Sone-Aged Living

Recently, on the Mediterranean island of Malta, I lay my left hand on a multi-thousand year old megalith while holding a 2024 mobile phone in my right. And I wondered about the people and lifestyles responsible for both.

The Megalith Builders of Malta lived approximately in 3000 BC—during the New Stone Age— on an island 17 miles long and 9 miles wide.  Since the island had no known volcanos, the air presumably was relatively pure.  The natural environment contained mammals, such as red deer, wild boar, rodents, and sea life, such as fish, dolphins, and seals. The fabricated environment was created through the efforts of small family- and kin-based groups.  Using stone tools, animal bones, and wood, the inhabitants  created what arguably are among the oldest megaliths on earth, consisting of a series of large stone blocks, some weighing several tons. They sustained themselves through farming, herding, and fishing. In short, the world of the neolithic Maltese required its inhabitants to know each other, work together in relative harmony, know their natural world, and live in harmony with it, also.  When times were tough, the population might struggle, but they had reasonable control over their most basic requirements for life and comfort.

How does this compare with the world of the mobile phone producers?  Those producers live in an un-natural environment characterized by grossly polluted land, sea, and air, due to their own activities and senseless exploitation.  There is not a single person on earth who can lay their hand on a completed mobile phone and take credit for having majorly fabricated it, only for adding or subtracting some small piece. 

Few 21^st century humans realize that their activities are largely implicated in causing the daily extinction of about 150 species.  What risks have we lovers of mobile phones created to our own destruction?  To cite just one area, most military experts estimate the following nuclear weapon stockpiles: United States: Approximately 5,428 nuclear warheads, Russia: Approximately 5,977 nuclear warheads, China: Approximately 410 nuclear warheads, France: Approximately 290 nuclear warheads. United Kingdom: Approximately 225 nuclear warheads. Pakistan: Approximately 165 nuclear warheads.  India: Approximately 160 nuclear warheads. Israel: Estimated to have around 90 nuclear warheads (Israel has not officially confirmed its arsenal). North Korea: Estimated to have 40-50 nuclear warheads (estimates vary due to the secretive nature of the regime). The destructive power of a nuclear warhead varies greatly from weapon to weapon. Two examples are the U.S. W88 warhead, deployed on Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missiles, with a yield of approximately 475 kilotons, and the  Russian SS-18 (Satan) ICBM with a yield of up to 750 kilotons.  For comparison,  the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, known as "Little Boy," had a yield of approximately 15 kilotons of TNT, and the one on Nagasaki, known as "Fat Man," had a yield of approximately 21 kilotons of TNT.

Don’t take a deep breath anywhere on planet earth to try to relax, yet.  First, read my following quote from the environmental scientists Angela Patricia Abad Lopez, et al. 2023).

 

Microplastics (MPs) are micro-particulate pollutants  present in all environments whose ubiquity leads humans to unavoidable exposure. … MPs-induced cytotoxicity stimulates oxidative stress by generating free radicals that originate from ROS [Reactive oxygen species, rare unstable oxygen-containing molecules that are created when air pollutants trigger a chemical reaction in the respiratory tract's epithelial lining fluid] and whose overproduction can alter cell homeostasis. Inflammatory lesions, metabolic alterations, and increased risk of cancer are some of the health implications caused by MPs when they encounter the interior of the body.

 

If you value your mobile phone, you might pity the “primitive” neolithic Maltese megalith builders.  They had no choice but to talk face-to-face with their contemporaries and be immediately responsible for what they said.  By default, the megalith builders breathed unpolluted air, ate natural food, exercised merely as a consequence of living their lives, slept under a blanket of stars, and mostly experienced stress that was immediate and short-lived. I’m sure I would not have enjoyed being sick on neolithic Malta, but, when I was healthy, daily life would have conferred many salubrious benefits, provided that I could endure the “unremitting pain” of living without a mobile phone. Whether you would prefer the life of the megalith builders or contemporary citizens, one thing is for sure—the biosphere undoubtedly would encourage us to choose the former.  Perhaps we all would be healthier if we live closer to, but not identical to, how the Maltese megalith builders did.

Reference

Angela Patricia Abad López, Jorge Trilleras, Victoria A. Arana,  Luz Stella Garcia-Alzatec,  and  Carlos David Grande-Tova.   RSC Adv. 2023 Mar 1; 13(11): 7468–7489