The Hunter-Gatherer pursuit...

Reillym · 04-11-2014 11:08pm #1

Hey. How should I begin...well basically I started thinking pretty deeply about life and came to the conclusion that we're not living the way we are designed to live and because of that we face all the problems of modern life. Everything from depression to obesity to murderers and rapists to war just to name a few. I compare these problems to the problems hunter-gatherers face/ed. Depression? nope Obesity? well no obviously! Malnutrition? No Muderers/rapists etc.? nope war? nope small conflicts with other tribes? nope

Have a look at these links: I had to take out the links because I'm a new user but look up hunter-gatherers.org, relax like a hunter-gatherer and hunter-gatherers: examples of healthy omnivores.

Lets look at the modern life on a broad scale: School -> college -> job -> retired( if you make it that far) -> death. And for what? so you could spend 48 weeks every year hating your stressful life, coping with depression, weight problems, mental disorders, addiction or whatever just so you can relax for the four weeks you get off? or just so you can have a few pints at the weekend? Well that's not a life I see worth living. Well there's another problem! suicide... no hunter-gatherer ever committed suicide that I know of. I'd rather be happy for the majority of the time I spend here. I'd rather find out what it's like to actually LIVE as a real human being, a real homo sapiens. Everything from the thrill of hunting game hunter-gatherer style, not shooting it from half a kilometer away to grabbing honey from a bee-hive. Sitting around a fire every night making music with anything we find and voices and dancing. Just generally being happy.

Now don't get me wrong I know that living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle would be extremely tough at the beginning and wouldn't just be fun and games the whole time but I can assure you with overwhelming confidence that we would be happy. How long d'ya reckon hunter-gatherers had to work a day? Most paleo-anthropologists reckon 3-4 hours a day. And guess what? They don't consider it work. It's not stressful to them. Come to think of it I doubt they have a word that means work although don't quote me on that...

I'm not sure if I've gotten my point across or if this sounded a lot better in my head but anyway I'll continue...

What's the point of all this hunter-gatherer talk? After all we don't live in a society which accepts it as an appropriate pursuit in life. Try telling your parents at 16 you want to go live in a forest somewhere. They ain't gonna be pleased. However that's where I come in or at least I hope to. I want to make the hunter-gatherer lifestyle an accepted pursuit in life. I want teenagers like me to be able to walk into their career's guidance counsellor and say, 'I want to be a hunter-gatherer.'

The only problem is that's all I've got, well along with a burning hot passion but I need people out there with web design skills, people who know how to set up organisations etc. or at least people who can show me how. Most of all though I need someone who shares the same beliefs I do, someone who knows that the modern world is completely f***ed up for lack of a better word and who wants to change it.

Now I know we can't have 7 billion hunter-gatherers running around but we can make a start. Eventually the human population will decrease and hopefully by the time it reaches reasonable levels we will have all realized the benefits of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The basic aim of this organization will be to improve the lives of humans with the amazing by-product of reducing climate change and as a result improving the lives of all animals and ecosystems etc. I'm thinking of the home page of the web site saying something like, Aim: To show humans that the Hunter-Gatherer lifestyle is more beneficial and fulfilling than the modern/western lifestyle and to help them find a way to live the H&G lifestyle in their region.

It's scary I know, it's crazy I know but revolutionary perhaps? anyway if anyone is interested at all send me a message and we can have a chat and see where we go from there. No worries. Also I know many people can't just give up there whole life and everything they've done to go live as a hunter-gatherer but I've got ideas for that. In fact that's all I have, a huge bunch of ideas.

Hopefully I've got my message across but please if you read this at least start thinking, about life and whatnot. Don't just be a person who regrets everything on their death bed. I certainly won't.

Black Swan · 05-11-2014 12:53am

Doubt that I would want to return to the hunter-gatherer stage of human and cultural development. Maternal and infant mortality were high, otherwise simple health problems today could kill you back then, average lifespan was in the mid-30s, paternalism ruled with women dominated, superstition was worse than today, and I would suspect that tribal warfare over hunting and gathering grounds, and women would have existed too.

Of course there is always room for compromise between outback and civilisation. I have a cousin that became a park ranger, lives in the remote forest with his family, hunts during season and preserves enough for a year, and has a victory garden that provides much the vegetables they need. They are a bit short on fruit and grains, so they buy that in bulk from distant farms, jarring the fruit for future use. If he, wife, or children get sick, he can hop into his SUV and drive to a clinic or hospital many kms distant. In an emergency, the hospital has a medical chopper. His park ranger job has a good benefit plan, including health, dental, visual, pension when old, and life insurance should he die early and leave wife and children behind.

Manach · 05-11-2014 1:25am

One one hand:
From a health benefit of such a lifestyle, I'd say it would depend on skill level. AFAIR from reading a history text on the transition from hunter to farmer, comparing skeatal remains showed that the latter were actually in poorer heath than the hunter gatherers. While there is always the issue of skewed evidence of missing hunter remains, it would suggest that there are benefits.

On the other:
As the OP suggested for some it would have a positive benefit of improving climate change. Then again however, so would increases to nuclear production or technological means to remove carbon (source "Carbon Crunch") for which a tech society is needed. As non-manmade climate temp decreases are common based on ice-cores, when having the ability to make electric fire sources might be a positive.

Thus, a limited return might be of benefit but in moderation.

