---
date: 2025-10-05T20:08:25-06:00
description: "Turns out our brains capacity hasn't really changed much over the last couple thousand years..."
lastmod: 2026-02-24T00:35:36-07:00
showTableOfContents: true
type: "post"
title: "TIL: Hunter Gatherers Were Not Dumb"
image: ""
image_alt: ""
tags: ["history", "til"]
---

# Context

[As I mentioned](/posts/we-created-dogs-and-dogs-created-us), I'm really enjoying the
[Sapiens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sapiens:_A_Brief_History_of_Humankind) book. I was shocked to discover that
hunter gatherer societies were comprised of extremely intelligent humans!

# Reflection

Because of my biases (and probably seeing many depictions of foolish looking cave men), I had
assumed that what caused the human to "pull themselves out" of the wild animal stage and into
the industrial age was them finally reaching a point of intelligence to do so. When, [the
reality](https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240517-the-human-brain-has-been-shrinking-and-no-one-quite-knows-why) is
actually the opposite! The hunter gatherer people had to be so intimately familiar with their surroundings to survive.
Weather patterns, migration patterns of many different animals, which foods were safe to eat, and how to prepare the
foods for consumption. The variety of foods they gathered was also greater than the average person today eating cereal
grains and one of four different meats. History is so fascinating. I find time and time again, my assumption of how or
what something must have been is frequently proven completely wrong.
