From hunter-gatherers to farmers

Well, disease would have to affect the bone in order to be reflected in the osteological record. The main and easiest diagnostic difference would be their dentition. Not that it is fool proof though... For example, mal nutrition causing enamel hypoplasias or any severe trauma for that matter, like disease.

Sedentary lifestyle and domestication of plants and animals made it possible to support higher population density. In other words, with agriculture supplemented by some gathering sedentary villages with a permanent population could be supported, i.e. Mesolithic and late Neolithic settlements in Catal Hayuk, Cayonu, Jericho to mention just a few.
What agriculture brought was a restricted range of food stuffs that people depended on. The hunter gatherer  had a larger variety of  resources:  if there was no meat available, then  some nuts would do; if there was no game in this area,  move on to the next etc.  also, there was a smaller population to support and no epidemics. Sedentary life in restricted quarters is not very hygienic and in case of crop failure you die to famine which would be impossible for a small band of say 50-200 hunters gatherers.
Settlement eventually also brought about social stratification, i.e classes in the Marxist sense, and the appearance of organized religion, i.e more folks to support out of your labor. Down the line chiefdoms and states appear to be closely succeeded by empires, i.e. organized warfare.
In western industrialized societies today we actually have less free time than hunters gatherers. Consider the typical housewife in the '60s: get up, make breakfast for everyone, cook, clean, pick kids from school. No wonder why vallium was so popular.

Birth control? that;s a modern concern due to overpopulation. We didn't overpopulate untill recently. For most of history there were fewer people than needed. Disease, infant mortality and the effects of settled lifestyle (famines, epidemics) kept populations in check. 

If their numbers were few, they had to have practiced some sort of birth control. Also, being constantly on the move, the women couldn't afford to be pregnant all the time.

Not necessarily, in many H-G societies today women nurse children for up to 3 years. This keeps them from ovulating and thus they are not likely to get pregnant. Also you have to consider the rate of death from complications during childbirth, free time, lack of diseases and nutrition don't contribute to that. As well as predation from animals and other tribes could contribute to keeping the population down.

Also do not underestimate infanticide, heck in Medieval Europe a common practice was to leave an unwanted child out in the elements to die of exposure.

I'm not sure we can estimate the child mortality in hunters-gatherers (h/g). Where is your information coming from? Generally the number of members depends on sustenance, i.e you can't have more people that can be supported by available resources. H/g did not reach great numbers because the lifestyle itself could not support great numbers. We are what we (can) eat, just like any other species. So, their numbers were few not because they had to practice birth control but because that was the number that could be supported by diet patterns.
How do you know that they had lower mortality rates than Neolithic people? Again, the fossil evidence is scarce ; let me know if you've come with any studies I'd  be very interested as the "Neolithic Revolution" is one of my interests.

PS human birth is notoriously hard because of the bigger size of our heads. While we've been selected for larger brain size, female pelvis size has remained essentially the same. This is probably because, though it causes trouble, the process of giving birth has not been detrimental to our species. Only then evolution would select for changes in female pelvic anatomy. However, though enough offspring survives, birth until very recently was a very tricky business.

Originally posted by konstantinius I'm not sure we can estimate the child mortality in hunters-gatherers (h/g). Where is your information coming from? Generally the number of members depends on sustenance, i.e you can't have more people that can be supported by available resources. H/g did not reach great numbers because the lifestyle itself could not support great numbers. We are what we (can) eat, just like any other species. So, their numbers were few not because they had to practice birth control but because that was the number that could be supported by diet patterns. How do you know that they had lower mortality rates than Neolithic people? Again, the fossil evidence is scarce ; let me know if you've come with any studies I'd  be very interested as the "Neolithic Revolution" is one of my interests. PS human birth is notoriously hard because of the bigger size of our heads. While we've been selected for larger brain size, female pelvis size has remained essentially the same. This is probably because, though it causes trouble, the process of giving birth has not been detrimental to our species. Only then evolution would select for changes in female pelvic anatomy. However, though enough offspring survives, birth until very recently was a very tricky business.

Originally posted by konstantinius H/g definitely had more "leisure" time than modern people and this is supported by ethnographies  on extant  h/g, i.e. Papua New Guinea. "Comfort" is a tricky term; how do we define comfort? We need an anthropological definition of comfort to see how it applies within the context of different cultures over time. The ancient Egyptians, i.e., were definetely more "comfortable" than h/g considering that they had more material culture, homes, irrigation, trade, etc. Yet they ate sand with their bread which gave them terrible dental problems which is not evident in h/g jaws who, of course, had other "discomforts" to content with.