Were we happiest when we were hunter gatherers?

badabing106

We spent about 20 hours a week gathering stuff with the occasional killing of an animal and the rest of the time was downtime for us to do what we wanted. We were highly skilled individuals, knew everything about our surroundings. We were very fit and strong, and lived long lives. Disease didn't spread like it did in modern times because we were spread out in bands of people with a few dogs who kept moving.

We were a real community with the same goals. There were no classes, everyone was of equal status all working towards the same goal.

The agricultural evolution:
-We developed classes. Peasants worked the field for food to barely feed their family and provide food for the ruling class.
-Disease developed due to the fact that we stayed in one spot with pigs, horses, cows and their waste and our own.
-Thousands of people in one place easily spread disease.
-We developed the ridiculous concept of money which caused a rapid change in quality of life between classes of people.

The more I think about it the more ridiculous it seems to me that people suffer because of "money", it it a concept that we came up with and isn't even real. We allow ourselves to go through terrible periods because we decide that pieces of paper are more important than other humans.

Our entire system is pretty damn ridiculous when you compare it t other animals who live on this planet

The transition from agriculture to industry has condemned us to living unnatural lives that cannot give full expression to our inherent inclinations and instincts, and therefore cannot satisfy our deepest yearnings. Nothing in the lives of people today can approach the wild excitement and sheer joy experienced by a forager band on a successful hunt

pajor

I'm only 25, it's a bit before my time.

the purple tin

It would have been quite a dangerous life as well probably. Mind you modern life is more stressful I'd say, and we are mostly stressing out about stupid trivial things.

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

I don't know where you got your image of the hunter gatherer from but it seems way off the mark from what we were told in anthropology lectures. The hunter gatherer lived hand to mouth and was at the mercy of seasonal shortages. Family groups were small and subject to many stresses. Hunter gathers did not live longer lives than hits humans in an agrarian settling. The agrarian society allowed for a more reliable food source. Through this society developed, ideas blossomed and were shared, and life expectancy increased. Yes, it had it's downsides but overall it led to the survival of our species through what would have been several catastrophic extinction events over the past 10,000 years.

badabing106

pajor wrote: »

I'm only 25, it's a bit before my time.

Still. You evolved to be an expert hunter and gatherer, to live and work and be social with small bands of people. Humans have been around for 200 k years. For 190 k years they were hunter gatherers

The next time you want to chase a squirrel up a tree. You will know why

andekwarhola

Fashionable hankering for a time when violent halfwits eked out a miserable, half-famished battle against the tyranny of the elements and predators.

Hippydom really has reached its farcical apex.

I suggest you move to Antarctica.

osarusan

Your view of the utopian world inhabited by hunter gatherers is almost inconceivably rose-tinted.

Professor Moriarty

badabing106 wrote: »

Still. You evolved to be an expert hunter and gatherer, to live and work and be social with small bands of people. Humans have been around for 200 k years. For 190 k years they were hunter gatherers

The next time you want to chase a squirrel up a tree. You will know why

Easier to go to Tescos and buy a frozen one.

badabing106

badabing106 wrote: »

We spent about 20 hours a week gathering stuff with the occasional killing of an animal and the rest of the time was downtime for us to do what we wanted. We were highly skilled individuals, knew everything about our surroundings. We were very fit and strong, and lived long lives. Disease didn't spread like it did in modern times because we were spread out in bands of people with a few dogs who kept moving.

We were a real community with the same goals. There were no classes, everyone was of equal status all working towards the same goal.

The agricultural evolution:
-We developed classes. Peasants worked the field for food to barely feed their family and provide food for the ruling class.
-Disease developed due to the fact that we stayed in one spot with pigs, horses, cows and their waste and our own.
-Thousands of people in one place easily spread disease.
-We developed the ridiculous concept of money which caused a rapid change in quality of life between classes of people.

The more I think about it the more ridiculous it seems to me that people suffer because of "money", it it a concept that we came up with and isn't even real. We allow ourselves to go through terrible periods because we decide that pieces of paper are more important than other humans.

