Loki, shown here in Kelly’s photo, is now 18 in human years. She is thus very much my senior in cat years, and in this post she represents the animal kingdom going back to one of the earliest comments on my book when my friend Richard said: ‘I read the first few chapters of your book, Charles, and (deep breath on my part!) you don’t say anything about …’
Of course my first defence was that covering 10,000 years in 250 pages means leaving out more than is put in. But I nervously waited for Richard to finish ‘…the impact of the change from hunter-gathering to farming on people’s digestive heath.’ ‘You’re right’ was the short answer, so I asked him, Professor Richard Ramsden in full, to give me some more detail.
Now I’m not suggesting that hunter gatherers herded cats (which is the prerogative of law firm managing partners) but that Richard’s point is a very important one in terms of human development. The subject is, however, complex and sensitive. In terms of complexity we are soon into technical medical terms which even lawyers can’t necessary understand. When I read that “the transmission of pathogens from wild animals to humans is called ‘zoonotic spillover’” I’m afraid I had visions of a badly running nose. But historically at least “spillover has a fundamental role in the emergence (I like that word!) of new human infectious diseases”. This means that the rapid rise of animal husbandry in Britain from about 4,000 BCE (or possibly much earlier) had many implications for general human diet and general health.
Against the ability to grow our own food and feed more people were the resultant risks of such as bacterial infections from milk, infected meat or animal secretions, human overcrowding and proximity to certain animals assisting disease transmission. There was also the effect of the major dietary change from the often far better diet of hunter gatherers to the generally heavier and less varied diet of farmed food. And that’s before we even look at the effect on teeth. Another Professor, the telegenic archaeologist Alice Roberts, expands on this in some of her books, such as in Chapter 1 of Ancestors (2021).
These are issues that continue to resonate today, where there is a great deal of research and a major divergence of, often strong, opinions. Richard puts it succinctly: ‘The point is that any well thought out scientific theory supported by a respectable body of opinion will find opposing views expressed by an equally responsible body of scientists. That after all is what science is all about, and it’s right to state that there are opposing views. I have always supported the philosophy of evidence based science, but irrefutable evidence isn’t always there and that’s where plausible speculation starts, as long as you don’t sell speculation as facts.’
And while I don’t believe that history repeats itself as such, many underlying patterns can be seen replicating over time. One of those is the adoption of new techniques and technologies before we are fully ready to manage the consequences. That’s where the human drive for innovation can meet the human challenge of divergent viewpoints. In all this, some 6,000 years later, we still have plenty to learn from history. Food for thought? Back to you, Loki!