[HN Gopher] Ancient Patagonian hunter-gatherers took care of the...
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Ancient Patagonian hunter-gatherers took care of their injured and
disabled
Author : pseudolus
Score : 66 points
Date : 2025-10-07 12:34 UTC (6 days ago)
(HTM) web link (phys.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (phys.org)
| drewg123 wrote:
| This seems relatively common among ancient hunter-gatherer
| societies. We've been watching Prof. Jiang's excellent "Story of
| Civilization" course on his Predictive History YT channel[1]. In
| the 2nd or 3rd video, he mentions that the remains of somebody
| with a rare form of dwarfism were found as part of an ancient
| hunter-gather tribe, and they had the same levels of nutrition as
| the able-bodied members of the tribe.
|
| Maybe "primitive" people were not so primitive after all..
|
| [1]The course is here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jjqf9T59uY0&list=PLREQ8S3NPa...
| noelwelsh wrote:
| Agreed. There is a background cultural assumption in the
| Western world that the "state of nature" [1] is one of constant
| suffering. What I know of anthropology suggests this is
| bullshit, and the truth is that there have been a huge variety
| of social structures in our prehistory. "The Dawn of
| Everything" goes into this.
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_of_nature
| mothballed wrote:
| Not taking care of a formerly productive injured person who might
| recover would be profoundly stupid, if you have the food for it
| and some expectation they might be productive again or a superior
| ability to direct those who might be productive.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| Not taking care of a wise injured person who might recover &
| help guide others, teach children, care for children, help
| heal, reveal spiritual teachings, and otherwise be human would
| be profoundly stupid. Judging who to care for based solely on
| productivity or ability to direct others would also be
| profoundly stupid....this strategy sounds like middle-
| management.
| mothballed wrote:
| Strawman
| n4r9 wrote:
| Surely emotions and morale are worth considering as well.
| Even if someone is unproductive and stupid, but friendly and
| well-liked, then their death would impact everyone's
| productivity for some time.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| Exactly. Every being has intrinsic value. A pure
| productivity perspective is rooted in dehumanization and a
| reductive take on what it means to live/survive/thrive.
| bambax wrote:
| Compassion exists and isn't just driven by self-interest or
| self-preservation.
| mothballed wrote:
| Sure, but I'm not claiming that. I'm only claiming it'd be
| stupid not to help people when it's in your self interest.
| potatototoo99 wrote:
| Compassion exists because it was useful for the fitness of
| the species, in the species where it exists.
| asdff wrote:
| But in most all cases it is dependent on available resources
| sufficient to support another unproductive human. In cases
| where these resources are not available, plenty of accounts
| exists of humans making hard choices all through history to
| today.
| dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
| Why is news? It's common sense.
|
| Click bait.
| refactor_master wrote:
| Pretty sure what went down in Late Holocene Patagonia isn't
| common sense.
| hetspookjee wrote:
| What makes you say that?
| dotnet00 wrote:
| People are used to thinking that humans were animalistic
| savages right up until their favored religion or ancient
| city-state popped up, believing that the hunter-gatherer
| existence would've been so harsh that there was no room to
| care for vulnerable members of the group.
| nemomarx wrote:
| Some people like to think that we were brutal or cruel in the
| ancient past and would have left people to die. (Generally I
| think the implication is that we should do this again?)
| mothballed wrote:
| People still think that. They will use violence and men with
| guns to enforce welfare schemes because they believe without
| the government people won't help others and therefore their
| violence is justified.
| hbarka wrote:
| Except now it's the complete opposite.
| mothballed wrote:
| They're using violence against charities? If you're
| talking about the Israelis or the US insofar as they
| support the prevention of aid reaching gaza, sure.
| Generally it's quite rare I think.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| When you talk about "men with guns" in reference to a
| welfare state, you're really talking about the process of
| taxation and the taxes being used to create a safety net
| for people. But it's telling that when you're trying to
| counter someone talking about the government being used
| to strip away these things from people through the
| executive branch and not the legislative branch, you
| suddenly require there to be real, physical violence
| before you'll accept the example.
| mothballed wrote:
| No, I'm saying the opposite of using violence to fund
| charity would be using violence against charity.
|
| I don't need to see further evidence to believe it's
| happened, I'm aware it is being used against some
| charities (Gaza aid organizations for instance). I
| literally acknowledged such and then you go on some weird
| tangent about me needing evidence.