Our entire system is pretty damn ridiculous when you compare it t other animals who live on this planet

The transition from agriculture to industry has condemned us to living unnatural lives that cannot give full expression to our inherent inclinations and instincts, and therefore cannot satisfy our deepest yearnings. Nothing in the lives of people today can approach the wild excitement and sheer joy experienced by a forager band on a successful hunt

Fit and strong If we survived crippling infant mortality. Our lives now are more comfortable and longer and plentiful than our ancestors could ever have thought possible. If you want to go back to a relatively precarious existance of hypervigilance and food insecurity, knock yourself out. I'm staying within spitting distance of the supermarket.

We've swapped an existence of immediate return for one of delayed return, and eventually our cave brains are doing a pretty good job of keeping pace. Your disease theory, flawed as it is, can be offset by injury and infection, pretty fatal and commonplace in agri-revolution times. You forget that we weren't sitting pretty at the top of the food chain and life was more often than not fraught with insecurity and hardship. We were pretty lowly animals in a landscape of much more deadly and plentiful predators.

I'm guessing you read Sapiens. A good book, but written by an historian and an entertaining read, but much longer on opinion than evidence.

Cody montana

What age did we live till?

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

Cody montana wrote: »

What age did we live till?

Gurven, Kaplan et al estimated that 57% of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15. 64% of those reaching 15 live to or past the age of 45. Putting life expectancy at 21 to 37 years. 70% of deaths are due to diseases, 20% from violence and accidents and 10% due to degenerative diseases.

Lirange

Jane Cold Mumps wrote: »

I don't know where you got your image of the hunter gatherer from but it seems way off the mark from what we were told in anthropology lectures. The hunter gatherer lived hand to mouth and was at the mercy of seasonal shortages. Family groups were small and subject to many stresses. Hunter gathers did not live longer lives than hits humans in an agrarian settling. The agrarian society allowed for a more reliable food source. Through this society developed, ideas blossomed and were shared, and life expectancy increased. Yes, it had it's downsides but overall it led to the survival of our species through what would have been several catastrophic extinction events over the past 10,000 years.

Probably Jared Diamond. He wrote a piece called The Worst Mistake in the History of the Human Race. Smart man but he seems to value being the rebel contrarian over putting forward any balance in his arguments.

Humans nearly went extinct several times during the years of hunting and gathering. Our DNA is evidence of this. We we had some close calls as the genetic bottlenecks attest.

wakka12

Im sure they were happier in some ways. But I dont think near constant starvation is a good goal for society to strive towards. But like everything with humans, the more we get the less we appreciate. So in that way Id say we are less happy honestly..but we shouldn't be

badabing106

Jane Cold Mumps wrote: »

Gurven, Kaplan et al estimated that 57% of hunter-gatherers reach the age of 15. 64% of those reaching 15 live to or past the age of 45. Putting life expectancy at 21 to 37 years. 70% of deaths are due to diseases, 20% from violence and accidents and 10% due to degenerative diseases.

Gurven and Kaplan concluded from their study that hunter-gatherers, in fact, live reasonably long lives, even under their current conditions. “The data show that modal adult life span is 68–78 years, and that it was not uncommon for individuals to reach these ages, suggesting that inferences based on paleodemographic reconstruction are unreliable.” (Gurven & Kaplan)

Not unless you can hunter gather me a cadbury's caramel, no

badabing106

Jane Cold Mumps wrote: »

I don't know where you got your image of the hunter gatherer from but it seems way off the mark from what we were told in anthropology lectures. The hunter gatherer lived hand to mouth and was at the mercy of seasonal shortages. Family groups were small and subject to many stresses. Hunter gathers did not live longer lives than hits humans in an agrarian settling. The agrarian society allowed for a more reliable food source. Through this society developed, ideas blossomed and were shared, and life expectancy increased. Yes, it had it's downsides but overall it led to the survival of our species through what would have been several catastrophic extinction events over the past 10,000 years.

