How did pre-industrial tribal societies – for example Inuits, manage to deal with inbreeding even though they were small in size and lacked outside contact?

Question

How did pre-industrial tribal societies – for example Inuits, manage to deal with inbreeding even though they were small in size and lacked outside contact?

In: Biology

Answer 1

Along with answers above, you also need to consider that up until recently, we were very open to nature dictating things.

So compromised genes from inbreeding that manifested as a complication may not live long enough to matter, or would be lost in the shuffle. After all, if you’re bringing food home, who cares if your teeth are a bit screwy (before modern dentistry especially) or you had webbed toes, or some type of genetic predisposition (before we figured out genetics especially).