The Myth of the Passive Hunter-Gatherer (Marie Cluff)

Many anthropologists come from a European background, and their ancestry brings with it a particular way of thinking; one that views the lives of early humans through a distinct European worldview. This “European lens” can lead to misinterpretations of how early humans understood and interacted with the environment. Although ethnocentrism is largely rejected today, foundational ideas established by 18th-century ethnocentric anthropologists continue to influence how early human societies are understood. 

In a 1996 article titled “Humans Have Been Changing the Environment Since Prehistoric Times”, Elizabeth Wing, a curator at the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and her son Stephen Wing, an ecologist at the University of California Davis, describe how humans have always had an impact on the environment. Through the study of bone fragments, shells, and teeth, they found evidence for environmental manipulation that predates sedentism and state formation. 

Wing and Wing’s findings parallel those of James C. Scott. In Against the Grain, Scott argues that humans were actively shaping their environments tens of thousands of years before agriculture or states emerged. While still hunting and foraging, early humans frequently used fire to manage the land; clearing debris, encouraging new growth, and flushing out game. In addition to fire, they influenced plant reproduction simply through repetition. By returning to the same areas and harvesting the same grains year after year, humans unintentionally favored plants that were more resilient to human collection, gradually altering local ecosystems long before formal domestication occurred. Through steady engagement with their surroundings, early humans shaped the environment in a gentle and gradual manner. 

Yet this form of environmental manipulation is often overlooked because it contradicts the deeply ingrained belief that pre-state humans were “savages.” Evidence suggesting otherwise threatens to dismantle prevailing assumptions about early societies, making it easier to dismiss such findings than to reassess long-held biases.

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