If you had to live like a hunter-gatherer what lifestyle and location would you pick?

[Angela]

Are you so sure about this Angela? There were fewer hunter gatherers but why do you think that they were getting extinct if not for the farmers? Besides, in as much as I remember hunter gatherers were better fed, taller, stronger and healthier (i.e., had better teeth) compared to incoming farmers. And they did not have to work like farmers. Being a hunter gatherer in a nice warm climate must have been a real bless. The golden age, according to Greeks...

Farmer strength is about being numerous and in the long run creating cities and culture that we all enjoy now.

I'm not sure of very much in this life, and certainly not in the field of genetics. All I try to do is figure out, with the help of academic papers and intelligent members of the amateur community, where we are in terms of the current state of knowledge. As we know, that can change, and change quickly in this field. ( I occasionally stray into predictions, but they're possibilities or probabilities and I always try to state that's the case. I'm also not "married" to them. If I was wrong, I say so. I also say when I was right, which is probably annoying. )

There were so few hunter-gatherers in most parts of the world because it's difficult to sustain life on hunting and gathering. (One major exception would be the Natufians, who were blessed by being able to live in a time and place brimming with various food resources.)

When you have such small, isolated, groups, climate change, a natural disaster, anything that would upset the natural order, could wipe them out. In a much more populous "farmer" group the odds are just greater that some would survive, not to mention any other advantages.

As for the comparisons that are made in terms of "health", I don't think taller or more "robust" in build equates to healthier. Are northern Europeans "healthier" than the Japanese? A lot of that was the result of the fact that many of the hunter-gatherers in Paleolithic and Mesolithic Europe were living in a place and in a climate where a disproportionate share of their diet was from animal protein, which would have an impact on this. Hunter-gatherers in other places, with other diets, would be different. The hunter-gatherers of Northwest Africa, for example, who consumed a lot of hazelnuts because they grew wild there, had a lot of cavities.

Just recently it has been discovered that even Neanderthals, often claimed to be predominately meat eaters, actually varied depending on their location. The Neanderthals of Spain ate a predominately plant based diet.
http://www.eupedia.com/forum/thread...-lives-of-Neanderthals?highlight=Neanderthals
http://www.archaeology.org/news/5363-170308-neanderthal-dental-plaque

"ADELAIDE, AUSTRALIA—Nature reports that scientists from the University of Adelaide and the University of Liverpool analyzed DNA obtained from the dental plaque of five Neanderthals whose remains were recovered in northern Spain’s El Sidrón Cave, and compared the results to a study of the plaque obtained from four Neanderthals buried in Belgium’s Spy Cave. The results suggest that while the Neanderthals from Spy Cave enjoyed rhinoceros and sheep meat, the Neanderthals living in Spain ate a vegetarian diet. One of the individuals, who suffered from a dental abscess, also carried an intestinal parasite. His plaque contained traces of poplar, which contains the active ingredient in aspirin, and a natural antibiotic mold. Neither of these substances were detected in the other plaque samples, which suggests he may have been treated with medicinal plants. The genome sequence of one of the types of ancient mouth bacteria in the samples suggests it was transferred to Neanderthals from modern humans. “If you’re swapping spit between species, there’s kissing going on, or at least food sharing, which would suggest that these interactions were much friendlier and more intimate than anybody ever possibly imagined,” said Laura Weyrich of the University of Adelaide."

The paper is behind a pay wall, but this is a link to the supplement. You can also access the figures.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature21674.html#supplementary-information

It's true, though, as you imply, that the "farmers" carried a heavier disease load, both from living in close proximity to other humans and animals. Yet, they still increased in number at a much higher and faster rate than most hunter-gatherers. It took a long time to adapt, and the process isn't over yet.

How does that square with the studies which show such high rates of infant mortality among the early farmers? Why did most hunter-gatherer populations stay so small and stable over time, or grow so slowly? I've always wondered if they deliberately controlled their reproduction in some way, or the infants died in even greater percentages.

This recent (2015) paper suggests one possible factor. You might find it interesting. I know I did.
http://www.pnas.org/content/113/17/4694.full

Basically, the authors suggest that the transition to agriculture resulted in greater fitness in mothers, leading to increased population sizes even if there was also some increase in disease load.

