What Did Ancient Humans Do For Pleasure?

What did ancient humans do for pleasure? A 40,000-year-old bone flute, a night of stories around a fire, and a 13,000-year-old brewery claim all cost effort and fed no one. Here's what lab experiments say they bought instead. In lab experiments, people who sang, danced or drummed tolerated more pain afterward. People who only listened did not. This video follows three pieces of evidence to one mechanism, and says plainly what we can't claim. CHAPTERS 0:00 The 40,000-year-old flute 0:26 Why pleasure costs calories 1:26 Bone flute and shell beads 3:50 What the Ju/'hoansi talked about by day and by fire 6:53 The beer found in a burial cave (disputed) 9:46 The pain test and the bonding loop 10:28 Back to the flute SOURCES Conard et al. (2009), Nature: Hohle Fels flute Henshilwood et al. (2004), Science: Blombos shell beads Wiessner (2014), PNAS: firelight and daytime conversations among the Ju/'hoansi Liu et al. (2018), Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports: Raqefet Cave residue (disputed) Dunbar et al. (2012), Proceedings of the Royal Society B: laughter and pain threshold Dunbar et al. (2012), Evolutionary Psychology: music performance and pain threshold NOTE: Living hunter-gatherer groups like the Ju/'hoansi are comparison models, not a window into the Ice Age. Pain tolerance is a stand-in for endorphin release, the experiments used modern volunteers, and the Raqefet beer interpretation is contested. NEXT VIDEO: why a hunter-gatherer camp was almost never fully asleep. 33 adults, 20 nights, 18 minutes. Subscribe for one survival system explained every week. #AncientHumans #HumanEvolution #Prehistory