“These discoveries put a lot of what we see today medically in a broader context,” said Bustamante. “For example, this man, who died when he was about 45 years old, was likely very fit. He got lots of exercise and ate a true paleo diet. And yet he had begun to develop heart disease. This shows that the selective forces we’re familiar with today just weren’t in the picture then. These types of disease were probably common, but they didn’t kill people. People died instead of an arrow in the back or in hunting accidents. There is still so much more to learn.”
“People died instead of an arrow in the back or in hunting accidents”
Except for the change in weapon technology, reads pretty much like Gaza or Hamasistan in 2012.
Wow, an arrow in the back. I didn’t know they had Indians that far back.
You mean to say he wasn’t a vegen?
The quote is a bit misleading. The heart disease apparently is from Lyme Disease, which is caused by infectious bacteria, and not coronary vascular disease. The quote out of context might suggest coronary vascular disease on a regime of exercise and a Paleo diet. A Paleo diet typically reverses arterial plaque accumulation, as measured by CT scans. See the Track Your Plaque group, which has studied diet and plaque in a clinical setting for some years now. Dr. William Davis of Track your Plaque, wrote the recent book Wheat Belly.
> Dr. William Davis of Track your Plaque, wrote the recent book Wheat Belly.
It never ceases to amaze me how so many people instantly surmise that if it’s ancient then it must be good…forgetting that life back then was, to quote a half-remembered source, “nasty, brutish and short” much like the undeveloped world today.
All of the self-righteous stridently preaching vegans can feel free to move to Somalia, remote Afghanistan, or another suitable location unspoiled by the ravages of clean food and water, to die from some exotic disease or parasitic infestation from untreated food and water, or perish from septicemia introduced through a scraped elbow, or suffer mental and physical debilitation from the lack of nutrients in a rudimentary diet that is geared toward bare subsistence, not enhancement…just so long as they do it there and in quiet.
The reason our remote ancestors didn’t have a higher incidence of heart disease or cancer is that they were usually dead long before symptoms could arise and in his 40’s, Otzi was a venerable old man who was likely praised by his tribe for his longevity…or perhaps thrown out because of it and his ‘alliance with evil spirits’ he obviously used to gain it.
Most of history’s greatest rulers conquered young and died young…Alexander, Ghengis Khan, etc. from things that today would barely have them take a day off to recover from, that is, if they weren’t prevented altogether.
Face it, kiddies, we live to our 80’s and 90’s today BECAUSE of science, medicine and industrialization, not in spite of it and a world without modern methods is as fatal to us as it would be to someone a thousand years ago..or a hundred…even in the early part of the last century, people died young because of disease, tainted food and illnesses that at the time were untreatable and usually fatal and today are mere nuisances if not virtually eradicated.
Eat as ‘healthy’ as you like, exercise as much as you want to, eschew all forms of vaccinations and pre-treatment of food sources walk everywhere and do everything manually, these are all good things to do (except for the vaccination and treatment of food), but you’ll still die when your genes say you will or your principles override common sense and you sup a bad bowl of gruel, contract ergot poisoning and fall off a ledge trying to touch the ‘visions’ you see …it’ll just make it that much easier for the rest of us to lift your skiny butt lying in your coffin and carry it down the aisle to the same hearse we’ll ride in eventually.
No matter what the Bible says, nobody really lived to 939 years old…and likely never will, not even Adam Savage, although the TV program he hosted and was rerun last night made a strong case for the possibility of medical science prolonging our lives that long…in the future…the still distant future.
My family doctor has been telling me for years that Choleterol has been a grossly overstated risk, promoted by the pharma industry for obvious reasons. She also suggests that wheat is a route of poor health, as is any processed food. Carbs and sugar are evil, while, as she puts it, your grandmother’s diet is what will keep you fit and healthy.
Here’s a fascinating article by Dr. Dwight Lundell, who, incidentally, was on “Fox and Friends” this morning.
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/242516-World-Renown-Heart-Surgeon-Speaks-Out-On-What-Really-Causes-Heart-Disease
I’m not certain if my own doctor was influenced by him, but she’s been preaching the same medical approach for a decade or more.