 

[Dagne]

The sickle looks very nice, but I think it is the farmers who had that. There are axes, but not sickles in the first CWC graves in the East Baltic. According to local archeology, CWC in the current Lithuanian territory were semi-nomadic. They had cattle, and were traders, settled near "busy" places (rivers, connected lakes or coast) where they could exchange things and find raw materials. The local hunter gatherers remained in the forest and at the sea (fishing and hunting seals a lot). The first farming activities of a culture made of local hunters and CWC near the Baltic sea seemed to have taken place without sickles, just picking whatever they had grown by hands... (oh my God how difficult!) I read one version, that it is only due to Bell Beaker influence who were much more advanced culturally and also in farming that local herders (CWC) and forest hunters-fishes started mixing up better and took up some real farming.

In the Lithuanian forests there were wild horses, bisons, taurus, all kind of deer and elks, bears, beavers and boars and lots of other smaller animals (but no goats because it is too northern) and birds that could be hunted. The boars just thrive in the forest, so at some point in iron age, domestic pigs were the main type of food (Oh I would not want to have lived at that time, stinking business...)

Besides, I read that climate when the CWC started moving in was warmer than now - summers were longer and winters were milder! If it is really so, that makes a lot of difference, because it is very difficult to withstand -20C or colder in the winter for humans and also for domestic animals.

 

[Angela]

The sickle looks very nice, but I think it is the farmers who had that. There are axes, but not sickles in the first CWC graves in the East Baltic. According to local archeology, CWC in the current Lithuanian territory were semi-nomadic. They had cattle, and were traders, settled near "busy" places (rivers and lakes) where they could exchange things and find raw materials. The local hunter gatherers remained in the forest and at the sea (fishing and hunting seals a lot). The first farming activities of a culture made of local hunters and CWC near the Baltic sea seemed to have taken place without sickles, just picking whatever they had grown by hands... (oh my God how difficult!) I read one version, that it is only due to Bell Beaker influence who were much more advanced culturally and also in farming that local herders (CWC) and forest hunters-fishes started mixing up better and took up some real farming.

In the Lithuanian forests there were wild horses, bisons, taurus, all kind of deer and elks, beavers and boars and lots of other smaller animals (but no goats because it is too northern) and birds that could be hunted. The boars just thrive in the forest, so at some point in iron age, domestic pigs were the main type of food (Oh I would not want to have lived at that time, stinking business...)

Besides, I read that climate when the CWC started moving in was warmer than now - summers were longer and winters were milder! If it is really so, that makes a lot of difference, because it is very difficult to withstand -20C or colder in the winter for humans and also for domestic animals.

That particular sickle was Neolithic, yes, but pre-Neolithic people had them as well.

See:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sickle

I checked the sources; it seems legit.

"The development of the sickle in Mesopotamia can be traced back to times that pre-date the Neolithic Era. Large quantities of sickle blades have been excavated in sites surrounding Israel that have been dated to the Epipaleolithic era (18000-8000 BC).^[1] Formal digs in Wadi Ziqlab, Jordan have unearthed various forms of early sickle blades. The artifacts recovered ranged from 10 to 20 cm in length and possessed a jagged edge. This intricate ‘tooth-like’ design showed a greater degree of design and manufacturing credence than most of the other artifacts that were discovered. Sickle blades found during this time were made of flint, straight and used in more of a sawing motion than with the more modern curved design. Flints from these sickles have been discovered near Mt. Carmel, which suggest the harvesting of grains from the area about 10,000 years ago.^[2]"

Sorry, I thought your point was that people need iron to make sickles for cutting grass.

"Dagne: They had their summer and winter places to be, without having to prepare hey (and how would they cut the grass without having iron?) "

That's very interesting about the lack of sickles in the Lithuanian Corded Ware. The word for sickle seems to be part of the Indo-European lexicon. Mallory lists it, but unfortunately doesn't discuss it.
https://books.google.com/books?id=tzU3RIV2BWIC&pg=PA8&lpg=PA8&dq=Did+Corded+Ware+culture+have+sickles+for+harvesting+grain+and+grass.&source=bl&ots=wWr5-192cK&sig=EMBrsgWChMulyUM8uBOtsG8NAbA&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiU_dLl_NPSAhUPzWMKHQ9SBPAQ6AEIITAB#v=onepage&q=Did%20Corded%20Ware%20culture%20have%20sickles%20for%20harvesting%20grain%20and%20grass.&f=false

You're right about local ecology shaping various Corded Ware areas differently:
https://books.google.com/books?id=k...&q=sickles found in Corded Ware sites&f=false

This is about sickles found in Estonian site, but it's late Bronze Age, I think.
https://books.google.com/books?id=F...&q=sickles found in Corded Ware sites&f=false

 

[Dagne]

Apart from natural reasons (natural infant mortality) Hunter gatherers may not had too many children because their groups had to remain small in order to sustain.
Farmers differently, needed more hands to work on their land. Besides, hunter gatherers did not have property that they could accumulate. Farmers differently, wanted to have more, and children in all farmer societies make the family stronger and more secure.

