Exercise, Modern Humans and Early Humans: What is the Correlation?

This term, we have been studying topics like Evolution and Early Humans, and interestingly a scientist has developed an interesting theory regarding these  two themes. What is it, you ask? Well, think about exercise: do you like it? Love it? Hate it? Meh? If you’re in the latter opinion group, don’t feel bad because Daniel Lieberman, a professor of human evolution and biology at Harvard University, has a theory behind why we may not like exercising much.

Please read the following articles to learn more about Lieberman’s theory.

https://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-feb-9-2021-1.5906730/humans-have-not-evolved-to-exercise-says-harvard-prof-1.5907580#:~:text=While%20many%20of%20us%20may,t%20beat%20ourselves%20up%20over.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/books/review/exercised-daniel-lieberman.html

Image result for humans have not evolved to exercise

So what do you think, do you agree with Lieberman’s theory regarding why we don’t like to exercise? Why, why not? In these articles, what were some (3) new Early Humans facts that you learned ?  What were some of your other thoughts, opinions and observations given what you know about the various types of Early Humans? 20-25 sentences please!

25 thoughts on “Exercise, Modern Humans and Early Humans: What is the Correlation?

  1. kadin2 says:

    For me I would say it is a Meh for me because I just learned this (not really) but the things that were learning stuff to me. So, let us start off. When the articles said that they needed more energy then. Us it was very surprising to me. Because I use a lot of energy, but I do not hunt like them, so I do not really know. So on to the next one. And what he said where people get nervous, and it was because of laziness and I do not get nervous most of the times (not all the times) and they got food from bushes and trees or people kill the animals to get meat. And I do not agree with the articles because they can sometimes be wrong. But mostly because of they said they made treadmills (not?) I do not know but there is no proof of that happing. But some of it I do believe because it could be real, and we(classmates) do not know any of this. So, I would like to learn more but my thoughts on this is highly likely to go bad to good but so far, it is in the middle right now, but I will change near the end and I will tell you my thoughts. I heard that the early people (woman and men) had better lower backs then us (new gen) so to this I will take it because scientists work so hard to find new mammals and animals (some find fossils not all) so my thoughts right now is that the articles are very good now because they give you a lot of information to what you might be looking at and If they did have treadmills it would make them even faster than what they were before they did not have it and I was talking about the very early stages of early people or animals. To me I really know much about early people, but I did learn some and I think they were very smart to kill the animals and eat the meat they had inside it and then after use the fur as a coat for the rain, cold and as cover. And it is sad to see animals die but you need to eat and it’s hard to hunt and kill them and they must keep very fit to run and jump faster than they already had before.

  2. kenrich1 says:

    I personally think that Liberman’s theory is sort of correct. We have evolved partly with new sports being developed and new types of exercise. However I do believe that he is sort of correct by saying it’s not healthy and rewarding as seeing healthy eating is better then exercising as when you exercise you don’t really feel like you accomplish much. The way we exercise is odd I disagree as some things like basketball or baseball aren’t as weird as you may think and are actually kind of fun and I think they do end up helping you. Also None of this is suppose to happen it just society just trying to call us fat and so there’s that in terms of exercise so that’s why we do it I guess. Now let’s look at the actual “exercise” and not sports. These have not changed for like a while and it is really weird considering we have evolved in technology, brain and speech. Now onto early human thoughts and what I have learned new, 1. I realized exercise is one of the things that we have to do and we never evolved in that so that is just weird. 2. We used to exercise back then cool I know. 3. The way where the early kids excised back then lead to our bodies now so there’s that. Next up let’s talk about school p.e and how it is actually a huge disaster. High School was never fun anyone and P.E just got twice as bad as it was in elementary school. Gone are the sport’s and instead just normal exercise woo hoo. Back to early humans and exercise if this behavior is true then that’s just weird ya. Just like in the old days we have not really made a fitness plan and WE STILL DON’t, well for me at least.

    • kenrich1 says:

      Accidentally posted it so continued: Apparently the way we exercise is wrong. We would suppose to do sport’s but instead we do like basic fitness exercise which is weird and kind of surprising since several articles say sport’s are better and the normal fitness is bad and useless which I agree. yet school’s still do this, the reason of this is unknown but I think it is sort of clear. Let’s talk more early humans. Now they have invented exercise since 600 BC so it was quite long ago however it was there just not called “exercise” a long time ago so that is kind of a weird fact. Evolution has changed a lot of things over the years but a big cause to exercise also is the COVID 19 pandemic. We started to do home exercise instead of just playing sport’s and opted for stuff like pushups, sit-ups etc. This has also changed into several sport’s being cancelled because well you know what. Anyway that is all I can really say about this since I really don’t have a mind so enjoy and bye.