Bemused, well said…much better than my previous flippant comment.
There’s another good post on Otzi by Razib Khan at Gene Expression blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/03/seeing-otzi-through-our-eyes/
“The idea I’m trying to get across is that we imagine the past was demographically pristine. But if it wasn’t, then our attempts to make inferences become all the more difficult.”
Just wunderin’… if the world is warmer now than in the last 10,000 years, how did Otzi end up underneath a glacier?
He didn’t have the app for avoiding glaciers.
Sean Peake
Yeah an inconvenient truth. There are many Roman Roads, marked on Roman Era maps, which boldly go through Alpine passes which are currently blocked by glaciers. One pass in particular , whose glacier has receded sufficiently, has yielded bronze age artifacts, Iron age artifacts, evidence of a Roman Road and artifacts, medieval artifacts…..and even the adit (entrance) of a gold mine abandoned in the 13th century ( the onset of the Little Ice Age).
I recall a debate back in War College….
What aspect of modern knowledge would be most effective introduced to the military of antiquity?
Various speakers held forth about the supremacy of mounted archers…..the long bow….
I made breif remarks….noting that the benefits of modern nutrician and hygene would result in a fitter, healthier and more effective army without difficult to acquire modern technology (such as machine guns, vehicles, aircraft or antibiotics) in antiquity.
I won the debate…..
It turns out that the claim in the article about paleo diet is incorrect. Otzi’s last full meal http://www.pnas.org/content/99/20/12594.full included cereals, so his was a neolithic diet.
“And yet he had begun to develop heart disease. This shows that the selective forces we’re familiar with today just weren’t in the picture then. These types of disease were probably common, but they didn’t kill people.”
I don’t follow Bustamante’s thinking here at all. Just cause poor old Otzi got an arrow in the back doesn’t mean everyone did.
From the story,,,,“When we found the Iceman was most closely related with modern Sardinians, it was at first hard to believe,” said Bustamante.
Not hard to believe at all and explains why he was found with an arrow in his back. Exercising property rights was just as robust back then as it is now.
Murray, well said. I remember years ago looking at the mortality statistics for the City of London in 1660. Yes, there were cancers and heart failures. But the vast majority of the deaths came from infections, particularly food-born and water-born. It provided a gripping understanding of why no one ever drank the water or ate anything which hadn’t been cooked into mush.
As an urban environment, it was somewhat worse than the national average for England’s mortality rate. Fact is, cities until the mid to late 19th C were disease factories with a considerably higher mortality rate than birth rate. And thus were constantly dependent upon rural migration to maintain or increase their populations.
It is interesting that the fact that Otzi was in good physical shape is immediately interpreted as meaning that he was a shepherd; I would say that “hunter” is more probable.
Bemused’s comment that “Otzi was a venerable old man who was likely praised by his tribe for his longevity…or perhaps thrown out because of it and his ‘alliance with evil spirits’ he obviously used to gain it” is an interesting conjecture. It has been pointed out that since Otzi’s obviously valuable axe wasn’t stolen the murder was probably in-group; the murderers wouldn’t want an object which established their guilt.
Re cgh’s comment that “cities until the mid to late 19th C were disease factories with a considerably higher mortality rate than birth rate” has been well substantiated at least from English records. The countryside produced excess population, the excess moved to the cities, and died there. The Elizabethan tavern might have been a fun place for a visit but you’d want all your shots up to date before crossing the threshold.
Re the arrow in his back. Poor SOB likely slipped on the ice and landed on his quiver on the way down the hill…
So when they do get around to inventing an HG Wells-like Time Machine, the first thing for a time traveler to do BEFORE turning on the machine would be to get a really comprehensive series of vaccinations, including for diseases long since wiped out, e.g. smallpox. Travelers would also need to take a first aid kit including antibiotics for treatment for such nasties as bubonic plague.
Come to think of it, it’d be downright medically extremely hazardous to go back in time. And that’s not even considering unfriendly natives.
From the story,,,,“When we found the Iceman was most closely related with modern Sardinians, it was at first hard to believe,” said Bustamante.
