What Did Ancient Humans Do When They Got Too Old to Hunt?

What Did Ancient Humans Do When They Got Too Old to Hunt? You may have heard that ancient humans died by thirty, and that anyone who got old and slow was left behind. The research on how long people really lived, and on who took care of the old, tells a more interesting story. This video starts with a Neanderthal skeleton from a cave in Iraq, then follows the evidence on how long hunter-gatherers lived, who fed the camp when hunts failed, and why elders mattered so much. By the end, you might see retirement a little differently. TIMESTAMPS: 0:00 The fear of running out of money 1:35 The skeleton in Shanidar Cave 2:45 Did ancient humans die at thirty? 4:05 What grandmothers did all day 5:15 Elders as the living library 6:42 How growing old became a risk 7:39 The trade we made Sources are listed below. —————————————————— 📚 RESEARCH & SOURCES: ▸ Shanidar Cave — Ralph S. Solecki, "Shanidar: The First Flower People" (1971, Alfred A. Knopf). Excavations at Shanidar Cave in northern Iraq, where the Neanderthal known as Shanidar 1 was found. ▸ Shanidar 1's skeleton — Erik Trinkaus, "The Shanidar Neandertals" (1983, Academic Press). A study of the Shanidar Neanderthal remains, including their injuries. ▸ Shanidar 1's hearing loss and care — Erik Trinkaus & Sébastien Villotte, "External auditory exostoses and hearing loss in the Shanidar 1 Neandertal" (2017, PLOS ONE) https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.... — Bony growths in his ear canals would have caused serious hearing loss. The authors conclude he most likely needed significant social support to reach old age. ▸ How long hunter-gatherers lived — Michael Gurven & Hillard Kaplan, "Longevity Among Hunter-Gatherers: A Cross-Cultural Examination" (2007, Population and Development Review) https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1728-4457.2... — Across the hunter-gatherer groups studied, the most common age of adult death was about 72 (range 68–78). ▸ Hadza hunting — K. Hawkes, J. F. O'Connell & N. G. Blurton Jones, "Hunting income patterns among the Hadza: big game, common goods, foraging goals and the evolution of the human diet" (1991, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B) https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.1991.0113 — A study of what Hadza hunters bring back from big-game hunting. ▸ The Grandmother Hypothesis — K. Hawkes, J. F. O'Connell & N. G. Blurton Jones, "Hardworking Hadza grandmothers" (1989, in Comparative Socioecology, eds. V. Standen & R. A. Foley); and K. Hawkes et al., "Grandmothering, menopause, and the evolution of human life histories" (1998, PNAS) https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.95.3.1336 — Fieldwork with Hadza foragers in Tanzania, and the argument that older women's food-getting helped their daughters and grandchildren, which may explain why humans live long after menopause. ▸ Elders as keepers of knowledge — Jared Diamond, "The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies?" (2012, Viking). How traditional societies treat the old, including their role as keepers of knowledge. ▸ The first state pensions — U.S. Social Security Administration, Social Security History https://www.ssa.gov/history/age65.html — Germany's 1889 old-age insurance set the pension age at 70. It was lowered to 65 in 1916. ▸ Hunter-gatherer work hours — Richard B. Lee, "What Hunters Do for a Living, or, How to Make Out on Scarce Resources" (1968, in Man the Hunter, eds. R. B. Lee & I. DeVore, Aldine). Lee's fieldwork on how much time the Ju/'hoansi spent getting food. ————————————————————————— PEOPLE & SITES MENTIONED IN THIS VIDEO: ▸ Ralph Solecki — Archaeologist who led excavations at Shanidar Cave in the Zagros Mountains of northern Iraq in the 1950s. ▸ Shanidar 1 ("Nandy") — A Neanderthal man, often dated to around 50,000 years ago. He survived into his forties with a crushed left eye socket, a withered right arm, injuries to his right leg and serious hearing loss. ▸ Michael Gurven & Hillard Kaplan — Anthropologists who compared mortality data from 14 populations, including five hunter-gatherer groups, to see how long adults lived with little or no modern medicine. ▸ Kristen Hawkes — Anthropologist at the University of Utah who studied the Hadza and proposed the Grandmother Hypothesis. ▸ The Hadza — Hunter-gatherers of northern Tanzania. ▸ Jared Diamond — Biologist, geographer and author of The World Until Yesterday. ▸ Otto von Bismarck — Chancellor of Germany whose government introduced national old-age insurance in 1889. ———————————————————— 🎨 Illustrations by Sapien Explains ———————————————————— #ancienthumans #retirement #humanhistory #oldage #huntergatherer #prehistory #archaeology #anthropology #neanderthal #shanidar #explainer #education #history #paleolithic