The author did a good job defending their argument that modern hunter-gatherers do not necessarily leave evidence of their advanced cognitive abilities, the field assumes no advanced cognition without physical evidence, and this Primitive null largely relies on the absence of evidence. The author's argument, however, rests on the assumption that we can draw conclusions about early Homo sapiens from modern hunter-gatherers.
The jingle fallacy is the error of assuming two things with the same name are similar (Thorndike, Reference Thorndike1904, crediting Aikins, Reference Aikins1902). By referring to both early and modern people with the same “hunter-gatherer” term, we may end up believing that the behavior of one is a stand-in for the behavior of the other.
There are at least two requirements for modern hunter-gatherers to be richly informative for reconstructing the behavior, psychology, culture of early Homo sapiens. First, modern hunter-gatherers would need to represent an unbiased sample of Homo sapiens. Second, the behaviors of modern hunter-gatherers would need to be representative of the behaviors of early Homo sapiens. Both of these requirements are not met.
Early Homo sapiens were composed of groups of individuals. Some of those individuals left their usual territories and explored the world, built cities, developed writing, mastered smelting. Over 200,000 years, humans have urbanized—while an infinitesimally small number of humans have stayed put and remained hunter-gatherers.
Early Homo sapiens traveled the entire planet, sailing into the Mediterranean islands 130,000 years ago (e.g., Watrous, Reference Watrous1994; see also Strasser et al., Reference Strasser, Panagopoulou, Runnels, Murray, Thompson, Karkanas and Wegmann2010), crossing the Beiring Strait more than 20,000 years ago (e.g., Bennett et al., Reference Bennett, Bustos, Pigati, Springer, Urban, Holliday and Odess2021), and reaching down to the bottom of the Americas some 9,000–7,000 years ago (e.g., Civalero & Franco, Reference Civalero and Franco2003). This is not the behavior of a species that stays put but modally is one that moves. Modern hunter-gatherers, however, especially the ones highlighted by Stibbard-Hawkes (Hadza, G//ana, Mbuti), have stayed put.
Furthermore, the majority of the human species have urbanized (Ritchie & Roser, Reference Ritchie and Roser2018)—modern hunter-gatherers have specifically resisted urbanization. Tanzanians who live near the Hadza have urbanized. Botswanans who live near the G//ana have urbanized. Congolese who live near the Mbuti have urbanized. But not modern hunter-gatherers.
Modern hunter-gatherers are humans who have stayed put, resisted urbanization, and kept the old ways by choice. If members of a modern hunter-gatherer tribe decide to leave and live in the urbanized world, they are not part of data collection with current members of their old modern hunter-gatherer tribes. This suggests a large sampling bias among humanity for who is, versus is not, a modern hunter-gatherer.
If we make the simple assumption that it is not random who chooses to remain in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and who chooses to leave or urbanize (both historically and currently), it becomes apparent that modern hunter-gatherers are not necessarily a window into early Homo sapiens but instead are a very unique population that in no way is representative of humanity past or present. It is a case of a self-selected sampling bias of humanity.
The authors cite evidence that modern hunter-gatherers do not engage in many of the practices early Homo sapiens did: “Contemporary foragers …[Many] do not routinely create paintings, bury their dead with symbolic grave goods (Woodburn 1982), create ochre-based pigments, or engage in certain other activities used as proxies (Henshilwood and Dubreuil 2009; Klein 2017; Mellars 2005; Wadley 2021) for past behavioural complexity” (target article, Sect. 4, para 1). Such practices are all things early Homo sapiens did that modern hunter-gatherers do not.
