The Hunter-Gatherer Life Was Easy in Many Ways, But Not Always Idyllic
Over the millennia before the rise of civilization, hunter-gatherer communities got better at collecting information about, and understanding, their environments. As that knowledge was passed down the generations, it accumulated. As a result, humans became more skillful at both hunting and gathering, and their impact on their environments steadily grew. Steadily more efficient human hunters steadily placed many animal species, especially the mega fauna – large animals weighing more than 100 pounds – under increasing pressure. It is just a feel good myth that our hunter-gatherer ancestors were greatly in harmony with nature, particularly respected their environments, killed only what they needed, and consumed all that they killed.
In Africa, the mega fauna had evolved alongside humans for hundreds of thousands years – long enough to instinctively fear and run away from us. When early humans left Africa, however, they entered lands teeming with game that was not wary of them. In such bonanza conditions, our ancestors were as wasteful of food as we are today. The first humans to arrive would have frequently killed only to consume the choicest bits, and let the rest of the carcass go to waste. Why eat any but the tastiest parts, when there was seemingly limitless game around? Similarly, our ancestors often adopted wantonly wasteful hunting techniques, such as stampeding entire herds to their death off cliffs. Most of the killed animals’ meat would have spoiled.