The Neolithic and Human Biology 249the eastern Mediterranean. At this
stage, wild foods are still consumed
periodically, and a variety of plants
are cultivated, suggesting the avail-
ability of adequate amounts of differ-
ent nutrients. Based on the increasing
frequency of tooth disease related to
high carbohydrate consumption, it
seems that cultivated plants probably
increased the storable calorie sup-
ply, removing for a time any seasonal
or periodic problems in food supply.
In most regions, however, the devel-
opment of agriculture seems not to
have had this effect, and there seems
to have been a slight increase in
physiological stress.Stress, however, does not seem to have
become common and widespread until
after the development of high degrees
of sedentism, population density, and
reliance on intensive agriculture. At this
stage in all regions the incidence of physi-
ological stress increases greatly, and aver-
age mortality rates increase appreciably.
Most of these agricultural popula-
tions have high frequencies of porotic
hyperostosis and cribra orbitalia [bone
deformities indicative of chronic iron-
deficiency anemia], and there is a
substantial increase in the number
and severity of enamel hypoplasias and
pathologies associated with infectious
disease. Stature in many populations
appears to have
been considerably
lower than would
be expected if ge-
netically determined
height maxima had
been reached, which
suggests that the
growth arrests asso-
ciated with patholo-
gies were causing
stunting.
Accompanying
these indicators
of poor health and
nourishment, there
is a universal drop
in the occurrence of
Harris lines, suggest-
ing a poor rate of full
recovery from thestress. Incidence of carbohydrate-related
tooth disease increases, apparently be-
cause subsistence by this time is char-
acterized by a heavy emphasis on a few
starchy food crops. Populations seem to
have grown beyond the point at which
wild food resources could be a meaning-
ful dietary supplement, and even do-
mestic animal resources were commonly
reserved for farm labor and transport
rather than for diet supplementation.
It seems that a large proportion of
most sedentary prehistoric populations
under intensive agriculture underwent
chronic and life-threatening malnutri-
tion and disease, especially during
infancy and childhood. The causes of
the nutritional stress are likely to have
been the poverty of the staple crops in
most nutrients except calories, periodic
famines caused by the instability of the
agricultural system, and chronic lack of
food due to both population growth and
economic expropriation by elites. The
increases in infectious disease probably
reflect both a poorer diet and increased
interpersonal contact in crowded settle-
ments, and it is, in turn, likely to have
aggravated nutritional problems.Adapted from Roosevelt, A. C. (1984).
Population, health, and the evolution
of subsistence: Conclusions from the
conference. In M. N. Cohen & G. J.
Armelagos (Eds.), Paleopathology at the
origins of agriculture (pp. 572–574).
Orlando: Academic Press.Enamel hypoplasias, such as those shown on these teeth, are
indicative of arrested growth caused by famine or disease.
These teeth are from an adult who lived in an ancient farming
community in Arizona.© Alan H. Goodman, Hampshire CollegeFor the most part, the crops on which Neolithic
peoples came to depend were selected for their higher
productivity and storability rather than their nutritional
value. Moreover, as already noted, their nutritional
shortcomings would have been exacerbated by their
susceptibility to periodic failure, particularly as popu-
lations grew in size. Thus the worsened health and
mortality of Neolithic peoples are not surprising. Some
have gone so far as to assert that the switch from food
foraging to food production was the worst mistake that
humans ever made.
Another key contributor to the increased incidence of
disease and mortality was probably the new mode of life
in Neolithic communities. Sedentary life in fixed villages
brings with it sanitation problems as garbage and hu-
man waste accumulate. These are not a problem for small
groups of people who move about from one campsite
to another. Moreover, airborne diseases are more easily
transmitted where people are gathered into villages. As
discussed in Chapter 2, farming practices also created
the ideal environment for the species of mosquito that
spreads malaria.
Another factor, too, was the close association between
humans and their domestic animals, a situation conducive
to the transmission of diseases. A host of life-threatening
diseases—including smallpox, chicken pox, swine flu, and
many of those infectious diseases of childhood that were
not overcome by medical science until the latter half of
the 20th century—were transmitted to humans through
their close association with domestic animals (Table 10.1).
Higher mortality rates in Neolithic villages were offset by
increased fertility, for population growth accelerated dra-
matically at precisely the moment that health and mortal-
ity worsened.