Focusing on their own participants: “None of the study populations produce artefacts as detailed as figurines/paintings from Upper Palaeolithic Europe (e.g., Conard 2010; Harari et al. 2020; Klein 2017; Tattersall 2017a). Although there is rock art in Hadza territory (Mabulla 2005), in >100 years of ethnography, there are no accounts of its production (Marlowe 2010). Similarly, there are no records of painting from Mbuti, although they do produce intricately decorated bark cloth (Tanno 1981; Figure 1) and numerous plant-based pigments, dyes and body-paints (Tanno 1981). There exists much ancient Kalahari rock art but, while there are records of other Kalahari foragers producing it (Solomon 1997), the G//ana traditionally do not (Tanaka 1979, 197). Though there are accounts of ochre-use among the !Kung as bridal face paint (Marshall 1976, 276–77), and the /Xam as a leather-tanning agent (Wadley 2005), a comprehensive search yielded no records of pigment-use among the Hadza or G//ana” (target article, Sect. 10, para 2). The author shows in a very convincing way why the modern hunter-gatherers do not engage in many of these practices, but it still means modern hunter-gatherers are acting in ways that are different from the ways we know early Homo sapiens acted.
So on both fronts, non-representative sampling bias and differential behavior, modern hunter-gatherers are not representative of current or early Homo sapiens. We ask: Why is the behavior of modern hunter-gatherers insightful to reconstructing the behavior of early Homo sapiens?
Modern hunter-gatherers are an extremely self-selected segment of humanity. They do not act like the majority of modern humans, they do not act in many of the ways of early humans either. Modern hunter-gatherers are humans like the rest of us, but they are not more authentically so. They may not be a window into the ways of early Homo sapiens. Indeed, among early Homo sapiens, those who left the savannahs and traveled the world and built cities were no less authentically human than those who kept the old ways.
Using modern hunter-gatherers may just be where the light is—because we can observe their behavior where we can only observe the outcomes of some early Homo sapiens behavior. But they are likely not the window into the past we hope they are. In this way, we ask the author to justify why the evidence they present about modern hunter-gatherers should be taken as evidence for what early Homo sapiens did.
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The author did a good job defending their argument that modern hunter-gatherers do not necessarily leave evidence of their advanced cognitive abilities, the field assumes no advanced cognition without physical evidence, and this Primitive null largely relies on the absence of evidence. The author's argument, however, rests on the assumption that we can draw conclusions about early Homo sapiens from modern hunter-gatherers.
The jingle fallacy is the error of assuming two things with the same name are similar (Thorndike, Reference Thorndike1904, crediting Aikins, Reference Aikins1902). By referring to both early and modern people with the same “hunter-gatherer” term, we may end up believing that the behavior of one is a stand-in for the behavior of the other.
There are at least two requirements for modern hunter-gatherers to be richly informative for reconstructing the behavior, psychology, culture of early Homo sapiens. First, modern hunter-gatherers would need to represent an unbiased sample of Homo sapiens. Second, the behaviors of modern hunter-gatherers would need to be representative of the behaviors of early Homo sapiens. Both of these requirements are not met.
Early Homo sapiens were composed of groups of individuals. Some of those individuals left their usual territories and explored the world, built cities, developed writing, mastered smelting. Over 200,000 years, humans have urbanized—while an infinitesimally small number of humans have stayed put and remained hunter-gatherers.
Early Homo sapiens traveled the entire planet, sailing into the Mediterranean islands 130,000 years ago (e.g., Watrous, Reference Watrous1994; see also Strasser et al., Reference Strasser, Panagopoulou, Runnels, Murray, Thompson, Karkanas and Wegmann2010), crossing the Beiring Strait more than 20,000 years ago (e.g., Bennett et al., Reference Bennett, Bustos, Pigati, Springer, Urban, Holliday and Odess2021), and reaching down to the bottom of the Americas some 9,000–7,000 years ago (e.g., Civalero & Franco, Reference Civalero and Franco2003). This is not the behavior of a species that stays put but modally is one that moves. Modern hunter-gatherers, however, especially the ones highlighted by Stibbard-Hawkes (Hadza, G//ana, Mbuti), have stayed put.
