Remember before we had antibiotics and vaccines? Let’s go back to those times! They were fun!
Not an anprim, but the argument made there is generally that disease wasn’t a severe issue prior to the advent of fixed settlement; it simply didn’t spread like it does today back when people were migratory hunter-gatherers and such.
There’s flaws in that argument, such as young people still being very susceptible, or the point that hunter-gatherers at times were sedentary e.g. in wetlands where there was always enough to hunt and gather year-round. But I thought I’d just offer the context as to their actual point.
Or how many people would have to die to bring population density down to a level that makes a migratory hunter-gatherer lifestyle possible for everyone left.
It’s not just about being sedentary though. Hunter-gatherer bands are literally too small to sustain a whole bunch of contagious diseases.
Do you have a link to an article on this wetlands thing? I can’t seem to find it.
You have a point actually, didn’t really think it through. I was just basing my stances off of reddit arguments I’d seen with anprims.
I heard about the wetlands thing in Against the Grain: A Deep History of the Earliest States though I never finished the book because my Kindle broke.
