The project has taken 8 years and $1.2 million to organize so far. The goal was to pool 72 researchers' data on standardized indicators of health from skeletal remains, including stature, dental health, degenerative joint disease, anemia, trauma, and the isotopic signatures of what they ate [. . .](Link via John Hawks)
They found that the health of many Europeans began to worsen markedly about 3000 years ago, after agriculture became widely adopted in Europe and during the rise of the Greek and Roman civilizations. They document shrinking stature and growing numbers of skeletal lesions from leprosy and tuberculosis, caused by living close to livestock and other humans in settlements where waste accumulated. The numbers of dental hypoplasias and cavities also increased as people switched to a grain-based diet with fewer nutrients and more sugars.
[Ann Gibbons. Civilization's Cost: The Decline and Fall of Human Health. Science 1 May 2009 DOI: 10.1126/science.324_588a]
Civilization and health
More evidence the switch from hunting/gathering to settled agriculture was associated with diminished human health:
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3 comments:
The crux of this issue is that the worldwide human population is now out-of-control - and settled agriculture allowed for this.
Agriculture and being settled in one location allowed for human populations to grow much larger than they could ever be under hunting-gathering, where smallish tribes of humans were constantly on the move looking for resources. During that time birth control/infanticide was routine to keep the population under control and low enough to be sustainable in the local environment they lived in (if they were a semi-settled group). If and when a hunting-gathering tribe grew too large to be sustainable/manageable (a sign of evolutionary success) it would often split or splinter to form a new group - this is how modern humans have so many different ethnic groups contained within the main racial groups.
In a broad evolutionary sense settled agriculture allowed humans to become a more successful species overall because of larger numbers...however, as you and others well point out, INDIVIDUAL humans under settled agriculture generally suffered from worsening health because of inadequate diets while at the same time the OVERALL human group or tribe (and worldwide humanity) was strengthened by sheer numbers, which slowly but surely caused the more settled and ostensibly more 'advanced' agricultural civilizations to eventually overcome the more 'primitive' and wandering hunter-gatherer cultures.
So it’s kind of a trade-off - as I said, most individual humans are generally a bit worse off under settled agriculture but the overall human group as a whole is larger and stronger (at least if you believe in the adage “strength in numbers”). Being in a settled agricultural civilization has the distinct advantage of allowing an intellectual class to eventually develop because of extra time for research and study due to the fact that people don't have to spend all their time hunting, gathering, foraging, etc just to survive.
Sadly, there is no way to go back to hunting-gathering unless at least 2/3 of the current human population died off or otherwise disappeared.
However, we humans are smart and conscious enough to ‘re-enact’ the hunter-gatherer lifestyle - there are some people now doing exactly this...they often espouse so called 'primal living' and sometimes refer to themselves as 'primalists' or 'primitivists'
(not related to the early 20th century art movement). They only eat (or to try to only eat) the food which our ancient human ancestors ate...they exercise like our ancient human ancestors did (lots and lots of walking), and so forth.
I am learning about this movement and adopting some of the very healthy practices espoused by these 'primalists'; I believe many of these practices should be adopted by as many people as possible worldwide because we are advanced and aware enough to live and prosper in a settled agricultural civilization as we do nowadays yet still act like pseudo-primal-hunter-gatherers as often as possible to derive the obvious health benefits from it.
In relation to the pro-White activist movement (White nationalism, White preservationism, etc) I believe that it would be wise to link up with these 'primalists' and become followers and exponents of these views, as many of these primalists are disaffected Whites who are frustrated and fed-up with the current Judeo-industrial system of hegemony and would likely be quite receptive to the pro-White message. Another similar group which pro-White activists should link up with are the so called 'survivalists' who are all about readiness and survival in the face of extreme adversity, widespread hardship, societal breakdown, etc. Similar to the primalists, the survivalists also tend to be vigilant Whites who are well-aware of the currently unstable, unsustainable, and very fragile systems in many countries and seek to reform it and/or cope with the bad circumstances which many believe will inevitably arise if we continue upon the current unsustainable and unstable course.
After posting this and thinking about it throughout the day I came to a simple conclusion that could mostly explain the Jewish problem as it currently exists.
Quite simply, as a nomadic/diasporic/wandering minority group, Jews remain pseudo-hunter-gatherers in a world of settled agricultural peoples. Perhaps this is why they face so much resentment and persecution wherever they go? They are still living a quasi-hunter-gatherer existence whilst most of the other groups around the world have long stopped wandering around and have settled down in to permanent agricultural societies.
I liked the first post, but I think you're on the wrong track with the second.
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