Very Interesting Video

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Fyyr
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Fyyr »

Tudamorf wrote:Why wasn't there such growth in North American hunter-gatherers?
Are you reading my posts?

I have said that tribes in large fertile river and ocean areas, areas comprising Chumash or Maidu/Nisenan were limited to 10,000 or so people.

If you have evidence of mass starvation killing off hunter gatherers, please direct me to any data or links you have.

The Meso American peoples were agricultural. With number much greater(in the millions) than California. They experienced famine and massive die offs accordingly. These are givens, why are you arguing givens?

At 10,000 or so, they reached their carrying capacity. That is why there was no such growth. I have said that a half dozen times already, in half a dozen different ways.

But I was refuting your statement that typical HG groups of 30 died of starvation in prehistory. I am sure you are wrong on that one. The obvious conclusion is that they were too small a group to survive for a myriad of reasons, least of which was food.
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Tudamorf
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:Because there were other limiting factors.
That's why.
Like what, if not food?
Fyyr wrote:These large groups, obviously, did not starve to death, Tudamorf.
I did not say they all starved to death. I said food was the limiting factor to growth.

Most hunter-gatherers in rich areas lived pretty good lives, without starving, but they couldn't expand beyond small tribes, because the area could not support more of them.

A society would have to be pretty damn stubborn to screw themselves into total starvation.
Fyyr
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Fyyr »

Tudamorf wrote: Like what, if not food?
Everything we treat with modern medicine, doctors, nursing. Strokes, HTN, CAD, ACS, STDs, AAAs, auto immune disorders, allergic anaphylaxis, cancers, tumors, infection, sepsis, poisoning, drowning, epilepsy, birth defects, maternal childbirth(placenta previa or abruptia, fetaliths), bowel obstruction, hepatitis and liver failure, renal failure, pneumonia, respiratory failure, DM, injuries, hemorrhages, parasites, to bug stings and bites. Most of which are fatal if not treated.
Suicide. Hormonal imbalances, electrolytic imbalances, neurotransmitter imbalances. Genetic disorders like Downs Syndrome or Trisomy, neuro tube deformities, dwarfism, microencephaly, hydrocephaly, hemophilia. A whole list of gynecological syndromes which cause infertility, which are treatable today.
Fighting and human/human killing.
And to a lesser extent predators.

The Nisenan had a legend about a water creature/monster with green algae for hair that lived in the rivers. Obviously this was to scare kids away from the water and rocks, to prevent drowning. Wuuptillee was the name of her, spelling is approximated.


Most hunter-gatherers in rich areas lived pretty good lives, without starving, but they couldn't expand beyond small tribes, because the area could not support more of them.
I don't consider 10,000 small.
I was talking to a Chumash descendant friend of mine last night. They refer to the different small sub-groups as clans.
Bear clan, eagle clan, hawk clan, deer clan, etc.
I did not say they all starved to death. I said food was the limiting factor to growth.
If a fertile area can support at limit 10,000 people; limited by natural food resources.
Any population below this would not be limited.
That is self evident. Why are you arguing this?
Fyyr
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Fyyr »

The Maidu Nisenan range...
Image
In fairness, I can't vouch for the veracity of this graphic. The Nisenan range included the American and Sacramento rivers, which does not appear to be represented by the graphic.

And the Maidu Nisenan were two distinct cooperating groups, they shared common culture and area. Analogous, I suppose to Americans and Canadians, Germans and Austrians, San Franciscans and Sacramentans, etc.

