Sapiens 3 -- What was life like for Sapiens before Agriculture?

See also these transcipts, posted by someone else who took Dr. Yuval Noah Harari's Coursera course.

Lesson 03 - part 1 -- Paleo vs. Now

• "Many today’s problems are the result of the interaction between the minds and bodies of hunter-gatherers, and the environment of big cities. Subconsciously, we still live in the Stone Age."
• One problem:  We eat like we're still in the Stone Age, but our food is much more abundant/caloric, which leads to obesity:  We are "reacting to food according to the same basic logic that was good 40 or 50 thousand years ago but which is incompatible with conditions today."
• Another:  Monogamy and the nuclear family.  "[M]any of the problems which we experience today in our romantic, sexual and family lives are the result of a mismatch between our biological program and the actual conditions of our life today. We have been programmed to live in these communes [with collective notions of fatherhood] but now, everybody expects us to live in a nuclear family."
• There is a lot of debate about these things, and the evidence is flimsy.  Plus, what's true of one ancient hunter-gatherer group is not necessarily true of all, as there's a lot of variety to be expected.

Lesson 03 - part 2 -- Despite the variety, what common characteristics did HG groups share 50k years ago?

• HG's "in various ways, had a better life than the peasants, laborers and office clerks who followed in their footsteps."
• Most people lived in small bands, (at most, several hundred individuals) and most individuals were human.  (Unlike post-Agricultural Revolution, when most members of society were domesticated animals.)
• Exception = dogs, the first animal domesticated by humans, by 15k years ago
• Lots of intimacy, surrounded by friends and family (little loneliness or privacy); even so far as making connections, alliances with other bands.  This gave Sapiens an advantage over Neanderthals.
• Nomadic:  Frequent movement in search of food
• Exception = when food sources were plentiful, there could be semi- and permanent camps or settlements
• Ate a greater variety of food sources than agricultural peasants; gathering was generally more important than hunting (in terms of calories)
• High physical fitness levels
• Mental dexterity:  detailed knowledge of geography, animals, plants, lots of technical and wide-ranging skills, very DIY.  Probably, "the average forager had wider, deeper, and more varied knowledge of their immediate surroundings and world than most people do today."
• "There is, in fact some evidence that the size of the average sapien’s brain has been decreasing gradually since the age of foraging that after the agricultural revolution, when people started to live as peasant and farmers and later, as workers and city dwellers, the size of the human brain began to shrink. Survival in the era of foraging required superb mental abilities from everybody. If you didn’t know all these things yourself, you didn’t survive."
• Collectively, we're more knowledgeable today; but individually, HG's were more knowledgeable than us.
• Worked less than us, with more leisure time.  35-40 hour work weeks.
• Work was more variable and interesting, compared to today's industrial factory workers.
• Average lifespan = 35 or 40, due to high infant mortality.  (If you did survive until 15-20, you were likely to live to 60-80.
• Fewer infectious diseases, most of which came from domesticated animals after the agricultural revolution.  Plus, not as densely populated in unsanitary urban conditions.
• Downsides:
• harsh and unforgiving conditions
• small accidents could be fatal
• too much intimacy could be annoying?
• some bands experienced high levels of violence

Lesson 03 - part 3 -- What did HG's believe?

• Animism:  no separation between physical/spiritual worlds; animals, plants, and inanimate objects all have a spiritual essence, feelings, etc.; not hierarchical (vs. theists, who believe in a great, remote god)
• We have very little evidence, and the evidence we do have is difficult to interpret in any way that gives a lot of details about the world view of people 20k years ago.

Lesson 03 - part 4 -- Did inequality and warfare exist before the Agricultural Revolution?

• Burial at Sungir:  shows that there was hierarchy, political/economic inequality, 30k years ago
• Hard to tell, as evidence suggests both high and low violence rates.