The Corinthian · 05-11-2014 9:57am

Reillym wrote: »

Well there's another problem! suicide... no hunter-gatherer ever committed suicide that I know of.

Do you know many hunter-gatherers?

Now I know we can't have 7 billion hunter-gatherers running around but we can make a start. Eventually the human population will decrease and hopefully by the time it reaches reasonable levels we will have all realized the benefits of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Well, the human population would decrease quite quickly as starvation would kick in very, very quickly.

The thing you need to consider is that the prior to the Neolithic Revolution human populations were quite low. Farming allowed the production of cereal crops, which supported far greater populations and so populations grew. Without that only a fraction of our population could survive; when you think about it, how many animals and wild, edible, plants are available in the environment? Do you really think there's enough to feed everyone?

Answer is not even close, so your eventual decrease would in reality be a famine that would make the Irish potato famine look like a feast.

Black Swan wrote: »

Doubt that I would want to return to the hunter-gatherer stage of human and cultural development. Maternal and infant mortality were high, otherwise simple health problems today could kill you back then, average lifespan was in the mid-30s, paternalism ruled with women dominated, superstition was worse than today, and I would suspect that tribal warfare over hunting and gathering grounds, and women would have existed too.

Actually, life expectancy was higher when we were hunter-gatherers than for the majority of our 'civilized' history. In the Upper Paleolithic period, it was 32 and actually didn't really go back to that level until the last century. We were taller too, BTW.

As to paternalism, we don't actually know, and there have been plenty of theories forwarded that many hunter-gatherer societies were actually matriarchal.

Black Swan · 05-11-2014 12:03pm

Reillym wrote: »

I compare these problems to the problems hunter-gatherers face/ed... war? nope small conflicts with other tribes? nope...

...we will have all realized the benefits of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

The Corinthian wrote: »

Actually, life expectancy was higher when we were hunter-gatherers than for the majority of our 'civilized' history. In the Upper Paleolithic period, it was 32 and actually didn't really go back to that level until the last century. We were taller too, BTW.

As to paternalism, we don't actually know, and there have been plenty of theories forwarded that many hunter-gatherer societies were actually matriarchal.

Fortunately we do not have go back thousands of years to observe hunter-gathering societies. We have a recorded history of native American tribes (e.g., Rosebud, Pine Ridge, Lower Brule, Cheyenne River, and Standing Rock of the former Dakota territories). When the European settlers (and military) first invaded and occupied their vast Great Plains, the Lakota Sioux were semi-nomadic hunter-gatherers, organised around male led family hunting units. They did not plant crops, rather relied upon gathering wild plants. Although women were in charge of the home (e.g., domestic resources, child rearing duties, and plant gathering), and descent relationships were determined through the female line, male chiefs and elders were in charge of the significant tribal decisions. Women were not allowed to sit in council (Of course the roles of Sioux women have changed today as impacted by decades of modern western civilization). Life expectancy was at best 30 years old. The Sioux had male war chiefs and warriors, and made war on other tribes, so the peaceful image of hunter-gathers in this instance was problematic. The Lakota Sioux Indians (2012) by Robert D Bolen makes for interesting reading, as well as other sources.

Manach · 05-11-2014 12:24pm

However war and the concept of warrior's differ across societies. This was especially true in the Native Americans. Instead of having a primary aim of killing the enemy*, the more accepted aim was either to injure or to count-coup (heroic acts of personal bravery). This was not due to any inherent sense of goodness in the Hunter/Gatherers, but that the loss of manpower in the type of European warmaking would have destroyed both losing and winning tribe. It was only in agrarian societies where the land tillage negated this, that other more bloodied forms of combat emerged*.

*Lincoln's Laws of War by DeWitt
* Western way of War by Hanson.

KomradeBishop · 05-11-2014 1:43pm

The idea of the hunter-gatherer society has been somewhat romantically idealized - it wasn't as prosperous/problem-free as you make out.

Steven Pinkers 'The Better Angels of our Nature' makes the general argument that we're living in the least violent period of history, and the early parts of the book make a very good case of how hunter-gatherer societies were actually extremely violent, with a very high death rate (made heavy use of 'deaths per 100,000 people') compared to now.

One of the big reasons why hunter-gatherer societies are just not practical now: The size of the human population pretty much requires industrialization, and there isn't enough land for the whole population to sustainably exist as hunter-gatherers; to be sustainable, it actually requires a very stable ecosystem, with a relatively small number of hunter-gatherers within it.

Another point worth noting: What style of government would back the hunter-gatherer society? It would probably be decentralized/anarchic, which is not a practical way for societies to exist, as it would only be a matter of time before competing factions go to war with each other for control over land/hunting-grounds.
A prime cause of this would be: Population growth. The greater the population of a hunter-gatherer faction, the more land they need to sustainably exist, and this will inevitably lead to conflicts between tribes.

As a solution to climate change, it is a straight-forward no-go: Even if it were feasible, there is just not enough time left for a transition to such a society (with the massive population decline it would require), because climate changes is going to become a Very Big Problem this century - a relatively short time-span.

Any solution to climate change, has to come through reform of existing economies/societies (better technology will help, but there is no technological silver bullet, so it will only be supplementary to the wider solution) - most notably, through economic reform - eventually we will have to adapt some form of Steady-State Economy.

seamus · 05-11-2014 1:52pm

The whole OP is based on a very romanticised notion of the "simple life" and the incorrect idea that depression, famine, war, murder and rape are "new" phenomena.

