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+---
+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/25-10-03-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.