Homestead mailing list

[Don Bowen <don.bowen AT earthlink.net>]

At 11/11/2004, you wrote:
>  Hunter-gatherer societies don't accumulate excess population, so human 
> sacrifice tends to occur in nascent agricultural societies, because they 
> haven't yet found a systematic cultural mechanism for dealing with 
> overpopulation.

That was not a population control but a religious control.  In hunter 
gather societies no birth control was needed as women tended to nurse 
children for as long as 4 years thus spacing births.  Some in extreme did 
practice a little birth control for example some aborigines in Australia 
would cut a slit at the base of the penis but this was far from widely 
practiced.



Don Bowen
Awl Knotted Up Woodworking
Valley Center, CA             http://www.braingarage.com