Were our ancestors actually more prosperous than we are today?
We often imagine prehistoric life as a desperate struggle for survival. Yet, some anthropologists argue that hunter-gatherers lived in an 'affluent' state, working far fewer hours than modern workers and enjoying much more leisure time. Was the rise of agriculture a step forward, or a loss of freedom?
The 'original affluent society' theory, famously proposed by Marshall Sahlins, challenges the Hobbesian view of prehistoric life as 'nasty, brutle and short.' According to meta-analyses by Ross Sackett, adults in foraging societies worked an average of about 6.5 hours a day, compared to 8.8 hours in agricultural or industrial societies. This prosperity stemmed from a cultural satisfaction with minimal material possessions, a necessity driven by the nomadic lifestyle where groups—often just a few dozen people—could only carry what was portable.
However, this 'affluence' is heavily contested. While foragers enjoyed diverse, high-fiber diets and more leisure, they faced extreme biological risks. Estimates suggest only about 57% of hunter-gatherers reached age 15, and for those who did, life expectancy hovered between 21 and 37 years. Mortality was driven largely by disease (70%), while violence and accidents accounted for 20%. Furthermore, critics argue that the 'affluence' model ignores the heavy labor of food preparation and the high infant mortality rates common in these groups.
Socially, these societies were remarkably egalitarian, resisting the hierarchies that define modern states. Unlike chimpanzees, which form rigid alpha-male hierarchies, many hunter-gatherer bands, such as the San, utilized 'gift economies' to discourage hoarding. Yet, this egalitarianism was not absolute. Recent studies of modern foragers show a Gini coefficient of 0.25—similar to 2007 Denmark—indicating that some level of social stratification and wealth transmission existed even before the Neolithic Revolution.
Source: Hunter-gatherer
