Makes sense.
Posted on 07/23/2011 6:46:46 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
Babydaddy, Babymomma, a couple of phrases which rank right down there with “I ain’t stupid” in sheer stupidity.
Single child families mandated by the state for nearly 40 years means, many people not only have no siblings, but they have not even one first cousin. It’s called legislating yourself out of existence, in this case, a.k.a. People’s Republic of Jonestown.
Before settled agriculture, there were risks of all kinds for the men and boys, related to leaving the confines of the small groups which cohabited (cave, tree, island, village, what have you), and as someone pointed out, death in childbirth was a big risk for the teenaged girls and the women. It seems to me that the main consequence of short lifespans as described would be that affinities other than direct ancestry/descent became all-important, hence the rise of tribal groups.
Once lifespans increased — standard as settled agriculture and the sodbusters took over — immediate family (and greater personal privacy) became important and dominant. Communal living fell off, and the village — which has existed in some form for 100s of 1000s of years, based on the patterns of postholes — became a collection of family domiciles of various kinds. Villages started to have common defense, grew ever-larger, merged with neighboring growing villages into cities...
There’s a fairly well-known Neandertal who’d clearly reached something like old age, and was disabled to boot, who must have relied on his nearest and dearest and/or the group he was an honored part of. This study is based on too few samples and too little information to make such a sweeping generalization. But that’s so-called Scientific American for ya.
I guess one more thing to consider - and something the bones might have something directly to say something about - is the longevity of teeth.
I would think that a toothless primitive man would be pretty much of a goner. And there would probably be all sorts of reasons to lose teeth.
I think Inuit would get cast out on the ice floes when they lost their teeth.
If you tended to lose your teeth around age 30 that would probably have a good deal to do with longevity.
Probably the transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculturalist would change the entire survival equation.
I do think you are on to something with the socialization idea. They may have gradually realized that there was safety in numbers. Groups can gather more food, evade predators better, and fight battles with enemies more successfully than individuals. That seems like common sense to most of us but there was likely a learning curve for early man. In a group setting it is generally the elders that mentor the younger members, so older members would have been valued more than in the past. Groups have many tasks that have to be done by someone, so weaker members would have been able to contribute something and would likely have been valued more for that reason.
Makes sense.
Thanks. It was her time. It was a quality of life thing.
Strict monogamy is not seen in primitive cultures. The high-status men have multiple wives. Also, a widowed grandmother may be kept around as a babysitter in any culture.
Excellent point.
Yeah. I figured that was the situation. There is a lot of proof that humans were not monogamous.
A couple of years ago I saw some touchy-feely article by a feminist arguing that grandmothers played a major role in the development of human society--ignoring the fact that most young mothers would not have had a living mother, and the elephant in the room: the prevalence of monogamous couples, where the mother has a husband to help her survive.
Thanks dhs12345.
There’s a “never forgets” joke in there somewhere...
Maybe the main problem with teeth is, when they get a hole and infected, they’ll eventually absess and kill the person — and pulling the bad tooth is not without the same kinds of risks. The rise of toolmaking probably was the result of trying to protect the teeth, it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out what happened to the guy or girl in the tribe who cracked a tooth on a shell, bone, or stone.
Probably the same article that I read or was referenced. It seemed plausible. As mentioned in this article is probably only recent.
It was all about survival and if the elderly were more of a burden than a benefit, they were expected to wander off and die.
I can certainly see how useful and helpful a grandmother might be... as they can be today.
“It’s funny ‘cos it’s true” - Homer
Indeed.
It's always been Us versus Them.
My money's on Us.
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