What Did Ancient Humans Do all Day Before Jobs Existed? — Transcript

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1. 0:00You wake up when your body is ready. No
2. 0:01alarm, no schedule, no place you need to
3. 0:03be. You sit up, stretch, and ask
4. 0:05yourself one question. What should I do
5. 0:07today? For 99% of human history, this
6. 0:10wasn't a hypothetical. This was every
7. 0:12single morning for roughly 300,000
8. 0:14years, and the answer to that question
9. 0:16looked nothing like the life you're
10. 0:18living right now. Modern humans spend
11. 0:20about 90,000 hours of their lives
12. 0:22working. That's roughly 1/3 of your
13. 0:24waking existence dedicated to a job. But
14. 0:26for the overwhelming majority of human
15. 0:28history, jobs didn't exist. There was no
16. 0:30employment, no wages, no boss, no career
17. 0:32ladder to climb. So, what did people
18. 0:34actually do all day? Let's start with
19. 0:36what we know for certain. In 1963,
20. 0:38archaeologist Richard Lee conducted a
21. 0:40study that would change how we
22. 0:41understand prehistoric life. He tracked
23. 0:44the daily activities of the Dobe
24. 0:45Ju/'hoansi people in Botswana, one of
25. 0:48the few remaining groups still living in
26. 0:50a way that resembles pre-agricultural
27. 0:51human life. He found that adults spent
28. 0:53about 2.5 days per week acquiring food.
29. 0:56That's roughly 17 hours. The rest of the
30. 0:58time, they did whatever they wanted. And
31. 1:00here's the important part. This pattern
32. 1:02shows up everywhere anthropologists
33. 1:04look. The Hadza in Tanzania, the Aché in
34. 1:06Paraguay, the Martu in Australia.
35. 1:08Completely different environments,
36. 1:09different continents, same result. About
37. 1:1115 to 20 hours per week spent on
38. 1:13survival activities. For context, you
39. 1:15probably work twice that. Now, some of
40. 1:18you are thinking, "But those are modern
41. 1:20people. How do we know ancient humans
42. 1:22lived the same way?" Fair question. And
43. 1:24the answer comes from bones. When
44. 1:26archaeologists compare skeletons of
45. 1:27ancient humans to early agricultural
46. 1:29populations, the difference is dramatic.
47. 1:31Farmers were shorter. Their bones show
48. 1:33signs of nutritional deficiency. Their
49. 1:35teeth were riddled with cavities from
50. 1:37grain-heavy diets. They had arthritis in
51. 1:39their spines from repetitive labor. And
52. 1:41they died younger. Ancient human
53. 1:42skeletons, taller, stronger, healthier
54. 1:45teeth, less joint damage. Their bones
55. 1:47tell a clear story. They were doing less
56. 1:49repetitive physical labor, not more. But
57. 1:51the most fascinating evidence comes from
58. 1:53something archaeologists found that
59. 1:54shouldn't exist if survival was a
60. 1:56constant struggle. Art. In 1994,
61. 1:59explorers discovered Chauvet Cave in
62. 2:01southern France. Inside were paintings
63. 2:03created roughly 30,000 years ago.
64. 2:05Horses, lions, rhinoceroses rendered
65. 2:07with perspective, shading, and movement.
66. 2:09These weren't crude stick figures. This
67. 2:11was sophisticated art that required
68. 2:13skill, planning, and most importantly,
69. 2:15time. Someone spent hours, maybe days,
70. 2:18deep inside a cave by firelight painting
71. 2:21animals on a wall. Not for survival, not
72. 2:23for food, for beauty, for meaning, for
73. 2:25something to do. In Blombos Cave in
74. 2:27South Africa, archaeologists found
75. 2:29100,000-year-old
76. 2:30perforated shell beads. Tiny holes
77. 2:32drilled through seashells, clearly meant
78. 2:34to be strung together as jewelry. The
79. 2:35nearest coastline was 20 km away.
