Paleolithic Lessons for the Apocalypse with special guest Andie From Ancestral Habits | Zombie Book Club Ep 134

What if the best survival manual for a zombie apocalypse was written tens of thousands of years ago into our biology? This week on Zombie Book Club, we’re joined by Andie from Ancestral Habits to explore how our Paleolithic past still shapes the way humans cooperate, address unfairness, care for the vulnerable, and rebuild after collapse. From egalitarian small groups and complementary cognition to food sharing, justice, and ritual, we unpack why humans aren’t wired for lone-wolf survival, and never have been.

Using zombies as a pressure test, we talk through real post-collapse questions: how groups of 25 might organize, why cooperation often outperforms violence, how circadian rhythms and time perception reset without modern schedules, and what archaeology could someday reveal about us through our bones, teeth, and fire pits. The core takeaway? You’re not broken; your environment changed faster than your evolution. And under stress, humans tend to rediscover connection, fairness, and shared value.

Guest Contact & Relevant Links

Andie – Ancestral Habits

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ancestralhabits
• Substack: https://ancestralhabits.substack.com
  
  

Topics & References Discussed

• Civilized to Death by Christopher Ryan: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Civilized-to-Death/Christopher-Ryan/9781451659115

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Andy Of Ancestral Habits
• 2:26 Rapid Fire: Workweek Or Apocalypse
• 5:30 Roles In A Survivor Group
• 7:34 Complementary Cognition In Teams
• 13:53 Who Were Our Paleolithic Ancestors
• 16:47 Why Agriculture Emerged
• 22:02 Food After Collapse: Forage Or Farm
• 28:12 Ownership, Culture, And Modern Lenses
• 33:16 Justice, Deceit, And Group Sanctions
• 39:10 What Future Archaeologists Would Find
• 45:42 Time, Rhythm, And Nature’s Reset
• 53:02 Egalitarian Roots And Human Flexibility
• 1:03:20 Closing Reflections And Listener CTAs

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:19

What's the zombie book club? The only book club where the book is painted in a cave. I'm Dan, and when I'm not pretending to be smart enough to understand anthropology, I'm writing a book about a student of anthropology who uses their knowledge of culture and history to survive a refugee camp during a zombie apocalypse.

SPEAKER_04: 0:36

And I'm Leah, and the anthropology nerd in me is screaming with glee on the inside right now because today we are joined by Andy, the creator of Ancestral Habits. If you don't already know this about me, Ancestral Habits is my favorite ever Instagram page and weekly Substack newsletter because it illuminates the lives of our Paleolithic ancestors to help us better understand our shared evolutionary past and what it means to be human, the fundamentals of what we ultimately talk about on this podcast. I didn't even know if Andy was a real human on the other end, but I reached out and found out that they are. And they have a degree in anthropology, over a decade of experience in biomedical research development, and a deep love for prehistoric people. In this episode, we are going to throw some random post-apocalyptic scenarios at Andy and ask her what humans might actually do in those moments based on her knowledge of our ancestors and the way our species evolved to live. So it's going to be a fun one, y'all. Welcome to the show, Andy. How are you doing today?

SPEAKER_01: 1:34

Thank you. So that was so kind. I'm so humbled. Thank you so much for having me. I think this is gonna be fun.

SPEAKER_04: 1:41

I literally caused like night before Christmas last time.

SPEAKER_01: 1:44

Like, I'm gonna talk to Andy for ancestral. I mean, I'm so stoked. It's not often that people are super excited about this topic. I've always felt so nerdy among my friends and my family. So when I can meet someone else who wants to nerd out about human origins, I'm here for it.

SPEAKER_04: 2:00

It's a dream. Well, we're gonna throw you right into the fire with our rapid fire questions that we ask every guest.

SPEAKER_00: 2:06

Yeah. Dan, you want to ask the first one? Oh, I sure do. Um, this is my favorite question we ask everybody. Uh, it's one that I think about all the time. Uh you have a choice, Andy. Um, so choose correctly because the entire world depends on it. Because you get to choose whether or not you work a 40-hour work week or you live through a zombie apocalypse.

SPEAKER_01: 2:34

Wait, so in the zombie apocalypse, I'm not working?

SPEAKER_00: 2:38

Right. Well, you're doing the other kind of survival work. You're yeah, you're doing the different kind of work.

SPEAKER_01: 2:43

40-hour work week.

SPEAKER_00: 2:45

Oh, okay. So get out of here. Is that the wrong answer? No, you saved the lives of eight billion people.

SPEAKER_02: 2:54

I feel like that's the right answer.

SPEAKER_00: 2:57

Yeah. Well, you know, agree to disagree.

SPEAKER_01: 3:02

I'm watching Pluribus right now. Are you guys watching Pluribus? No, but it's on our list. Yeah. You gotta watch it. It was highly suggested. That's a pleuribus question. It's yeah. I'm I've learned something from it, and I'm gonna go 40-hour work week.

SPEAKER_04: 3:16

What is the thing from Plurribus? Is there like a specific aspect of that life that you're like, I can't do that?

SPEAKER_01: 3:22

Well, it's it's kind of um zombie apocalypse adjacent. Um, it's a twist on it. And the main character is thrown into it, and it doesn't seem fun. Yeah, it doesn't seem great. It's it's it's interesting. I don't want to give spoilers, but you guys will you guys will like it. Very thought-provoking.

SPEAKER_00: 3:43

Um, counterpoint. The 40-hour work week I already know isn't fun.

SPEAKER_01: 3:47

No, it's not.

SPEAKER_00: 3:49

I have experience of that.

SPEAKER_01: 3:51

Yeah, but you didn't specify what I'm doing. Am I working as an anthropologist? Because I'll take that.

SPEAKER_04: 3:58

Guess what? Our next question for you is you don't have a choice. It is the zombie apocalypse now. Yeah. What is your what is your role that you would play?

SPEAKER_01: 4:06

Oh my gosh. Okay. What era is it? Is it modern day?

SPEAKER_00: 4:11

Yeah, this is modern day. Like we're talking like Romero-esque zombies. They're slow. Do you know what a Romero zombie is? I don't.

SPEAKER_04: 4:19

I was gonna say, you can get too deep into that. Classic, like slow-moving zombies. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 4:25

Oh, okay. Oh gosh, those are the creepiest, right? Um can be. Yeah. I am what is my role? You know, okay, it's time to get uh it's time to get evolutionary. So today we are all in these like little silos. We don't really have strong groups around us or communities around us. Um so either I'm banding together with my local society and creating a plan, but most likely I'm holding up in my house, boarding up the windows and trying to protect my family from the zombies, which is a shame because it's very isolated.

SPEAKER_02: 5:05

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 5:06

But I think that's just the position that most of us are in today. And when you when you think about all the zombie movies, people usually come together with a community, right? And that's what that's the And the good news. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and then I mean, I don't know. Well, you tell me because I haven't watched a lot of them, but from the ones I have seen, they join together with a group and create a plan, or there's like a lone survivor situation, like a, or someone's coming out on top because nobody's listening to them and they do the right thing. Uh so yeah, I I mean, the smart thing if I'm gonna dig into our evolutionary past and what the best chances of survival are would probably be to join a group and to come together and work towards a common goal. I think we're wired for that. So that would probably be the best strategy.

SPEAKER_04: 5:54

Yeah, once we get out of the holing in our houses phase and we have like some ability to leave the house without being eaten immediately.

SPEAKER_01: 6:00

Yes. Yeah, they don't come out during the day, do they?

SPEAKER_04: 6:03

They come out all the time. Yeah. I mean, it depends on the kind of zombie, but we're gonna go with a classic zombie. They could be anywhere, anytime. Okay.

unknown: 6:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:12

They tend they tend to be where the food is. Humans.

SPEAKER_04: 6:15

What is the food? Yeah, I was gonna say, what is the food. Uh yeah. More context for you as a non-zombie obsessive person like the two of us and many of our listeners, uh, they're most attracted to sound. So sound and visual cues is what's gonna get you in trouble with a classic zombie. Uh so say it's a couple, maybe it's like a year in and you have a survivor group that you're part of. There's like 25 people. What do you think would be like the the role that you might play specifically?

SPEAKER_01: 6:42

So, okay, this is really a question about my personality. Who am I? I think I I mean, we're all different. Doesn't everyone want to say that they're a leader? Everybody says.

SPEAKER_00: 6:53

Yeah, but not everybody is meant to be a leader. Maybe you are.

