Did our ancient ancestors have a better health?

Question

Since all they eated was fruits and vegetables...

Answer 1

Having a better diet does not equate to better health.  Their water was teeming with micro-organisms that kept them in constant digestive distress.  They had no refrigeration.  They bathed once a year.  You can see where this is going.

Answer 2

They also ate meat, nuts, insects, roots, fungi, and a lot of other stuff.  Overall, though, hunter/gatherer skeletons are often much healthier than an average skeleton from after the Agricultural Revolution.  Those ancestors ate a more varied diet, and one which humans evolved to eat.  It's only recent humans from the richer societies that are attaining heights common back then; height is one indication of good nutrition.

Answer 3

I think it depends upon where they lived. I've heard that pre-historic American Indians in the plains and parts of the mid-west were remarkably healthy!  They ate steaks a lot, along with the F&V. But, of course, they had very demanding physical exercise.

Look at the tribes in Africa, those people look very healthy, except for the occasional famine and epidemic.  But, when food supply is abundant, they appear much healthier than the average american with MickeyD wrappers in his truck.

Answer 4

Actually, if you are talking about our hunter/gathering days, we ate copious amounts of grubs and insects, too, then.  One anthropology professor I had once was able to ascertain from observing other primates in the wild, that a CONSIDERABLE amount of our protein came from the bugs we picked off each other and ate in our grooming behaviors. No, our ancestors even one hundred years ago did not have better health than we do today, or live nearly as long.

Answer 5

Archaeologists really only started finding skeletal evidence of major disease 10,000 years ago around the time people began using agriculture.  

Of course there was disease before this time, but living close together in one place made conditions unsanitary and easy to spread disease.  The general health of people declined slightly from what it was when they were moving around the land because they were sedantary.  

Domesticating animals also caused humans to develop some diseases from living near the animals.  It was around this time that two of the most deadly diseases developed: Tuberculosis and leprosy.  So yes, people before the development of agriculture were somewhat healthier but not completely due to their diet, it was mostly due to settling and living in a permenant place.

Answer 6

there are no such thing as ancient ancestors.   you are alone in the world.  you exist only in your thoughts.

Answer 7

I think some were generally healthier but because of lack of medical care, lots of things could be deadly so life expectancy was short.  In addition, droughts or famines could happen occasionally that might be very unhealthy. Infant mortality was high as was death from delivering babies.

Answer 8

Anthropologists who work with hunter-gatherers (!Kung, for example) have argued that our ancestors may have been similar.  Diet was more diverse, they were more active, and lived in smaller communities (50 to 100) which would split during conflicts or over-population.  Once we became agriculturists, there was less activity, reliance on a less-diverse diet (namely a grain), and over-population....which led to disease and sanitation issues.

Answer 9

who said they ate fruits & veggies only?  depending on who's ancestors & how far back is 'ancient' (some people think being over 65 as being ancient), our earliest human ancestors had a hard-scrabble existence. if nature & weather didn't do you in, the wild fauna or your wild neighbor did.  as far as health went, i really don't think it fair to pair off apples & bananas & expect anything other than fruit salad.  while they were small in number, lived a solitary life among themselves, their life was centered among themselves. ergo, if disease entered into a small enclave, woe to those in that enclave. water might've been cleaner but the water used was also used for personal needs, drinking, animal caring, etc.  trash (and there certainly was that back then) was dumped not too far from camp.  the public potties/toilet facilities was locally struck within the tented areas.  their dead?  maybe buried or maybe just left for the wild beasts to consume. i mean how healthy would it have been with rotting garbage or bodies close by - the smell alone... who knows?  there wasn't any fast food places, the eternal fat factories we frequent, dunkin donuts, coffee barns, etc., cars, machines that do it all for us but there were other pitfalls.  let's face it friend.  each generation trades off one thing for another.  question should really be: are we better off today than yesterday?  or maybe better yet:   are we living for today with tomorrow in mind?

Answer 10

You need to define "better health".

Human's living (on average) past the age of 35 is a rather recent occurrence.

Today we see many maladies the "ancients" never did (cancer, diabetes, heart disease, etc), this is because they most likely were killed by common infections that have now been eradicated.