I also read some theories which say that sexual inequality, treating woman as an object (the price of a wife is two and a half camels, which is what I heard when travelling in the Central Asia) came to existence only with the time when people started accumulating property (farmers or herders). Before that European hunter gatherers were equalitarian - meaning that women could decide more regarding the number of children they have. I am not sure if this was the case, but who knows?

Regarding health - I don't think one can compare present Northern Europeans to Hunter gatherers. Current Northern Europeans are couch potatoes. Period.
Our bodies and brains are shrinking ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...peaked-7-300-years-ago-declining-rapidly.html

 

[Angela]

Apart from natural reasons (natural infant mortality) Hunter gatherers may not had too many children because their groups had to remain small in order to sustain.
Farmers differently, needed more hands to work on their land. Besides, hunter gatherers did not have property that they could accumulate. Farmers differently, wanted to have more, and children in all farmer societies make the family stronger and more secure.

I also read some theories which say that sexual inequality, treating woman as an object (the price of a wife is two and a half camels, which is what I heard when travelling in the Central Asia) came to existence only with the time when people started accumulating property (farmers or herders). Before that European hunter gatherers were equalitarian - meaning that women could decide more regarding the number of children they have. I am not sure if this was the case, but who knows?

Regarding health - I don't think one can compare present Northern Europeans to Hunter gatherers. Current Northern Europeans are couch potatoes. Period.
Our bodies and brains are shrinking ...
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencet...peaked-7-300-years-ago-declining-rapidly.html

From the paper above, another factor affecting population growth, besides the h-g controlling fertility themselves through abortion or infanticide:
"Mothers Who Forage More Exhibit Lower Fertility.

A high degree of foraging also significantly predicts fertility (β = −1.4 ± 0.7, P = 0.04). As a result, mothers who spent less than 75% of their time foraging experience 0.23 higher fertility residuals than expected for their age. Mothers who spent more than 75% of their time foraging had 0.85 less offspring, given their age (SI Appendix, Table S7). Women who spent more time foraging also had marginally lower BMI (β = −1.5 ± 0.9, P = 0.08). Therefore the transition to farming as measured by both increasing cultivation and sedentarization is positively associated with fertility, perhaps because of increased somatic resources."

Of course, that's based on modern foragers, so the results have to be interpreted cautiously.

As to your modern example, I think the Japanese are couch potatoes now too. Plus, there's a whole school of thought that decreasing size in humans has been a factor in human evolution for tens of thousands of years.

 

[LeBrok]

Apart from natural reasons (natural infant mortality) Hunter gatherers may not had too many children because their groups had to remain small in order to sustain.

I don't think they could control population number by understanding their peculiar situation and by statistical calculation maximum allowable number of hunter gatherer tribes per square km. There had to be natural forces in play. Either they have very very low libido and had sex only once a year, or high mortality of mothers during birth of kids, or numbers are controlled by food accessibility versus starvation. Possibly all 3 reasons in play.

There is an interesting statistics about wolf population in Canadian forests. Population goes up and down from year to year, but always at the same ration of wolves to to deer. If deer number goes up, up goes also number of wolves in the area. If number of deer will half because of a dry year and lack of grass, we can expect wolf population to get smaller by a half too. Very simple mechanism of "controlling" wolf population.

 

[Dagne]

Funny, it is very difficult to find references when the first sickles appear in Lithuania. As I can read, the first ones were made from bronze, and they were very precious imported goods

 

[LeBrok]

Funny, it is very difficult to find references when the first sickles appear in Lithuania. As I can read, the first ones were made from bronze, and they were very precious imported goods

I wonder, if they had and used sickles in Yamnaya, from where (supposedly) CW came from to Lithuania?

 

[Angela]

I don't think they could control population number by understanding their peculiar situation and by statistical calculation maximum allowable number of hunter gatherer tribes per square km. There had to be natural forces in play. Either they have very very low libido and had sex only once a year, or high mortality of mothers during birth of kids, or numbers are controlled by food accessibility versus starvation. Possibly all 3 reasons in play.