SPEAKER_01: 6:56

Yeah. I uh have one of those brains that likes to, I'm solution-oriented. I like to think about realistic uh solutions to problems. So I would probably really enjoy strategizing. Um, I also work better alone, which is with dooming in, right? I um yeah, probably like a peacekeeper and a strategizer.

SPEAKER_00: 7:18

I can definitely see that. I think those are really important roles. It's a it's often overlooked in the genre. Um unless it's unless it's a good one.

SPEAKER_01: 7:27

Yeah. Interesting question. Can I, I know you're rapid firing right now, but can I interject an idea that I think is really relevant here? Um, there's a theory uh called complementary cognition, and I've spoken about it quite a bit. Um, the the anthropologist, the researcher behind it, her name is Helen Taylor, and she's um in England. And this idea suggests that we evolved in these small groups with um differing neurocognitions intentionally, that we work better when we have groups that include non-homogenous minds. And this can partially explain why so many of these neurocognitive differences and the diversity of our minds still exist today in numbers that seem pretty similar to how they've always existed, because this is actually beneficial for us. So, in thinking about my role in a group during a zombie apocalypse, um, I would also really want to make sure that I have uh diverse thinking minds in that group, because that is going to give the best chances of survival. If one person is able to laser focus, another person keeps a really broad perspective, another person is hypersensitive and hyper-aware of the surroundings. Um, another person's more laid back and maybe um thinking creatively. Like that's a group that is gonna thrive.

SPEAKER_04: 8:48

Yeah. And what I hear you talking about there is uh is not, I think, often people think about with roles surviv with in survivor groups. It's like, well, I'll be the cook and I'll be the uh whatever. Like it's more about the type of thinking that somebody is capable of doing and then how that ultimately shows up in different ways.

SPEAKER_01: 9:06

That's so interesting. I didn't think about that. That that probably answers the question itself. I wasn't thinking food or anything. Yeah, my group's doomed.

SPEAKER_04: 9:16

No, because you have somebody who loves to make food in your group.

SPEAKER_00: 9:19

I think I think the the way that you that you talked about it seems a lot more efficient. Like you don't need to find somebody that can do a specific job. Like you need to you need a group of people that their brains are already wired to do certain types of jobs automatically.

SPEAKER_01: 9:33

I think humans can do anything. I think we given the right pressures and the right situation, we we uh can accomplish literally anything. If you have never cooked a day in your life, you will figure it out. This is just how we operate. Like we are incredibly mentally flexible and we are survivors as a species. We're adaptable. I mean, they say that all the time. Like humans, we can adapt to almost anything. So I'm not worried about the technicalities, I'm worried about the group foundation.

SPEAKER_00: 10:03

Yeah. I do have to slightly disagree. I think that there are some people who can't figure out cooking.

SPEAKER_01: 10:09

That's probably good.

SPEAKER_00: 10:10

I mean, to an extent, like they can feed themselves, but like if you had a choice in your group and that's like, oh, I'll uh I'll do dinner tonight, that bird that person might be like, um, let's let's let Jeff do it.

unknown: 10:22

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:23

Jeff.

SPEAKER_01: 10:24

It's not gonna be good. I see what you're saying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 10:28

But you can survive. Like, I think that's the point. Maybe it won't be tasty. Like, for example, I could I do know how to cook, but in a world where I didn't, no one's gonna make me the first choice to cook, Andy. They're just not. I'm okay. But my brother-in-law Simon is incredible and like would thrive in a situation where that was his the thing that he was doing for everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 10:47

Because he's like an excellent chef or because he knows how to cook in a crisis. Both. Because I think you want the latter.

unknown: 10:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 10:54

I think both in his shoes. Yeah, because he's been through some stuff. So um that's really interesting. Oh my god. I am up. The level of dorkiness I feel on the inside and the hundred different questions I have for you. I'm literally taking notes like I'm in school. This is fun.

SPEAKER_00: 11:08

Um this next question is a bit of a a left turn.

SPEAKER_04: 11:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:13

Um let's just say in your group, you have you you all have this like communal uh DVD um DVD player uh and a little solar charger, you know. So like you know, uh you can you can play some movies. Uh what is like you get to choose a box set of something, like uh like movies, TV show, uh, whatever the case is. What is but you only get one. What is the thing that you would choose to watch for the rest of your life?

SPEAKER_01: 11:46

Oh my gosh, that is impossible. Um okay, so uh this also says a lot about me, but this is a communal box set, right? It's a communal DVD player. So I can't just choose something that only I would want to watch because if everybody else is pissed off about it, it's gonna bother me. So I have to choose something that everybody will enjoy, and that's impossible. Um wow.

SPEAKER_00: 12:18

Metch Hudberg said, You can't please you can't please all the people all the time. And right now, all those people are at my show.

SPEAKER_01: 12:25

Yeah, I've heard that quote before. Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 12:28

Um, all right, be selfish, Andy.

SPEAKER_04: 12:31

This is your moment.

SPEAKER_00: 12:32

Yeah, you have to choose for everyone at this point. You can't make them all happy, so you got to think about yourself.

SPEAKER_04: 12:36

In this case, there you found like a vintage blockbuster store somehow. You're there, you're alone. A blockbuster store that only has one box set.

SPEAKER_01: 12:44

Yeah, yeah. I'd have to do like a comfort, right? Like a um a comfort watch. So not necessarily something award-winning. I don't know. I during the pandemic, I watched a lot of The Office that got me through um, you know, the classics like Seinfeld or um trying to think. I loved 30 Rock. That was an absolute favorite show. So I if it's just me, it's something that I can just kind of numb my brain to and remind me of the good old days before the apocalypse.

SPEAKER_04: 13:15

It's so funny because like imagine that we're all in the same group together. And um, you know, Dan, who's obviously not team 40 hour work week, now Dan, you are watching with me and Andy and others the office and longing for the days where you could put somebody's stapler in jello.

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00: 13:34

I I mean, I always I always got like a bit of catharsis from watching people work on in TV. Um, you know, it's like they're doing it, not me.

SPEAKER_01: 13:43

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, all of these shows really at the root of it, they're just about people because we watch it and everyone is kind of a stereotype, and we can also say, Oh, I know someone who's just like that, or I know someone who's like that, and these just like undercurrents of humanity come through, and that's what we like to watch. So maybe anything that just reminds us that we're all just people.

SPEAKER_04: 14:02

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And now I kind of want to see a spin-off of The Office, but the zombie apocalypse breaks out. I don't think that episode ever happened. It didn't unfortunate. All right, let's get into it. We're gonna start with some basics here to get sure we're all on the same page. Who are our Paleolithic ancestors and why should we care about them as modern humans?

SPEAKER_01: 14:21

Wow. Okay. So when I talk about prehistory or Paleolithic people, I'm really focused on this era called the Middle Paleolithic. That spans from about the time that we became humans. So that's about 300,000 years ago. Date is variable, it always changes depending on what's found, um, to about 50,000 years ago. Uh, the Paleolithic era continues till about 12.5,000 years ago, which is when agriculture started taking off. Um, so I'm I'm really focused on the middle Paleolithic because this represents about 250,000 years of our evolution. That's 95% of our history as well, that that this era of the Paleolithic in total represents about 95% of our existence as a species. And this is where we did a lot of our adapting. A big chunk of our evolution as humans happened then. And to me, um it just stands out as a as formative, a formative era, and it defines who we are today. And the legacies of that time are live very loudly within us, and I think can explain a lot of our instincts, our behaviors, even our preferences. Um, and that's why this is an important time, because it helps us understand why we are how we are today, um, why certain things don't feel right to us, why certain diseases are more prevalent today, which is the mismatch theory, um, why we feel certain things, um, why we feel pain, why we feel love, why we feel grief. All of these have, they came from somewhere. They didn't start with us today. We are not more human than people who lived in the Paleolithic. Um, so I think by understanding where we came from and who we once were, we can kind of understand who we are now. More so, it allows us to feel connected to each other because we all came from the same place. We all have a common set of ancestors. And by illuminating their lives, by learning about them, we can feel connected to each other and uh deep down to ourselves. So I think it's just a way of understanding the world and humanity that's a little bit different than what we're kind of fed today.

SPEAKER_04: 16:38

This is normally where I'd be smashing the heart button on Instagram. Yeah, smash that heart button. Dan, do you have a follow-up question for that? I think that plays it out for you.