Furthermore, the majority of the human species have urbanized (Ritchie & Roser, Reference Ritchie and Roser2018)—modern hunter-gatherers have specifically resisted urbanization. Tanzanians who live near the Hadza have urbanized. Botswanans who live near the G//ana have urbanized. Congolese who live near the Mbuti have urbanized. But not modern hunter-gatherers.
Modern hunter-gatherers are humans who have stayed put, resisted urbanization, and kept the old ways by choice. If members of a modern hunter-gatherer tribe decide to leave and live in the urbanized world, they are not part of data collection with current members of their old modern hunter-gatherer tribes. This suggests a large sampling bias among humanity for who is, versus is not, a modern hunter-gatherer.
If we make the simple assumption that it is not random who chooses to remain in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle and who chooses to leave or urbanize (both historically and currently), it becomes apparent that modern hunter-gatherers are not necessarily a window into early Homo sapiens but instead are a very unique population that in no way is representative of humanity past or present. It is a case of a self-selected sampling bias of humanity.
The authors cite evidence that modern hunter-gatherers do not engage in many of the practices early Homo sapiens did: “Contemporary foragers …[Many] do not routinely create paintings, bury their dead with symbolic grave goods (Woodburn 1982), create ochre-based pigments, or engage in certain other activities used as proxies (Henshilwood and Dubreuil 2009; Klein 2017; Mellars 2005; Wadley 2021) for past behavioural complexity” (target article, Sect. 4, para 1). Such practices are all things early Homo sapiens did that modern hunter-gatherers do not.
Focusing on their own participants: “None of the study populations produce artefacts as detailed as figurines/paintings from Upper Palaeolithic Europe (e.g., Conard 2010; Harari et al. 2020; Klein 2017; Tattersall 2017a). Although there is rock art in Hadza territory (Mabulla 2005), in >100 years of ethnography, there are no accounts of its production (Marlowe 2010). Similarly, there are no records of painting from Mbuti, although they do produce intricately decorated bark cloth (Tanno 1981; Figure 1) and numerous plant-based pigments, dyes and body-paints (Tanno 1981). There exists much ancient Kalahari rock art but, while there are records of other Kalahari foragers producing it (Solomon 1997), the G//ana traditionally do not (Tanaka 1979, 197). Though there are accounts of ochre-use among the !Kung as bridal face paint (Marshall 1976, 276–77), and the /Xam as a leather-tanning agent (Wadley 2005), a comprehensive search yielded no records of pigment-use among the Hadza or G//ana” (target article, Sect. 10, para 2). The author shows in a very convincing way why the modern hunter-gatherers do not engage in many of these practices, but it still means modern hunter-gatherers are acting in ways that are different from the ways we know early Homo sapiens acted.
So on both fronts, non-representative sampling bias and differential behavior, modern hunter-gatherers are not representative of current or early Homo sapiens. We ask: Why is the behavior of modern hunter-gatherers insightful to reconstructing the behavior of early Homo sapiens?
Modern hunter-gatherers are an extremely self-selected segment of humanity. They do not act like the majority of modern humans, they do not act in many of the ways of early humans either. Modern hunter-gatherers are humans like the rest of us, but they are not more authentically so. They may not be a window into the ways of early Homo sapiens. Indeed, among early Homo sapiens, those who left the savannahs and traveled the world and built cities were no less authentically human than those who kept the old ways.
Using modern hunter-gatherers may just be where the light is—because we can observe their behavior where we can only observe the outcomes of some early Homo sapiens behavior. But they are likely not the window into the past we hope they are. In this way, we ask the author to justify why the evidence they present about modern hunter-gatherers should be taken as evidence for what early Homo sapiens did.
Acknowledgements
We thank Jonathan Schooler for his helpful advice on the framing of this argument.
Financial support
The author received no funding for this work.
Competing interest
The author is an Associate Director of the Psychological Science Accelerator, an organization dedicated to testing replicability and generalizability around the world. His views here are his own and do not represent the views of the Psychological Science Accelerator.