Not hard to believe at all and explains why he was found with an arrow in his back. Exercising property rights was just as robust back then as it is now.
Posted by: northernont at March 12, 2012 1:57 PM
That explains a lot…he likely refused “an offer he couldn’t refuse”
lacking any evidence for theft, which does seem a little strange with such valuable items in his possession, falling on his quiver or on the arrow he had ready is also a viable theory…it’d be even moreso if he’d bled out from a lacerated femoral artery, a not very common but also not unknown occurance among bowhunters today.
and I’ve always wondered where the silver and other mines that are appearing from under the ‘ancient’ European glaciers came from…or the tools and bows that are surfacing from under the BC icefields…those dastardly ‘Second Nation’ interlopers must have cleverly dug down and hidden them there to confuse future generations and make their claims seem older than they are.
funny how gore, suzuki, et al keep mewling that “five hundred year old ice sheets are melting in the Arctic” and are completely silent about where they were SIX hundred years ago…..guess that’s too inconvenient a truth for them.
@ Murray
Given all of the above, including the excellent link by Clayton E Cramer (I read the full text version). I am compelled to ask for a link to the information which states that the heart disease was from Lyme IE vegetative endocarditis or evidence of arterial ventricular block.
Or can we assume that this is evidence of heart disease with corresponding triticeae (cereal grain)consumption.
Moral of the stories:
Venison and barley (in all its forms) are probably good for you. Buuuurrrrrrrrrp!
Not necessarily, Dave. Remember, we are the survivors of all those ancient plagues. For example, there was a huge one in the 2nd Century when Trajan’s army returned from conquering part of the Persian Empire (about 107 AD). His soldiers brought it back with them. It killed about 20% of the Roman Empire’s population. It’s now believed to be Red Measles, which is dangerous, but has nowhere near that lethality on us today. On the contrary, us returning through a time machine to the past could convey huge diseases for which they would have no protection. Much as what happened in the Americas with the arrival of the Europeans in the 16th Century.
One thing to never do in the past is never, never, never, never drink the water. Ever. The sheer filth of even relatively recent times was staggering. The City of Paris, home of much of France’s leather industry, was dumping more than 20,000 animal carcasses a day into the Seine River starting about the 13th century, along with all the tanning and rendering byproducts.
All cities were like that. The banks of the Thames River in London were mostly sewage-filled swamps even into the 19th Century. Not to mention the fact that all of them would have a couple of thousand tons of animal dung dumped on them on a daily basis.
Bemused, there were several very large immigrations/invasions into Southern Europe after 11,000 BC. In all cases the invaders swept the indigenous populations into remote areas, occupied most of the good land themselves and were subsequently dispossessed by a later wave of invasions. The two last invasions in the case of Greece were the Achaeans about 1600 BC and the Dorians about 1000 BC.
Dave in Pa
Bubonic plague is still with us. It has been realized that malnutrician, resulting from failed crops/famine of the Little Ice Age, combined with unhealthy cities/hygene, made the plagues more dangerous to a population already weakened by famine.
The Great urban fires, which involved most of Europe, resulted in more open, healthier cities and lowered the impact of the plagues.
Paris had to wait until the time of Napolean to be renouvated. Prior to that Paris was mostly deserted during hot weather….
Actually forensics, forensic profiling would indicate that “Otzi” was more a villan than a victim. His weapons had traces of human DNA…not his….and it is speculated he was fleeing retaliation by heading uphill and while hiding in a small hollow to evade pursuers,(a bronze age posse) died of insanguination from the wound he received during a scurmish. The DNA on his weapons would indicate he had severely wounded/killed several individuals immediately before his death.
He probably may have briefly survived an ambush.
Whether he was an ambusher or ambushee is difficult to establish.
@Skip.
Clayton’s article suggests the wound was expertly placed. The left shoulder blade was actually pierced by the arrow.
Similar learning here:
http://www.ridgehead.com/blog/image.axd?picture=2009%2F11%2FFarSide+Knowledge.png
“I’ll ignore the racist remark about Indians.”
That’s awfully white of you.