The idea that the life would be stress-free is somewhat laughable. The primary difference is that rather than spending your time stressing about whether or not you can afford to buy Xmas presents for your children, you instead spend your time worrying about real things like whether or not they'll actually survive the cold winter, or be carried off by a predator, or kidnapped and forced to become someone's wife or concubine.

I don't know about anyone else, but I spend practically none of my time worrying about whether or not I'm going to survive into the short and medium-term. A hunter-gatherer living wild will spend practically all of their time worrying about this.

The entire "natural" notion is pretty much flawed anyway. Hunter-gatherer societies arose through evolution. Modern society likewise has arisen through evolution. There is no logical reason to believe that modern society is "wrong" or "unnatural", and there is no logical reason to believe that hunter-gatherer societies are "right" or "natural".
Modern civilisation is a product of evolution. It's as "natural" and normal as any other.

Black Swan · 05-11-2014 11:46pm

seamus wrote: »

The whole OP is based on a very romanticised notion of the "simple life" and the incorrect idea that depression, famine, war, murder and rape are "new" phenomena.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Discourse on the Origins of Inequality contributed to this romantic philosophy that suggested primitive human (hunter-gatherer) life was naturally good, and that the formation of concentrated communities and the advance of civilisation served to corrupt humans. Claude Lévi-Strauss furthered this perspective by suggesting through his "writing experiment" that the adoption of writing led to a hierarchy structure that further distanced humans from their natural state; i.e., the noble savage was lost to the evolving and accumulation of knowledge, organisational structure, and bureaucracy.

Omitted in the romantic notion of primitive hunter-gatherer life were the harsh realities that it was hard, short, and violent.

Torakx · 06-11-2014 1:08am

Black Swan wrote: »

Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Discourse on the Origins of Inequality contributed to this romantic philosophy that suggested primitive human (hunter-gatherer) life was naturally good, and that the formation of concentrated communities and the advance of civilisation served to corrupt humans. Claude Lévi-Strauss furthered this perspective by suggesting through his "writing experiment" that the adoption of writing led to a hierarchy structure that further distanced humans from their natural state; i.e., the noble savage was lost to the evolving and accumulation of knowledge, organisational structure, and bureaucracy.

Omitted in the romantic notion of primitive hunter-gatherer life were the harsh realities that it was hard, short, and violent.

That is very much how I think on this topic.
I see that language is a box to put ideas into and so we are trapped within that context. It seems like the prison walls of our minds.
I see education the same in some ways.
When I started getting into philosophy not long ago, I came aross the thought that by reading and learning from other philosophers I am narrowing my choice of paths and thoughts, thus walking into a prison as well.
I haven't seen reason to think that is not true still. I do learn a lot, but the cost I am unsure of. Maybe I need to be imprisoned to know what it is to be free

Or maybe to recognise free if ever I stumble across it.

Also when countries begin to centralize power, it always seems to corrupt.
I am more or less for complete chaos(close to hunter gatherer) until a working system is discovered. Which will take many more failures. I am impatient at the progress of humanity right now, as we are so afraid to fail, that it has crippled us or will be our end.
People cling to this broken system of governance(oligarchical faschism or whatever it is) and are too afraid to let go. By people I mean the people who rule the world, not the ones who watch tv and work.

It could be argued too, that we have not finished making mistakes in this current oligarchical model and certainly haven't explored a democratic model in my opinion. So maybe I am just impatient and we should have another 100 years of slavery, before pulling it down and starting a new model.

Wibbs · 11-11-2014 1:57pm

KomradeBishop wrote: »

One of the big reasons why hunter-gatherer societies are just not practical now: The size of the human population pretty much requires industrialization, and there isn't enough land for the whole population to sustainably exist as hunter-gatherers; to be sustainable, it actually requires a very stable ecosystem, with a relatively small number of hunter-gatherers within it.

Very much so and we see this through the evolution of humans. Early humans were very rare in the landscape. EG Neandertals lived in Eurasia, from Britain to Southern Spain all the way east to Kazakstan for 200,000 years. Population size? Highest estimates run to about 70,000 people, low estimates run to about 10,000 at any one time. So in all that huge landmass and the entire population at its highest wouldn't fill Croke park. One impact of this is there were no animal extinctions in their history and range, they were at a completely sustainable level for this lifestyle(and still nearly every Neandertal so far found shows evidence of periods of famine in their dentition). Then we come along, fully modern humans and we have more kids and a growing population and even as "living with nature" hunter gatherers we caused mass extinctions of animals wherever we went. Tracking mass extinctions is a surefire way to track our movements even if we find no bones in the ground. Native Australians are often held up as peoples who respect the land with a religious fervour, yet their ancestors burned down huge areas of land and wiped out many species of large land animals in the past. In some ways they became frugal because they had to.

seamus wrote: »

The whole OP is based on a very romanticised notion of the "simple life" and the incorrect idea that depression, famine, war, murder and rape are "new" phenomena.

The idea that the life would be stress-free is somewhat laughable. The primary difference is that rather than spending your time stressing about whether or not you can afford to buy Xmas presents for your children, you instead spend your time worrying about real things like whether or not they'll actually survive the cold winter, or be carried off by a predator, or kidnapped and forced to become someone's wife or concubine.

I don't know about anyone else, but I spend practically none of my time worrying about whether or not I'm going to survive into the short and medium-term. A hunter-gatherer living wild will spend practically all of their time worrying about this.