The average lifespan for pre agricultural human was 26. Post Agricultural revolution was 19. Obviously child mortality caused the average life span to be very low

Eric Pianka

http://www.zo.utexas.edu/courses/Thoc/Hunter-gatherers.html






© Eric R. Pianka


At the end of the Pleistocene, just 10,000 years ago, only about 500 generations before now, humans were hunter/gatherers, living off the land in small bands or tribes. We had no electricity, no cars, and no supermarkets, let alone fast food joints. We did not live in houses, but found refuge in caves and crude shelters. We hunted animals with spears, bows and arrows, and nooses. We caught fish with crude nets and fish hooks made from sharp pieces of bone. We gathered nuts and berries. We used sinew as twine and made our own ropes. We had no jeans or shirts, underwear, or toilet paper -- we clothed ourselves in animal skins and furs, and wiped ourselves with leaves. We had no television but sat around campfires telling one another stories and passing on vital information from one generation to the next (this was the origin of human knowledge).




Our ancestors were pretty tough, surviving several prolonged ice ages that lasted for millions of years. They discovered fire and spent time huddled together in caves.



Survival through a winter, let alone an ice age, in the temperate zones was no easy feat under such conditions, requiring substantial advanced preparation and food storage, as well as no small amount of good luck. Certain human behaviors critical to survival became hard wired during this period. Some such human instincts include our fear of snakes, greed, revenge, as well as our urge to procreate, all of which were adaptive when there were many fewer of us and we lived in small bands. However, many of our instinctive behaviors have become maladaptive in today's overcrowded world (human nature).

Tribes probably defended territories against other small bands of humans, but must have occasionally exchanged members. Our primitive hunter/gatherer ancestors must have enjoyed a good life during times of plenty in spring and summer when food supplies were bountiful. There was limited "ownership" of such resources, and people could help themselves to whatever they could find. Money had not yet been invented and food was essentially free for the taking. Many fewer humans dwelled on Earth then, and the planet could easily supply their needs.



Paleopathology is the study of signs of disease in the remains of ancient peoples. A skeleton reveals its owner's age, sex, and weight. A population of skeletons can be used to construct mortality tables and to estimate expected life span and risk of death at any given age. Growth rates can be estimated by measuring bones of people of different ages, and teeth can be examined for enamel defects (signs of malnutrition). Scars left on bones reveal injuries as well as various diseases.

The average height of hunger-gatherers at the end of the ice ages was 5' 9" for men and 5' 5" for women. Following the adoption of agriculture, heights crashed, and by 3000 B. C. statures had reached a low of only 5' 3" for men and 5' for women.

A detailed study of 800 American Indian skeletons from burial mounds in Illinois and Ohio river valleys illustrate health changes that occurred around A. D. 1150 when a hunter-gatherer culture gave way to intensive maize farming (Diamond, 1987). Compared to hunter-gatherers who preceded them, farmers had nearly twice as many enamel defects indicative of malnutrition, four times as much iron-deficiency anemia (evidenced by a bone condition), a threefold rise in bone lesions reflecting infectious disease, and an increase in spinal degenerative conditions, a reflection of hard physical labor. Life expectancy at birth decreased from 26 years to only 19 years.

Agriculture was bad for health for several reasons. Hunter-gatherers enjoyed a more varied diet than early farmers, whose foods consisted of a few starchy crops. Farmers obtained cheap calories, but at the cost of poor nutrition. (Three carbohydrate rich plants -- wheat, rice, and corn -- provide the bulk of the calories consumed by humans today, yet each is deficient in certain essential amino acids or vitamins.) Due to their dependence on a limited number of different crops, farmers ran the risk of starvation if one crop failed. Because agriculture encouraged people to clump together in crowded societies, which then traded with other crowded societies, parasites and infectious diseases spread.

server down

The op is generally correct in terms of quality of life. Diseases were more common in the agricultural era. People were sicker and shorter. Wars more common etc.

