4 ms·
What studies? This is the internet, use that fancy hypertext. I'm not very familiar with this particular area, but I do know from books like The Better Angles
by Obi_Juan_Kenobi 9y ago
What studies? This is the internet, use that fancy hypertext.
I'm not very familiar with this particular area, but I do know from books like The Better Angles Of Our Nature (and criticisms thereof) that this is a contentious statement. There are many myths about ancient humans, some that overly indulge in 'savagery' and others that are too idyllic.
The evidence for either interpretation is fairly fraught and I'm deeply skeptical of any affirmative claims one way or another.
- ianai 9y agoI've heard it elsewhere in books. Forgetting where exactly.
- kixiQu 9y agoLater, in 1996, Ross Sackett performed two distinct meta-analyses to empirically test Sahlin's view. The first of these studies looked at 102 time-allocation studies, and the second one analyzed 207 energy-expenditure studies. Sackett found that adults in foraging and horticultural societies work, on average, about 6.5 hours a day, where as people in agricultural and industrial societies work on average 8.8 hours a day. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_characteristics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer#Common_charact...) Sackett, R. 1996. "Time, energy, and the indolent savage. A quantitative cross-cultural test of the primitive affluence hypothesis". Ph.D. diss., University of California, Angles.
- skinnymuch 9y agoThanks. Not about humans of the past, but still a relevant study.
- skinnymuch 9y agoYeah getting some studies and info on this would be great.