: If caloric restriction in mamals works be changing cellular activity into a survive and protect mode, potentially increasing lifespans, why didn’t our prehistoric ancestors with low caloric budgets not live long?
In: Biology
Bit of a digression here, but there are actually a lot of myths surrounding early, hunter-gatherer era humans.
For one, they largely had superior diets to modern humans. Roaming to hunt and gather resulted in a diverse range of meats, fruits, berries etc. Of course it wasn’t always stable, a poor hunting season for example could result in a famine.
Settling to make farms not only locked us to one particular region, but changed our diets to be dependant on staple foods like grains or rice. That’s not even to mention the last few decades moving to more processed diets.
Evidence also suggests Hunter gatherers to be more intelligent than modern humans. Being more or less self-sufficient, a hunter-gatherer would need very thorough knowledge and skill across a wide array of things to be, such as knowing how to hunt, prepare an animal, build a shelter, basic wound treatment, knowledge of plants, building fire, cooking meals, social interactions, delivering babies etc.
By comparison, modern humans have most of our needs met by other humans i.e.: someone else built our house, stocked our food, built our towns, looks after your injuries, fixes your car etc.
Modern humans can get away with being pretty unintelligent and unhealthy and still survive to reproduce without much problem.
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