changes to the natural environment, resource depletion and changes to
ecosystems and thus is moot point.
A recent book that provides a systematic overview of hunter gatherers and agricultural societies that I also ascribe to is Pandora's Seed: The Unforeseen Cost of Civilization (2010) by Dr Spencer Wells, a geneticist, the Frank H. T. Rhodes Professor of Cornell University and the Director of the Genographic Project of the National Geographic Society. In it is asked is there some sort of fatal mismatch between western culture and our biology that is making us ill? And if there is such a mismatch, how did our present culture come to dominate? Wells argues that all of the diseases and faults of modern society, from terrorism to depression and from obesity to economic inequality, stem from the advent of agriculture. Growing grain crops ultimately made humans more sedentary and unhealthy and made the planet more crowded. The expanding population and the need to apportion limited resources such as water created hierarchies and inequalities. The desire to control and no longer cooperate with nature altered concepts of religion, making deities fewer and more influential, foreshadowing today’s fanaticisms. The proximity of humans and animals bred diseases that metastasised over time. Freedom of movement and choice were replaced by a pressure to work that is the forebear of the anxiety and depression millions feel today.
But onto those criteria that I will
be using to compare hunter gather societies with agricultural societies to
establish which provides the better way of life for the average person. I will
be looking at two essential areas of comparison – nutrition, and socioeconomics –
which I will lay out individually. This is part one and therefore the article
looking at nutrition. Let us begin.
Part One: Nutrition
The landmark study by DrClaire Cassidy, whilst a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Smithsonian Institute and
the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, of 296 skeletons of isolated American
Indian agriculturalists of Hardin Village off the Ohio River in Kentucky of CE
1500 and CE 1675 and 285 skeletons of isolated Native American Indian hunter
gatherers of Indian Knoll off the Green River in Kentucky of 3300 BCE to 2000
BCE, is very insightful for the comparison of nutrition. The study is fascinating
due to the climatic, ecological and genetic similarity of the two cases with
the only major differences being socioeconomics, chronology and diet. Through
analysis of the skeletons and other archaeological evidence, the study
concludes that infant mortality was higher, life expectancy was lower, and infectious
diseases, tooth decay, and anaemia were more prevalent for the Hardin
agriculturalists.
“1. Life expectancies for both sexes at all
ages were lower at Hardin Village than at Indian Knoll.
2. Infant
mortality was higher at Hardin Village.
3. Iron-deficiency
anaemia of sufficient duration to cause bone changes was absent at Indian
Knoll, but present at Hardin Village, where 50 per cent of cases occurred in
children under age five.
4. Growth
arrest episodes at Indian Knoll were periodic and more often of short duration
and were possibly due to food shortage in late winter; those at Hardin Village
occurred randomly and were more often of long duration, probably indicative of
disease as a causative agent.
5. More
children suffered infections at Hardin Village than at Indian Knoll.
6. The
syndrome of periosteal inflammation was more common at Hardin Village than at
Indian Knoll.
7. Tooth
decay was rampant at Hardin Village and led to early abscessing and tooth loss;
decay was unusual at Indian Knoll and abscessing occurred later in life because
of severe wear to the teeth. The
differences in tooth wear and caries rate are very likely attributable to
dietary differences between the two groups.” (Cassidy 1980: 145)
It is pertinent to extrapolate
this comparative study to analyse nutrition for many other hunter gatherers and
agriculturalist. Indeed, Professor Tim Roufs of the University of Minnesota
gives a systematic overview of the study and corroborating cases, as well as
further analysis of the biocultural consequences of the agriculture from the
Neolithic to this day.
It is also important to study
the state of health and nutrition in agricultural, post-agricultural and industrial
societies. A comprehensive research paper by an international group of
dieticians, epidemiologists, anthropologists, biologists and medical scientists, entitled "Origins and Evolution of the Western Diet: Health Implications for the 21st Century" published in the eminent American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, posits that the
diseases of civilisation, from chronic diseases to preventative illnesses, have
causation with the mismatch of our Palaeolithic genome and the new foods of
modernity that stem from agriculture.
“In the
United States and most Western countries, diet-related chronic diseases
represent the single largest cause of morbidity and mortality. These diseases
are epidemic in contemporary Westernized populations and typically afflict
50–65% of the adult population, yet they are rare or non-existent in
hunter-gatherers and other less Westernized people. Although both scientists
and lay people alike may frequently identify a single dietary element as the
cause of chronic disease (eg, saturated fat causes heart disease and salt
causes high blood pressure), evidence gleaned over the past 3 decades now
indicates that virtually all so-called diseases of civilization have
multifactorial dietary elements that underlie their etiology, along with other
environmental agents and genetic susceptibility. Coronary heart disease, for
instance, does not arise simply from excessive saturated fat in the diet but
rather from a complex interaction of multiple nutritional factors directly
linked to the excessive consumption of novel Neolithic and Industrial era foods
(dairy products, cereals, refined cereals, refined sugars, refined vegetable
oils, fatty meats, salt, and combinations of these foods). These foods, in
turn, adversely influence proximate nutritional factors, which universally
underlie or exacerbate virtually all chronic diseases of civilization: 1)
glycemic load, 2) fatty acid composition, 3) macronutrient composition, 4)
micronutrient density, 5) acid-base balance, 6) sodium-potassium ratio, and 7)
fiber content. However, the ultimate factor underlying diseases of civilization
is the collision of our ancient genome with the new conditions of life in
affluent nations, including the nutritional qualities of recently introduced
foods.”
Thus it is clear that in terms
of nutrition, hunter gatherers had a far healthy diet than agriculturalist and that
many of the chronic diseases of the contemporary stem from the mismatch of
agricultural based foods and our Palaeolithic genome. Although, it is obvious
that the Western diet is poor through the mere observation of the high chronic
levels of obesity, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes that plaque our
society. It should be known that I am not advocating the Palaeolithic diet as
the cure to all this. The consumption of the agricultural based foods and other
products is only a danger to health when it is combined with the sedentary
lifestyle we have and when preventative health measure (such as health
education, dental care, exercise) are ignored. In
summation, it is clear that the nutrition of hunter gatherers led to healthy
lives for the average person than in agricultural societies. Although through
modern medicine and preventative health, all the general nutrition and
therefore health of the average modern person is improved in theory if not in
practice.
--
Tasman Bain is a second year
Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology) and Bachelor of Social Science (International
Development) Student at the University of Queensland. He debated at the 2012
World Universities Debating Championship in Manila, was a Member of the 2011
Queensland Youth Parliament and was an Australian Representative at the 2010
Asia Pacific Young Leaders Summit in Singapore.
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