I thought I had replied to this but I guess it didn't go through? Oh well. Archaeologists (and historians) do control for infant death. At least those of us who study health in the past. It's not archaeologists who go around repeating that whole "in the past everyone died at 30!" chestnut.

Yes, archaeologists (or more technically, bioarchaeologists, the subdiscipline that studies human remains from archaeological sites) as well as historians control for infant and childhood death in pretty much every article. Example: http://www.anth.ucsb.edu/faculty/gurven/papers/GurvenKaplan2007pdr.pdf

Totally agree. People were already eating grains/gluten pre-transition, it wasn't like suddenly everyone looked up from their mastodons and thought, hey, we could plant this grass stuff and then eat it!

Wow, what a crazy background! My husband is in maritime archaeology. I always thought the business anthropology stuff was neat though I never did much cultural stuff.

If you're curious about my claims regarding the agricultural transition stuff, the textbook I used was "Our Origins: Discovering Physical Anthropology" by Clark Larsen. I seem to remember it had a whole chapter on the transition, and would explain it much better than I can at this point since, as I said, it was a few…

Now I'm wondering what your background is. I did study and teach this stuff, but it was a few years ago and I was winging it here. I did also generalize quite a bit. So let me be a little clearer.

Hear, hear. My in-laws are high school sweethearts who started dating when she was 16 and he was 18 and got married two years later. They are disgusting together. Just a perfect couple. But if you ask my MIL if she thinks it's a good idea to get married that early, she'll tell you "no" without reservation. I'm not…

I grew up in Minneapolis. When I was 16 (I think?) I accompanied a friend of mine to another friend's house and she turned out to be Josh Hartnett's sister or something. So I've been in his childhood home but never met him. I spent the whole day trying desperately to be as cool as possible, which for me was not very…

+ one million internets for you!

Loved this, though I do have to point out that we have a pretty strong skeletal record pre-agriculture and it's clear that health declined following the introduction of agriculture. But then we do only have bones so we might be able to point to evidence of malnutrition but wouldn't catch a dietary issue that didn't…

Well... not quite. You can't talk about pre-1500 and pre-agriculture in the same way because we do have enough skeletons to draw conclusions in the following ways.

This happens to me too! I'm very curvy with a defined waist and big boobs, but guess what - I'm still overweight/obese (right on the line for BMI so it depends when you weigh me). I have had people tell me I was lying when I reveal my weight or dress size. Not just the "oh, you're not fat", but straight up accuse me…

Well the Gen-X insistence that we're all lazy, entitled idiots is equally bad.

That's my situation. I'm technically a contractor but I've worked for the same company for the last three years (with a yearly contract). It's part time and the pay is hourly, no benefits, no paid time off. I pay 30% income tax. It's completely a tax loophole.

Because the other responder said something mean, I have to comment and say that I appreciated this post and I think you're right. When I chopped off my long hair, the stylists were all aflutter about what my husband would think (I hadn't told him I was going to do it, it was a spur of the moment thing). One said, "I…

I teach Associates degree students. Many of them have had really shitty life chances, born into poor families, plenty of knocks along the way - for example, there is always more than one teen mother in every class of 20 people, which seems outside of the realm of normal statistical variation. The first week we talk…

I meant we as in my husband and myself, not the royal we, but plenty of Millenials are in the same boat. Why are you being so unpleasant?

No, when you promote a claim, you are responsible for providing sources, not the other way around.

Ok, I'm a Millenial in my late 20s, where's my fucking internet bubble?

I agree that having kids and a house is a scarier situation than just having difficulty paying the rent. But you are not listening. We are facing a situation where it is unlikely we will be able to afford to even HAVE children and a house. Ever.