Depopulation from past to present

When the gods created the 1st primval male and female human beings they did not allot a lifespan for them. This meant that everyone remained alive for centuries continuing to reproduce until the Earth was overcrowded. People died only when the gods were forced to relieve the pressure by sending intermittently plague famine or flood. Scholars now agree that damaged text near the end of the epic refers to the God's decision to institute that as a normal end to human life; the restoration is supported by a newly discovered piece of Sumerian text. This late decision rectified the mistake the gods maid in the initial creation of man. In the old Babylonian version of Gilgamesh Siduri refers to this decision. The gods also decided to prevent some people from breeding, and to institute infant and child mortality.