The idea that there is a "typical hunter-gatherer" across all of human history and geography, and that we know what that is -- is I think a fundamental problem

The idea that there is a "typical hunter-gatherer" across all of human history and geography, and that we know what that is -- is I think a fundamental problem with a lot of these theories. Someone studies one group of people at one (modern) time and place -- a group of people who probably don't even exclusively "forage" for their food and other economic activity now as encountered -- and then they, or their readers, assume that what they found is somehow typical of everyone they assign to the category "hunter gatherer", and further assume what people at what other times and places are "correctly" assigned to that category too.