There is an interesting statistics about wolf population in Canadian forests. Population goes up and down from year to year, but always at the same ration of wolves to to deer. If deer number goes up, up goes also number of wolves in the area. If number of deer will half because of a dry year and lack of grass, we can expect wolf population to get smaller by a half too. Very simple mechanism of "controlling" wolf population.

The paper I posted speculates that a forager lifestyle makes women less "fit" in terms of fertility. They also notice lower BMI. From what I remember, if BMI in women gets too low they no longer menstruate. That may be one of, but probably not the only factor.

Living constantly on the move may just have eaten up too many calories. While working in the fields can be back breaking, it's seasonal. Also, I remember some feminist treatments of the subject which suggest that as soon as the plow came into use, the major back breaking work was done by men.

 

[Dagne]

This is an interesting article which explain about grow rates of hunter gatherers and agriculturalists. It is all based on developments on Americas though. I think that in Europe agriculturalists outnumbered hunter gatherers not because of fertility rates but because agriculturalists were destroying natural habitats for hunter gatherers (burning forests) because of which hunter gatherers retreated to less rich environments (north).


Prehistoric hunter–gatherer population growth rates rival those of agriculturalists

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4743830/

"For example, mobility has traditionally been argued to limit hunter–gatherer fertility on the logic that because mothers could only carry one child, the minimum space between births among mobile populations would be determined by the age at which a child could walk on its own when a family moved from one camp to another, a premise central to the thesis that mobility had limited Pleistocene hunter–gatherer population growth and the emergence of sedentism in the early Holocene had triggered major post-Pleistocene population growth leading to the development of agriculture (10). This traditional understanding seems not to be true. The major trend from more to less mobile settlement patterns during the Holocene seems to have had little or no effect on population growth rates demonstrated in radiocarbon records, the Wyoming-Colorado record in particular, which spans the shift from more mobile Paleoindian to less mobile Archaic adaptations, lending support to the idea that mobility, per se, does not inhibit fertility (11). "

 

[Angela]

Interesting. It doesn't, however, answer the question of why the population level of h-gs in Europe stayed so stable for millennia (before the arrival of any farmers), whereas in the Levant there was a large increase of population among the Natufians when they became sedentary during the Holocene (before actual domestication).

I was looking for suggestions by academics as to the reasons for such a lack of population increase among the European h-g populations other than some sort of infanticide because food resources just weren't available, or extremely high infant mortality rates, even higher than the high percentages among farmers, or LeBrok's humorous suggestion of a serious lack of sex drive (not to be taken seriously, obviously).

Coincidentally, this video by John Hawkes came across my feed yesterday about the Natufians and his view that it was sedentarism and large population numbers which gave rise to domestication, and not the reverse. The large population numbers would seem to be tied to the fact that there was an abundance and diversity of resources, yes?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQtzwoOYrkE

 

[LeBrok]

It makes sense. Sedentism was a key to seed storage for planting next year. A key to agriculture. Also makes people to invest more in better huts, a temple, stone buildings, etc. It also makes sense that first farming/civilization arose during interglacial warm and moist period, when earth was greener, with more edible plants and animals. They finally could settle down. No coincidence then that farming happened in few places on earth simultaneously right after Ice Age.

 

[Dagne]

Yes, I think you're right. As per article on Americas in every environment the population growths to the point of "carrying capacity". "Carrying capacity can be difficult to calculate, but it varies strongly with the density and growth rate, of limiting resources, both of which are much higher for plants than for animals and much higher for domesticated plants than for wild plants".

It means that under favourable conditions farming can "yield" faster growing populations. Besides, I suppose where a population turns to farming there is no return. A hunter gatherer may sometimes to turned to farmer, but no farmer would be turned to hunter gatherer...

 

[Angela]

Another benefit to ever larger populations is the chance for advantageous mutations to arise. Most denovo mutations are of course neutral, some negative if not disastrous, but the disastrous ones usually die along with the host. The advantageous ones can spread very quickly, however.

