Hunter-Gatherer
I was walking on a hilly trail late one afternoon. Down the hill ran a narrow stream; a field was on the other side. At the far edge of the field was a large and dense patch of lutki, a wildflower common in those parts.
In the dim light, I saw a sudden flicker of movement from the lutki bush. I immediately squatted down on the trail and waited. Presently a grayish bird, smaller than a chicken, emerged from the thick bush. It was a rare slaty-breasted rail, a bird of the fields. It scampered to and fro on the field picking seeds and insects. After a few minutes it returned to the bush. I waited but it never reappeared.
I returned there on many subsequent days at the same time but never saw the bird again.
Then it occurred to me it might have moved away. Birds and wild animals move easily. They have no belongings, no houses, flats, furniture, books or cars. Not tied to anything, they can be here today and gone tomorrow.
At one time humans were like this too. Homo Sapiens was a hunter-gatherer for about 2.5 million years when his time was spent gathering plants and hunting animals that lived without human intervention. He was not tied down to one place and roamed freely. Then, about 10,000 years ago, something changed, and humans learned to farm and domesticate animals. This was the Agricultural Revolution.
In his bestselling book Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari speaks eloquently about the hunter-gatherer and man's transition to farming. This transition, he argues, was not good for humans. Consequences included private land ownership and rise of a landed class, more mouths to feed due to a population explosion, more disease and stress, and a less interesting life. “The average farmer worked harder than the average forager and got a worse diet in return,” says Harari.
Michael Pollan, in his book Botany of Desire, goes one step further. It was as if humans were put to use by plants, he argues. How? Since the Agricultural Revolution, the grass family of plants has emerged a big winner in the struggle among the species for survival. It has propagated itself around the earth with the help of humans. Take wheat (which is a type of grass) as an example. Ten thousand years ago wheat was an insignificant wild grass growing in some parts of the Middle East. Now it has become one of the most widespread and successful living things on earth. Today wheat covers 2.25 million square kilometres of the earth's surface, almost ten times the size of Britain! A similar argument could be made for our favourite staple rice.
Recently a news item caught my eye. A research study has found that the Tsimane people of Bolivia, who are hunter-gatherers, have the healthiest hearts in the world. They have the lowest levels of clogged arteries among any population. Their lifestyle - which includes four to seven hours of exercise every day while hunting and gathering - and their diet which is low in unrefined sugar, is credited for this.
This finding appears to vindicate Harari's thoughts. There is a problem, of course – this lifestyle is not practical in today's world. However there is still an important lesson here: exercise is good, as is eating a sensible, low-sugar diet. Unfortunately I must confess that while I excel in the first, I fail badly in the second!
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