| ajsnigrutin wrote:
| Many things were common sense,... until they weren't.
|
| On the other hand, it's common sense now, who knew how it was
| back then? ...except for the researchers researching this...
| and now us, reading the article.
| wat10000 wrote:
| It's one thing to declare it to be "common sense," and quite
| another to actually know it to be true from physical evidence.
| lm28469 wrote:
| Is it ? These hunter gatherers would probably be shocked at how
| we treat old people in hospitals and retirement houses, despite
| all our modern "common sense"
| permo-w wrote:
| the article makes no mention of caring for the old. no doubt
| almost all hunter gatherers would be incredibly shocked that
| we put so _much_ effort into keeping our old alive,
| particularly when it provides so little advantage and they
| don 't even live with us
| wqaatwt wrote:
| They'd certainly be shocked at how many old people are there
| and how they managed to survive so long past their 60-70s
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| There is a (possibly inaccurate [0]) quote attributed to Margaret
| Mead, where, when asked about the first signs of civilization,
| said it was when they found a healed fractured femur.
|
| [0] https://www.sapiens.org/culture/margaret-mead-femur/
| bambax wrote:
| Yeah, well, in that case ants are civilized (they probably
| are).
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| There was an episode of _Cosmos_ [0], where Neil DeGrasse
| Tyson makes the case that there are _two_ principal
| intelligences on Earth: Men and bees.
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubE9hjrsHmI
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Ants in a colony are so closely related that the colony can
| be thought of a one individual.
|
| From this perspective ant helping each other is similar to
| cells in a body working together.
| cornholio wrote:
| The trait of caring and providing for other injured or
| vulnerable members of the group is widespread in the animal
| kingdom, there is even a name for it, allocare. Since social
| groups usually form based on family kinship, it can be
| explained on selfish gene dynamics.
|
| So the argument was always gradual, not that social care is
| unique to civilization, but that it happens to an extent (such
| as the very long recovery period and food resources required to
| heal a femur) that we can arbitrarily call "civilization".
|
| On the other hand, you could stretch that Scotsman in the
| opposite direction: do we really provide enough care to other
| people to the point we are different from animals and can claim
| ourselves truly civilized?
| bambax wrote:
| But why wouldn't they?? Most animals take care of their wounded
| peers, from ants to elephants, and often defend individuals from
| predators (not always! but often enough to be on countless
| documentaries).
|
| This is an extremely natural behavior, not unique to humans or
| proto-humans, and not driven by interest or strategy. Compassion
| is innate.
|
| Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human trait,
| and not only that, but a very recent one too.
| t1E9mE7JTRjf wrote:
| > Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human
| trait
|
| Is this true? I think there are many counter examples. eg birds
| tossing out offspring from their nest.
| kittensmittens5 wrote:
| This isn't true. Also the book "Sapiens" goes a bit into how
| cruel ancient humans in the Americas would be to some of the
| weaker offspring. So it's not 'new' in the sense of last few
| thousand years either. I think there's been a lot of
| personalities and cultures over the last 300k years that
| approach this differently.
| bluGill wrote:
| There is the idea sometimes stated that because child mortality
| was so high in the past parents had kids but avoided loving
| them - because odds were against the child living past 5 and if
| you love your kids you then have heartbreak when they die.
|
| Historians disagree with that idea (at least for most
| cultures?). However I've heard it more than once. This just
| gives more data to the idea that humans loved each other enough
| to take care of injured.
| t1E9mE7JTRjf wrote:
| I remember reading about tribes in Indonesia who when someone
| got too old/slow, they'd kill them. They were living on the
| edge of existence, and either everyone was on form, or the
| group didn't survive. In that context, it was presented as a
| caring act for the group. A bit different context to the
| original thread, but an example of why a group may do what
| outwardly seems a little surprising.
| permo-w wrote:
| >Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human
| trait, and not only that, but a very recent one too.
|
| just as there are countless examples of animals helping other
| animals, there are countless examples of animals abandoning
| weak young and leaving behind the elderly and infirm. if
| anything humans are far far more likely to be compassionate
| towards the physically weak, as physical strength is far far
| less valuable in human society than in nearly any animal
| society
| BurningFrog wrote:
| If you think human cruelty has emerged only very recently, you
| _desperately_ need to study up on human history.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| Not only that, I'd like to see some citations on "most
| animals".
