Biology Reference
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accident, crime, diseases of close contact (various infectious diseases), or medical disaster)
from which they have been saved, usually by modern medicine, much of which is derived from
animal research. There is however some evidence that older humans such as Erectus, like
Methuselah, did have long life spans. Among many hunter-gatherers, a good number stop
hunting in their fifth decade and became the wise men who divided up animal carcasses after
the hunt. Thus, it is not surprising that cardiac or trauma surgeons, who like many other
professions have demanding and stressful professional lives, will tend to get away from doing
transplantation or trauma surgery, which is frequently at night, when they get into their 50s.
Similarly, for even modern hunters, a poll on long range hunting showed that most hunters were
between the ages of 25 years and 65 years (about 20% per decade), with only 6% over the age
of 65 years, and that is despite the likely help of ATVs and trucks and not long hikes into the
mountains.
It is only recently, with humans living longer due to modern medicine, that other more
modern diseases become apparent indicating that lifestyle may indeed have been protective for
hunter gatherers. For example, high blood fat levels were useful for people living in northern
arctic winter land climates. Hence, coronary artery disease is very common among
Scandinavians where it was useful for surviving long winters and times of low protein and fat,
like the northern Sami pastoralists, formerly called Lapps, who were dependent on the return
of their reindeer. Similarly, the Netsilik Inuits living north-west of Hudson Bay had to store up
fat for their nomadic migrations between the caribou hunting grounds and their fishing and seal
hunting grounds in winter. Sometimes they would supplement their food and clothing from
polar bears.
Iceland Landscape
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