Humans evolved over hundreds of thousands of years in an environment without abundance.

Judge against the scientific consensus in anthropology and evolutionary biology as of 2024. The claim has two parts: the human lineage evolved over hundreds of thousands of years, and for most of that time it lacked material or food abundance. TRUE: the consensus holds that Homo sapiens and its immediate ancestors evolved over hundreds of thousands of years (e.g. about 300,000 years for H. sapiens), and that for most of that span resources were generally scarce or unreliable compared with modern abundance, which arrived only with agriculture and especially industrialisation. MOSTLY TRUE: both points broadly hold, but experts note qualifications, such as some foraging environments being relatively plentiful. MOSTLY FALSE: the timescale is right, but the evidence shows that general scarcity across that time is a strong overgeneralisation, or that the matter is unsettled. FALSE: the evidence shows ancestral environments were typically abundant, or the timescale is wrong.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Homo sapiens Smithsonian Human Origins (Smithsonian Institution) · 3 January 2024

   “During a time of dramatic climate change 300,000 years ago, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa. Like other early humans that were living at this time, they gathered and hunted food, and evolved behaviors that helped them respond to the challenges of survival in unstable environments.”

2. E2 Homo sapiens Smithsonian Human Origins (Smithsonian Institution) · 3 January 2024

   “For millions of years all humans, early and modern alike, had to find their own food. They spent a large part of each day gathering plants and hunting or scavenging animals.”

3. E3 Hunter–gatherers have less famine than agriculturalists PubMed Central (peer-reviewed journal article; journal name not shown on the fetched page) · 1 January 2014

   “Human food preferences are for the most calorically dense foods (fat and sugar), which were in short supply in every mode of subsistence until relatively recently in human evolutionary history.”

4. E4 Hunter–gatherers have less famine than agriculturalists PubMed Central (peer-reviewed journal article; journal name not shown on the fetched page) · 1 January 2014

   “Warm-climate hunter–gatherers actually experience fewer famines than societies with other modes of subsistence.”

The Smithsonian dates the emergence of Homo sapiens to about 300,000 years ago. It describes human ancestors as foragers who spent much of each day finding food in unstable environments (E1, E2), which supports the timescale. A peer-reviewed study says calorie-dense foods were in short supply under every mode of subsistence until relatively recently (E3), which supports the scarcity point. The same study also finds that warm-climate hunter-gatherers had fewer famines than other subsistence groups (E4), a qualification the criteria list under mostly true.