SPEAKER_00: 16:46

Yeah, I do. So the agricultural revolution kind of marks the end of the Paleolithic era, right? Yes. Did did they like discover John Deere tractors or something? Like how did that happen?

SPEAKER_01: 16:59

What what caused the shift? So um there are a lot of theories, and you know, of course, a lot of this is theoretical because we don't nothing is written uh before about 5,000 years ago. So you have to use uh a variety of different sciences to try to piece together what happened throughout the Paleolithic. That's anthropology, archaeology, genetics, genomics, um neurobiology, several different fields. So um the end of the Paleolithic is also the end of the Pleistocene, which is the end of the last ice age. Uh temperatures were rising across the globe. And um in several different areas simultaneously, we start seeing agricultural civilizations crop up around the same time. I mean, you have like 12,000 years ago in the Levant in like the Middle East area, then about 10,000, 90, 10,000 years ago in what's modern day South America, um, same in uh Asian countries. So uh the thought is that there were environmental pressures that led to this. Uh, and the predominant theory is that as temperatures rose, flora and fauna just exploded. And suddenly we did not need to be nomadic to find food resources. We could stay in one place, and there was just an abundance of uh food staples to support us. As humans stayed in one place, their population sizes grew. And once they reached a certain tipping point, they couldn't be nomadic anymore. So even if they were outgrowing what their environment offered them, they couldn't really leave. And some of that generational knowledge about hunting and gathering would have been lost. So now we have to find a new way to support these growing populations. Interestingly, there's evidence of humans knowing how to plant food and understanding the concepts of agriculture dating back 23,000 years. So that could also explain why in these different areas that knowledge base was there. We understood how to plant food for ourselves and how to sustain via agriculture. So maybe it started as a bit of a hybrid of okay, we're gonna plant some foods here and there. And then it just, in order to sustain sustain population sizes, it took off. And there are a lot of implications that come along with this because now all of a sudden the land is working for you. Uh, you have a concept of land ownership. Now uh this is my territory, and if someone else comes here and tries to take it, it jeopardizes uh all of our survival. So it's a complete shift in our relationship with our natural environment. And from there, it kind of spirals into a lot of the atrocities um that we see as a repercussion of that time. But I I personally don't think it was like this malicious, selfish decision. I think those humans were doing the best that they could uh to survive. And we are wired to try to survive. So that's the main theory of how agriculture started. Um, That it was really a global warming of temperatures out of the ice age, leading to lots of an abundance of food and then growing population sizes, and suddenly that abundance isn't cutting it, and we gotta figure out a way to grow more food.

SPEAKER_04: 20:15

So that helps answer a question from before we were recording, because you said, well, there are pressures that required us to make this shift. Because I think many people, if you don't know this about me, I am team no agricultural revolution. Um, but I think that sounds possibly unrealistic, at least in certain contexts. There are obviously folks who um maintained hunting and gathering as a primary method, but in a lot of places that wasn't really the option. So that's humbling because I do get annoyed sometimes, and I'm just like, our life in this time is why I'm obsessed with the collapse to a certain degree, just feels so inhumane.

SPEAKER_01: 20:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 20:50

I agree. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 20:51

No, there are a lot of cultures that in the past and today have gotten agriculture right. They can do it equitably, they can do it um without the really devastating hierarchies that um a lot of civilizations um have implemented because of agriculture. So I don't want to demonize agriculture. I think that agrarian societies can work. But uh, in terms of where we are today, you and I are in this industrialized Western world, um, it took like a negative path. But that's just what we experience. That's not agriculture everywhere.

SPEAKER_04: 21:29

I already feel like a better educated and kinder human in this moment of listening to you. Um it makes me think about in a zombie apocalypse setting, food and survival is obviously a number one issue. And imagine we're like two years out from the initial outbreak of the zombies, 10% of humanity remains. What do you think the food strategies could look like in that scenario?

SPEAKER_01: 21:54

Um, so we've blown through the global food supply, right? Like there's no more canned food on the shelves.

SPEAKER_04: 22:01

Now we've got to once in a while, but it's definitely not your main source.

SPEAKER_01: 22:06

Okay. Um, well, we've got to start understanding what food sources are available in our local environment. So I'm assuming that now, once again, flora and fauna has exploded, right? Because kind of like during the pandemic when all the animals came out because people weren't driving as much and uh they could explore without feeling threatened. I think that there would be a lot of overgrowth. And some of that is bound to be edible. So it would it would reinstill this need to understand, uh, to have a knowledge of local plants and foraging, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:39

Yeah. I think there'd be a lot of trial and error. Um everything's edible once.

SPEAKER_03: 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 22:47

Um I think I think it is interesting to think about like the types of skills that we've that we've lost over time because uh like right, especially right now, like there's people who know how to forage plants.

SPEAKER_01: 22:59

I was gonna say there, I feel like in every community there are really knowledgeable individuals who um who are horticulturalists or um just have a either generational knowledge of um edible plants and medicinal plants. Uh it's and um thanks to social media, now they're having getting a platform, which is great, and we can all learn about it.

SPEAKER_04: 23:20

Yeah. Yeah. I learn a lot from um, I actually don't remember I remember her name, but her handle is Black Forager. And she has a series which is like, is it poison or is it food?

SPEAKER_01: 23:30

Alexis. She's awesome. I love her account. Yes. Yeah. Um and she's brilliant. And I always think, like, can you imagine walking around and being like, I'm hungry? Like, what does this in this land feed me? And I think a lot of us are called to it. I mean, it is, it's it's something that's kind of latent within us.

SPEAKER_04: 23:47

Yeah. Uh it makes me wonder too, like, if they're uh in a scenario where we have, you know, like the large-scale monocropping agriculture that we have today that most people are relying on for food is gone. We have lots of, you know, all the squirrels are hanging out and having a good time now. Lots of beautiful plants are growing. Do you think that um the agrarian way of life would make more or less sense in that scenario than foraging?

SPEAKER_01: 24:11

I guess it depends on who you're trying to sustain. If you are only responsible for your small group, then foraging makes sense. But if suddenly the population is coming back and you have to sustain thousands, then you probably need a system that can feed more people. Um, and then it would be like reinventing the wheel and like going back through the agricultural revolution.

SPEAKER_04: 24:37

That would be wild. Is there a preferred agrarian model that you would love to see that happen like in the in the collapse? Is there one that you think this would actually be a better re if we get to redo it, how are we redoing the agricultural revolution?

SPEAKER_01: 24:48

You know, I always say this. After the agricultural revolution, when it comes to history, I don't know anything. Like I've forgotten everything. That's not my I can tell you in great detail what happened throughout that middle Paleolithic timeline. But post-agriculture, I got nothing. I don't agri, agrarian, different very I I mean I studied it at some point when I was getting my degree, but I don't remember it. I so yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 25:14

Appreciate that humility. It's gonna have to be something I'll geek out about later because you made me really curious when you said that there were other models. Um, yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 25:22

Oh, well, absolutely. There, I mean, okay, so you know, I part of getting a degree in anthropology is you study cultures from around the world. I don't love speaking about other cultures, modern cultures who are hunting and gathering, or indigenous cultures, because that is its own topic. Um, and I also really don't like to conflate prehistoric people with modern people because it gives this idea that some people are more modern than others. But every single human who is alive today, no matter where you are and what lifestyle you're living, we are equally as evolved as one another. You could even argue that someone living in um a natural environment who has retained a lot of the ways of their ancestors, is more adapted than we are to this modern industrialized world where I mean I can't even get a handle on like my cell phone. So I don't feel super adapted to my environment. But I I I try not to um as much as possible, not to draw comparisons to um other modern groups um just to avoid that confusion. Um, however, in terms of different agrarian models, there are groups that um live in small bands and who uh practice hunting and gathering. So they they are subsistence um hunters and gatherers, but they also plant foods. Um there are groups that uh use animal agriculture and also hunt and gather and who are nomadic. There are groups that use animal uh agriculture um and stay put. There are large groups that use that don't use animal agriculture and who only plant plant food. And there are small groups who do so anyway, it's all over the spectrum. Anything that you can imagine exists. Um there's a lot of ways to do it, and this transition has taken place over thousands of years. So every possible scenario you can come up with in your mind has probably existed.

SPEAKER_04: 27:25

That's amazing. And it's actually uh a fun thing to think about that there could be in this in a situation of a collapse, that there would uh probably be a return to that level of diversity uh where there isn't the one uh hegemonic most powerful economic system and way that we get our things that we need, that there'd probably be a whole plethora of different strategies people are making based on where they are.

