On Tue, Aug 5, 2014 at 12:56 PM, corinnalackmann <xxxxxx@gmx.de> wrote:

> c) hunter/gatherers have to be lucky to pass the age of thirty

Probably true.  It's a rough lifestyle, and it implies primitive
conditions.  It also implies you're not the apex predator for the
environment and still have natural competitors.

A lot of things are fatal without surgery and/or antibotics.

And it's worse if you're *migratory* hunter-gatherers.

(For things not immediately fatal, if they make it difficult to keep
up the group when it moves, those with mobility kills are likely to be
left behind to die.  The group will miss you, but they have to get to
the next food patch or starve.)

Medieval child mortality in Europe was up to 50% by age 6.  If you
survived to 6, your outlook was pretty good, but surviving the first
five years was iffy.

If there is any sort of food shortage, the unweened are in trouble.
If the winter is harsh, the kids and the elderly are mostly likely to
go hungry, sicken, and die.

And humans, unlike most animals, aren't seasonal breeders- which means
some poor schmucks get born in the winter, or worse yet, early spring,
when everybody's hungry.

--

"Any sufficiently advanced parody is indistinguishable from a genuine
kook." -Alan Morgan