True, though I have read some research that showed certain aspects of such lifestyles tended to show fewer examples of depression and anxiety. While their stresses were often acute and more acute than in the modern world, their chronic stress levels tend to be lower. Though this is likely as much social as lifestyle. The level of community is higher than in an average modern environment, ties are stronger. They have to be to survive.

The entire "natural" notion is pretty much flawed anyway. Hunter-gatherer societies arose through evolution. Modern society likewise has arisen through evolution. There is no logical reason to believe that modern society is "wrong" or "unnatural", and there is no logical reason to believe that hunter-gatherer societies are "right" or "natural".
Modern civilisation is a product of evolution. It's as "natural" and normal as any other.

Hmm I dunno S. It would depend on how one defines evolution I suppose. Humans have externalised our own evolution through tool use and culture, rather than wait to have "nature" do it for us. Hunter gatherer societies are an example of that, modern society is also an example of that. Now the transition from HG to farmers was rapid enough, it still took thousands of years and since that time more genetic changes have occurred in humans than in the 40,000 years previous to the rise of agriculture. Moving from farming to industrialisation and the modern world has been far more rapid. Basically a couple of centuries. One might argue that this transition has left us somewhat adrift waiting for our genes and culture to catch up.

Torakx · 11-11-2014 6:02pm

Wibbs wrote: »

Now the transition from HG to farmers was rapid enough, it still took thousands of years and since that time more genetic changes have occurred in humans than in the 40,000 years previous to the rise of agriculture. Moving from farming to industrialisation and the modern world has been far more rapid. Basically a couple of centuries. One might argue that this transition has left us somewhat adrift waiting for our genes and culture to catch up.

Someday we may evolve to properly digest grains

Reillym · 11-11-2014 6:39pm

Black Swan wrote: »

Doubt that I would want to return to the hunter-gatherer stage of human and cultural development. Maternal and infant mortality were high, otherwise simple health problems today could kill you back then, average lifespan was in the mid-30s, paternalism ruled with women dominated, superstition was worse than today, and I would suspect that tribal warfare over hunting and gathering grounds, and women would have existed too.

I've read that many hunter-gatherer societies were actually egalitarian. I can't find it right now but I'm sure I read a paper that H&G's often lived to 60. I think the reason average lifespan might be so low is because infant mortality was probably higher than today but as a H&G if you lived past 5 you'd probably have a decent chance of making it to 50/60. I've heard superstition only arose around 15,000 years ago? but that sounds low so it could be wrong but that time estimate is relatively close to the agricultural revolution. I think it was 50,000 years ago when humans started showing signs of art, language and abstract thought so I'd imagine superstitions might have come in around then too. Maybe there was some sort of mistake in our evolution? I sometimes think that. It seems we became too smart and we tried to make sense of the world. We couldn't think of anything but some sort of higher power made it all.

Reillym · 11-11-2014 10:35pm

seamus wrote: »

The idea that the life would be stress-free is somewhat laughable.

I think that our stress levels as HG would be similar to that of wild chimps and other apes. Now I'm not saying that chimps have stress free lives but I would put money on it that their stress levels are minute compared to the average Joe nowadays.

Reillym · 11-11-2014 10:45pm

Torakx wrote: »

Someday we may evolve to properly digest grains

And dairy! I'm not lactose-intolerant but I went off all dairy products for 2-3 months recently but then cracked and couldn't resist a bowl of cereal (addiction! another problem you rarely see HG face! although I must admit I've seen a few go to great lengths to get honey) and I spent the rest of the day on the toilet...

Wibbs · 12-11-2014 12:39am

Reillym wrote: »

I've read that many hunter-gatherer societies were actually egalitarian.

Like the "Paleo" diet popular at the mo RM, the problem is there were/are different hunter-gatherer societies and many different cultures. One size doesn't fit all kinda thing. A HG society in say temperate conditions is going to have different stresses on it and a different culture arising from that compared to a HG society in a tropical environment. Some are egalitarian, some are not. Indeed and as an interesting aside, some researchers reckon that one reason modern humans outcompeted Neandertals was because they weren't egalitarian. The idea goes that modern humans had a much more obvious gender role split. Neandertal women would be hunters and tool makers like the men(outside of the needs of pregnancy, birth and weaning), but modern humans split the roles and this made us more successful. Interestingly again in HG societies it's actually the women who tend to gather the bulk of the daily food, the men hunt the higher value food items, but it's not as consistent. This notion and acceptance of division of labour may have later informed further divisions which led to civilisation.

I can't find it right now but I'm sure I read a paper that H&G's often lived to 60. I think the reason average lifespan might be so low is because infant mortality was probably higher than today but as a H&G if you lived past 5 you'd probably have a decent chance of making it to 50/60

There's some truth in that. Certainly the idea that they were dropping like flies at 25 is a nonsense. As you said, infant and child mortality dropped the overall longevity stats. If you take those losses out of the equation, a person making it to 20, had much the same chances of making it to 60 as we do now and they were noticeably more robust at 50 than most folks today(though women unlike today, died more often and younger down to childbirth. More men tended to make it to old age). Your average 40 year old CroMagnon bloke would kick the poo out of your average 25 year old bloke of today. They had a bone density the same as current professional athletes and a 17 year old Neandertal woman would make a champion cage fighter pray for death if he pissed her off. Take the Biblical measure of three score and ten(70) and four score if you were strong. Bear in mind this was for an audience of "peasants", yet wasn't considered nonsensical.

