Aging & Social Change: Eleventh Interdisciplinary Conference

Abstract

As conference attendees consider the current economic and demographic impact of aging populations, it may be helpful to reflect on the consequences of aging at a much earlier period in human history, the upper Paleolithic (the Stone Age). I will argue that population aging was an economic driver of First Agricultural Revolution (the Neolithic). This assertion derives from my research (Kelly 1980, n.d. [1982], 1994) and that of others (Weiss 1973; Caspari and Lee 2004, 2006). For example, although not explicitly noted, trends of increasing longevity are evident from a comprehensive view of Weiss’ monograph on paleodemography. More recently, Caspari and Lee have provided additional convincing evidence of increasing numbers of older people during the Pleistocene (Ice Age). Using tooth wear, Caspari and Lee divided fossils into young and older adults. They found a trend of increasing ratio of older to younger adults (OY ratio). That trend accelerated at the beginning of modern human behavior in the Upper Paleolithic (30,000 years ago) suggesting that the behaviors that we associate with anatomically modern humans are a consequence of these demographic changes. I note that an increase in the OY ratio is also an increase in the dependency ratio. An aging Paleolithic workforce would have a direct impact economic needs and outputs. Given continued improvements in longevity, technological changes would be necessary to keep older adults productively in the workforce. I assert those changes are evident in the adoption of agriculture and in later sedentism.

Presenters

Kevin Kelly
Adjunct Associate Professor [Emeritus Associate Research Scientist], Dept of Anthropology [Dept of Occupational & Environmental Health], University of Iowa, Iowa, United States