Studies of contemporary hunter-gatherers as they transition from traditional to modern lifestyles reveal a marked reduction in their health and in the nutritional adequacy of their newly acquired diets. In addition to studies on extant populations, in the last few decades there is an increasingly sophisticated understanding of how environmental stressors and limited resources translates into pathologies detectable in ancient bones. This has led to an especially interesting range of investigations by archeologists on populations before and after the Agricultural Revolution starting over 10,000 years ago. Studies on the recently settled and on old bones may answer the perplexing question of why after the seeming ecological stability of the ancient human lifestyles (lasting, after all, from 200,000 to a mere 10,000 years ago) did the transition from hunter-gatherer modes of existence to an agricultural lifestyle occur at all?
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Trugernanner (1812–1876) |
The diet of Australian Aborigines has been reasonably well studied. The modern self-selected diet of Australian aborigines reflects that of the cattle stations where many lived after the colonization of Australia by White pastoralists.[i] Accompanying these dietary changes were disimprovements in Aborigine’s health – increased prevalence of hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease in adults was noted, as were low child birth weights, and increased childhood morbidity.
The traditional diet for aboriginal Ngatatjara people, for instance, in the Western Desert was primarily vegetarian supplemented with small game; hunting was largely unsuccessful despite the effort. Station diets consisted of flour, meat, sugar (usually consumed in tea) and powdered milk. There was very little fresh fruit and vegetables, milk, cheese, and butter, though individuals supplemented their diets with “bush tucker” and with purchases from neighboring towns. Ironically, the food at the stations may have reflected the food priorities of hunter-gathers with the ready availability of meat. However, in the absence of other food items and the increasingly sedentary nature of their lifestyles and the “emotional stresses associated with dispossession” resulted in declining health.[ii]
