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A review by jenn756
The Story of the Human Body: Evolution, Health, and Disease by Daniel E. Lieberman
5.0
Oh dear. I don’t exercise enough, I eat too much sugar and I’m generally a physical wreck. I’ll probably succumb to diabetes or heart disease when I’m older. According to Lieberman we’re living lives our bodies were not designed for, and sitting slumped in front of a computer all day just doesn’t cut it. The diseases that kill us today, the ones doctors cannot eradicate, are all evolutionary `mis-matches’.
Apparently our distant ancestors did not eat ice-cream or chicken tikka masala on a Friday night and had to forage for tough chewy roots under a sweltering hot sun. Their fruit was no sweeter than a turnip. They walked 8-9 miles a day. And now we’re paying the price for our poor diets and laziness.
Some of this is intuitive. My elderly mother for instance will tell you too much sugar causes diabetes, but Lieberman is very good at backing it up with compelling evidence. Some of it I hadn’t considered – breast cancer as an evolutionary mis-match - girls mature earlier than they have ever done, have fewer children and breast-feed their babies for a shorter time. Cumulatively this means more periods over a life time, and more oestrogen swilling round their bodies – excess of hormones being a trigger factor for cancer.
Lieberman is an engaging writer. And altogether this is an interesting and ultimately empowering book. My kids (who are lazy slobs) are beginning to curse his name as I keep quoting him at them. Get off your backsides and walk I say, otherwise you’ll contract osteoporosis. But do they listen to me? No!
He takes us through the different stages of human evolution to examine how each stage affected our physique and metabolism. There was the Austrolopiths 4-2 million years ago, upright and smaller brained than us and who walked miles in search of fruits and tubers. They had to survive in a semi-arid climate and their diet forced them to chew for hours and hours.
Then 1.9 million years ago Homo Erectus appears, much like us from the neck downwards. Meat appears on the menu 2.6 million years ago. Lieberman suggests hominids developed the techniques of endurance running to literally run prey to death, perhaps up 19 miles a day. Our ability to cool by sweating played a big part in this as hominids can tolerate hot sun in a way other mammals that have fur and pant can’t. Also our ability to retain fat was essential for maintaining energy reserves on a long hunt.
Another interesting twist in evolution was the relative size of guts to brains. Most mammals have large guts and small brains, Homo erectus reversed this be switching to higher quality diets and by manually processing food (apparently the Huns who also ate raw meat would soften it by putting it between their horses flanks!) Just as important was co-operating and sharing food and the role of extended family (which suggests mentally too we’re living lives evolution didn’t intended us for.)
500,000 years ago Hominids invented the pointed spear which revolutionised hunting. Then about 400,000 years ago came the control of fire. It was during the Ice Ages between 3 million and 500,000 years ago that the brain doubles in size. I suppose extreme environmental conditions provoked a strong evolutionary response. The brain takes a whopping 280-420 calories a day, and by comparing structure and size with other apes scientists have worked out that our brain size permits us to work with social networks of approx 100-230 people (which explains a lot when you think about it.) He seems to suggest that the primary reason for the development of the brain was co-operation, working together - not as you might assume the creation of tools. It was more man (or woman) the talker instead of man the handy man.
One fact that hit me is that everyone alive today descends from a population of fewer than 14,000 breeding individuals from sub-Saharan Africa. And the initial population that gave rise to all non-Africans was probably fewer than 3,000 people. We are genetically homogenous. Humans left Africa about 100,000 to 80,000 years ago. Then in the Upper Palaeolithic 50,000 years ago comes the tipping point – sophisticated tools and a technological revolution. People somehow think and behave differently from then onwards.
12,000 years ago comes the invention of farming
Apparently our distant ancestors did not eat ice-cream or chicken tikka masala on a Friday night and had to forage for tough chewy roots under a sweltering hot sun. Their fruit was no sweeter than a turnip. They walked 8-9 miles a day. And now we’re paying the price for our poor diets and laziness.
Some of this is intuitive. My elderly mother for instance will tell you too much sugar causes diabetes, but Lieberman is very good at backing it up with compelling evidence. Some of it I hadn’t considered – breast cancer as an evolutionary mis-match - girls mature earlier than they have ever done, have fewer children and breast-feed their babies for a shorter time. Cumulatively this means more periods over a life time, and more oestrogen swilling round their bodies – excess of hormones being a trigger factor for cancer.
Lieberman is an engaging writer. And altogether this is an interesting and ultimately empowering book. My kids (who are lazy slobs) are beginning to curse his name as I keep quoting him at them. Get off your backsides and walk I say, otherwise you’ll contract osteoporosis. But do they listen to me? No!
He takes us through the different stages of human evolution to examine how each stage affected our physique and metabolism. There was the Austrolopiths 4-2 million years ago, upright and smaller brained than us and who walked miles in search of fruits and tubers. They had to survive in a semi-arid climate and their diet forced them to chew for hours and hours.
Then 1.9 million years ago Homo Erectus appears, much like us from the neck downwards. Meat appears on the menu 2.6 million years ago. Lieberman suggests hominids developed the techniques of endurance running to literally run prey to death, perhaps up 19 miles a day. Our ability to cool by sweating played a big part in this as hominids can tolerate hot sun in a way other mammals that have fur and pant can’t. Also our ability to retain fat was essential for maintaining energy reserves on a long hunt.
Another interesting twist in evolution was the relative size of guts to brains. Most mammals have large guts and small brains, Homo erectus reversed this be switching to higher quality diets and by manually processing food (apparently the Huns who also ate raw meat would soften it by putting it between their horses flanks!) Just as important was co-operating and sharing food and the role of extended family (which suggests mentally too we’re living lives evolution didn’t intended us for.)
500,000 years ago Hominids invented the pointed spear which revolutionised hunting. Then about 400,000 years ago came the control of fire. It was during the Ice Ages between 3 million and 500,000 years ago that the brain doubles in size. I suppose extreme environmental conditions provoked a strong evolutionary response. The brain takes a whopping 280-420 calories a day, and by comparing structure and size with other apes scientists have worked out that our brain size permits us to work with social networks of approx 100-230 people (which explains a lot when you think about it.) He seems to suggest that the primary reason for the development of the brain was co-operation, working together - not as you might assume the creation of tools. It was more man (or woman) the talker instead of man the handy man.
One fact that hit me is that everyone alive today descends from a population of fewer than 14,000 breeding individuals from sub-Saharan Africa. And the initial population that gave rise to all non-Africans was probably fewer than 3,000 people. We are genetically homogenous. Humans left Africa about 100,000 to 80,000 years ago. Then in the Upper Palaeolithic 50,000 years ago comes the tipping point – sophisticated tools and a technological revolution. People somehow think and behave differently from then onwards.
12,000 years ago comes the invention of farming