Wiki article on Californian Population size pre Columbian.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population ... California

Ranges of indigenous Californians.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_Californians
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Tudamorf
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:
Tudamorf wrote: Like what, if not food?
Everything we treat with modern medicine, doctors, nursing. Strokes, HTN, CAD, ACS, STDs, AAAs, auto immune disorders, allergic anaphylaxis, cancers, tumors, infection, sepsis, poisoning, drowning, epilepsy, birth defects, maternal childbirth(placenta previa or abruptia, fetaliths), bowel obstruction, hepatitis and liver failure, renal failure, pneumonia, respiratory failure, DM, injuries, hemorrhages, parasites, to bug stings and bites. Most of which are fatal if not treated.
Suicide. Hormonal imbalances, electrolytic imbalances, neurotransmitter imbalances. Genetic disorders like Downs Syndrome or Trisomy, neuro tube deformities, dwarfism, microencephaly, hydrocephaly, hemophilia. A whole list of gynecological syndromes which cause infertility, which are treatable today.
Fighting and human/human killing.
And to a lesser extent predators.
And the Maya, Aztec, and Inca didn't have these things? :roll:

As long as each woman can raise over two children to breeding age, the population will grow. Exponentially.

So why did that exponential growth plateau very early for the Native American hunter-gatherers in California, but not for the farmers in Central and South America?
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Zute
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Zute »

The worst threat hunter/gatherers have is being assimilated or killed off by agriculturalists. They were out-numbered, out-germed, and eventually out-armed too.
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Fyyr
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Fyyr »

Tudamorf wrote:And the Maya, Aztec, and Inca didn't have these things?
Well, we know that the Incas performed what we might call neurosurgery today.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... kulls.html

When done today, we would call that a decompression craniotomy.
To relieve cerebral edema or subdural/epidural hematoma.

A lot of the neurosurgery that we do are burrholes, drains, and EVDs. To prevent herniation.

If they were skilled in these interventions(and NG states that healing occured, and were commonly found), then other surgical interventions seems plausible. Considering that brain surgery is considered one of the higher practices of modern medicine.

When I first learned of Incan trepanation, 25 years ago or so, it appeared crude and barbaric.
But now that I am in the field presently, there is not a lot of difference in tools, per se. Sterility being the main difference, of course. But burr holes are presently made with a sterile plastic and metal version of the old woodshop hand drill. An EVD is presently a sterile tube with a metal guidewire which is pushed through the burr hole, through grey matter, into the ventricles.

Decompression cranis are very interesting. The bone flap is placed in the OR freezer until placed back in a same facility. If the patient is transferred, the bone flap is placed under the abdominal skin. Kinda cool having part of your skull tucked into your belly.
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Tudamorf
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Tudamorf »

Fyyr wrote:Well, we know that the Incas performed what we might call neurosurgery today.
They also practiced human (mostly child) sacrifice. And I'll bet the number of children they killed through sacrifice was far greater than the number of people they saved through neurosurgery.

The point is moot anyway, since you can kill off every neurosurgery patient and it won't significantly affect total population.

So answer my question, why did farmers grow to the millions whereas hunter-gatherers were stuck in the hundreds, if the limiting factor wasn't food?
Fyyr
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Fyyr »

I have answered your question more than a dozen times.

"The point is moot anyway, since you can kill off every neurosurgery patient and it won't significantly affect total population."
It won't affect the total, but it affects the rate of growth. An exponent of 1.1 compared to 11 has a different growth curve. The point being made was that Incas were not hunter gatherers and they had medical interventions(the scientists in the NG study conclude performed commonly) Californians were hunter gatherers with no such level of medicine. I will answer your question one last time. Since native Californian were in California for about 20,000 years and reached approximately 500,000 people, it is fairly reasonable to assume that they reached their limit, their carrying capacity; at that point they were limited by food. That is much larger than a few hundred, and they were not limited for the majority of the 20,000 years. There is no evidence that they grew to larger numbers than preconquest figures and then died back.

It is reasonable to assume, at this time, that they very slowly progressed(small exponent lower growth rate) in population to preconquest numbers, then stopped because of resource limitations.
Fyyr
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Re: Very Interesting Video

Post by Fyyr »

Just for the record.
Exactly how long they were here is still in debate. 15 20 25 K whatever. Still debated and being researched.
Exactly how large their preconquest numbers were 150K 360K 500K 1.5M is still in debate and research.

We know they had no immunity versus bovine diseases, they had to come over prior to domestication of cattle.
And they got as big as they did and then reached an equilibrium until conquest.
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