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Comment by user_501238901 | Hacker News Reader

There are still hunter-gatherer populations of humans who have the same lifestyle as they did 10 thousand years ago. Wouldn't studying their skulls settle this debate?

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Modern hunter-gatherers are generally not considered representative of our ancient ancestors. I can go into more detail if anyone's curious, but the short version is that they've had just as long to "evolve" as we have and the extant groups are those that were able to live in very marginal environments where no one else could, among other things.

Of course there's debate both ways and lots of people trying to tease out the parts that are representative, but it's unsettled enough that I recommend just thinking of them as wholly unrepresentative.

I'd take some reading recommendations if you have any.

The best that I'm aware of is Kelly's Lifeways of Hunter-Gatherers. It's a direct attack on this particular myth with lots of examples, literature surveys, and everything else you'd expect. However it's targeted at archaeologists and other social-science types and may be difficult reading without that background. I don't know of any lay-person accessible materials on this.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139176132

This is perfect, thanks!

Whether or not they are representative, I thought they generally have been observed to have perfect teeth?

(Except for the ones foraging a lot of honey)

Look up "Hadza people" on YouTube. They don't seem to have perfect teeth.

Not sure how representative they are (in this aspect) of hunter-gatherers these days though.

A lot of foragers feast extensively on honey and other wild sugars. The Hadza mentioned in a sister comment are one such group and the males have a higher proportion of tooth decay than the females (with little access to honey). Additionally, some groups like the Mbuti practice dental modification that can severely impact tooth health, particularly in older people.

What I wasn't sure about was (A) whether craniofacial morphology changes with diet/economic mode and (B) whether that transition is also associated with disorders. I'm not remotely qualified to evaluate the latter, but the former is apparently true. A quick spin through Google pulled up a bunch of well-known papers I've encountered before that pointed it out. Must have just forgotten that detail.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1016/j.quaint.2006.01.004

Read the last paras. The unanswered question is much more interesting than the stuff about Mews: How do orthodox orthodontists answer the anthrpologist?

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