Preparedness for when

Hard_Up_Hester

Bananas, when I run out of energy it is because my potassium level has dropped dramatically, a banana a day for a couple days works for me.

GreyQueen

The archaelology of the time reveals that settlements would have been roundhouses, relatively small, and with a lot of life being lived out-of-doors. It's very surprising that, given the harshness of life up there still (have myself been from one end of the outer Hebrides to the other) that people didn't avail themselves of the major calorific resource of the area; fish.

After all, these were fishing communities (and still are) into modern times. I've read other investigations of Neolithic Scotland (mainland inc the east coast) which showed the same fish-avoidance in the Neolithic era.

That young woman was aged about 26 when she died, was 4 ft 11 tall, pigeon-chested and had other skeletal defects typical of rickets. No other skeleton has ever been found with rickets until Roman times, and not commonly then. It's typically a disease of urban slums. I have, when living in Scotland in the 1980s, occasionally seen old men struggling along with their legs bowed outwards at the knee almost 45 degrees from true. Very sad.

I've often meditated on the several people I know whose parents immigrated to the UK from several parts of south-east Asia. My friends and acquaintances were UK-born and raised on a Western diet. Interestingly, they are anything from 8-12 inches taller than their parents, with most of the men being over 6 ft and the women easily matching my 5' 10" or even taller. I've never encountered a first British generation person whose were Hong Kong Chinese or Vietnamese who doesn't dwarf their parents.

Seems to indicate to me that the genetic potential for height and robust build encoded in their families' DNA was being held back by rice-based mostly vegetarian diets, and that their British-raised children can make good most of that defecit in a single generation.

Given dieticians' tendancy to exalt their hereditary style of eating, it makes me think that this isn't such a clever idea.

Modern diets are incredibly-heavily loaded with a single foodstuff - wheat. And wheat is bred to be a lot different now than it was 40 years ago, which is only the childhood/ young adulthood of many of us who post here.

[Deleted User]

Did you know that, eating a banana increases your body's radiation level.

Cappella

What a fascinating topic: my late m-in-law had rickets as a child in the 1920s and only stood 4'4" tall because her legs were so badly bowed. She was born in the east end in London and was one of 14 children whose parents just couldn't provide a sound diet, or indeed much food of any kind. From what she's said they lived mostly on bread and cheap jam. This changed for her when she was sent to a Barnadoes home, when her parents died. Her siblings also showed signs of malnutrition, but not as severely as hers. My own mother was one of 9 and there was little money in her family either but they lived in Lincolnshire and her dad was able to catch rabbits, wood pigeon squabs and rooks (poach other game) and he grew a huge vegetable garden and kept bantams so their diets were a lot more varied than the London family.

To me this indicates strongly that diet was the real issue for the Neolithic woman; though I do wonder why other skeletons haven't been found with rickets if this was the sole cause? Is there any evidence that the people in Neolithic Scotland ate shellfish? There are large mounds of shells at coastal sites in Britain indicating that they were an important part of Neolithic diets further south; but that they were consumed by the coast away from settlements, hence no midden evidence. If fish were gutted and filleted on site, away from the round houses surely there would be no midden evidence anyway? The gulls would deal with entrails and bones so nothing would survive to serve as firm evidence one way or another.

Goodness. I'm going to look for my Ancient Britain and read a lot more about this, ignoring a good, sustainable food source like fish when food was so precious seems just plain odd to me.

Do people on this thread fish? I don't, never had but it could be a new skill to learn quickly in a prep situation.:)

thriftwizard

Modern diets are incredibly-heavily loaded with a single foodstuff - wheat. And wheat is bred to be a lot different now than it was 40 years ago, which is only the childhood/ young adulthood of many of us who post here.

Totally agree! But don't forget corn - as in High Fructose Corn Syrup etc. - a grain that's not eaten "as is" where it came from, and doesn't grow easily here, but seems to be added to just about every processed foodstuff now. There are those who attribute the "obesity epidemic" to this one ingredient alone. But I can't help wondering whether the routine use of antibiotics (used to force swift growth & fattening in meat animals, as well as to facilitate terrible overcrowding) plays a part too. So we're getting taller & heavier at a rate of knots, but not, alas, healthier...

ETA: after reading Capella's contribution I'm reminded of one of my tenants when I worked in a social housing scheme. She was 4'11" and a powerhouse of energy & fun. Youngest of 15 children and born when her mother was over 50, she'd trot off to do the shopping for "old dears" 30 years younger than herself! And she broke her wrist at her 94th birthday party, falling off the table she was dancing on... she may have been quite tiny, which I think was as much genetic as anything else as her two daughters, raised in relative comfort, are tiny too, but a country childhood had clearly stood her in good stead.

NewShadow

Bedsit_Bob wrote: »

Did you know that, eating a banana increases your body's radiation level.

GreyQueen

I don't think fish bones show up in coprolite analysis even in coastal Neolithic communities. Paleolithic, yes.

My own mother was born and spent her early years in London's East End. There were three children in total, not all alive at the same time, but incredibly-neglectful and abusive parenting. Social Services finally stepped in when Mum was seven and took her into care.

She spent several months in a care home then was sent into the countryside into fosterage. It took the best part of two years, from point of being into care, for the malnutrition sores on her legs to heal completely.

Mum and I have identical bone structure with one glaring exception; my legs are 6 inches longer than her's and my overall height is 5 ft 10.5 inches as opposed to her 5 ft 5.5 inches. I bet an analysis of her leg bones would reveal those bands typical of growth restriction due to malnutrition. My brother is 4 inches taller than I am, too.

mardatha

My dad's side of the family worked on the fishing boats, out of Pittenweem and Anstruther.. but I cannot bear the sight, smell nor taste of fish. It can and has made me physically sick. Maybe the western isles were populated by the Mard clan. One must go up there and look for one's ancestral round hoose.

NewShadow

It could be that individual didn't like fish.

It could be the village once ate spoilt fish and then avoided it as they thought it was bad for them.

It's possible the edible volume and calorie load of the fish, when compared to that of an alternate local food source, make it more effort to fish sufficiently to feed everyone.

Fishing was much more dangerous then I would have thought - infections from the (frequent) cuts and scratches alone could have been annoying.

Or a 'fishing tragedy' could have meant the settlement or her family avoided the water - knowing how to swim has only recently been common. I did read a study that suggested Neolithic - Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon - bone fragments and skeletal modelling indicate they were 'denser' than 'anatomically modern humans'; meaning it may have been harder for them to swim and/or they weren't as naturally buoyant as we are.

Or, yes, she was a 'slave'...

With limited volume of artefacts that survive even 800 years, pseudo-history is little more than fairytales. Pick the one you like most.

pollyanna_26

The Mard clan ! You do make me laugh Mar . :rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:
Loving the discussion today . For those who haven't read it " Round about about a pound a week " by Maud Pember Reeves makes interesting reading . It details the Lambeth Project undertaken by the Fabien women's group in 1909 - 1913 . A weekly study was carried out weekly in the homes of 30 poor families to see what their spending was . The only family which were not paying part of their meagre budget to the weekly burial fund had a mother who was a true old styler and her family thrived due to the fact she understood nutrition and made nourishing meals from next to nothing .
polly