Yersinia pestis (Minnich's research bacterium) found in ancient human bones.

[RonO]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/10/science/plague-ancient-dna-europe-first-farmers/index.html

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07651-2

The Nature article is open access.

There was a population decline in Europe around 5,000 years ago, and
these researchers have identified Yersinia pestis (plague) bacterial DNA
in the bones of ancient humans around this time period. The authors
speculate that the plague may have contributed to the population decline
observed. The population decline is based on the decline in human
burials around monuments constructed by the early agricultural immigrants.

17% of the sampled populations were positive for the bacteria. The
strain of bacteria would not have been transmitted by fleas because it
lacked a gene known to be required for flea transmission of the
bacteria. They speculate that the disease may have been spread human to
human. They do not know how pathogenic the strains of Y. pestis
identified were. Apparently the early farmers were not a very healthy
population and their bones indicate that they had multiple issues that
they were dealing with.

A hunter gatherer diet is much better than an agricultural diet, and
they might not have been very good farmers. The advantage of
agriculture is that it can sustain larger populations on the same amount
of land, but those populations do not have to be very healthy.

Ron Okimoto

[JTEM]

Post by RonO
A hunter gatherer diet is much better than an agricultural diet, and
they might not have been very good farmers.  The advantage of
agriculture is that it can sustain larger populations on the same amount
of land, but those populations do not have to be very healthy.

I have heard much the same thing for my entire life; lifespans began
to drop with the switch from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. The
advantage appears to be population densities -- a simple matter of
how many mouths you can feed.

People didn't live even as long as Neanderthals but, evolution
works at the level of a population not an individual....

I've often argued this point with Aquatic Ape as exploiting the sea
can support a higher population density than inland hunter gathering.

Looking at Chimps: The savanna supports the _Lowest_ population
density! So the idea that humans could have evolutionarily benefited
from a reduced gene pool seems odd, to say the least.

[RonO]

Post by JTEM

Post by RonO
A hunter gatherer diet is much better than an agricultural diet, and
they might not have been very good farmers.  The advantage of
agriculture is that it can sustain larger populations on the same
amount of land, but those populations do not have to be very healthy.

I have heard much the same thing for my entire life; lifespans began
to drop with the switch from hunter-gatherer to agriculture. The
advantage appears to be population densities -- a simple matter of
how many mouths you can feed.
People didn't live even as long as Neanderthals but, evolution
works at the level of a population not an individual....
I've often argued this point with Aquatic Ape as exploiting the sea
can support a higher population density than inland hunter gathering.
Looking at Chimps:  The savanna supports the  _Lowest_ population
density!  So the idea that humans could have evolutionarily benefited
from a reduced gene pool seems odd, to say the least.

Upright walking allowed the human lineage to exploit the expanding
territory opened up by the reduction of the forests. By the time Homo
erectus evolved the savanna had greatly expanded while the forests had
been greatly reduced, so they had more savanna territory to exploit and
their populations did not need to decline with the other apes that
relied on the forests. Homo erectus could exploit both forest and
savanna, but in the forests they were in competition with the other
great apes.

Ron Okimoto

[JTEM]

Post by RonO
Upright walking allowed the human lineage to exploit the expanding
territory opened up by the reduction of the forests.  By the time Homo
erectus evolved the savanna had greatly expanded while the forests had
been greatly reduced, so they had more savanna territory to exploit and
their populations did not need to decline with the other apes that
relied on the forests.  Homo erectus could exploit both forest and
savanna, but in the forests they were in competition with the other
great apes.
Ron Okimoto

The only problem is that Homo erectus was all over the place. He
traveled! And most people, even most mainstream people subscribe to
Coastal Dispersal which *IS* Aquatic Ape.

The very oldest erectus was supposedly found, where? South Africa?
But we're not speaking of unambiguous erectus and it's found in
association with Paranthropus. And we do find them all the way up
through Eurasia and into Melanesia.

They didn't fly.

They had to submarines.

"Coastal Dispersal."

The followed the waterline, exploiting marine resources and, yes,
periodically pushed inland, settling and adapting...