| chrisco255 wrote:
| > Most animals take care of their wounded peers
|
| Not really, no. Herd animals will regularly intentionally
| abandon wounded or elderly peers during an attack.
|
| Sometimes they will even intentionally knock down slow members
| to make an easy meal for predators, ensuring their own
| survival:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ_7GtE529M
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqyMw7udKtI
|
| Social care is largely a mammalian trait, but only ever extends
| to in-group members. And if the pack or herd member is sensed
| to be the weakest link, it is quite frequent that the pack or
| herd will abandon them or intentionally sacrifice them.
|
| Humans are unique in that they go through extraordinary lengths
| to rehabilitate members, sometimes investing years or decades
| or even caring for humans that could literally not survive on
| their own or without advanced technology.
| bambax wrote:
| Here's a video of a herd of buffalo attacking a whole pride
| of lions that are on top of a single buffalo, about to devour
| it:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LU8DDYz68kM
|
| There are countless videos of bees fighting off wasps and in
| many cases killing them.
| asdff wrote:
| Likewise humans will abandon injured members of their party
| on Everest. They do the same in wartime. Given dire
| situations, humans also perform this behavior even in the
| modern era.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| > "Most animals take care of their wounded peers"
|
| Citation needed. Here is a paper suggesting that the assistance
| of injured peers is rarely observed across taxa [1]. From an
| evolutionary standpoint, this doesn't pass the smell test due
| to costs to the helper, cheating/freerider problems, low
| probability of re-encountering the helper/helped (i.e. many
| species don't repeatedly meet the same animal of their
| species), and of course, the risk of the injured animal
| attracing predators.
|
| > "Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human
| trait, and not only that, but a very recent one too."
|
| History would suggest otherwise. All of documented human
| history is lousy with horrific cruelties like genocide, human
| sacrifice, slavery, war, etc.
|
| [1] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5731505
| krisoft wrote:
| > Most animals take care of their wounded peers
|
| The "most" part is not true. Some animals take care of wounded
| peers. Specifically social animals do. Ants, elephants,
| monkeys, whales are good examples of social animals and they do
| take care of their wounded peers.
|
| Many animals are solitary. There is nobody to take care of a
| wounded polar bear, guppy, owl or c. elegans in the wild.
|
| We can't even say that most animals are social. Perhaps by
| biomass, but definitely not by diversity.
|
| > often enough to be on countless documentaries
|
| That says more about what we humans find interesting and worthy
| of documenting.
|
| > not driven by interest or strategy. Compassion is innate.
|
| Something can be both innate and strategical. Having the innate
| drive to help wounded conspecifics can increase the surival of
| the whole species.
|
| > Cruelty and contempt for the weak is a specifically human
| trait
|
| Absolutely not. What does that even mean? When a lion takes
| over a pride they are documented to kill the cubs sired by the
| prior male. Is that "cruelty and contempt for the weak"? We
| would sure label as such if they were human males killing a dad
| and moving in with mom killing her babes. Should I find more
| examples of "cruelty and contempt for the weak" in the animal
| kingdom? There are tons. Cruelty and contempt for the weak is
| not a uniquely human trait.
|
| > But why wouldn't they??
|
| This is fundamentally the wrong question to ask.
| pacbard wrote:
| The hunter-gatherers in the study lived in the "Late Holocene
| (~4000 to 250 BP)", meaning between 2000 BCE to 1825 CE. These
| people are separated from us by less than 150 generations. I
| don't believe that humans evolve that fast, so the way you think,
| feel, ache, and so on also applies to them. Would you leave
| behind your injured and disabled in their situation (which is
| speculated to be the result of hunting accidents)?
| staplers wrote:
| I don't believe that humans evolve that fast
|
| Evidence of animals doing this exists. Unsure why anyone would
| be surprised theres evidence of humans doing this.
|
| It's really wild to me how many humans believe their feelings
| are so different from animals. Most animals have similar
| incentives and desires, humans just have "better" tools to
| achieve them.