I've heard superstition only arose around 15,000 years ago? but that sounds low so it could be wrong but that time estimate is relatively close to the agricultural revolution. I think it was 50,000 years ago when humans started showing signs of art, language and abstract thought so I'd imagine superstitions might have come in around then too.

Although there is some evidence(and a lot of it well dubious) that abstract thought kicked off before that date, it does seem that 50-60,000 years ago something happened, happened fast and spread like wildfire. We seem to go from almost nothing to fully realised illuminated cathedrals in pigment pressed to the living rock. Personally I think that it had happened before, but it was an isolated event/genius and because the population density was low, it died with him or her. A Neandertal Picasso might well have existed, but when he or she died so did their innovation. Made worse because they seemed to be an extremely xenophobic people. A sudden explosion in population in our type of humans and our more gregarious nature meant such ideas didn't just die out, but ended up being transmitted, shared, copied and improved upon.

Maybe there was some sort of mistake in our evolution? I sometimes think that. It seems we became too smart and we tried to make sense of the world. We couldn't think of anything but some sort of higher power made it all.

And thank god/fate/science/fluke that this happened. The important thing is that we looked for an explanation. Sure, it was usually "the gods did it", but we built a framework of philosophical thought that started with spirits and religion and ended with science. BOth are trying to find explanations to the reality we see about us. Without that "mistake" we would be mired in the idea that it's unexplainable, or not worth explaining. Saying gods did it and here's the theology of why is a major step forward that no other animal and likely few humans before us ever took.

Torakx wrote: »

Someday we may evolve to properly digest grains

Funny thing is, it may not be grains per se. The first use of grains and processed ones at that actually come from 80,000 years ago and it was Neandertals that were processing and eating them Neandertal biccies. I kid thee not and they were normally poster boys and girls for the Atkins diet. I suspect it's less our ability to digest grains, but more the change in the grains themselves due to agriculture and more recently industrialised agriculture. Never mind that when our big browed cousins were chowing on the Jacob's biccies they were doing so seasonally.

Black Swan · 13-11-2014 3:50am

Reillym wrote: »

I've read that many hunter-gatherer societies were actually egalitarian.

Not sure how they find valid and reliable empirical prehistoric data to support this position. Oral histories were problematic (line up 10 persons in a row, have them whisper a story from ear-to-ear, then see how much it has changed from person #1 to person #10), and prehistoric pictographs were subject to interpretation, revision, bias, and error. Doubt that prehistoric kitchen middens or fossil history will provide compelling evidence for egalitarian hunting and gathering groups.

Relatively more recent native American hunting and gathering tribes like the Lakota Souix were not egalitarian by gender at the time of the European invasion and migration era (roughly 300 years ago), but to say they were representative of all such hunting and gathering humans was problematic, especially when we factor in the range from hundreds to thousands of years, as well as other measures of potential diversity.

Reillym wrote: »

I can't find it right now but I'm sure I read a paper that H&G's often lived to 60. I think the reason average lifespan might be so low is because infant mortality was probably higher than today but as a H&G if you lived past 5 you'd probably have a decent chance of making it to 50/60.

Recent literature on hunting and gathering humans suggests that infant and maternal mortality was high, which probably skewed (shortened) the average life expectancy of such humans. So by controlling for these two mortality factors, life expectancy should increase significantly beyond the mid-30s average.

Reillym wrote: »

I've heard superstition only arose around 15,000 years ago? but that sounds low so it could be wrong but that time estimate is relatively close to the agricultural revolution. I think it was 50,000 years ago when humans started showing signs of art, language and abstract thought so I'd imagine superstitions might have come in around then too.

I would imagine that superstition began with early human conceptualisation, with its origins thousands of years ago.

Reillym wrote: »

Maybe there was some sort of mistake in our evolution? I sometimes think that. It seems we became too smart and we tried to make sense of the world. We couldn't think of anything but some sort of higher power made it all.

I think not a mistake, per se; rather the product of random variation and differential reproduction over thousands of years (up to a million or so perhaps, who knows for sure? They keep pushing back the developmental timeline).

Torakx · 13-11-2014 4:48am

I read a book called "Catching fire", which posed a theory relating to consciousness and diet.
The basic idea being that as apes or whatever we were, we ate much more vegetation and so a lot of our energy was put towards digestion.
Later when we discovered fire and cooked food, we didn't need so much energy directed to the intestines and they got shorter, allowing that left over "energy"(if you will) to go towards cognition.
To me this seems like a good explanation for the rise of the self and with that I think it's inevitable superstition and god would follow.

Black Swan · 13-11-2014 6:43am

Torakx wrote: »

To me this seems like a good explanation for the rise of the self and with that I think it's inevitable superstition and god would follow.

It seems feasible that cave paintings were associated with human cognition development (see RE Clark regarding metacognitive skills, learning transfer, and declarative knowledge), which appears to have been dated (minimally) to about 40,000 years ago in Southeast Asia (Sulawesi caves), or perhaps as long ago as 100,000 years as evidenced by decorated pieces of ochre and ostrich eggshell in South African caves. Perhaps such developing cognition and associated early primitive enquires into human origins suggested superstitious beliefs, which later became codified and organised into religious followings, who knows?

ezra_pound · 13-11-2014 6:58am

Black Swan wrote: »

Doubt that I would want to return to the hunter-gatherer stage of human and cultural development. Maternal and infant mortality were high, otherwise simple health problems today could kill you back then, average lifespan was in the mid-30s, paternalism ruled with women dominated, superstition was worse than today, and I would suspect that tribal warfare over hunting and gathering grounds, and women would have existed too.

