Date: Tue, 9 Apr 96 09:12:31 GMT
Subject: Re: TREE article



I've quickly read this article.

Two quick comments :

i)	Surviving into old age.

It seems to me that if you look at the the survival of both men
and women into old age from the point of view of the group as a
whole, a number of possibilities arise which might explain why
humans society evolved as it did.

(a) Passing on the culture

I would have thought that simply passing down knowledge and experience
>from one generation to the next would be important for the survival of
the group as a whole.

Of course basic life skills can be passed down from one generation to the
one immediately following it. But there are problems, often critical ones,
which do not occur on a day by day or year by year basis. Suppose the group
faces a decision whether or not to migrate because the food supply nearby 
has dried up ? In a situation like this, living experience of past decisions
will be important. This experience can also be passed down in ritual / myth 
form, by the oldest generation.

In this sense, extended old age is just the flip side of extended childhood.

(b) Resolving social conflict within the group ie acting as referree

I would guess, particularly in times of reduced resources, that real tensions
could develop within the group. At times like this, some commonly respected
referee could be important in holding the group together. This could be very
important if there was some optimum size below which a group becomes more
prone to temporary fluctautions in its fortunes.

(c) A Reserve Army of Labour ?

The old can still work, if not at the rate of younger adults.
Perhaps when a large kill is made, all the younger adults quickly
go to the kill site to protect it from other predators, butcher it,
and bring it back in bits, while the older ones stay home and child
mind.

Or perhaps there is some super abundance of fruit in certain trees. 
Perhaps the children and adults go and get the fruit, with the older
ones at the bottom collecting. etc.

ii)	Tools ( Environmental change, etc ).

Sorry for banging on about this. 

But tools are what bring a particular resource into the horizon of
the human. You can't get fish out of a river without a dart or
javelin or something. You can't switch to more plentiful but less
digestable food if you can't cook it.

If a particular environment shrinks, either the human population shrinks
with it, or pre existing technology can be adapted and extended to exploit
other resources.

Adam.

Adam Rose
SWP
Manchester
UK


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