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You do realize that modern humans are weaker and have a smaller brain than their hunter gatherer ancestors, right? And not by a trivial amount, but by like 10%

You do realize that modern humans are weaker and have a smaller brain than their hunter gatherer ancestors, right? And not by a trivial amount, but by like 10% or so.

frockington 8y ago
Most of us no longer hunt and gather all day so it would make sense that we would not need to be as big.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Very true, but there’s evidence that switching from hunting to farming actually changed us because of nutritional deficiencies, not just exercise changes. Example: hunter gatherers were not only stronger, they were taller and had wider jaws that fit all their teeth better. They also had fewer cavities than both farmers and modern humans. I personally think humans have lower tolerance for carbohydrates than most realize, and that we’re missing out on a lot of fat soluable compounds in our diets, such as K2. They also typically lived healthier, although not always longer. Obviously war, predation, and disease cut the life expectancy of hunter gatherers a lot. But if you exclude the unlucky, they actually remained active into remarkably old ages, seeing skeletons who showed signs of hunting into their 80s is not unheard of at all. Our aging might make it to their 80s much more regularly, killing off the sabertooths helped, but they’re hobled by mental and physical degeneration at distressingly high rates.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Unfortunately your assumptions are based on no data. Including living healthier lives. Malnutrition was very common until very recently even among hunter gatherers. Bad season? Sorry, half of your family starves and the other is sick. That said, early settled people had it even worse. They did get more exercise, but that is possible, easy in fact, to match, and results will likely be limited.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      The bit about teeth is actually based on work by Weston A Price. He managed to catch photos of many tribes right as they transitioned into the then modern diet in the early 20th century. He was also a dentist, which is why he focused on teeth. Focusing on teeth is important because 1. Cavities kill. 2. Teeth are a good proxy for general health. The bit about morbidity is bog standard anthropological information from any university. Quick googling for “hunter gatherer mortality” brings up plenty of sources. I personally focus on pre-history, since early “civilization” was awful. We’ve only recently climbed out of the low life expectancies that started with the advent of farming.
Balero 8y ago
Homo-sapiens were weaker and had a smaller brain, and less advanced culture and technology then Neanderthals. But we're here and they are not (except in like 4% of European DNA). What matters is how adaptable we are. And we certainly are the most adaptable we have ever been. It might be thought that people use all of the technology as a crutch and would not be able to survive if they were transported to a world without it. But, after a couple of days, modern people would get used to what they have, make do, and be creative in solving problems. It would be hard and painful, but that's the nature of adapting.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Yes, although some of the theories about Neanderthal extinction involve climate change, not intelligence. The point is that our ancestors up until 10,000 years ago would make us look like complete and utter wimps, which contradicts your “most people were inactive” premise. And based on what happens to a modern human even with survival gear who gets lost in the wilderness, typically death within a week or two sans rescue, I genuinely doubt that modern humans would adapt quickly enough to a hunter gatherer world.
  - Balero 8y ago
    "Yes, although some of the theories about Neanderthal extinction involve climate change, not intelligence." My point was that they were less adaptable. For example, the climate changed and they were unable to adapt. I stated that they had bigger brains and more advanced technology. Neanderthals were more intelligent than Sapiens. I had no premise that “most people were inactive”. I honestly have no idea where you think I said this. A single human alone would probably die no matter when they were from. We have always been a social species. A group of humans would be fine anywhere that was not a massive extreme (desert, tundra) unless they had experience in these locales.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      > Anyone that knows history knows that humans were as tame, if not tamer, in the past. Plus uneducated. Most of humanity has never been agile, curious and resourceful. Anthropologists know that ancient hunter gatherers were stronger, fitter, and typically had lower rates of morbidity than us. Which kind of undermines your “agile” and “tame” bit. I’d also say going from nothing to stone tools counts as quite resourceful, if you ask me. Given that our ancestors had the same basic wiring and larger brains, I’d actually wager on them being more curious and clever than modern humans.
MrEfficiency 8y ago
I can confirm I know more and likely am stronger than every hunter gatherer. Hunter gatherers didnt know what chemicals to mix to create a battery, or use that battery to power magnets, and that if you power them in the correct order you can spin things, and with spinning, you have our modern way of moving energy. I also lift weights, likely unbelievable weights that couldnt be sustained for a hunter gatherer due to lack of food. Size doesnt matter as much as environment. I have an abundance of food and information, while this was scarce 10,000 years a go.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Knowledge != intelligence. That little bit there basically blows away your first section completely. The second is dubious. Ancient hunter gatherers were persistence hunters. Go walk for 50 miles a day for a few days and then carry the kill home and I’ll believe that you’re stronger. Hell, for that matter go kill a mastadon and then carry the meat home. Watch out for wolves!
  - beat 8y ago
    Intelligence says you don't carry the mastadon home, you take the tribe to the mastadon.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      It’s not like carrying all your possessions to the mastadon is easy either.
      - beat 8y ago
        It worked, though. A lot of stone age tribes for tens of thousands of years made a pretty good living hunting big game animals like mastodons. Taking a creature that large down can feed an entire tribe for days or even weeks. Makes it well worth the effort to move to it. The idea of villages and more possessions than you can carry didn't happen until agriculture became a thing. The people that lived off big game hunting with stone age tools and no pack animals were set up for it.
commandlinefan 8y ago
> a smaller brain Sperm whale's brains are more than 6 times the size of ours. Maybe size doesn't matter as much as you think it does.
- village-idiot 8y ago
  Apples to oranges. It has more than 6 times the body to control than us, and lacks the cortices we have. Our ancestors however had basically the exact same neurological wiring, roughly the same amount of body to control, and even more neurons crammed into their skulls. Hence the theory that they’d be more clever than modern humans.