SPEAKER_01: 27:48

Yeah, absolutely. And I don't think it would emulate the strategies of our Paleolithic ancestors, because we are modern. We are, we we know what we know, and we can't erase that from our mind. And our tools are modern. We have metal tools. Yeah, we have ammunition. Uh, so we would be we would have completely different strategies. Also, this idea of ownership and resource scarcity is just a part of us, especially in the industrialized West. It is burned into our brains and we can't get rid of it. It has, it has um, it has affected our neurocognition. It has affected who we are and our impulses. Um, I don't I don't mean our like evolved biology, but it it it does. I mean, these are like cultural adaptations. These are cultures, we look at things through an industrialized Western lens, and I don't think even an apocalypse and 50 years of it could get rid of that. And we'll pat we pass down these traits to our culturally to our kids and to our grandkids. So um we I don't think we could ever get back to this prehistoric mentality. Um we live in a completely new world.

SPEAKER_04: 28:52

My mind is just blown right now.

SPEAKER_00: 28:55

You know, I I I I was thinking about something um while you were talking, and you know, it kind of took me back to what you said about environmental pressures being the the the the the catalyst for the agricultural revolution and like um I always think of the zombie apocalypse as an in uh an environmental hazard. Like the zombies aren't really the enemy in these stories. They're just a thing that's present in the world that you have to deal with. Um and I think that like any type of farming that you can do within whatever walls you construct like on the roof of a building or behind a fence or a wall, it's probably going to be uh preferable to going out and hunting and gathering under most circumstances. Um I'm I'm thinking of the of it like this these are these are pressures that are kind of similar to probably what they faced in the agricultural revolution, where it's like, we don't want to have to leave this place. Uh it's dangerous out there. Let's grow things here.

SPEAKER_01: 29:58

Yeah, especially if you've lost that knowledge. Yeah. If it, you know, over time it's not passed down as much and and uh because traditions were passed down orally for most of our history, and then you don't need it, so you stop passing it down, and then all of a sudden you need it again, and you're like, where do we get it? How and now we can look things up in a book, but that really wasn't an option for a long time.

SPEAKER_00: 30:18

You walk through the woods and you're just like, I don't see any heirloom tomatoes.

SPEAKER_01: 30:22

I mean, right, exactly. Where's all the packaged goods? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 30:27

Yeah, where's my plastic wrapped cucumber? I don't know how to survive.

SPEAKER_00: 30:31

Exactly. Expect me to eat this cucumber was sitting right on the ground. No plastic at all.

SPEAKER_04: 30:37

Also a worm eat part of it. Do we eat it? Yes, you do. That's what I think about when something eats something from our garden. I'm like, well, if there was no food, would I still eat this? And if the answer is yes, but I will try and eat it.

SPEAKER_01: 30:48

Yeah, the worm is the food.

SPEAKER_04: 30:50

Yeah. Yeah, I think a lot a lot about that with my cabbage worms that come back every year, no matter how hard I try to get rid of them. Like your protein, I guess.

SPEAKER_01: 30:59

It would be a reckoning, right? Like, I think uh one thing I another thing I try to be careful of on my account is not romanticizing prehistory because it wasn't romantic. I mean, where the timeline that we're in now is a walk in luxury. It is like a luxury vacation. We, you know, I I don't even need to get into it, but right off the bat, the childhood and infant mortality throughout most of our history is like 50%. And you can imagine what that does in terms of how you feel about life and death. It maybe numbs you to it a little bit. It becomes a part of everyday life in a way that we are so shielded from today, and death is traumatic. So everything about who we once were, I mean, again, we could never fit back into that mold because that's not who we are anymore. And when I say we, I'm I'm talking about us, industrialized Western countries. Um, so where was I going with that?

SPEAKER_04: 31:53

You can go anywhere you want.

SPEAKER_01: 31:55

Just laws my feelings.

SPEAKER_04: 31:56

Yeah, I'm kind of just listening, yeah. I'm loving it. It makes me think about um like when you talked about how the concept of private property and ownership has become so ingrained in us and like the sense of scarcity culturally that it would be uh impossible or very, very hard for for humans in like industrial societies to remove that or change that quickly, like within 50 years after zombie apocalypse. And there's a book that I have, I think it's called Living Together, and it's about how to form intentional communities. And it's something I've always wanted to do, Andy, some part of me, but the thing that always stops me is who owns the land? And am I comfortable giving up control? And so when you said that, I was like, yeah, that clocks because I I am an idealist a lot of the time. I do really hope that we can figure out how to live together better and more in a more egalitarian way. But there is a core part of me that like wants control.

SPEAKER_01: 32:48

Yeah, that's a huge topic, what you just said. Um, but it did remind me of where I was going about not romanticizing the past. Um, so it wasn't pretty. It it wasn't uh, I I I don't think anyone in their right mind would choose to live in the Paleolithic if we are living now, um, because we're not equipped for it. Even parts of our physiology have changed. Like we have um lower bone density, we have uh our jaws have changed, we can't, we don't, we're not chewing food like we used to. So like we we would not we would not fit in there. But I do think that we can understand parts of our prehistoric past and take reasonable parts of it and integrate it into our daily lives, just to like forming egalitarian social networks, like you said. We can understand that this is where we came from, and maybe by interjecting more of it into our social circles, into our family life, by giving kids more autonomy, by um uh having these communities that are based on like value and what everybody contributes, um, by keeping these groups that we choose to be a part of as equal as possible and without that hierarchical leadership structure that maybe we doesn't really resonate with us on um an intuitive level. This is where we can take these ancestral habits and practices and that part of who we are today and make our lives a little better. Um, yeah, under and also this is a big one, but understanding, I mean, I think so many people ask themselves every day, like, what is wrong with me? Why am I not fitting in? Why do I feel like society is I'm so at odds with society, whether my head? I mean, it's very common. It's something that really shocked me in starting this account was when I started getting this engagement with other people who felt just like I did and who felt maybe ostracized or alienated by society. And I found a lot of meaning in helping others realize that there's nothing wrong with you. You're not broken. You evolved in a certain environment for hundreds of thousands of years. That environment abruptly shifted, and now you're being asked to fit into a very homogeneous society. And that's unrealistic. So understanding that these differences that we have once really served us can help eliminate some of that shame. Um, and and just feeling that your differences are negative and just understanding it doesn't make life easier for us, but it it does hopefully um help us feel more connected and you know proud of who we are, even if that's not what society demands of us rant over.

SPEAKER_00: 35:40

Yeah, debt. I I I feel like this is something I could just listen to for hours and hours on end because that I like, yeah, ditto.

SPEAKER_04: 35:51

Um it's um it makes me think about this concept of the evolved social environment. And when I just heard you even use the term ancestral habits, it even though I've been following you for years, for some reason the way that you used it just now live made it click for me. Around uh it's not about going back in time. It's not about that being a better way of life, literally, because like you said, the infant mortality was so much higher and lots of other challenges. Uh like somebody asked me once, like, what are you gonna do when you have a toothpa toothache, Leah? And I was like, I don't know. Yeah, no, we're gonna pull that to the butt there are, I think that that core, that there are habits, like that term even, like the the habits, the things that make us human that we can carry forward with more intentionality if we know them, and that it's not all of us feeling alone and like something's wrong with us, but that these are things that that are distinct to our species, and how do we live into that more? That's fascinating to me in this environment, but also in a zombie apocalypse environment. Like what are those, what are those evolved social environments that we were in that could help us survive in an apocalyptic scenario, or maybe just right now.

