Expert: Ralph Salier - 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
Hi Geoff,

I would prefer that we think of this in terms of pre and post agricultural peoples.  Pre agricultural peoples had a diet high in meat and collected foods which may have had a lower grit factor thus leaving the teeth in reasonably good condition.  Plus these preag people tended to use their teeth as a spare hand and they took reasonable care of their teeth.  Of course their life span was shorter then agricultural peoples in general since a life of hunting and gathering is much harder then a more sedentary one.  On the other side of the equation, once people settled down and took up farming, the diet was less varied, higher in grit from the grinding stones used to grind grain and this ware plus the limited diet, did result in a generally poorer health.  This was not always true however esepcially in the middle east, Egypt and other areas where farmers and animal husbandry were found together thus improving the balance of diet.  In NA and parts of central America, the islands of the pacific, where meat was in short supply, the farmers did show a distinct decrease in health.  The book about the Koster Site by S. Strever discusses this as do other books looking at the late woodland and mississippian periods in NA.  The Maya and Olmec also showed signs of this which is why some levels of canabilism existed (also in the pacific islands).  

So an improperly ballanced agricultural diet is not good for you, it must have meat or a good understanding of balancing with eggs, or legumes to prevent food linked vitamine illnesses like scurvey.

On the internet look for vitamin or mineral shortages which cause illnesses.