Of course there is always room for compromise between outback and civilisation. I have a cousin that became a park ranger, lives in the remote forest with his family, hunts during season and preserves enough for a year, and has a victory garden that provides much the vegetables they need. They are a bit short on fruit and grains, so they buy that in bulk from distant farms, jarring the fruit for future use. If he, wife, or children get sick, he can hop into his SUV and drive to a clinic or hospital many kms distant. In an emergency, the hospital has a medical chopper. His park ranger job has a good benefit plan, including health, dental, visual, pension when old, and life insurance should he die early and leave wife and children behind.

Actually patriarchy is a creation of agrarian society so hunter gatherers are/were matriarchal.

William F · 13-11-2014 7:21am

Human suffering doesn't stem from modernity. Religions argue it originates from a desire to 'want' and in order to live a fulfilling life we should neglect that aspect of our lives. A desire to accumulate 'possessions' is normal in all human beings but having those things may not make your life any better than it already is. Having a car maybe beneficial to you in some circumstances but on the other side of things it will make you lazy and unfit. For every thing you gain you likely lose something in return. We already live in a 'perfect' society. Its how you chose to look at things.

Black Swan · 13-11-2014 8:02am

ezra_pound wrote: »

Actually patriarchy is a creation of agrarian society so hunter gatherers are/were matriarchal.

The Lakota Sioux were hunter gatherer tribes, which appears in recorded history from a time when the Europeans invaded and migrated to the Great Plains beginning about 300 years ago. The Lakota Sioux were NOT matriarchal; i.e., matriarchy derives from the Greek words matēr (mother) and archein (to rule). Women could not be chiefs, or sit in council, only men, consequently the hunter family groups that comprised the Lakota Sioux tribes were NOT matriarchal. They were matrilineal to the extent that blood relations were identified through the mother rather than the father, but the mothers did not "rule" the hunter gatherer tribes as male chiefs and male council elders did; i.e., they were a male dominated patriarchy.

Certainly the Lakota Sioux do not represent all hunter gatherer groups, but we know a lot about the Sioux because of their relatively recent recorded history (where we may have to theorize or guess about many other hunter gatherer groups without recorded history), consequently your summary statement was not supported in terms of the Lakota Sioux, who were clearly hunter gatherers with an obvious patriarchy established way before the European influence that eventually introduced them to agriculture.

Wibbs · 13-11-2014 7:24pm

Black Swan wrote: »

It seems feasible that cave paintings were associated with human cognition development (see RE Clark regarding metacognitive skills, learning transfer, and declarative knowledge), which appears to have been dated (minimally) to about 40,000 years ago in Southeast Asia (Sulawesi caves), or perhaps as long ago as 100,000 years as evidenced by decorated pieces of ochre and ostrich eggshell in South African caves. Perhaps such developing cognition and associated early primitive enquires into human origins suggested superstitious beliefs, which later became codified and organised into religious followings, who knows?

Aye but I would have more than a few doubts about both those two dates and locations. Particularly the South African examples. In any event it seems around 40,000 years ago something happened and quite rapidly too. A literal explosion of abstract thinking/art. From nothing, or very tenuous isolated finds predating that to whoa!!. The evidence, such as it is, of all examples of such thinking worldwide previous to that date would comfortably fit in a small briefcase. Why no apparent evidence of an evolution of this art?

My theory would be that previous art was based on the human body. Body paint, maybe modification, all things that would fade within weeks after death. Neandertals collected pigments(more into blacks and sparkly mica, we were more into the ochres). Shells have been found with traces of these pigments, so may have been used as paint pots. Horse toe bones have also been found with paint on their tips, "brushes" of a sort. Yet these colours aren't found on the external landscape. The only thing left really are the people themselves. This art may have started out as a camouflage technique, even a sunblock or parasite preventative, but would soon find use as a group signifier, you belong to this family/tribe kinda dealio. You're a Mod, I'm a Rocker sorta thing.

Maybe it started going onto walls of caves because the increasing population density meant that individual groups didn't only signify belonging to each other, but belonging to the land and it to them, a territory marker and cultural binder in the face of the increasing population density. It may have started out as a cultural arms race between groups and even previous humans in the landscape. This might explain why it went through the roof around that time. The modern humans from Africa walking into Europe and Asia would have found people already there and they met at that time.

ezra_pound wrote: »

Actually patriarchy is a creation of agrarian society so hunter gatherers are/were matriarchal.

Actually I can't think of a single example of an extant HG culture that's matriarchal. There are a couple that are matrilineal alright, but that's not the same. The Musau though not HG's are usually referenced as a matriarchal society, but they're matrilineal. Power still resides with the men. It seems their culture may have arisen when an external patriarchal power insisted the lines ran through the women as a way to prevent strong power and wealth accumulating among men within the culture, men that might rise up against their overlords. There are some Congolese tribes where they're very egalitarian at first glance, the women often hunt and the men will often look after the kids, but digging deeper and it's still up for grabs where the political and cultural power lies. As for the majority of HG cultures they range from fairly egalitarian, but with specific gender roles, all the way to full on patriarchy where women are seen as little more than child bearers and inter tribal political pawns.

