We have also just been through a century of “deskilling” ourselves through mass production, automation, and consumerism. Now we’re facing AI.
This very idea has lead me to create my own mission to learn and master as many skills as possible in order to become more self-relient.
As could a terrorist strike or detonation of an EMP bomb. How many Americans would be helpless if there was suddenly no electricity?
I constantly wonder how much trouble people would be in if something like the power grid were to go down, even if it was only a couple of hours.
We often have a preconception about “primitive” people, that they were dumb. Mere “cave men” who were good at the violence needed to take down a wooly mammoth or defend against a cave lion, but little more. This seems ridiculous in several ways.
As I continue to learn more about early humans I progressively begin to question more and more why we have this idea that early humans were dumb.
Not necessarily the prey animals they depended on, which would have been rather obvious. But things like where to get the right kinds of stone to chip into spearpoints. High-silica rocks like chert, flint, jasper, chalcedony, and obsidian were most easily “knapped” into sharp-edged tools.
I always assumed people would follow the food and I never considered the necessary materials to make tools.
"three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash in garden plots they shifted when soil fertility began to wane.
Why did these become the "Three Sisters"? What is unique about them?
Men hunted big game, defended the band from predatory animals, and fought; women gathered, fished, trapped small animals, and grew the "three sisters" of corn, beans, and squash in garden plots they shifted when soil fertility began to wane. Because they controlled the more dependable food sources, women had social power; they typically were responsible for distributing all the food and often chose the men who led councils and war parties.
At what point in history did men begin to have more power in leadership roles then, and why?
Although they might still organize their societies around small bands, these bands would not be separated by great distances as they would be where resources were scarce.
Did any of these bands join together?
bands of people involved in hunting and gathering would have been small and mobile. Inspired by anthropologists, historians have typically imagined them as extended families or clans, organizing themselves in groups of twenty-five or so
Did each clan have their own name or symbol? How could you tell them apart?