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Knowledge != intelligence. That little bit there basically blows away your first section completely. The second is dubious. Ancient hunter gatherers were persi

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.
    - village-idiot 8y ago
      Of course it works. We’re here. I’m pushing back against OPs idea that humans weren’t agile for most of history. Hunter gatherers were about as tough as humans get.
      - beat 8y ago
        I'd argue they were about like us, no more, no less. Hunting mastodons was actually very sophisticated technology - I mean, all they had were sticks and rocks, against a beast that could easily kill them. On the other hand, disease, malnutrition, and untreated injuries really dragged them down. It's important to divide between history and pre-history, though - living conditions for stone age tribes were very different than for civilizations, which had agriculture and permanent structures and all the benefits and problems that go with those things.

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.
  - village-idiot 8y ago
    Of course it works. We’re here. I’m pushing back against OPs idea that humans weren’t agile for most of history. Hunter gatherers were about as tough as humans get.
    - beat 8y ago
      I'd argue they were about like us, no more, no less. Hunting mastodons was actually very sophisticated technology - I mean, all they had were sticks and rocks, against a beast that could easily kill them. On the other hand, disease, malnutrition, and untreated injuries really dragged them down. It's important to divide between history and pre-history, though - living conditions for stone age tribes were very different than for civilizations, which had agriculture and permanent structures and all the benefits and problems that go with those things.