I don't know how many readers of science fiction there are on this board, but even if people don't normally read it, there's an excellent example of fiction either illuminating or even prefiguring science in the "Dune" series of books by Frank Herbert. A lot of it can be read with genetics and the control of genetics in mind, along with environmental forces. One of the main points is that there is an understanding among the most prescient that humanity is only "safe" with large, scattered, difficult to find populations, and that in those conditions beneficial mutations can spread and flourished.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(franchise)

There are some examples in Europe itself of "farmer" groups turning more to fishing than to farming because of climate change. Needs must. The more common scenario is becoming more pastoral when the climate becomes drier. In general, however, no, farmers don't become hunter-gatherers. It was the rare European settler who willingly chose to join the Sioux.

Anyway, John Hawkes has confirmed my decision that if I had to be a hunger-gatherer, I'd be a Natufian.

 

[Dagne]

I don't imagine anything worse than being a stone age Eskimo (I remember reading the Book of the Eskimos by Peter Freuchen...)

 

[LeBrok]

I don't imagine anything worse than being a stone age Eskimo (I remember reading the Book of the Eskimos by Peter Freuchen...)

My sentiment too.

 

[William]

Interesting post.
I've actually thought about this recently.
The exact spot where I live would be almost perfect, the one problem.... winter, albeit mild. Put it in southern Italy/Sicily and...perfect.
In fact I live about 200 yards from the site of a permanant encampment of Native American hunter / gatherers on Long Island in New York.
It's at the head of a large bay, and adjacent to a fresh water creek which was navigable about 3 miles inland. Located on a natural terrace, it had a panoramic view of the bay, and was safe from any flooding save from a Cat 5 hurricane steaming directly up the bay. The bay is surrounded by an immense salt marsh which attracts migrating birds of all kinds, including ducks and geese.
Mussels, clams, scallops, crabs, lobsters, and various small fish were available year round. Larger, ocean going fish bread in the salt marsh and are available as bait fish, as well as adults returning to breed. They were so plentiful that when i was a boy all I had to do to get bait was wade 3 or four feet into the bay and kick water onto the beach...it would be full of fish.
The landscape rises gradually in a rolling fashion to mid island where it meets the glacial moraine which is the high point. Before European settlement it was heavily wooded, (containing Chestnut Trees, blueberries, raspberries Concord grapes, and various edible greens and tubers), and was full of deer, turkey and the occasional black bear.
Nearby were Trout and Salmon streams.

This seems to me to be a 'paradise' of sorts. I wonder what the native people did with the time they did not need to find food. I would have expected more cultural advancement than they demonstrated.

 

[LeBrok]

Interesting post.
I've actually thought about this recently.
The exact spot where I live would be almost perfect, the one problem.... winter, albeit mild. Put it in southern Italy/Sicily and...perfect.
In fact I live about 200 yards from the site of a permanant encampment of Native American hunter / gatherers on Long Island in New York.
It's at the head of a large bay, and adjacent to a fresh water creek which was navigable about 3 miles inland. Located on a natural terrace, it had a panoramic view of the bay, and was safe from any flooding save from a Cat 5 hurricane steaming directly up the bay. The bay is surrounded by an immense salt marsh which attracts migrating birds of all kinds, including ducks and geese.
Mussels, clams, scallops, crabs, lobsters, and various small fish were available year round. Larger, ocean going fish bread in the salt marsh and are available as bait fish, as well as adults returning to breed. They were so plentiful that when i was a boy all I had to do to get bait was wade 3 or four feet into the bay and kick water onto the beach...it would be full of fish.
The landscape rises gradually in a rolling fashion to mid island where it meets the glacial moraine which is the high point. Before European settlement it was heavily wooded, (containing Chestnut Trees, blueberries, raspberries Concord grapes, and various edible greens and tubers), and was full of deer, turkey and the occasional black bear.
Nearby were Trout and Salmon streams.

This seems to me to be a 'paradise' of sorts. I wonder what the native people did with the time they did not need to find food. I would have expected more cultural advancement than they demonstrated.

Technological advancement is correlated more with population density than with nice environment. The bigger the group of people the more knowledge is created and retained. Hunter gatherers never managed dense population. This is a nature of it. Not enough food in one place to support tens of thousands of people in one settlement. That's the reason that civilizations showed up together with farming. Mass production of high caloric food was the key.

 

[stevenarmstrong]

Ancient Hawaiian!

 

[LeBrok]

Ancient Hawaiian!

Moana! They were first class sailors. I wonder if they were really that good to sail Pacific, looking at stars, and come back to the same little island to tell stories, or it was a game of numbers. For example many new families needed to sail off into vast ocean and one in 20 got lucky landing on new islands starting new population?