ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a series of generalizations concerning health, disease, and mortality in hunter-gatherers. It describes the published record for health and disease in the Bushman, the Australian aborigine, the Eskimo, the African Pygmy, and the Semang. The chapter emphasizes the role of disease in population regulation rather than in selection, but much that will be said relates to both areas of inquiry. Disease, particularly parasitic and infectious disease, has attracted considerable attention from human geneticists and anthropologists in recent years but the role of disease in population regulation has been somewhat neglected. L. R. Holdridge provides a measure of vegetation complexity, but should not be confused with the diversity index. The hunter-gatherer is an element in an ecosystem and cannot isolate himself from his environment. Little or no buffering stands between him and the other components of the system.
