Research linking fat and cholesterol to plaque and heart disease is much different that research demonstrating causality. Since you’re obviously so steeped in the medical and scientific literature, I would be most pleased if you would provide me with the citations of said literature that do show causality. If you could do that for me, I would gladly change my thinking. Problem is, you can’t. Maybe because you’ve bought into all the B.S. that’s on the internet.

Also, you might want to review the primatology literature while you’re at it. Chimps are far from vegans.

Thanks for the Digg. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the blog, and I hope you enjoy the book.

I was aware of the prevalence of caries in the agriculturalists’ diet, but not the enamel hypoplasia or the porotic hyperostosis. Is it related to osteo porosis? Again, thank you, I’ve gotten new knowledge from your post.

BTW, you seem to be quite prolific these days. It’s great but I’m having trouble keeping up due to some personal issues. I’ll keep trying though. Keep up the good work.

Jim

Porotic hyperostosis is a skeletal sign of iron deficiency, which is different than osteoporosis.

From the abstract of Koca et al.:
“In this study, an attempt was made to evaluate the results of dental caries, which is the most common dental disease, in order to document changing patterns of health and diet ranging from the transitional period of hunting–gathering through agriculture to the present day in human history in Anatolia. From the total sample of 400 modern individuals, a total of 5,208 maxillary teeth and 5,153 mandibular teeth were studied. The percentage of the occurrence of dental caries based on the individuals was 77.8%, whereas the frequency of dental caries on tooth type and class was 17.1% (18.0% maxillary decay; 16.2% mandibular decay). A comparative study of the frequency of caries in certain periods indicates the following: in the hunting–gathering period it was 1%–2%, in the Early Neolithic it was 3%–5% (Catal Hoyuk), in the Neolithic (beginning of agriculture) it was 5.6% (Cayonu), in the Chalcolithic it was 11.7% (Norsuntepe), in the Roman period it was 11.1% (Panaztepe), and 16% (Datca), in the Late Byzantine it was 10.9% (Iznik) and in the Medieval it is 14.2% (Arslantepe). These findings contribute to understanding how dietary change and life
conditions are interrelated with the changing patterns of dental diseases in Anatolian populations.” (Koca et al., 2006, p. 215)

And here from their introduction:
“Within a remarkably short period of time following the Pleistocene – when climate, vegetation, and fauna became essentially modern – human populations worldwide adopted plant cultivation as a subsistence strategy. Whatever the cause, the change in diet had profound implications for nutritional ecology, health, and behavior in human beings. One of the most profound changes to occur with the foraging to farming transition was the widespread decline in oral health, which was almost certainly tied to increased consumption of plant carbohydrates. Especially obvious is the remarkable increase in dental caries wherever and whenever the transition occurred [17]. To this day, for most people, two thirds of protein and calorie intake is cereal-derived.” (Koca et al., 2006, p. 216)

Koca, B., Guleç, E., Gultekin, T., Akin, G., Gungor, K., & Brooks, S. L. (2006). Implications of dental caries in Anatolia: From hunting-gathering to the present. Human Evolution, 21(3-4), 215-222.

Regular self-administration of these substances [i.e. cereals and milk] facilitated the behavioural changes that led to the subsequent appearance of civilisation. (Wadley & Martin, 1993).

And here they spell out how such behavioural changes might have contributed to the rise of civilizations:

Thus major civilisations have in common that their populations were frequent ingesters of exorphins. We propose that large, hierarchical states were a natural consequence among such populations. Civilisation arose because reliable, on-demand availability of dietary opioids to individuals changed their behaviour, reducing aggression, and allowed them to become tolerant of sedentary life in crowded groups, to perform regular work, and to be more easily subjugated by rulers. Two socioeconomic classes emerged where before there had been only one (Johnson & Earle 1987:270), thus establishing a pattern which has been prevalent since that time. (Wadley & Martin, 1993)

I turned up a 2006 article by Zapata et al. which takes note of both this hypothesis and that of Brian Hayden, a leading prehistorian at Simon Fraser University in Canada, who suggests that cultivated foods were first consumed as luxury or prestige items, rather than staples, as part of the phenomenon of feasting that is common to complex hunter-gatherer societies, an idea which seems to further strengthen and complement Wadley and Martin’s hypothesis. So cereals, like chocolate and beer, are now ubiquitous and relatively devalued, but may very well have begun as the “substance” of choice among hunter-gatherers millennia ago (Hayden, 2003).

There’s also a really interesting piece (Chandler, 2009), in a recent issue of an oil company magazine of all things, that mentions Hayden’s hypothesis in its coverage of the fascinating debate over whether or not the massive monoliths uncovered in SE Turkey at Göbekli Tepe were constructed by hunter-gatherers around 11,600 years ago. The German archeologist leading the excavation, Klaus Schmidt, believes they were indeed the work of hunter-gatherers, although “many prominent archeologists argue that only a settled farming culture could have mustered the resources and the large, organized work crews necessary to build the temple, but Schmidt thinks otherwise”. And part of his justification for thinking that hunter-gatherers are responsible is also interesting: “They were hunter-gatherers, they were in top physical condition, and they could easily have come here regularly to build this temple and to work.” (Chandler, 2009)

Chandler, G. (2009). The beginning of the end for hunter-gatherers. Saudi Aramco World. Retrieved April 28, 2009 from http://www.saudiaramcoworld.com/issue/200902/the.beginning.of.the.end.for.hunter-gatherers.htm.

Hayden, B. (2003). Were luxury foods the first domesticates? Ethnoarchaeological perspectives from Southeast Asia. World Archaeology, 34(3), 458 – 469.

Wadley, G., & Martin, A. (1993). The origins of agriculture: A biological perspective and a new hypothesis. Retrieved 25 April 2009, from http://disweb.dis.unimelb.edu.au/staff/gwadley/msc/WadleyMartinAgriculture.html

Zapata, L., Peña-Chocarro, L., Pérez-Jordá, G., & Stika, H.-P. (2004). Early neolithic agriculture in the Iberian peninsula. Journal of World Prehistory, 18(4), 283-325.

Thanks for all the links. I appreciate them.

Unfortunately, anthropologists will omit evidence and even lie about such alcohol use in their studied population, probably to “protect the reputation” of that population (e.g., most of the existing nutrition journal articles on the Tarahumara of Mexico completely omit any reference to their prodigious consumption of corn beer. Such omission must be intentional, and any nutritional study is worthless when it ignores the regular and huge intake of a macronutrient such as alcohol).

So this is another potential difference between agriculturalists and hunter-gatherers.

Nothing in the original paper about alcohol consumption.