80. 2:38Someone walked 40 km round trip just to
81. 2:40collect shells, then spent hours
82. 2:42carefully drilling holes with stone
83. 2:43tools, just to look good. In 2008,
84. 2:46researchers found a 40,000-year-old
85. 2:48flute carved from a vulture bone in
86. 2:50Germany. Five finger holes, perfectly
87. 2:52spaced. Whoever made this understood
88. 2:54music. They understood pitch, and they
89. 2:56spent significant time crafting it. Not
90. 2:58for hunting, not for defense, for music.
91. 3:00These aren't isolated finds. Across
92. 3:02Europe, Africa, and Asia, archaeological
93. 3:04sites from 100,000 years ago onward are
94. 3:07filled with evidence of decorative
95. 3:09objects, carefully crafted tools far
96. 3:11more elaborate than necessary for
97. 3:12survival, and items that required hours
98. 3:15of focused work with no immediate
99. 3:16practical benefit. This is what people
100. 3:18did when they weren't securing food.
101. 3:19They created. They decorated. They made
102. 3:22things beautiful. So, let's reconstruct
103. 3:24a day. You wake up around dawn. The fire
104. 3:26from last night is still smoldering.
105. 3:28Someone adds wood. You eat leftover meat
106. 3:30or fish from yesterday, maybe some nuts
107. 3:31or berries collected the day before.
108. 3:33Breakfast is social. People talk. They
109. 3:35plan loosely for the day. Not because
110. 3:36they have to, because that's what humans
111. 3:39do. Around midmorning, a small group
112. 3:40might leave to hunt or gather, but
113. 3:42here's the key. You don't go every day.
114. 3:44If the hunt was successful two days ago
115. 3:46and food is stored, you might not leave
116. 3:48camp at all. You might spend the morning
117. 3:50working on tools, sharpening a spear,
118. 3:52weaving a basket, scraping an animal
119. 3:53hide to make it soft and usable. This
120. 3:55isn't work in the modern sense. There's
121. 3:57no clock, no supervisor. You do it
122. 4:00because competence matters, because
123. 4:02being skilled earns respect, because
124. 4:03making things well is part of being
125. 4:05human. If hunting happens, it's not the
126. 4:07frantic chase you see in movies. Humans
127. 4:09are persistence hunters. We track
128. 4:11animals at a steady jog for hours until
129. 4:13they overheat and collapse. We're the
130. 4:14only species that can do this
131. 4:16effectively because we can sweat and
132. 4:17regulate our body temperature while
133. 4:19running. Most animals can't. So, we
134. 4:21outlast them. The hunt might take 3 to 6
135. 4:23hours including travel. Then, the animal
136. 4:25is carried back and butchered. Everyone
137. 4:28eats. And by early afternoon, the
138. 4:29productive part of the day is
139. 4:31essentially over. What happens next is
140. 4:33what modern people find hardest to
141. 4:34understand. Nothing and everything.
142. 4:36People rest. They sit in the shade and
143. 4:38talk. They play with children. They
144. 4:40groom each other picking through hair,
145. 4:42reinforcing bonds. They make jewelry
146. 4:43from shells or beads or animal teeth.
147. 4:45They carve designs into bones or stones.
148. 4:47They nap. Anthropologist James Suzman
149. 4:50documented that among the Ju/'hoansi,
150. 4:52adults spend roughly 6 hours per day in
151. 4:54what he called social time. Not working,
152. 4:57not sleeping, just being with other
153. 4:58people, talking, laughing, telling
154. 5:01jokes. Because in a world without money
155. 5:03or police or written contracts, your
156. 5:05survival depends entirely on your
157. 5:06relationships. If people don't like you,
158. 5:08they don't have to share food when
159. 5:09you're hungry. So, you invest enormous
160. 5:12amounts of time in those bonds. Not
161. 5:13because it's productive, because it's
162. 5:15how humans stay human. Then, the sun
163. 5:17sets and this is when something
164. 5:18remarkable happens. In 2014,
165. 5:21anthropologist Polly Wiessner analyzed
166. 5:23hundreds of hours of conversation
167. 5:25recordings from the Ju/'hoansi. During
168. 5:27the day, conversations were practical.
