HornedDiggitoe t1_j514owa wrote
Reply to comment by rm_systemd in Given that reproduction is difficult or impossible when both animals have different numbers of chromosomes, how did so many species evolve to have so many different numbers of them? by MercurioLeCher
Without food abundance none of that medicine would have helped much. All these medical marvels you brought up were invented after agriculture. Imagine what the life expectancy was for disabled/sick people prior to an abundance of food.
Also, 32 years old is old enough to have reproduced and pass on genes. Life expectancy was much lower prior to agriculture.
rm_systemd t1_j52wsn7 wrote
In ancient China, food was not more abundant. In fact, everyone outside of the top 2% ate mostly unpolished grains and wild vegetables, and were usually about 5 feet tall due to poor nutrition. However, Chinese medicine was effective as preventative medicine and supportive treatment, and so the empirical evidence stands that their cities were historically the largest until the industrial revolution entered full swing.
Farming in China has been largely unchanged for the last 2600 years, they had very little arable land per capita and no access to the abundance of the sea like Japan does. Rice is also a luxury for most of history, and only a staple in the South. Northern China was fed on wheat, millet and sorghum etc., and the Yellow River is the area that the Han culture originated and thrived for most of history.
Your point about feeding the weak only applies to famine and war, in a time where death rates are already high. It won't be statistically significant then, because everyone would be hungry and weak, then the plague or a hostile army would come out of nowhere and flatten them anyway. In that case, survival was as much luck as it was rational decisions.
The family, tribe or clan was also the most important unit in all of history, and they always provided for the infirm. Even Neanderthal tribes have left behind evidence that they supported the disabled. Liberalism was significant, because it recognized the individual, where the traditional conservative only saw clans as the smallest unit. That is not how it worked for the longest time. If you were family, you just fed them, it was that simple
Emu1981 t1_j52xrle wrote
>Imagine what the life expectancy was for disabled/sick people prior to an abundance of food.
What makes you think that there was no abundance of food before the discovery of agriculture? Hunter gatherer groups tended to migrate around to follow the food over the seasons. Between this and the low populations it would have been pretty rare for the groups to go hungry over a long enough period of time for individuals to starve to death.
Agriculture and animal husbandry is what allowed for humans to settle down and to start multiplying like rabbits.
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