SPEAKER_01: 37:01

Yeah. So um, that's kind of why in the after your first rapid fire question, I kind of leaned into being a part of a group. So the predominant theory in anthropology is that humans evolved in egalitarian social networks. Um, it it was small, hunting and gathering, nomadic groups. And all of those elements are really important. Um, because if you're nomadic, uh you're you are nomadic, so you can hunt and gather seasonally, where it makes the most sense, and also so you can socialize with other groups, which is incredibly important for genetic diversity. Um, and uh it's a small group because if it exceeds a certain size, then you can't sustain it through hunting and gathering and being nomadic. So all of those elements are important and they all lean into uh social egalitarianism. And that's a very broad term. Uh it includes a lot of social systems that we know of today, but in the context of small nomadic egalitarian, it kind of uh kind of offers a more clear picture of what this could look like. So it doesn't mean that there weren't elders, it doesn't mean that some people weren't treated differently, it just means that it's a value-based group, that there is individual autonomy, and that everybody played a role, essentially. Um what's really interesting is that kids are starting to get, like children are starting to get a spotlight shined on them, prehistoric children, and seeing what role they played in prehistory. And it seems like they accompanied adults everywhere, they played a major role in their little groups. Um, they remnants of kids' toys that um archaeologists have found are really just like broken or discarded versions of adult tools. Uh, so they're just emulating what the adults are doing. They're accompanying them into caves. When the adult goes, you know, uh 40 yards into a pitch black cave with a torch to do cave art. The kid is there scribbling on the wall, also. And we see this in archaeological remains. I mean, today it's like unheard of that you're gonna take your kid into a pitch black cave to go draw on a like that, you would no one would ever do that. But the kids were there. So, and that that's just an example of autonomy. Um, that autonomy started at a young age, that you everybody plays a role and everybody is important and everybody is valued. Um, and the the reason anthropologists think that this is the this was the predominant social network for most of our history is because it shows up today in a lot of different scientific disciplines. It obviously shows up in archaeology. Um we can see it in uh remains that show that nobody was eating better than anyone else in a group. Um there's similar bone density, similar minerals in the bones. Um, when they find remains of food, like animal foods that have been eaten, um it shows like a uh what's what's the word? What am I thinking of? It shows that it was distributed evenly throughout. group essentially again nobody's partaking more than anybody else um uh our genetics seem to show that we did most of our had most of our evolution was in small groups um uh what else our neurobiology we are inclined to fairness and justice even if it hurts us and that's I mean an example is the whole idea of a whistleblower even if you are going to be punished in the name of justice people speak out um uh again fairness so there there are a lot of different fields that kind of corroborate uh a prolonged existence in an egalitarian group in all likelihood humans over that 250 000 year span uh played around with lots of different social networks and and social settings but um everything about our biology our anatomy our psychology seems to suggest that egalitarianism stood out more that's so fascinating because something that we joke about with a lot of zombie authors that's a big part of what we do is we talk to uh writers of the zombie apocalypse fiction genre and uh some of them will joke and say like it's my secret way of promoting socialism because all of a sudden you know in a zombie apocalypse scenario you've got a small group of people typically that are trying to survive together and and things like one person getting most of the food is very unlikely to happen.

SPEAKER_04: 41:31

Why do you think that is like what is it about a zombie apocalypse where you're is it is it because we're brought back to a place that's a little bit more familiar to our biology what is it about that?

SPEAKER_01: 41:41

Um I feel like anytime humans are put in survival situations, a lot of good comes out, right? Don't we see like whenever there's like a global disaster, all of a sudden people are incredibly altruistic, they are supportive, the negatives kind of wash away and uh the best in humanity really comes out. I think that speaks volumes maybe that's really who we are. I mean there are a lot of theories that altruism is intrinsic to our species. We have parts of our brain in certain areas of it, they are way larger than other primates. Well I guess we could just talk about um how our neurobiology is really designed for cooperation and anti-dominance. We have an unfairness aversion. So um we have strong neural responses to like I said unfairness inequality coercion and dominance displays and this kind of suggests that our nervous system evolved in contexts where egalitarian norms mattered. And so I would not be surprised if that came through today in situations where we're operating off of instinct there are parts of our brains that light up they activate when we encounter unfairness and like I said before even when it hurts us to reject it. So it's I think it's fundamental to who we are and I I mean you know humanity has a lot of bad bad sides but my perspective is that those are triggered when we find ourselves in situations of resource scarcity. Resources can mean a lot of things that can mean food it can mean feeling threatened it can mean feeling like your autonomy is threatened. It can mean um feeling that your social connections are threatened. I mean loneliness is a pathology uh it's incredibly bad for us we need connection so without having that uh without having connections without if you are incredibly lonely that is a form of scarcity of a of a a fundamental resource to us so um in a situation of a zombie apocalypse where we all need to work together to achieve common goals I I'm maybe the best in humanity comes out.

SPEAKER_00: 44:07

Yeah I mean there's all the there's always people that are built differently and there's I think I think we see plenty of examples of people who don't represent any of those ideals and would be incredibly selfish. I do think it's in the minority though.

SPEAKER_01: 44:22

Yeah and you have to ask why why is that happening? What what um yeah I mean I I'm not a psychologist. I can't get into the underlying causes of different pathologies, but we do look for causes. We do look for well yeah what what is triggering it?

SPEAKER_04: 44:40

Well it makes me think about one of your posts which was a favorite for me around deceit and another uh trope of the zombie apocalypse genre is like the big bad guy. And typically yes, a guy it's usually a big bad guy. Which maybe there's something there you could I don't know if there's an insight there or not, but um could you tell us a little bit about sort of our human habit of deceit and what that might look like or what it did sorry what it did look like with our Paleolithic ancestors and now imagine we're in the zombie apocalypse there's 25 people trying to survive.

SPEAKER_01: 45:13

Yeah so this is Jonathan Goodman's work and he is a Cambridge anthropologist he recently wrote a book called Invisible Rivals and it uh kind of touches on this topic um and he says that we are the same humans that we've always been we've always been capable of deceit we've always been capable of um cheat cheating and lying and stealing uh but we've always lived in groups that kept that in check because if you did engage in those behaviors you there's a high likelihood if you're disrupting the peace that you'll be ostracized. And for most of our history living without a group was a death sentence because we relied on each other. You can't just do everything in a natural environment especially if you're surrounded by predators um you you need a group to survive. So today we've kind of lost those groups that keep this in check. Like an analogy to a prehistoric group might be your immediate family right you however a lot of these nuclear families end up with a hierarchical structure but supposedly there's they should be keeping some of your behaviors in check. But that's not always the case. So you can have kind of someone acting deceitful in a family and everybody still survives there might be some social ostracization but um uh yeah so essentially we've all we've always had the capacity to deceive um that hasn't changed it's our environment that's changed I think that is like reflective of everything in humans that's like a big that's what I push on the account a lot that we're the same humans we've always been it's our environment that changed. Yeah and yeah that's that's it that's the takeaway.

SPEAKER_04: 46:59

That's that's the clip right there. It makes me think we have a really funny scenario or I thought it was funny. Maybe you won't because you don't watch zombie fiction all the time. So imagine it's a zombie apocalypse same group of 25 people Bob steals Dan's cheese. I don't know how we have cheese. Maybe I guess we're in a small round situation but we'll watch with the cheese.

SPEAKER_00: 47:18

Yeah I've been saving that too we're you know what we're in Missouri where the cheese caves are I through all I walked to Missouri Oh you came back with the cheese. With one cheese. Okay I ate the rest.

SPEAKER_04: 47:30

Eight cheese eight cheese let's assume that you were being altruistic and your plan was to share it with everybody but Bob in the middle of the night just ate it. Dan in a fit of rage smashes Bob in the head with a hammer what does the group do about this?

SPEAKER_01: 47:45

Uh they're both they're gone. Yeah they're gone I I don't know.

SPEAKER_04: 47:50

I mean I like what would what would are like what what is the evidence around like a sense of justice or fairness or how do you would resolve conflict? Is there archaeological evidence of that? No.

SPEAKER_01: 48:02

That stuff doesn't preserve I mean there so in terms of violence in prehistory in the middle Paleolithic and even before that there is not a ton of evidence on uh supporting homicide or uh brutality after the agricultural revolution it just kind of like explodes in the fossil record. But we don't know what caused those arguments. We don't maybe it was an accidental you know spear throwing situation.

SPEAKER_00: 48:29

Or somebody stole some cheese.

SPEAKER_01: 48:31

I don't think they had cheese but I mean that doesn't preserve either no kidding um so I like the only thing that I can think of is in Chris Ryan's book Civilized to Death which is 10 out of 10 really the impetus for the account that's why I started I mean it's one of my favorite books ever he discusses modern hunting and gathering groups and again like I'm cautious to draw comparisons but these are individuals who live in small nomadic bands of hunter-gatherers um and when conflict arises because it does um one of the ways he he says that they deal with it is humor which is really interesting um it doesn't seem like anyone makes like a massive deal out of it but you usually have like a select group of individuals elders these are not like leaders but they are individuals who are trusted with decision making who decide what to do and uh if they agree that person might be banished um but if someone is rocking the boat and taking away the peace from a group um then that that's a danger that's a threat to everybody so yeah that's the that's the closest that I have to uh what could have potentially happened but I'm sure these scenarios cropped up thousands and thousands of times and they were probably handled differently each time.

