Paleobiologists attempt to debunk the Paleo Diet – Not good

 
From time to time academic researchers of one specialization or another find it worthwhile to try to debunk the Paleolithic Diet. This time it is a chapter in the book “Bioarchaeologists speak out” titled: ” Stone Agers in the Fast Lane? How Bioarchaeologists Can Address the Paleo Diet Myth” by Hallie Buckley and Jane Buikstra (Buckley and Buikstra, 2019).

I hate to spend time critiquing other researchers’ work. Experience says, however, that a direct attack on the Paleolithic Diet, especially by defining it as a ‘myth,’ is just too difficult to ignore.

Prof. Hallie Buckley is a full professor at the University of Otago, New Zealand, specializing in Paleopathology of the Neolithic era of the Western Pacific Islands. The paper relies heavily on case studies from Buckley’s area of research. Prof. Jane Buikstra is also a paleobiologists/bioarchaeologists. She is at Arizona State University, and it seems that she is the mother figure of the bioarchaeology field since she is credited with its definition circa 1977 (Wikipedia).

For those in the fast lane, I will state the main criticism of the paper’s thesis right now. Buckley’s describes her area of research as Paleopathology of the Western Pacific Islands in what seems to be the the Neolithic era. Yes, throughout the paper the two paleobiologists do not distinguish between the Paleolithic and the Neolithic. The fact that any research about prehistoric pathology can be called Paleopathology serves them well in their debunking attempt. It allows them to stretch the Paleolithic into the Neolithic. However, when dealing with prehistoric diets, this is a grave mistake.

The Paleolithic ended when the Neolithic began. The Neolithic was a period of increasingly dominant agricultural plant component in the diet (Mörseburg et al., 2015). In some parts of the world, increased consumption of plant foods is evident already some 10-13 thousand years before the Neolithic (Weiss et al., 2008). That increase can be considered as an indication that in previous periods the plant consumption was significantly lower because apparently for higher consumption of plant foods one needs special tools and an increasing degree of sedentism .

The unique contribution of the paper to the debate is the evidence for the prevalence of gout, and presumably metabolic syndrome, in pre-westernized societies in the Western Pacific Islands. This evidence is supposed to show that metabolic syndrome prevailed in societies that consumed a Paleo Diet like the Lapita of the Western Pacific Islands, so the whole notion of a healthy Paleo Diet in the context of metabolic syndrome is void.

However, and this is a big ‘however,’ the gout that the paleobiologists identified were prevalent in people consuming a Neolithic diet.

Here are some quotes from the paper. Regarding the Lapita, the Neolithic group that presumably demonstrated gout and metabolic syndrome, the authors write: “These Neolithic forager-gardeners moved into the area carrying with them their own transported landscape of domesticated plants and animals…”. Fortunately, they do not neglect to state that gout was not prevalent among the previous hunter-gatherers (HG) inhabitants of the region: “Bony evidence of gout in prehistoric Southeast Asia is negligible.”

So, what do we have here? A Neolithic population with an agricultural diet, a pathology of gout, and possibly metabolic syndrome, replaces an original HG population with Paleo Diet and no gout.

And this is supposed to disprove the Paleo Diet Myth.

The whole paleopathological argument that the two paleobiologists present turn out to be another proof of the Paleo Diet concept – stay close to the Paleolithic diet – stay away from more recent (including Neolithic) diets, and you will not get gout. The poor Lapita had to contend with a plant diet to which they were not adapted and a consequent gout. We do not.

Until the next debunking attempt

Be well

Miki Ben-Dor

Buckley HR, and Buikstra JE. 2019. Stone Agers in the Fast Lane? How Bioarchaeologists Can Address the Paleo Diet Myth. Bioarchaeologists Speak Out: Springer. p 161-180.

Mörseburg A, Alt KW, and Knipper C. 2015. Same old in Middle Neolithic diets? A stable isotope study of bone collagen from the burial community of Jechtingen, southwest Germany. JAnthArch 39:210-221.

Weiss E, Kislev ME, Simchoni O, Nadel D, and Tschauner H. 2008. Plant-food preparation area on an Upper Paleolithic brush hut floor at Ohalo II, Israel. JAS 35(8):2400-2414.

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