#anthropology #paleo #diet #public
# Hunter-gatherer, or rather scavenger, lifestyle and diet
Ever since university times (Cultural Anthropology major), I was thinking about the lives and the diets of our ancestors. After all, the last 10,000 years of agriculture, is just a drop in the bucket comparing with 7 million years of divergent evolution of our body and digestive system from our closest living relatives.
I came across this article, which I found thought-provoking.
Urban carnivore
From an evolutionary anthropology perspective, the article describes a modern trend where individuals adopt aspects of Paleolithic lifestyles as an attempt to align their behavior with the presumed evolutionary adaptations of early humans. This movement is rooted in the belief that human physiology and behavior are best suited to the conditions of our ancestors, particularly during the Paleolithic era (roughly 2.6 million to 10,000 years ago).
The focus on high-meat consumption, fasting, and avoidance of processed foods (supposedly) aligns with the idea that early humans relied on hunting-gathering diets rich in animal proteins and fats. The rejection of grains (e.g., bread) reflects an attempt to avoid post-agricultural dietary changes, which contributed to modern health issues.
Urban Exercise
The emphasis on sprinting and jumping (supposedly) mirrors the physical demands of hunting and foraging, which likely involved burst movements rather than sustained endurance activities. This aligns with theories that early humans evolved for intermittent high-intensity movement.
While true, this trend does not represent the whole truth.
Bipedalism
For millions of years our ancestors have spent large parts of their days traveling their territories in search of edible nuts, seeds, plants small animals, and rarely a carcass of the kill. The travel distance was varied depending on the climate.
It is true that there are hunter-gatherer communities that have actually very little to do for subsistence, especially near shores, maybe few of hours per day, but for mostof our ancestors, it was likely about 10 kilometers of walking per day.
We are built for distance travel, built for a search, and a slow, but long pursuits of wounded animals, on the other hand humans are mediocre sprinters, slower than almost any animal out there.
Voyagers
The fact that humans populated whole Africa, early humans populated whole Eurasia and modern humans took “only” 60 thousands to reach Australia, confirms the theory that our ancestors were voyagers. However, for the record the distance from Africa to Tasmania (south of Australia) requireed only tiny directional spreading per year. It is exactly the same story for travel from the Bering Strait (Siberia to Alaska) to Terra del Fuego (Southern Chile).
Caveman diet
Our diet was definitely composed largely of large variety of seasonal nuts, edible roots, rare fruits, which were on average very low in energy carrying starch, or sugars, otherwise we would not develop such craving for sweets. Our food was high in fiber.
In addition, a significant portion of the diet were small animals providing protein ranging from insects, shelfish, fish, birds, eggs, to rodents. Yes, for many of our ancestors it was “taste like a rabbit” not “like a chicken”, at least judging by the number of rabbit bones found.
Fats were rare and considered premium in every culture, i.e. “bring the bacon home”, and required hunting and trapping, which was mostly the domain of men. Psychology and amorphism (size differentce) between men and women support this.
Cultural Evolution
The desire to live in a way that mirrors prehistoric conditions (e.g., minimalistic living, avoiding modern conveniences) reflects a nostalgic or adaptive hypothesis. The idea that certain aspects of modern life may conflict with biological evolutinary adaptations honed over millions of years.
The trend highlights a tension between genetic evolution (natural selection shaping human biology over millions of years) and cultural evolution (rapid changes in diet, exercise, and lifestyle post-agriculture). Some argue that modern health problems (e.g., psychological, obesity, diabetes) stem from a mismatch between our ancient biology and contemporary environments.
Not only academic
These conclusions are not just an academic curiosity, but should become our guidence on how to eat, thow to exercise and how to live.