[thaumasiotes]

> With the agrarian transition, population density and family sizes went up (a lot) but life expectancy went down a bit and infant mortality and disease rates (zoonotic diseases + higher concentration of population to spread through) went up.

Infant mortality going up is the same thing as life expectancy going down. Neither one tells you much about whether people die before or after you'd expect to start seeing problems in their teeth. After ignoring infant mortality, it's mostly afterward, but "remains" are not a representative selection.

> Hunter gatherers are/were constrained by wild food source densities but also tended to have smaller families

This conflicts with the idea that they had lower infant mortality.

[IIsi50MHz]

> > Hunter gatherers are/were constrained by wild food source densities but also tended to have smaller families

> This conflicts with the idea that they had lower infant mortality.

Not necessarily. Smaller family size can be a result of other factors outside of infant mortality.

[thaumasiotes]

Today, yes. In a premodern context, not likely.

[cmrdporcupine]

I gave you the reason right there above, but you cared not to read it: longer breastfeeding period.

Plus the fact that in a hunter-gatherer society people choose not too have too many children for the same reason people make that choice in advanced capitalist economies. Children become a resource burden.

In an agrarian economy, your children are extra hands for farm work. In a hunter gatherer society they are mouths to feed in an environment with intrinsically limited resources.