Bemused, there were several very large immigrations/invasions into Southern Europe after 11,000 BC.
Posted by: cgh at March 12, 2012 6:09 PM
indeed there were, I was referring to the receding ice sheets in British Columbia that are revealing man made artifacts which would seem to indicate that they were laid down between the present day and when people arrived on the west coast and there must have been bare ground to deposit them on before the ice built up….I also threwa little dig in to reflect the recent discovery of european artifacts that predated the earliest known ‘First Nations’ ones, hence my use of ‘Second Nations’…but since I have ancestors from both sides, I guess I have it all covered.
intersting video here though…viking artifacts are appearing from under Norwegian glaciers…feathers still intact on the arrows…
http://csctest13.blogspot.com/2011/04/viking-artifacts-discovered-under.html
looks like a warmer climate was the norm not so very long ago…
we’re still coming out of an abnormal temporary cold spell and the goreans want us to think that we should be staying there when we’re really just on the road back to a normally much warmer Earth…but there’s no money to be made on ‘normal’ so they push their scare tactics…there’ll be peaks and valleys on the way, and we just went througha warm one but the last 15 years have been increasingly cooler..and it will get warmer again..then cooler…but overall still following the upward line to the planet wide tropicality the dinosaurs enjoyed.
BannedInBoston: The military significance of disease was enormous, and not just in siege warfare. One very well documented case is Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. He started out with 650,000 men in May. He arrived in Moscow in August with 120,000 men. Where did they all go?
About 200,000 were diverted to various subsidiary operations. Of the remaining 450,000 men, about 150,000 were lost from starvation and about 150,000 were lost to typhus fever. He also lost most of his horses from glanders, which in large part is why much of the army starved.
It wasn’t the Russian winter which killed the French army. It was disease which killed them in the opening months of the invasion.
It is well established that the 20th century is the first time in human history in which casualties by combat exceeded those caused by dysentery. For most previous centuries, dysentery alone accounts for about 10 times as many losses as death or injury in combat. The only possible exception to this was the Roman army which maintained brutally rigorous sanitation standards.
“The only possible exception to this was the Roman army which maintained brutally rigorous sanitation standards.” And the Roman love of hygiene, their typical first structure at a new military base being a bathhouse, this goes a long way to explaining the supremacy of the Roman Army over all their enemies in their centuries of warfare.
Fast forward to today and this explains modern Western militaries’ emphasis on personal and quarters hygeine. Starting in basic training, large numbers of young men, with their slobbish tendencies, now living together in close quarters and subjected to what often seems chickensh*t sanitation and cleaning of barracks. No lads, it does have a purpose-good health of the troops and resultant unit effectiveness.
(Which brings back my own memories of basic training, barracks and latrine inspections, once getting chewed out over a latrine mirror and a minute spot on it that I swear must have been a fly landing and sh*tting on the mirror after I had cleaned it fanatically. 🙂
sasquatch said: “Bubonic plague is still with us.”
Oh yes, it certainly is. It is endemic in rodents in northern Arizona, around the Grand Canyon particularly. Every year they get a few cases of plague up there, some people still die of it.
Then there’s Four Corner’s Disease, a “hanta virus” spread by mouse pee and droppings. It doesn’t necessarily kill the mice right away, but it sure as hell kills humans. Luckily if you keep cats and don’t leave food lying around the house you’re all set. Sadly some of the Indians in the region do neither, and die from it.
Its possible that Alexander Flemming and Florence Nightingale between them did more for modern warfare than Alfred Nobel.
You just have to observe the fact. That any cat or Dog with care with shelter doubles a lifespan, compared to wild animals.
” … arrow in his back”
Suicide?
Otzi. Such a cool name.
” … arrow in his back”
Suicide?
Posted by: ∞² at March 13, 2012 1:00 AM
Where’s David Caruso when you need him?
“Gentlemen, this cold case…(sunglasses on)… just began to get hot.”
This all kind of begs the question: wouldn’t Otzi have snarfed down a Big Mac or a pizza, if he’d had the opportunity?
Does the pizza come with Ibex pepperoni?
Ibex you it does, Phantom!