SPEAKER_04: 49:51

Yeah because there could be a scenario where like maybe the elders just make fun of Dan forever about his temper tantrum about the cheese and we mourn Bob in some way.

SPEAKER_00: 50:02

You know Bob stole something for himself that I intended to share with everyone. So maybe my reaction was justified.

SPEAKER_04: 50:11

I don't know could be yeah maybe depending on the group yeah or you did just get kicked out immediately. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 50:19

It's also this is also in the context of resource scarcity, which is something that we see more of after agriculture because you're tied to the land. And that's not to say that there wasn't resource scarcity for most of the Middle Paleolithic because there probably was uh but with the knowledge of the land and how to hunt and gather you can kind of circumnavigate that and there's not a lot of evidence of like mass starvation in our history without the with the exception of things like the Toba eruption when population sizes really dwindled because this is through this is theoretical but really uh agreed upon there was a huge eruption in the South Pacific and it covered like most of the earth with clouds and a lot of plants and animals died. And so that's a time that is an environmental catastrophe where there probably was a lot of resource scarcity. Interestingly some groups thrived like there's evidence from a cave in South Africa where that population was like booming. They were doing great. Wow so maybe it depends on where you are how cohesive your group is um yeah so maybe some groups had absolutely no shot of survival no matter how well they worked and what their knowledge was and you know other areas maybe weren't hit as hard maybe they were protected environmentally so um but yeah re it doesn't seem like resource scarcity really characterized the majority of our evolution. We also had really low population sizes so the I mean there's there was what like a few million of us for most of our existence and then it just after about 5000 years ago it takes off and then you hit the agricultural revolution and now here we are billions.

SPEAKER_04: 52:09

It's interesting to think about because in a zombie apocalypse concept let's say 90% of the population of the United States just to keep it simple is gone. So now you have around 30 some odd million people left. And at what point does it move like is there a possibility of transition because of who we are as like adaptive flexible creatures where we I think initially it's going to be major resource scarcity people competing for those goods. But then eventually I would like to imagine a world where because there's fewer of us there should be more bounty like you mentioned with the flora and fauna growing so you just have to have knowledge to access it. Yeah. How would it show up in the archaeological record? Like if something like this happened and it's I don't know now we're like 2000 years into the future after the zombie apocalypse what might we see?

SPEAKER_01: 52:54

Um let's see. So what do we I mean looking back so they can we are okay so also we're really scientists are just in the past 15 to 20 years uh have the technology to do like genome sequencing which is how we found out that some of us have Neanderthal DNA super cool. Like me. Yeah we do. Cool um uh so a lot of these technologies are new so maybe in the future there will be even more complex technologies where we can learn more. But what we can tell about prehistoric humans is we can look at their again I've said this before with like their bone density so that can tell you um how much they're using their bones like how physical they were what their nutrition status was like if they have any injuries or deformities. We can tell and if there's like deformities that are across an entire group then that might say something environmental. We can tell through genetics if there were you know genetic bottlenecks where population sizes got really small based on mutation loads. We can see what genes or gene variants were selected for in certain environments meaning that they were more beneficial and therefore were more predominant in populations over time. Let's see we can look at the tools that we use to survive and then formulate ideas on why they were used, how they were used, how common they were, what sources they came from. Let's see I mean it's actually science is amazing. We uh there are some tooth analyses that have looked at you can actually see what the individual was eating by month. I mean that's wild. Yes there are children yes uh like child's teeth some of some of them I think one of them was done on a human tooth but some of them were on other hominins um and it showed how long that child breastfed uh it showed that they breastfed more during certain seasons when they were older and not other seasons um it showed like the uh um uh macro load of their diet I mean it's amazing I'm imagining that these analyses are like this is so expensive so they can't just do it all the time but it paints a really cool picture of prehistoric life. So if that technology exists 200,000 years in the future, it's probably going to be even better um they'd be able to tell things like that like what were people eating? What what was their diet like were they starving? Were they um fit? Did they live with other people? Did they um what were they cooking? Like what were what they can um do analyses of remains in fire pits and see what food was there. I just there's a lot of yeah I know it's so incredible.

SPEAKER_00: 55:46

Archaeology is the coolest that stuff kind of freaks me out a little bit because um I don't I don't want scientists in the future to find my bones because I feel like they're gonna look at my bones and my teeth and they're just gonna fucking roast me. They probably will yeah like it's it feels like judgment like when we when we're like well this person ate a lot of corn and it's like you man.

SPEAKER_01: 56:12

Yeah there there's a group of humans this this could be this could be your ancestors they're called cattail man because like all he ate was cattails which are um and you know he was like man it was like two months we were in season and now he's known as cattail man but it was just a period of my life all right yeah like it was a phase I got I grew out of it through something I was going through a breakup yeah cattails is comfort food that's a different era you know I watched a lot of Seinfeld and ate cattails and that's all preserved in the record now that is wild um the the hardest part of this conversation is the thousands of branches that are happening in my head right now Andy it's wonderful um but I'm trying to think which branch I want to choose.

SPEAKER_04: 57:03

Dan I have a branch but I'm gonna offer you a branch if you have one on the off the top of your head. Oh no I I'm I guess I'm in the same boat. I'm like I have no idea where I'm going next. Okay. Well I want to return to this concept of the ancestral habits which is again the a really smart name choice for what you do. Something that I've also seen you talk a lot about on your page and in your newsletter is about the pace of life of like what were the ways that people lived in the Paleolithic era. And obviously it's the zombie apocalypse now it's a few years into the future the artificial urgency the 40 hour work week is gone.

SPEAKER_01: 57:41

What are the habits uh that are ingrained in our body that might start to return to us yeah so this is this kind of goes back to the idea that uh we're still the same humans it's our environment that's changed. So um if the environment shifts back to one I don't know but then there's also the whole idea that we can't unlearn what we already know as industrialized Western humans as hard as we try.

SPEAKER_04: 58:09

Oh I bet I can. Well give you real life context. So I am one of the many people who lost their job in this like not so great economy. And don't worry Andy I'm doing okay. However the one thing I've noticed is that my sense of time has completely changed. Okay. My rhythms of life have changed because I don't have an external force anymore that says I gotta get up at this time to talk to people on Zoom.

SPEAKER_01: 58:33

Yeah that's okay I see where we're going. That's really interesting. Till Ronenberg is a chronobiologist you would love his work even just listening to podcast interviews with him he thinks that the alarm clock is like the worst thing for our bodies that we should be waking naturally as we did for the majority of our history and really tapping into those circadian rhythms. He he has really interesting theories about that. So if we are living uh more in tune with nature and natural rhythms and cues then um maybe we start living more sort circadium circadian which is really good for all parts of our body. Let's see what else what what would we go back to?

SPEAKER_00: 59:22

And we probably also wouldn't stick to like a schedule throughout the day like if we if we have to go foraging and also like the fence needs to be repaired we would just kind of like do that as needed. And it wouldn't be like this has to be done by noon.

SPEAKER_01: 59:35

You know what's so interesting is that like my instinct is to say that I would still need a schedule. I would still have like a stupid list and be like four o'clock do this like I don't I wonder how long it would take some people to get out of that mindset.

SPEAKER_04: 59:48

And I wonder if that's again going back to um the diversity of the way that our brains work. Like for me as someone with ADHD it was pretty much instant I didn't have an external factor. It was like you gotta Be here doing these things. Yeah. And now I'm basically in a flow state where it's like, this is the thing that I want to do right now. And then I'm procrastinating. I'm like looking at, I need to finish this vanity that we're building. Um, and we have been building it for two months.