169. 5:29Who saw animal tracks where? Which
170. 5:31plants were ready for harvest?
171. 5:32Complaints about someone not sharing
172. 5:34fairly. But at night, around the fire,
173. 5:3681% of conversations shifted to stories.
174. 5:39Myths about how the world began, tales
175. 5:41of ancestors who did impossible things,
176. 5:43jokes that made everyone laugh,
177. 5:45adventures from far away. Wiessner
178. 5:47argued that this is where human culture
179. 5:48was actually born. Gods, spirits, the
180. 5:51past, the future, things you can only
181. 5:53think about when your stomach is full
182. 5:55and you're safe. And people didn't go to
183. 5:56sleep and stay asleep the way you do
184. 5:58now. Historical records from medieval
185. 6:00Europe and sleep studies from the 1990s
186. 6:02confirm that before artificial light,
187. 6:04humans slept in two phases. First sleep
188. 6:06for about 4 hours, then a wakeful period
189. 6:09of 1 to 2 hours in complete darkness.
190. 6:11Then second sleep for another 4 hours.
191. 6:14So here's what a full day looked like.
192. 6:16About 4 to 6 hours securing food or
193. 6:18making tools. About 6 hours in social
194. 6:20interaction, storytelling, grooming,
195. 6:23playing. About 8 hours sleeping in two
196. 6:25separate phases, and the rest resting,
197. 6:28sitting, watching clouds, doing nothing
198. 6:30in particular, existing without needing
199. 6:32to justify your existence through
200. 6:33productivity. Then about 10,000 years
201. 6:36ago, something changed. Humans in the
202. 6:39Fertile Crescent began planting seeds
203. 6:40and domesticating animals. Agriculture.
204. 6:43And agriculture is a trap. Once you
205. 6:45start farming, you can feed more people.
206. 6:48More people means you need more food.
207. 6:50More food means more farming. Within a
208. 6:52few generations, populations exploded
209. 6:54and there was no going back. Because now
210. 6:56there were too many mouths to survive by
211. 6:58hunting and gathering. You were locked
212. 7:00in. And farming required far more labor.
213. 7:03Plowing, planting, weeding, harvesting,
214. 7:06storing, defending crops from animals
215. 7:08and raiders. The skeletal evidence is
216. 7:10unambiguous. Early farmers worked
217. 7:11harder, ate worse, and died younger than
218. 7:14the hunter-gatherers who came before
219. 7:15them. But the population kept growing,
220. 7:17and with larger populations came
221. 7:19specialists. Tool makers, potters,
222. 7:21weavers, inventors, then soldiers,
223. 7:24priests, administrators, and eventually
224. 7:27jobs, employment. The idea that your
225. 7:29time belonged to someone else in
226. 7:31exchange for resources. By the time we
227. 7:33built cities, the original human
228. 7:35lifestyle was gone, replaced by
229. 7:36schedules, obligations, the need to work
230. 7:39most of your waking hours just to
231. 7:40survive in the system we created. Today,
232. 7:42you spend 90,000 hours working. Your
233. 7:44ancestors spent way less. You sleep in
234. 7:47one block and call waking up at 2:00
235. 7:49a.m. insomnia. They slept in two phases
236. 7:51and used the middle hours for
237. 7:52reflection. You spend your life chasing
238. 7:54an illusion of greatness, achievements,
239. 7:57wealth, and success by standards society
240. 7:59invented. They woke up every morning
241. 8:01already free, already enough, and at
242. 8:02peace with nothing to prove to anyone.
243. 8:04They didn't need to become successful.
244. 8:06They were already living the life you're
245. 8:07working your entire existence to retire
246. 8:09into. You make art if you can find time
247. 8:12after your job. They made art because
248. 8:14they had time, and that's what humans
249. 8:16do. We're not a different species, but
250. 8:18we live so differently from how humans
251. 8:20lived for 99% of our existence that we
252. 8:22might as well be. We traded freedom for
253. 8:24food security, leisure for population
254. 8:27growth, time for productivity, and most
255. 8:29of us have no idea what we gave up
256. 8:31because we never knew it was there.