Torakx · 13-11-2014 9:11pm

Which came first. Cave paintings or use of fire?
To me that might decide if it was a rise in cognition through eating cooked food or through painting on walls, unless I confused some posts above.
The food theory seems pretty convincing to me, for the rise in cognitive abilities. And alsowould explain a drastic change in a short time...I think. Depending on how long a period this quick drastic change occurred over.

Manach · 13-11-2014 9:15pm

Wibbs would be the expert, but from my reading (AFAIR Leaky etc) on some of the precursors to Homo Sapiens fire was present in their camp sites (the ability to create as oppose to keep burning naturally occuring fire was a development). However only modern man and to a lesser extent Neanderthals had a developed cave art system.

Wibbs · 13-11-2014 10:09pm

Fire seems to have come along about a million years ago with Homo Erectus, so a goodly time before we come along. We were pretty much modern for 150,000 years before concrete signs of art and modern culture. We looked human for a very long time before we acted human. The jury is still out on art in Neandertals, though there is some tantalising evidence of some abstract thought, but nothing like our own, or even close to our output. Before Neandertals there is only silence*

As for fire and its effect? It was a major seachange in our development. It meant we could move into territories colder than before. It kept wild animals away and made the night less dangerous and most of all it gave us cooking. Cooking is essentially a predigestion process. So we could extract more nutrients from more food items. We didn't need the stronger stomach acids of predators to eat meat and we didn't need the multistomachs of herbivores to eat many veggies. It also kills parasites and renders some plant foods safe. It physically changed our shape. After fire below the neck we look pretty much as we do today. It was a gamechanger.

How we came to use fire is a bit of a puzzle. As noted animals avoid it like the very plague, yet our ancestors approached and used it. Probably for it's anti animal and heat properties first, then when some meat happened to fall into some fire and came out tasty, Ug said to Og "bloody hell I've invented steak". We had to wait for longer before chips came along... (though we did eat a lot of root veggies, so Homo Erectus may well have sat down to a primitive steak and chips dinner.:).

We probably trapped and stored fire at first as an opportunistic thing. Even into historical times there are some modern human HG's , the Andaman islanders, who didn't know how to make fire, but basically became experts at storing embers and could keep embers going for weeks at a time. The initial fire came from lightning strikes and the like. Making fire is quite an involved process, banging flints together won't do it, so it's likely we were storing it for a long time. By the time of Neandertals though we had it down pat. Indeed they were such experts it seems they were able to make the first compound glue from tree resins in a heating process that requires very precise temps in an anerobic environment.

*save maybe for the whisper of forethought and symmetry in some handaxes/bifaces that appear to be purposely made to be "beautiful". Some indeed were so large as to be useless as tools. Though other theories hold they may have been made as courtship offerings to show the skills of the mate. Come up and see me handaxe luv kinda thing.

Black Swan · 14-11-2014 6:50pm

Manach wrote: »

However only modern man and to a lesser extent Neanderthals had a developed cave art system.

Wibbs wrote: »

The jury is still out on art in Neandertals, though there is some tantalising evidence of some abstract thought, but nothing like our own, or even close to our output. Before Neandertals there is only silence*

A 13 year study at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southwestern France of a 50,000 year old Neanderthal site suggests that the burial was intentional not accidental, and may give early evidence of a behaviour that differentiated both Neanderthals (and Homo Sapiens) from other animals. Did such unique behaviour also suggest a very early, primitive type of cognition?

Wibbs · 14-11-2014 9:03pm

Black Swan wrote: »

A 13 year study at La Chapelle-aux-Saints in southwestern France of a 50,000 year old Neanderthal site suggests that the burial was intentional not accidental, and may give early evidence of a behaviour that differentiated both Neanderthals (and Homo Sapiens) from other animals. Did such unique behaviour also suggest a very early, primitive type of cognition?

I'd be still quite dubious of the burial hypotheses B. There is as much evidence, if not more that they didn't. The major problem comes with our tendency to want to see such practices. Researcher bias is remarkably strong and seemingly accepted in this particular area of science. EG some of the earliest examples of modern humans found had strong evidence of defleshing of the bodies after death. Because it's "us" the general conclusion was that it was ritual. When defleshed remains are found in a Neandertal context it's the general conclusion that it's cannibalism. I've read some of the papers on this and you could nigh on swap the research and evidence portions between the two, but the conclusions were very different.

Take burial itself. In modern humans it's only one way to dispose of and respect the dead. It's a particularly European way and most of the research is done by Europeans or Americans(Europeans by proxy in culture). In other cultures the dead may be left out to be consumed by carrion, a "sky burial". In some rare cultures the dead are barely regarded at all, left where they drop, or moved away from the living. In other cultures consuming the flesh of the dead is considered deeply respectful. The clear evidence that Neandertals did practice cannibalism might be an example of that in their culture. To them, burial might have been only reserved for unclean or despised members of their kin. We simply don't know. Until we find a clear example of a burial with associated ritual like pigments and/or grave goods like we have in modern humans it's all very much conjecture.

