How was a human day structured before civilization?

Question

We live encased in scheduled activities which make sense as a system, but possibly don't take into account natural impulses to a great extent.

I would like to hear your guesses on how we would be managing the day if we were outside civilization, for purposes of easier discussion in a setting which allows food gathering when desired and no necessity of shelter (as may be the case on an "ideal" tropical island world).

As an example,
my cats follow all their impulses without consideration for any civilizational requirements. They demand food at 5am, go outside till 8, sleep inside till 10, take more food, go back outside till 12, etc., and at some stage around 9pm, go to bed and say there till 5am.

What would we humans realistically do? Do we have natural nap times we currently suppress? Natural feeding times? Natural bed times? If so, what might they be?

Please take your time. Thank you.

Answer 1

(Your cats, by the way, are domestic animals bred for hundreds of generations to obliterate many of their wild characteristics, including behaviours. Be cautious about extrapolating their behaviour as pets to any hypotheses regarding behaviour in the wild.)

Humans, as diurnal daylight animals, had their activities governed by daylight. If by "before civilization" you mean before agriculture or animal husbandry, practically all waking hours centered on survival: hunting and gathering. In times of plenty, they would likely eat as they gathered, and rest as their bellies were full. In times of want, they would keep moving. Fire was an early element in intermediate stages of the early roots of civilization. Although the use of fire clearly antedates agriculture and animla husbandry, it does represent a clear tachnology that separated humans from other animals. It also, gave humans the opportunity to extend their activities into the nighttime, and may have been instrumental in early forms of leisure...downtime that was not primarily about survival. Humans, then as now, had to be
inquisitive, energetic, and adaptable, and I strongly suspect that our ancestors did not necessarily have a fixed plan, but exploited their environment in many ways in order to survive and propagate. There was one species of early homonid, Paranthropus boiseii, that probably did have a very defined lifestyle than depended on the abundance of certain plants. So long as the climate and land supported those plants in abundance, these creatures thrived. However their lack of adaptibility to changes likely led to their extinction and replacement by other, more opportunistic species of early man. They likely had a lifestyle similar to lowland gorillas, with day-to-day life that has been well-studied by primatologists.

Our civilization has provided such an abundance of nutrition and technology for labor-saving (as far as survival goes) that our notions of what humans do in the wild is incredibly speculative and so foreign and far removed from our extstence that even defineing the parameters is daunting. For example, your statement "setting which allows food gathering when desired" is unnecessary...the lack of such a setting has one certain outcome: starvation and death.

Like your cats, humans have now been bred in a domestic setting for hundreds of generations, and it is possible that some of our basic wild instincts are no longer accessible. Thus, placing humans in the wild as an experiment to discern what these behaviours might have been is dicey...you may simply be observing feral behaviour as different as comparing poodle to coyotes. Also, there have been no truly "wild" humans since the start of the stone age, when technologies defined the rudiments of civilization.

An important missing part of your question is what technologies you will allow your castaways. Their use of fire, tools, etc. will have a hige impact on their ability to get food and provide shelter and protection, and so allow for the leisure time necessary to allow for the niceties of sleep and dinnertimes that you propose.

Also, keep in mind that "ideal" tropical islands are a bizarre and aberrant assumption. The parasites and diseases of the tropics, biting insects, poisonous reptiles and arthropods, and so forth are a fact that must be weighed in as well. Also, although you say "no necessity of shelter", a need of shelter from tropical rains, windstorms, and so forth are also facts of life. Your implicit Eden is arguably as far from being able to elicit information about sleeping and eating patterns of humans in a state of nature as one could get.

Answer 2

Hi. Civilization is a relative term. We had some agriculture that was pre-historic of example. As with all life, mostly what was done was getting food (and eating) and water. Defending themselves against predators, including other groups of creatures, was also a priority. Raising children (which is why you are here), and ritual behavior may have filled out the day. Just my opinion.

Answer 3

Okay, just to clarify, it is not Egyptian, it is not Indian, and it is not Iraqi (though Sumeria was in present day Iraq) civilization that is the oldest. Though it is true that China has the oldest sustained civilization to date, it is still not the oldest ever. The oldest civilization in world history was that of the Mesopotamia (in between and at the mouth of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers) civilization known as ancient Sumeria (or Sumer). The "city" of Ur (called Urim by the Sumerians) was the hub of the civilization. Mind you, civilization and "history" began with the advent of the written word (though there are other criteria as well). The earliest record we have found in Mesopotamia records back to the mid-fourth millenium B.C. (Though people had been settled there for nearly 2000 years before, they still had not reached a level that anthropologists accept as "civilization")

Answer 4

Before civilization as we know it, our days revolved solely around survival. Early Humans worked all day to find food for their families, until the Neolithic Era when agriculture was discovered. After that fact, schedules were more common. The work load was given to different people, and common day society came to be.

Answer 5

Wake at around 9am..
Have coffee & a light breakfast....
Short ride around the property in jeep, dirtbike or 4 wheeler..
Back in time for lunch...
Afternoon spent fishing , cut a little firewood..
Some days maybe a nap between 1 & 3...
Back home for dinner...
Have a couple of beers & watch some TV ..
Chase a couple of wenches around the house...
Bedtime at around 11pm...

Answer 6

It depends on whether you are a hunter or a forager--

Hunter: Start out from base camp, follow prey for days, weeks, or months-- movements, wake/sleep determined by movements of prey. After killing, gorge on food, rest/sleep for a few days, then drag remainder of food back to base camp to feed family.

Forager: Wake before sunup, go to food source, gather food, try to return home before dark. Feed family and rest at night.

Answer 7

Probably up with the light, to bed with the dark. Food gathering in between . Actually very similar to the way peasants lived in the early middle ages.

Answer 8

Me.if i had all the technology of today then i would stay up all night on the computer never get up.Then we i decided to eat well i don't know.............good thing we have rules that force us to do something with our themselves or else i would fade away in the ground.

Answer 9

You know who you should ask? Dick Clark, definitely. He was probably there.

Bwaa Haa Haa, I just couldn't resist. Okay... back to your serious discussion people. Nothing to see here.

Jen

Answer 10

mainly when the sun went up and down, that was a day.