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Is that true or an assumption we make? How do we know for sure that this was the case for prehistoric tribes? I mean, most habitats aside from the desert are te
by tamizhar 8y ago
Is that true or an assumption we make? How do we know for sure that this was the case for prehistoric tribes? I mean, most habitats aside from the desert are teeming with edible items.
- fifnir 8y agoThere was this documentary about a first contact with an amazon tribe. I remember an interview with the (very young) leader of the tribe who was talking about how life was in the jungle and iirc he described it as very miserable, they wouldn't eat for days at a time, bugs everywhere ++ it's the documentary talked about here, I highly recommend it: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/amazon-tribe-makes-first-contact-with-outside-world https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/01/amazon-tribe-m...
- kaycebasques 8y agoYes, but you have to put this in historical context. These modern tribes have been pushed into corners by the industrialized nations all around them. Modern hunter-gatherers do not necessarily equal ancient ones.
- fifnir 8y agoGood point!
- pharrington 8y agoMost habitats indeed are full of living organisms compatible with human dietary needs. The problem is, sometimes you're so good at killing that you just kill all the food before the food has time to reproduce itself. Or maybe it just doesn't rain for two months. Or myriad other contingencies that make nomadic life precarious. edit: and as bad_user pointed out, thats a huuuge reason itself to even be nomadic
- weberc2 8y agoFor example, you become injured or sick and all of a sudden you can't catch those edible items.
- kaycebasques 8y agoIf it was a temporary injury, you could rely on your family.
- kaycebasques 8y agoOur ancestors were way more in tune with their surroundings, and knew how to moderate their consumption so as not to decimate their food supply populations. We have evidence from many Native American tribes. Just because modern, industrialized humans are out of touch with natural limits doesn’t mean we were always like this.
- robbomacrae 8y agoYou might be interested in Jared Diamonds "Collapse". He's aggregated a lot of evidence of many societies that over populated, over consumed and died out. Not all did though and your technically right in that the survivors (our ancestors) avoided this fate. I just think we should be weary about any claims that peoples of the past were any smarter about their self preservation than we are..
- kaycebasques 8y agoFair enough, I'll check out the book. I'm not trying to argue that ancestors were smarter. For our own political purposes, it's probably best if the narrative becomes "all of our ancestor societies binged themselves to collapse, so we need to be very careful about our own habits" although it's not exactly true that all groups did that.
- jopsen 8y agoWfor political purposes this doesn't matter... Ancient civilizations rarely had a clue of how a desert came to be. Certainly, we today understand the environmental impact we have. Furthermore, we posses many tools to combat the problem: resource taxation; development of sustainable technology; reduction of waste and consumption.