SPEAKER_01: 1:00:14

So that's that's like polychronic versus monochronic time. So you're operating on more polychronic time, which before clocks, before we started monetizing time, before we started compartmentalizing it, the time was polychronic. It was kind of like wishy-washy. And a lot of cultures are still like this today. And they there are a lot of Western cultures that are still like this today, and it it's accepted and it doesn't interfere, like where I live in the United States, punctuality is everything. And the society has made it so that if you're not punctual, it interferes with your well-being and your success. But not every Western culture is like that. And I like to point that out here. Um, but uh before in for most of our history as a species, there was no concept of minutes. There's seconds means nothing. Like if I said, oh, it's one sixtieth of a minute, or like that's like what? Where is the sun? That's that's what matters. So um we've we've made time into something that's a total construct. It's it's not what we think it is. There are cultures today that don't look at time as being past, present, future. It's just is. Um, so yeah, it's mind-boggling, but it also just shows how entrenched this idea of time as a construct, as a compartmentalized, monetizable thing is. And I that would be incredibly hard for me to walk back because even learning about it, I have to like really dive into it to wrap my brain around it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:01:48

Yeah, and it makes me think about again, we're we're all in a survival group together, and you've got me over here who's not finished building something that I said was my responsibility. Um, and then you are someone who has this tendency to be like on time, or I, you know, maybe you don't have four o'clock, but I have a sense that you might start to structure your day based on like where the sun is and have like a pattern, a rhythm of every day. Does that sound like what you would be like, Andy?

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:11

I guess, I guess, you know, I wasn't always like this. I uh this is a coping mechanism because I was uh chronically late for most of my life and incredibly scattered and a horrible student. And I now I have to work like 10 times harder than like a neurotypical brain uh to keep up. But I've like found a way to make it work. Um I had to like fit the mold. Um and it's I'm not perfect, I'm like still a mess. Um I'm like a type B or C masquerading as type A.

SPEAKER_04: 1:02:44

This was also me before when I was with with job, as I like to say. I think more of my own uh human state.

SPEAKER_01: 1:02:52

I bet everything about sorry to cut you off. I bet your body is thanking you so much. Like it affects everything. It affects our blood pressure, it affects uh just like forcing ourselves into also like I have to caffeinate to function. And when you think about like if there is a zombie apocalypse, all the things that we will no longer have, like we probably won't have mechanisms. Maybe we won't have caffeine. Yeah, will we have watches and clocks? Like who's maintaining them? Probably not after a certain amount of time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:21

So given enough time, they'll go away.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:24

So keep my great grandfather's uh hand pocket watch as like a memento, but it already doesn't work, Andy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:31

So you're one step there.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 1:03:34

So yeah, and then and just like spending more time outside, um, which is another thing that we would probably end up doing, um, more time surrounded by nature has a massive physiological effect. Uh, Florence Williams is an author who uh she wrote a book called The Nature Fix, highly recommended, so good. Um, it talks about the benefits of being in nature and like really cool case studies. Um, but she also did a series, I think it was a podcast series called the three-day effect. And it shows what happens when humans are immersed in nature without their cell phones, without any modern modern amenities for three days and the impacts it makes on our psychology and our physiology. And it's wild. I mean, reduced blood pressure, reduced heart rate. Uh, if you're around trees for three days, your natural killer cells, which are an immune cell, skyrocket. And that lasts, the effects last for like 30 days after that exposure. Um, mentally, it calms us. Uh, it's very grounding. And it makes sense because that's the environment that our body, that's like home to our cells. That it's they can breathe. Like this is where we came from, and uh the relationship that we have with plants and uh the our surroundings, um, that's that's where they evolved. So it makes sense that it would be good for us.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:01

It does. And it makes me think about again, like um, I don't want to use nature versus nurture because epigenetics has messed that up for me, um, which maybe is a whole other conversation. Uh, but I it makes me think about like I'm someone who grew up in the country and so and we're back living a rural life. I'm surrounded by trees, my mental health skyrocketed when I came back into this environment. But there are people who grew up in cities, men obviously the majority of people uh in North America live in cities now that um don't love my rural life where you can't get a pizza delivered.

SPEAKER_01: 1:05:33

That's my grandma. It's so interesting. She she was um born and raised in Manhattan. And when I would visit her, I would lay awake all night listening to how loud it was, like all the horns and the cars all night. And then when she would come visit me in the suburbs, she couldn't sleep because it was too quiet.

SPEAKER_04: 1:05:48

Yeah. And it's it's interesting, like that's the maybe there is this three-day reset that would happen where even within a few days of living a life without power in the woods, surviving, that we'd start to reset a little bit to some of those like patterns of our bodies.

SPEAKER_01: 1:06:06

Well, here's the other thing. And another thing I like to say often on my account is that humans have this ability beyond any other animal that I'm aware of to override their biology with culture. We uh we can override aspects of our instincts, of our needs, of our behaviors with cultural norms. So, I mean, like an example that I always give is dancing. Kids grow up, it's an instinctive thing to feel a beat and to bounce. And anybody who's seen a little kid, they just intuitively start doing it at a certain age. But there are some cultures where dancing is taboo and we have to walk that out of them. And eventually the kids stop doing it. So uh that's just an example of our culture overriding our biology. And it exists, I mean, there's endless examples. So if someone grows up in a culture or an environment that is completely at odds with our evolved biology, but they have a positive experience that can override biological needs. So if we have a biological need for not silence at night, but like low noise at night, like nothing that's gonna um interfere with our brain when it's shut off because it's always listening. Um, but if we evolve in an area where it's super loud at night, but we are able to get good sleep and it's a we have a positive experience, then our brains might wire themselves to say, well, then this isn't so bad. Even if, even if it is like peaking our heart rate overnight and like uh uh, you know, our our brain is only half asleep because it's like listening to these sounds that it doesn't know what it is. We we still might prefer that and have a preference for it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:07:48

That makes a lot of sense. I think I'm really like my biggest takeaway from this conversation is just our level of flexibility and drive to survive. And that combination is probably why we've had such um diversity of ways of living and like migrated all over the world to places that I personally don't ever want to live because of the temperatures. But people figured it out and did it.

SPEAKER_01: 1:08:07

Um we're super adapters. We are um different from other animals in that we can genetically like adapt to other environments. We are flexible, can adapt to certain environments. Like even in the past 10,000 years, which is like a short time frame for genetic adaptations and mutations to occur and then spread out in a population. We have high altitude adaptations. We have, we get some of us can drink milk, because that's something that only happened after the agricultural revolution. That's incredibly fast in the scheme of evolution. Um, and that's something that's sort of unique to humans, but it also opens us up to uh other mutations that can explain some of the disease rates in our populations, which is really interesting too. Another topic, another day.

SPEAKER_04: 1:08:53

Yeah, I was gonna say, I think, you know, I could ask you a million more questions. I can see Dan's wheels turning over here. Yeah. And I know we need to I know we need to finish for today. So I just want to say if there's is there, or is there like one ancestral habit that you would say would be a good one for humans across the board to maybe think about picking up a little bit more?

SPEAKER_01: 1:09:14

Um maybe not a habit, but I think it would mean the most to me when people read my content to walk away from it, feeling a sense of connectedness to other people. Um, because we really all came from the same place. And I try to point out as much as possible the things that we still all universally have in common. Um, and also just to remember that, like we said before, you're not broken. You, every part of you evolved uh for hundreds of thousands of years, meticulously and intentionally adapting to your surroundings. And it's not your fault that things shifted so quickly. There's there's nothing wrong with you. It's it's really our environment that makes our differences stand out in ways that are perceived as negative. So just understanding that hopefully helps some people um look at their differences in a less negative light.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:10

That's a beautiful way to conclude. And and uh everybody, please go follow. If you're not already, go follow Andy at Ancestral Habits on Instagram. They also have a substack that I highly recommend subscribing for the full newsletter because it's a deep dive, much like this conversation. Is there anything else you'd like to promote before we finish, Andy?

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:28

No, I'm just thank you guys again so much for having me. This was so much fun.

SPEAKER_00: 1:10:32

Yeah, this was uh mind blowing. I feel like I feel like we could have like 15 more conversations just off of things that we barely touched on here.

SPEAKER_01: 1:10:42

So this is Well, reach out anytime because you guys are great to talk to.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:45

Oh, you were way too you should never have said that to me. I promise I won't, I will not stalk you except for on your accounts, which I've already been doing.

unknown: 1:10:54

Bring it on.

SPEAKER_04: 1:10:55

But thank you so much, Andy. Uh it's really been a pleasure. And I know that we're gonna be talking about the things that we discussed here today for a long time to come.

SPEAKER_01: 1:11:02

Thank you, Leah and Dan. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:04

Somebody's gonna look at my bones one day.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:08

Both of us, yeah. For me, it's gonna be like, wow, you ate a lot of Nanaimo bars when you were five. This guy ate 15 cough drops a day. You know what? It probably does show up.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:19

It probably will.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:20

We do have a cough drop problem, folks.

unknown: 1:11:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:22

I don't know where you're cutting in this conversation because I'm just Leah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:11:27

Throughout that conversation, I thought Leah's head was going to fall off because she was nodding so hard at everything that was being said.