| next_xibalba wrote:
| The costs and benefits faced by ancient humans were very, very
| different. Maybe a different way to frame the question would be
| "At what probability of additional death, injury, or suffering
| (to you or other tribe members) would you abandon your
| injured/disabled?" Humans of that era did not have anything
| even remotely approaching modern medicine and most lived at
| subsistence levels with starvation always at their doorstep. A
| huge portion of ancient peoples energy and time was dedicating
| to obtaining calories. That means caring for the
| injured/disabled imposes a huge cost and risk. We can just as
| easily find examples of ancient peoples murdering or abandoning
| their injured, disabled, and weak. I don't think it would be
| right or fair to judge them through a modern lens. Of course
| they cared for their loved ones and mourned their deaths. But
| they were faced with much harsher circumstances to which their
| cultures and beliefs were suited.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| This feels like video game analysis. Unit is likely to die,
| therefore do not spend resources on unit. Leave unit behind.
|
| There is no world in which I would leave a family member or
| close friend to die in the woods alone, _especially_ if I
| have no idea what germs are, why people die when they bleed,
| and am listening to a voice I have heard my whole live cry
| out in pain. Even if I knew for sure they were going to die,
| I would sit with them, or move them, or something.
|
| Thought experiment: Would you visit your mother or father in
| the hospital knowing they were going to die that day? I mean
| there's nothing you can do, why bother??
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| It's not about writing off the injured due to their low
| odds of survival, its about your willingness to lower those
| odds for your other loved ones, or yourself. How does your
| thought experiment change when caring for your
| mother/father means your children might starve?
| monknomo wrote:
| Look man, modern people die trying to save strangers from
| drowning. We can just see actual behavior, we don't need
| bloodless thought experiments
| cheeseomlit wrote:
| Ok but for every person who tries to save a stranger from
| drowning how many other people choose not to? Probably
| not 0. If I saw a stranger drowning and they were larger
| than child-sized I probably wouldn't attempt it-
| apparently its pretty common for the drowning person to
| panic and use their savior as a raft, drowning them in
| the process
| lkrubner wrote:
| Why do volunteer firefighters rush into a burning
| building to try to save children from some family they
| have never met before? Every day we afforded examples of
| people sacrificing their personal interests for the
| benefit of others.
|
| But also, biologists usually use a definition of
| "altruism" that does not include close kin. Richard
| Dawkins was explicit about this in his 1976 book "The
| Selfish Gene." Helping someone you are directly related
| to is not considered altruism.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| I think in the premodern era, you never saw strangers
| (not like we do). You probably had a pretty good idea who
| everyone was, and probably knew most people pretty well.
| If that's even partially true, then although nowadays you
| might drive past a person on the highway, if your cousin
| or a lifelong trusted acquaintance asked for help you'd
| give it. It seems that everyone you saw, esp saw injured
| or sick, was probably someone you've known your whole
| life.
|
| You're also heavily discounting the fact that you had to
| live not only with yourself if you did nothing, but the
| shame/angst of their family who you definitely lived next
| door to. TFA is about taking care of "their own", not
| strangers.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's literally a skill issue. The correct way to help a
| drowning person is to get behind them and then hook your
| weaker arm around their neck & head while doing
| backstroke with the other. Having them on their back
| facing up (and out of the water) dispels the panic
| reflex. But this obviously requires you to be comfortable
| int he water and have some prior rescue training.
| senshan wrote:
| Good way to look at it. More broadly, there must have
| been different groups that practiced different policies
| with regard to ill and injured. Some of the groups fared
| better than others. Since most of modern societies do
| care about their ill and injured, it appears that this
| policy proved more advantageous. Even if only slightly
| so.
| sorokod wrote:
| Can you conceive of how caring for the injured might have a
| benefit in an evolutionary / game theoretical sense?
| kulahan wrote:
| This is the right question to ask. You can reason your way
| around things, but occam's razor reigns supreme. Injured
| people can still do lots of work, as our most important
| tools were our brains, not our bodies. It's not hard to
| watch for predators near camp while sitting at the
| campfire, or to keep an eye on children - even if you can't
| resolve issues yourself. You could sit around making crafts
| for the tribe, repairing clothes, and more.
|
| There's just way too much benefit to keeping the injured
| around. We don't need everyone working at top physical
| condition... ever.
| ookdatnog wrote:
| > most lived at subsistence levels with starvation always at
| their doorstep
|
| Genuine question: is this something we know from evidence, or
| an assumption? I vaguely recall having read that comparison
| between skeletal remains of early farmers and hunter-
| gatherers indicated that the latter had a better diet, but
| I'm not sure if I'm remembering correctly or how much that
| observation generalizes.