You do realize that modern humans are weaker and have a smaller brain than their hunter gatherer ancestors, right? And not by a trivial amount, but by like 10% or so.

frockington 8y ago

Most of us no longer hunt and gather all day so it would make sense that we would not need to be as big.

village-idiot 8y ago
Very true, but there’s evidence that switching from hunting to farming actually changed us because of nutritional deficiencies, not just exercise changes. Example: hunter gatherers were not only stronger, they were taller and had wider jaws that fit all their teeth better. They also had fewer cavities than both farmers and modern humans. I personally think humans have lower tolerance for carbohydrates than most realize, and that we’re missing out on a lot of fat soluable compounds in our diets, such as K2. They also typically lived healthier, although not always longer. Obviously war, predation, and disease cut the life expectancy of hunter gatherers a lot. But if you exclude the unlucky, they actually remained active into remarkably old ages, seeing skeletons who showed signs of hunting into their 80s is not unheard of at all. Our aging might make it to their 80s much more regularly, killing off the sabertooths helped, but they’re hobled by mental and physical degeneration at distressingly high rates.
- AstralStorm 8y ago
  Unfortunately your assumptions are based on no data. Including living healthier lives. Malnutrition was very common until very recently even among hunter gatherers. Bad season? Sorry, half of your family starves and the other is sick. That said, early settled people had it even worse. They did get more exercise, but that is possible, easy in fact, to match, and results will likely be limited.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    The bit about teeth is actually based on work by Weston A Price. He managed to catch photos of many tribes right as they transitioned into the then modern diet in the early 20th century. He was also a dentist, which is why he focused on teeth. Focusing on teeth is important because 1. Cavities kill. 2. Teeth are a good proxy for general health. The bit about morbidity is bog standard anthropological information from any university. Quick googling for “hunter gatherer mortality” brings up plenty of sources. I personally focus on pre-history, since early “civilization” was awful. We’ve only recently climbed out of the low life expectancies that started with the advent of farming.

Balero 8y ago

Homo-sapiens were weaker and had a smaller brain, and less advanced culture and technology then Neanderthals. But we're here and they are not (except in like 4% of European DNA). What matters is how adaptable we are. And we certainly are the most adaptable we have ever been. It might be thought that people use all of the technology as a crutch and would not be able to survive if they were transported to a world without it. But, after a couple of days, modern people would get used to what they have, make do, and be creative in solving problems. It would be hard and painful, but that's the nature of adapting.

village-idiot 8y ago
Yes, although some of the theories about Neanderthal extinction involve climate change, not intelligence. The point is that our ancestors up until 10,000 years ago would make us look like complete and utter wimps, which contradicts your “most people were inactive” premise. And based on what happens to a modern human even with survival gear who gets lost in the wilderness, typically death within a week or two sans rescue, I genuinely doubt that modern humans would adapt quickly enough to a hunter gatherer world.
- Balero 8y ago
  "Yes, although some of the theories about Neanderthal extinction involve climate change, not intelligence." My point was that they were less adaptable. For example, the climate changed and they were unable to adapt. I stated that they had bigger brains and more advanced technology. Neanderthals were more intelligent than Sapiens. I had no premise that “most people were inactive”. I honestly have no idea where you think I said this. A single human alone would probably die no matter when they were from. We have always been a social species. A group of humans would be fine anywhere that was not a massive extreme (desert, tundra) unless they had experience in these locales.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    > Anyone that knows history knows that humans were as tame, if not tamer, in the past. Plus uneducated. Most of humanity has never been agile, curious and resourceful. Anthropologists know that ancient hunter gatherers were stronger, fitter, and typically had lower rates of morbidity than us. Which kind of undermines your “agile” and “tame” bit. I’d also say going from nothing to stone tools counts as quite resourceful, if you ask me. Given that our ancestors had the same basic wiring and larger brains, I’d actually wager on them being more curious and clever than modern humans.

MrEfficiency 8y ago

I can confirm I know more and likely am stronger than every hunter gatherer. Hunter gatherers didnt know what chemicals to mix to create a battery, or use that battery to power magnets, and that if you power them in the correct order you can spin things, and with spinning, you have our modern way of moving energy. I also lift weights, likely unbelievable weights that couldnt be sustained for a hunter gatherer due to lack of food. Size doesnt matter as much as environment. I have an abundance of food and information, while this was scarce 10,000 years a go.

village-idiot 8y ago
Knowledge != intelligence. That little bit there basically blows away your first section completely. The second is dubious. Ancient hunter gatherers were persistence hunters. Go walk for 50 miles a day for a few days and then carry the kill home and I’ll believe that you’re stronger. Hell, for that matter go kill a mastadon and then carry the meat home. Watch out for wolves!
- beat 8y ago
  Intelligence says you don't carry the mastadon home, you take the tribe to the mastadon.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    It’s not like carrying all your possessions to the mastadon is easy either.
    - beat 8y ago
      It worked, though. A lot of stone age tribes for tens of thousands of years made a pretty good living hunting big game animals like mastodons. Taking a creature that large down can feed an entire tribe for days or even weeks. Makes it well worth the effort to move to it. The idea of villages and more possessions than you can carry didn't happen until agriculture became a thing. The people that lived off big game hunting with stone age tools and no pack animals were set up for it.

commandlinefan 8y ago

> a smaller brain Sperm whale's brains are more than 6 times the size of ours. Maybe size doesn't matter as much as you think it does.

village-idiot 8y ago
Apples to oranges. It has more than 6 times the body to control than us, and lacks the cortices we have. Our ancestors however had basically the exact same neurological wiring, roughly the same amount of body to control, and even more neurons crammed into their skulls. Hence the theory that they’d be more clever than modern humans.