Response to Carissa Keith: Paleolithic Eden

I would like to respond to Carissa's idea of the Paleolithic Eden. First, I really relate to her approach of trying to weld two views together--I often find myself trying to do the same thing. Also, I can completely see where the idea of Eden may have come from--the change from a more individual-focused society with more equality to a society in which some people have much more than others. The Paleolithic must have seemed like Eden to those who did not have as much--they probably would have wondered why society now had to be different. However, some of Carissa's points are misleading. While Paleolithic peoples had much respect for one another and were relatively free from conflict, they were not completely free from hardship. If you take the garden of Eden to mean something more literal--that it actually was utopia, then I would disagree with the connection to the Paleolithic. Paleolithic life was certainly not easy. For one, Paleolithic humans, while free from war, were not completely free from conflict, as an article we read references evidence of human-inflicted injuries and/or causes of death. Also, it is not true that Paleolithic peoples never got sick--there is simply less occurrence of sickness, compared to the Holocene, due to less congestion of people. Also (and I'm not sure if Carissa meant it this way), I would not consider pain in childbirth a disease--even though Genesis might make it seem like a terrible punishment. I would consider it a very unfortunate side-effect of the way humans are built (if women had wider birth canals, we wouldn't be able to walk upright). However, despite these inconsistencies, I do believe that the two ideas can be welded, but perhaps with the story of Eden being a little less literally interpreted. Perhaps simply with the idea that some people of the Holocene told nostalgic stories about the Paleolithic past when life was simpler (without knowledge, as Genesis might say), but certainly not at all easy.