When civilization control-alt-deletes: prehistoric Europe’s false dawn and long reboot

Bryan Ward-Perkins in The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization illustrates how social, political and economic dynamism took a major hit in Western Europe with the Roman system’s collapse after 500 AD.

hunter-gatherers were the “original affluent society,” with subsistence requiring just some 3-5 hours of work per week. For Sahlins and his peers, agriculture ushered in a regime of ceaseless toil, one that has not been transcended by modern man’s 40-hour work week.

obesity has become a reliable marker of poverty