SPEAKER_04: 1:11:35

Yeah, I feel like my eyes are beaming out of my face. I feel like my mouth hurts from smiling. Like Andy, in the most beautiful ways, reaffirmed the complexity of what it means to be human. And then I can feel both hopeful and believe that we can um remember our our egalitarian roots and try to strive for a little bit more of that in our societies, but also humbled in the like reminder that as much as I'm a hater of the agricultural revolution, it happened for a reason. And I probably would have been a hater when it was happening originally. But the people that did that were doing that to survive too, just like we are now. It like gave me more compassion for our more modern ancestors um than I had previously. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:18

Yeah, it's something that that I feel right now is that like I think a lot about how horrible the world is. Um, and like there's just so much that's outside of our control that's gonna make it worse. Uh, you know, like there's just gonna be like data centers in our backyard that are gobbling up our drinking water.

SPEAKER_04: 1:12:36

Already are, yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:12:37

You know. Um and it's important. It I think I think the thing that she said that like really resonated with me is that like we haven't changed, it's our environment. And that's exactly the case. Like, I don't think that there's a lot more horrible people or more ignorant people. Well, they are, but it's it's the environment that's making them who they are. It's not who they are as a human being.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:03

Yeah, that reminder that in crisis like our altruistic nature is most likely to show up was also really inspiring for me.

SPEAKER_00: 1:13:09

It's very true. If you've ever looked at like anytime there's a disaster, like a hurricane or a huge earthquake or like an explosion somewhere, like there's there's more people running towards the disaster than there are people running away from it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:25

Yeah. I have a final question for you, Dan. For me. As somebody who is writing a main character who is an anthropology student, what was that experience like for you to, you know? I mean, we've talked about how I used to teach anthropology, but it was modern cultural anthropology. So for context, folks, everybody listening who knows that, I know almost nothing about before the agricultural revolution. I just know that we are more egalitarian, and that was really cool to me.

SPEAKER_02: 1:13:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:49

So that really, like a lot of that context blew my mind. And it's why I love Andy's account so much, Ancestral Habits. But I'm curious for you if there was like, oh, like there's one thing from this that I'm gonna weave into my storytelling or something. I mean, it was every two characters.

SPEAKER_00: 1:14:02

Every topic, I'm just like, I have to know all this. But uh no, I like the the reason that I've I've written my character to be an anthropologist is that I I want this person eventually, not in book one, but further down the series, I want this person to imagine a better world. And I think that's through understanding our history as people and like how we evolved to be the way that they uh that we are, and the way that culture and society changes us. And if you could if you could change something, if there was something that just kind of hit the delete button on the world and you could create a culture and a society, how would you create it to make the most egalitarian uh civilization or group that you could?

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:48

Yeah. Well, I think the biggest takeaway is like, what's the environment you're in? You know, I loved I loved her refusal to give us a blanket answer. It was very anthropologist of her. Like, no, I will not tell you that sounds going to be in every context. Yeah. But I can tell you some of the habits that we may may show up in different contexts. Um, I know we need to end this episode, but I just feel like one of my dorkiest dreams just came true. Because when I I really genuinely mean it that I have been obsessed with ancestral habits and always wondered like who is the person behind it. So the opportunity to meet Andy and hear from her directly in the moment was just a highlight of my life. I'm just gonna go there. I'm fangirling to the highest degree, and I really hope that everybody else listening fell in love with Andy as much as I am in a platonic admirer of their intellect and knowledge way. Um and that you also go follow her. And again, the Substack newsletter is just top tier. You you want to make sure that you subscribe to that.

SPEAKER_00: 1:15:45

Yeah, I did not know that Andy was on Substack. Oh, yeah. And like I've been very much avoiding social media for a long time. Um, so my ancestral habits knowledge has been coming from you when you're when you're nerding out about a post. Because I forward them all to you. Yeah. But I don't see them because I'm not on social media anymore. But I am on Substack. Like I'm that's my compromise, is that I'm on a a more like I'm being more intentional about my social media and choosing where it comes from. So that's so I'm I'm I've started over on Substack.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:19

I also have some unfortunate news for the Delhi Book Club folks. Oh no. Uh after the number of fantastic books that Andy just referenced that I should read, I may be reading slightly less zombie apocalypse fiction and slightly more going back to my nerdy roots of anthropology and like getting into the Paleolithic ancestor because or ancestor that doesn't make sense. Getting into a paleo Paleolithic, mid-Paleolithic era, is what I'm trying to say. I'm I'm learning in real time here. Uh because again, like most of what I know from that era is through these sound bites on Instagram and then um more recently her newsletter. So Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:52

Well, Leah, I I don't think there's anything wrong with reading a book that doesn't have zombies in it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:16:57

Are you sure?

SPEAKER_00: 1:16:58

So I forgive you. Okay. Um what I would love to see is somebody who is an expert on the topic adapt all of this knowledge and apply it to a zombie apocalypse.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:10

So in other words, Andy needs to write a zombie apocalypse book.

SPEAKER_00: 1:17:13

Can you get can you do this? Please. For me, I might like we might be your the only uh the only demographic for this book, but we will buy however many copies we need to make it worth it.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:28

Also, I mean like I don't know if Andy would be up for it, but like what a great consultant for anybody who is writing a book and needs to just get some tips or thoughts about what might be realistic in an apocalypse.

SPEAKER_02: 1:17:39

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04: 1:17:39

Uh it's fantastic. So I again could talk literally just even about this conversation forever, but I know we have to come to a close. Unfortunately, it's true. So thank you everybody for joining Zombie Book Club Podcast. Thank you to any new listeners coming from um the Ancestral Habits page who are also probably geeking out and freaking out just like me as fellow fans. Nice to meet you. We're glad you're here.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:01

Yeah. Um, we probably have some other episodes that are worthy of geeking out on.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:07

Yeah, we'll put those in the show notes. There is the one about zombie cosis that was directly inspired from an ancestral habits post about zocosis uh and how we have moved away from any of our species-specific needs as we are a domesticated species. We've domesticated ourselves too hard, as Andy said to us before we recorded. Um, so yeah, we we can share in the show notes a couple of those things, but most importantly, we'll have all of Andy's links there for Ancestral Habits. Go check it out. Trust me, you want this in your feed. It's um what we all need more of to remember our connection as humans.

SPEAKER_02: 1:18:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:18:40

You can support us by leaving a rating or review. Five stars, please. Uh send us a voicemail up to three minutes. I love a voicemail. We almost never get them anymore. 614-699-30006. Maybe it is my nostalgia for an earlier, simpler time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:18:54

Yeah, leave leave a message on our voicemail. Our answering machine.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:00

Yeah, tell us. You know, what was a question that came up for you listening to this episode? What do you want to know more about?

SPEAKER_02: 1:19:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:06

What's a zombie apocalypse scenario that came up for you? Like, wait, what is it? What what are our ancestral habits that would pop up in this particular scenario? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19:15

Do you demand that Andy come back and do a deep dive on a specific topic? Let us know. Yeah, then we'll forward that to Andy and be like, you have to come back now.

SPEAKER_04: 1:19:24

Andy doesn't know it, but I'm now their new best friend. Uh sign up for a newsletter. We can stay in touch there. Unlike Andy, we are not uh very predictable with their newsletters. Yeah. I've I did one. Yeah. It went to everybody's spam for. But if you're on it, then you'll get to know exciting news when it happens when we get a little bit better. Maybe by the time this comes out, because we're recording this for context. We're recording this just the day before the solstice, winter solstice, but it's coming out in February. So you never know. Maybe we've got our shit together in the newsletter by then. Uh you can also follow us on Instagram at ZionBook Club Podcast. You'll see all the times that I heart comment. And fangirl over there with ancestral habits. Or you could join the Brain Munchers Collective Discord. All links are in the description. Yeah, it's down there below. Yeah. You read it and it has links. And our usual outro, the end is nigh. Don't die. I feel like it's wrong for this episode because I feel so hopeful.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:19

Yeah, the end is what's the opposite of nigh, but rhymes with it? Hi. Hi. I guess. Tie, die, fly.

SPEAKER_04: 1:20:27

Tie dye. Tie dye. The end is tie-dye.

SPEAKER_00: 1:20:30

Yep. Go get yourself a t-shirt. And wrap it up with rubber bands and put it in a bowl with dye. Bye-bye. Bye bye.