Professor Moriarty

badabing106 wrote: »

The average lifespan for pre agricultural human was 26. Post Agricultural revolution was 19. Obviously child mortality caused the average life span to be very low

Today, the average lifespan for a human is 71 years.

badabing106

Professor Moriarty wrote: »

Today, the average lifespan for a human is 71 years.

In 1900, world average life expectancy was 30. Hunter Gatherers were only 4 years off that which isn't bad

ytpe2r5bxkn0c1

badabing106 wrote: »

Gurven and Kaplan concluded from their study that hunter-gatherers, in fact, live reasonably long lives, even under their current conditions. “The data show that modal adult life span is 68–78 years, and that it was not uncommon for individuals to reach these ages, suggesting that inferences based on paleodemographic reconstruction are unreliable.” (Gurven & Kaplan)

You do know what 'modal adult life span' means? Don't you? It is not life expectancy at birth nor median age at death. You are comparing apples with oranges.

Post Agricultural revolution was 19

emm....we are now post Agricultural Revolution.

corner of hells

server down wrote: »

The op is generally correct in terms of quality of life. Diseases were more common in the agricultural era. People were sicker and shorter. Wars more common etc.

Was the WiFi any good ?

Professor Moriarty

badabing106 wrote: »

In 1900, world average life expectancy was 30. Hunter Gatherers were only 4 years off that which isn't bad

I'd rather be picking blackberries and chasing mammoths than working 72 hours a week down a coal mine or in a factory for some greedy Victorian capitalist.

badabing106

Jane Cold Mumps wrote: »

emm....we are now post Agricultural Revolution.

Sorry.I meant hunter Gatherers VS farming culture

badabing106

andekwarhola wrote: »

Fashionable hankering for a time when violent halfwits eked out a miserable, half-famished battle against the tyranny of the elements and predators.

Hippydom really has reached its farcical apex.

I suggest you move to Antarctica.

Violent halfwits? You reckon you would have survived a week if you were transported back to that time, you think you would have done better?

Arthur Daley

Where people really meat eaters for much of that time? We don't have the teeth and digestive systems of true carnivores. Then you have the need for fire to cook the meat, which obviously no other meat eater requires.
We must have lived for tens of thousands of years without resorting to meat. Meat eating quite possibly only took off when fruit, veg and nuts/seeds were completly unavailable.

Lirange

Arthur Daley wrote: »

Where people really meat eaters for much of that time? We don't have the teeth and digestive systems of true carnivores. Then you have the need for fire to cook the meat, which obviously no other meat eater requires.
We must have lived for tens of thousands of years without resorting to meat. Meat eating quite possibly only took off when fruit, veg and nuts/seeds were completly unavailable.

Meat eating was an essential component of human evolution.

https://www.livescience.com/24875-meat-human-brain.html

Eating meat and cooking food made us human, the studies suggest, enabling the brains of our prehuman ancestors to grow dramatically over a period of a few million years.

Although this isn't the first such assertion from archaeologists and evolutionary biologists, the new studies demonstrate, respectively, that it would have been biologically implausible for humans to evolve such a large brain on a raw, vegan diet and that meat-eating was a crucial element of human evolution at least 1 million years before the dawn of humankind.

lazybones32

I'm quite happy not being a hunter-gatherer OP. I have no issue paying a farmer to grow the food for me.

Pherekydes

I never lived as a hunter/gatherer. How can I compare my happiness with that of some guy who lived 75 thousand years ago?

Silly thread.

Next...

Arthur Daley

Arthur Daley wrote: »

Where people really meat eaters for much of that time? We don't have the teeth and digestive systems of true carnivores. Then you have the need for fire to cook the meat, which obviously no other meat eater requires.
We must have lived for tens of thousands of years without resorting to meat. Meat eating quite possibly only took off when fruit, veg and nuts/seeds were completly unavailable.

Most calories were from the gathering part

Capt'n Midnight

bluewolf wrote: »

Most calories were from the gathering part

But a lot of protein was from hunting.

Capt'n Midnight

Science and technology give us the best shot at surviving the type of asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

riffmongous

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

But a lot of protein was from hunting.