| sethammons wrote:
| > most lived at subsistence levels with starvation always
| at their doorstep
|
| I find this hilarious. Modern civilization has starvation
| at our doorstep. If the modern supply chains fail, so very
| many would starve.
|
| Did toilet paper become scarce about 5 years ago? I don't
| see what protects the population from that for food and
| water.
| hollerith wrote:
| Both early farmers and hunter-gatherers regularly endured
| calorie scarcity. The difference between them along this
| dimension is minor compared to the difference between
| either group and us and our calorie security.
| JoshGG wrote:
| It would be helpful to provide some citations and evidence
| around the claim " most lived at subsistence levels with
| starvation always at their doorstep". There is an increasing
| amount of evidence that this was not the case.
|
| https://medium.com/sapere-aude-incipe/our-distorted-image-
| of...
| gopher_space wrote:
| Anthropology started at a time when people thought
| civilizations evolved in a straight line from savages to
| England. But it's hard to pretend that the natives sat around a
| rock grunting at each other when their e.g. bone-setting
| techniques were essentially modern, so there's a tradition of
| "not as benighted as you might have thought" articles.
|
| WHY that point of view still exists is a question every anthro
| novice asks, and it turns out that cultural evolution is too
| attractive an idea for some people to let go of.
| crawfordcomeaux wrote:
| We need only look at the cultures of the Aka, Bayaka, and Mbuti
| tribes, who all split off from the same tribe 150k years ago &
| still share many of the same cultural norms oriented around
| counterdominance, matrifocal care, and singing as a means of
| protection & decision-making.
|
| Their cultures can show us what it took to survive and thrive in
| a jungle with numerous large predators. These tribes carry wisdom
| we can apply in our daily lives.
| sorokod wrote:
| "The existence of altruism in nature is at first sight puzzling,
| because altruistic behaviour reduces the likelihood that an
| individual will reproduce"
|
| More, in the Altruism in Biology Wikipedia entry:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism_(biology)
| arjie wrote:
| I really enjoy reading about these group dynamics. Usually people
| interpret the "it makes sense that people would do this" as
| meaning "self-interest dominates compassion" but I actually think
| the meaning is "those groups which did these things survive" and
| so over time you get these things built-in. "Compassion" isn't
| something I constructed for myself from rationality. I can do
| that, but it is a back-formation - an explanation for a behaviour
| I was already going to do. I'd say it's more of a property of my
| ancestry than my reason since I had it as a child in more or less
| the same form as I have it today and I recall my younger brother
| come back crying after going to help an anthill survive a storm
| (the ants were unreceptive to this Anti-Ender's assistance). At 4
| years or younger he had no capacity for the kind of reason
| required to reach compassion tabula rasa.
|
| I model mankind as self-similar to man. Allocare makes sense
| between individuals in the same way that a T-cell 'cares for'
| other cells in the body. And Lawrence Oates's "I am just going
| outside and may be some time" seems akin to apoptosis: knowing
| the cost on the rest of the organism, the individual has
| programmed escape hatches that preserve the entire operation. It
| seems natural and adaptive that individuals will attempt to
| exploit the structures (care for the injured and elderly) that so
| arise. And counter-adaptations to that form as well.
|
| But evidence that agrees with one's model is usually not as
| useful as the evidence that disagrees with it and so the thing
| that I find most interesting is the chap with the massive hip
| dislocation. That's a debilitating injury or disability and for a
| tribe on the move it must have been a massive expenditure of
| resources to bring along this individual. If encountered in
| childhood, perhaps the net increase in resources is not that
| high. If encountered in adulthood, perhaps it was a prized member
| of the community or perhaps the group anticipated recovery.
|
| On the other hand, we do find good reasons to "protect the team".
| Knowing that you will be cared for means you give more to the
| operation. The classic "No Man Left Behind!" stance probably has
| a huge effect on morale.
| daedrdev wrote:
| We also know that many didn't, depending on their culture and
| geography. For example some of the remaining isolated hunter
| gatherer tribes researched in the 1970 killed orphans as they
| could not afford to feed them
| pratik661 wrote:
| A lot of field studies on chimpanzees also indicate similar
| behavior (ie taking care of former leaders after they aged out of
| their prime)
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