Take the above La Chapelle dude. Zero evidence of digging of the "grave" hole and the word hole oversells it, it's more a very shallow depression in the cave. These people were well capable of digging out a proper grave if they wanted to. So maybe they used an existing depression and laid him in it. OK, but there's zero evidence of filling in of said depression. Now this chap was old for a Neandertal. The poor divil had been pretty decrepit for many a year, barely a tooth in his head and riddled with arthritis. The lack of teeth shows that he was considered valuable enough to be looked after as others would have had to prechew his food for him like a toddler and they did so for at least 5 years before he died. So care was shown for him in life, but after that? Another explanation might be that he went off to die on his own, or was caught out in a bad storm and lay down in the tiny cave in the lowest position for shelter(I've seen it myself and it is tiny). He may have gone to sleep and never woke up. Snow drifts may have covered him very quickly, which would explain the lack of predation. Cave sediment could then have covered him quickly enough and whammo it looks like a "burial" and since it triggers expectations in our modern mind we see what we want to see.

The other thing is they lived in very isolated groups and appear to have been quite xenophobic in nature. Individual groups may have varied in how they regarded the dead.

Reillym · 15-11-2014 12:18am

So it's likely HG in colder climates acted differently to HG in warmer climates. Since we originated in a warm climate (Africa) is it safe to say our behaviour in Africa is the behaviour we were designed to exhibit? I would be fairly sure behaviour is a part of evolution and so we would be 'designed' to exhibit a particular behaviour. Were HG in Africa more likely to be egalitarian? or not? There probably is no solid evidence behind this and many modern HG in Africa are not really HG since many of them herd cattle so we can't really use them as an example...

Wibbs · 15-11-2014 11:29am

The problem is R, we're not a static animal, in culture or in our physical selves. The folks who originated in Africa 200,000 years ago were quite different to people today. They looked different and would stand out in a crowd today. Their culture and behaviour has no obvious differences to other humans around at the time. They used the same tools, ate the same things etc. So let's fast forward to say 20,000 years ago when it looks like we're the only ones left standing, fully modern humans, with art and a modern culture. They were different to people today, albeit in a more subtle way. There have been more changes to the human genome in the last 10,000 odd years than occurred in the previous 50,000 years. The obvious ones are adaptations to novel diets, but there are other changes too.

Take different populations today. Europeans are "designed" to consume milk and metabolise alcohol, whereas many East Asian populations aren't. Look at what you noted about us coming from a warm climate and how that may have affected behaviour. OK, but when we moved into temperate regions our behaviour would have to change. The diet choices would be different and we would have to plan ahead more because of the harsher environments we went into. Look at Eskimo folks. They've been in the arctic area for around 15,000 years. In that time they've adapted to the environment. They became shorter and stockier to conserve heat. Their livers grew much larger to metabolise the near completely animal based diet, they even have more capillaries in their face and hands to keep them warm. The nature of their environment would also have impacted culturally. And all this happened in the blink of an eye in geological terms. Humans are incredibly diverse and adaptable to local conditions. It's what has made us so damned successful. One size can't fit all.

Black Swan · 15-11-2014 9:27pm

Let's look at this hunter gather lifestyle from a personal anecdotal and emic perspective; i.e., through the eyes of a (potential) participant.

Reillym wrote: »

Lets look at the modern life on a broad scale: School -> college -> job -> retired( if you make it that far) -> death. And for what? so you could spend 48 weeks every year hating your stressful life, coping with depression, weight problems, mental disorders, addiction...

Currently I am enjoying university, and related work as a research associate. It's not stress-free, but neither is your hunter-gatherer existence. Hans Selye suggested in his theory of stress that stress was normal in life, but there were different kinds. For example, prolonged distress was not healthful, but "eustress" was healthful in that it motivated us to get up in the morning, to discover something new, and take on the diverse challenges of life. I have very little distress today, but a lot of eustress that drives me to experiment and play with life.

Today I am not depressed, I'm physically fit with no over-weight problems (e.g., healthy diet, participate in a sport, and workout daily), have no addictions (except for my love of java), although I've been told by my friends that I am stark raving mad (but happily so). I do not foresee that radically changing my lifestyle to one of a primitive hunter-gatherer would improve it, or make me more happy.

Reillym wrote: »

Sitting around a fire every night making music with anything we find and voices and dancing. Just generally being happy.

If this makes you happy, then go for it. I might enjoy "Sitting around a fire every night making music with anything we find and voices and dancing" for a week or two, but after awhile I would be bored; i.e., not happy. Then again, my boredom might be interrupted if running from a charging 770 kg male grizzly bear without a bit of modern technology to slow him down (e.g., .458 magnum Browning rifle).

Reillym wrote: »

Now don't get me wrong I know that living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle would be extremely tough at the beginning...

Extraordinarily hard on a day-to-day basis, and not just in the "beginning," but always subject to the vicissitudes of nature without the advantages of modern technology, medicine, etc., to even out the rough spots (including child birth, accidents, old age physical decline, etc.). I see no romance in returning to a Jean-Jacques Rousseau uncorrupted (by civilisation) primitive state, acknowledging that the existence of the noble savage would be savage for me.

Reillym wrote: »

What's the point of all this hunter-gatherer talk? After all we don't live in a society which accepts it as an appropriate pursuit in life.

It's scary I know, it's crazy I know but revolutionary perhaps?

Now I know we can't have 7 billion hunter-gatherers running around but we can make a start. Eventually the human population will decrease and hopefully by the time it reaches reasonable levels we will have all realized the benefits of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.

Perhaps you can find this hunter-gatherer lifestyle today in the Australian outback, the Canadian Yukon, or the far reaches of Alaska, and if so, grand for you. Just don't turn the clock back and force me to go with you.

The Hunter-Gatherer pursuit...

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