What Did Ancient Humans Do For Pleasure?

What did ancient humans do for pleasure? Long before screens, our ancestors spent their evenings on music, dance, stories, games, art and ornament. This video follows the evidence, from Ice Age flutes and cave paintings to a 14,000-year-old grave in Germany, and asks why so much human time went into things you cannot eat. Chapters: 0:00 Nine at night, and the restless itch 0:36 A cave at night in the Ice Age 1:18 The myth of work, eat, sleep, repeat 2:02 How many hours did foragers really work? 3:07 Time spent on purpose 3:46 What pleasure does to the brain 5:03 Stories around the fire 5:54 The oldest flutes 6:31 Dance 6:58 Games with rules 7:18 Stories that save lives 8:02 Deep cave art 8:42 Ornaments and beauty 9:27 Pleasure spent on each other 9:58 The grave at Bonn-Oberkassel 10:40 Back to nine o'clock Sources discussed include Richard Lee's work on the !Kung, the Hohle Fels flute, the Divje Babe bone, and the 2018 study of the Bonn-Oberkassel dog.