Expert: John J. Shea - 2/20/2006

Question
Hello,
I was wondering if you could give me  a number of references to online articles as well as your own personal  comments indicating that Palaeolithic Man was much healthier than Neolithic Man. I am looking at this from the perspective of diet, and would appreciate any comments on how Neolithic foods caused ill-health to the body.

Thanks so much,
Geoff Purcell

Answer
Dear Geoff
I do not have the time to do a web search for you.  Log on to Google and type in "Paleolithic/Palaeolithic Diet".  You might also try the names of S. Boyd Eation and Loren Cordain.  They have written a lot about this subject, and their names ought to lead you to good scientific papers.
My own comments Paleolithic vs. modern diets - generally speaking hunter-gatherer diets are better, -less concentrated sugar, fats, more roughage combined with regular vigorous exercise.  (The diet books often forget this last.)  Such qualities are well in line with what most sensible diet books recommend.  The trade-off, of course, is that Paleolithic humans did not typically live as long as we do, so they did not suffer the long-term consequenes of bad dietary choices made early in life.  Probably the main sources of ill-health from Neolithic lifeways were infections due to gum disease resulting from eating stone-ground cereal grains , zoonotic diseases that "jumped species" from domesticated animals, and epidemic diseases that would have "burned out" much more quickly among hunter-gatherer societies living at low population densities.
Another thing to keep in mind is that, as with hunter-gatherers today, there was probably a lot of geographic and chronological variation in diets, along with rapid changes in climate during pleistocene times.
Peter Ungar (Univ. Arkansas, Fayetteville) has a major book coming out soon about this topic.  I think he may have more information about it on his departmental website.
Sincerely,
John Shea