I’d love to see a follow-up about the sources of mortality in various times and places for our species. The point about modern deadly things simply not occurring prior to the advent of agriculture in a population is well made, I’m wondering what did kill foragers 20 000 years ago.

As a bit of speculation, while the nasty infectious diseases that killed so many humans up until the widespread adoption of vaccination and antibiotics (and decent sanitation & sewage disposal – how many lives were saved by the flush toilet?) were primarily related to livestock and human population density, some of the ways to die that have been tamed by modern medicine include opportunistic infections. It’s hard for me to imagine a lifestyle at any technological level in which minor cuts and scrapes on hands and forearms are really, really rare. Similarly, there are opportunisitc pathogens such as the organism that causes tetanus in pretty much any environment, agricultural or otherwise. Do deaths from such infections show up in fossilized skeletons?

“I do however believe that humans had a significantly shorter life expectancy before the advent of germ theory and the technologies that came from it.”

But the germs that many of our anti-germ technologies address would not have affected most “Paleolithic” populations. So, while what you say here may be partly true, there is an important missing element. One could say that police are killed less often today than they were in the palolithic because they have bullet proof vests.

“I’m also pretty sure that the degree to which LE was shorter varied from one society to another and was affected by other things such as culture, and access to natural resources.”

Absolutely, and not getting that is one of the common ways in which this whole concept is typically misunderstood.

I’m not sure what a troglodite is in this context.

Anyway, you may enjoy the podcast when it comes out!

I do however believe that humans had a significantly shorter life expectancy before the advent of germ theory and the technologies that came from it. I’m also pretty sure that the degree to which LE was shorter varied from one society to another and was affected by other things such as culture, and access to natural resources.

I readily admit that I’m not well versed in the subject of mortality rates in paleolithic foragers. AFAIK the main differences between a troglodite, a medieval peasant, and a modern urbanite, are the level of technology and the size of the tribes we belong to.

Perhaps we will lose the deep rooted tribal “us and them” instinct one day, stop fighting over territory and resources, and become more like our bonobo cousins, but I’m not holding my breath.

So that could be good example of the phrase used in modern context having some ambiguity in what it really means.

I’ve been saved by dentistry at least three times (assuming my upside down wisdom teeth would have led to abscess, though maybe not, and two other abscesses no, wait, three… so three or four times by the dentist). The injury I suffered to my knee a year ago would have left me as one of those corpses indicating that others brought me food and drink for a time before I died years after the stump heeled. You and I were both probably saved by modern medicine via vaccines a number of times. Most of those vaccines, though, are for diseases that we would not have gotten during the “paleolithic”

Personally, I credit the “modern world” with saving my life 3 times since the age of 35 – one tooth abscess, and two bouts of pneumonia. Of course that’s just speculation, there is a slim chance I may have survived without antibiotics.

PS: I would be delighted to edit your thoughts for you, you have my email. 😉