And those hunter-gatherers bros were all about the gainz

Surreptitious

Me man, you woman.

fyfe79

riffmongous wrote: »

And those hunter-gatherers bros were all about the gainz

"Ddaagghhh uuuuoo eeeenn lift brrroh?"

Chore sex guy has the same fixation, badabing. The whole hunter gatherers were happier is a common theme.

And he'd enjoy your threads about people peeing on your face, you peeing in the sink, erotic fantasies about workmates etc.

Wibbs

Candie wrote: »

You forget that we weren't sitting pretty at the top of the food chain and life was more often than not fraught with insecurity and hardship. We were pretty lowly animals in a landscape of much more deadly and plentiful predators.

Actually we weren't and hadn't been for quite a while and for quite a few previous species of humans. We were very much top of the food chain, apex predators. While previous species of humans had been apex predators, they had remained in a stable predator prey balance, we Homo Sapiens Sapiens really ramped that up. You can track our movements out of Africa from the mass extinctions of large prey animals(and competing predators) in our wake. Even into historical times we can observe this. QV New Zealand, one of the last large land areas we got to. The Maori arrived in around the eleventh century and within a couple of hundred years had decimated the local fauna.

It also depends on which "hunter gatherers" one looks at. It was far harder to eke out a living in Ice Age Europe than in interglacial Europe, harder in inland areas than coastlines. The umbrella term covers many environments and cultures and level of sophistication of same.

Arthur Daley wrote:

Where people really meat eaters for much of that time? We don't have the teeth and digestive systems of true carnivores.

Actually our teeth aren't too bad at processing meat, they're certainly not the teeth of true herbivores. Ditto for our digestive systems. We can't process cellulose like herbivores for a start.

Then you have the need for fire to cook the meat, which obviously no other meat eater requires.

Cooking was an adaptation that pre digested meat(not unlike how predator parents eat meat then regurgitate it for their young). BTW it also helps pre digest veggies to release far more nutrients than the raw form. Few enough of our regular veggies could we eat in the raw form. A few would be poisonous to do so. We didn't wait around to evolve sharper teeth or stronger stomach acid, we made sharp tools and fire to do that for us. Alone among animals we externalised and directed our own evolution.

We're the ultimate omnivores. We can survive and thrive on any number of diets you care to consider. We've been like that for a long time too. EG Neandertals are usually painted as the ultimate meat eaters but the more we learn the more we find they also varied depending on where and when they were from. Some groups had the diet profile of wolves and lions, others were far more veggie based and rarely ate meat. The earliest so far found human use of cooked grains was found in them. It seems they made biscuits. Whether they dunked is still up for debate...

As for which was the better lifestyle? Physically, yes HG's were stronger and fitter, more robust and overall healthier. However there's a strong element of survivor bias to that. They lost an appalling percentage of their children, so if you made it to adulthood you were already preselected to be stronger and healthier. The sickly kids simply died. This also happened in agri societies of course, but they could have more kids overall and slightly fewer of the sickly kids died. Even a century ago the average family of say four or five kids could "expect" to lose one. I've never been hospitalised, never had an antibiotic and need no regular meds, but I would be a tiny minority who could claim that today. We're so much better off today.

Mentally? Primitive societies seem to fare much better in that regard alright and not just HG's, small scale primitive agricultural societies show similar. While they suffer tragedies, they also have more community support(HS's are almost never alone), more predictable and stable lives within a cohesive culture. We live rapidly changing lives of much more uncertainty, with smaller psychological insults, but far more of them. Even compared to our grandparents.

We could I suppose try to combine some of the good parts into our lives. Physical exercise for example. The average day for a HG was a low level crossfit session. Their diets were more varied too. Though the "Paleo diet" is too much like Bro Science™. It's far better than chucking Maccie Dees down you, but it's nothing like the diets we ate back then. Pretty much every vegetable and the majority of fruit you get today simply didn't exist in the wild in those forms. The bulk of veggies they ate were usually of the root variety as little of the leafy stuff above ground was edible.