In my opinion, archeology fails to understand what it finds because: 1) most archeologists are male, and… 2) most archeologists are not doctors.
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Posted by
Reese on 08/05 at 08:32 PM
A very interesting writing and ideas by Piero, but biased partly on an unstable statistical foundation premise about population average age dynamics and presumed changes in maturation development of individuals or changes of behavior dynamics within groups of humans, based gender behavioral characteristics through breeding age stages (or gender stereotypes through populations of mixed ages through history).
A species population’s “average life expectancy” is not likely “the same” as individual, personal, developmental or some maximum life expectancy (an increase in a population’s “average age of death” is not the same as change in maximum life span for an individual in a species), nor does increasing population average age of death mean everything was previously done by much younger people in past times (regardless of gender similarities or developmental differences).
Very simply—statistically—in history, more humans died as infants, died early as children, died as adolescents or died as mothers during the birthing process—so statistically greater proportions of populations “die at these younger ages” than dynamics today—human hunter/gatherer groups and village dweller lifestyles were unlikely mostly infants, prepubescent children and young adolescent children. Human species developmental ages and stages may have evolved some but are likely similar over a 100,000 years.
We’re lacking evidence that “some” humans did not live to 50 or 80+ years of age (grandparents or great grandparents…) - evidence exists that “some humans” did live to “full maximum aged maturity”. The same species “individual age maximum” as existed for our species 10,000 years ago, or 1 million years ago, the same “individual maximal life span” as some humans may live out today (not all, but some). Evidence exists that puberty and breeding did not “start at younger ages” in past eons and evidence exists than some individual humans lived to very old ages (in past eons).
So before we draw conclusions about how group and gender population cultures “worked” in times past, let’s not be confused about statistical semantics that an observed increase of average life expectancy (reductions in deaths at young ages) also means that prepubescent adolescents (of either gender) lead tribal cultural norms.
Let’s also not get confused that “decreasing statistical death-rates of younger age individuals” (increase population average life expectancy, statistically)—is also somehow changing “maximum lifespan” of a human species individual.
Projections of mid life “population age statistical average trends” - into “younger age” culture or “older age” maximums - does not necessarily follow. The birth, age, breeding and individual death, life cycle of human species may not be changing as much as writers extrapolate concepts from.
Very sophisticated people sometime get confused in extrapolating observed changing “average life expectancy statistics trends” somehow—into humans living longer than some species individual typical maximum life spans—or inversely projecting social & gender differences into “pre-pubescent” human social groups, of younger populations, socially functioning differently in past times with - somehow “younger” alternate developmental & gender dynamics.
A species population’s “average life span expectancy of an individual” (probability of death at young ages) is a population statistic that doesn’t extrapolate in all dimensions…
Posted by
LynnH on 08/07 at 09:56 AM
While I fully agree with Reese regarding average age, I still find Scaruffi’s argument compelling. The first tool a sling? Yes, not just for carrying baby around, but also for carrying forage, since even the earliest hunter-gatherers did more gathering than hunting. And creating clothing demanded the creation of tools with which to stick the parts of the clothing together—even if they were only long thorns. Using sinew to sew must have come close after that.
I would argue with one of his points, however. It’s likely that early women, like women in primitive societies today, had few children because they nursed them for several years, providing natural birth control.
Posted by
R Wordsworth Holt on 08/07 at 09:54 PM
The human brain may not be fully formed before age 20, but pointing to this as a cause of ‘irrational, and barbaric’ behavior underestimates teenagers and overestimates adults in equal measure. The irrationality and barbarism of primitive people is uninteresting, and to be expected. We are animals who fight over mates, territory and resources. Male dominance (patriarchy) is a genetic inheritance shared with other primates.
‘What if teenagers made the decisions’ ought to be an empirical question - not a lazy rhetorical point.
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