The Neolithic Revolution And Disease

Question 1

When did the neolihic revolution occur?

Answer 1

Between 12 000 and 10 000 years ago

Question 2

What changes did the neolithic revolution bring?

Answer 2

Dramatic changes in:

• food supply,
• population growth,
• health and disease

Farming and herding meant people had a more sedentary lifestyle, people lived in communities with high population density

Question 3

Why did population sizes grow in this time?

Answer 3

Better food supply

Faster weaning of infants (allowing women to become pregnant again)

Question 4

Which diseases plagued H&G populations before the revolution?

Answer 4

Parasitic and infectious diseases such as:
Salmonella
Staphylococcus 
Treponema
Lice
Threadworms

And Zoonoses such as:

• Relapsing fever
• Trichinosis
• Tularaemia
• Leptospirosis

Question 5

Why were Malaria and sleeping sickness not frequent in H&G populations?

Answer 5

These populations were small and adapted to the savannah (out of reach of mosquitos)

Question 6

Which changes (in the way in which people lived), changed the diseases present and how these diseases spread

Answer 6

Increases in population size
Closer contact with waste products
Closer contact with animals (herding)

Question 7

Closer contact with human waste, lice and fleas led to which diseases becoming more prevalent? (And sustained by larger population size)

Answer 7

Cholera
Typhus
Plague

Question 8

Which diseases became more prevalent as a result of herding?

Answer 8

Measles
Smallpox
Tuberculosis