    • mary5 says:

      I think would agree with Lieberman’s theory. In my point of view, I agree with Lieberman of how we’ve gotten lazier due to the things we’ve invented over time. The things we’ve invented saves us a lot of energy and time, but that also makes us lazier than our ancestors who didn’t have things like cars, elevators, SkyTrains, airplanes, etc. I do also think that most people have this instinct nowadays to take the elevator, rather than stairs if there are any. (At least for me it’s like that.) Since we’re able to use the inventions that save us time and energy, we basically chose to go the easier way in life. (So I think Daniel Lieberman is correct on this.)
      The early people didn’t have a choice to be lazy, and were basically forced and required move/exercise in order to survive. They had to be cautious about being someone else’s food, and they also had to get food to survive. Which in today’s world, us modern humans evolved to be at the top of the food chain, so we don’t need to worry about being eaten. We’ve invented all these things like houses, that give us shelter. The early people had to hunt to make shelter, but in today’s world, all we do is pay for a house. There are also people who have the jobs for farming/harvesting food and animals, so we don’t need to hunt to survive. Now from this, it tells us that we haven’t been getting one of the exercises/physical activity that early humans have done.
      For a pretty lazy person like me, I do know when I really need to exercise. Although, I would sometimes ignore the thought of exercising, since I either would be procrastinating, gaming, or maybe I’m just feeling tired.
      Now onto the facts about the early humans. One of the facts I learned was that hunter-gatherers were very good walkers, which is why we walk so well. Usually, hunter-gatherers would walk five to nine miles each day. Apparently according to the article, walking that much is like walking from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., each year. Another fact I learned was that, usually hunter-gatherers spent around 115 minutes each day doing medium to a hard amount of physical activity. One more fact I learned was that our ancestors would work hard and tirelessly each day, since they to needed to survive. They worked harder than what normal Americans and Canadians do.
      One of my thoughts is that I find it kind of surprising, and depressing, that even our ancestors worked harder than us average Canadians. (It doesn’t mean that we don’t work hard though.)

  3. alan6 says:

    My opinion on the theory of Dnaiel E Liberman, and my thoughts on it is that his theory it is for most of the part correct. The reason that I think that is because well, ive also seen that people have different ways to exercise. And some people might like to take classes to exercise, or like the story maybe some people like going to boot camp. But the way I like to exercise is by the name of just plane having fun, and with no rules. And the fact that they say that we all have not really evolved from exercising, is what secures on that I think about that everyone likes to have a different way of exercising. In this article 3 things that I have learned about early humans is 1. that from then, and now, we have not evolved in the way of exercise that much which led to the fact of that now we all have a different way to exercise, and that’s another point on why we are all unique. 2. The way that early people exercised back then is how we look like, the way our muscles are placed, or how our backs no longer are bent all the time, and all that stuff that happened back then led all the way up to us. And because of the fact that they exercised like that is how they our body parts placements are now like they are right now. 3. Back then in the olden days when technology wasn’t a thing, when people built huts for shelter. Well back then early people did not have an exercise plan to get fit or anything like that. but instead of exercising like we do now, the early humans didn’t take classes or anything like that, but instead they got insanely fit by hunting animals for their food, and shelters, and or they built huts by hands. So early humans did not exactly have an exercise plan. But believe it or not, most humans up to this very day and age, lots of people don’t have an exercise plan either. And so that you might think that they have at least plans to run like 1km which they do. But what I mean by exercise plan is a long-term goal for people, like for my example running 1km. To turn that into an exercise plan is to do baby steps like running 1km per day, and then increases like then maybe doubling it to 2km per day. Some other opinions, and thoughts that I have about this topic is that even that I have learned a lot of things during then but I have never learned the fact about exercise, and how it connects to early humans. And with all the things that I have learned doing this blog, is very interesting for me. And over all ip think that this theory is true, and that everyone one have different ways of exercising. Over all this topic is very interesting for me and now know some more knowledge that I will use. BY: Alan.

  4. april7 says:

    Lieberman theorized that humans did not evolve to exercise. He predicted that in the past, humans were forced to stay fit for survival reasons. However, since we created a world where survival is 10 times easier, we no longer need to stay fit. So, we must choose to do it. I’m not someone who cares a lot about exercise or likes learning about exercise, but I must say that I agree with Lieberman’s theory. It just makes a lot of sense to me. Even though I don’t know much about exercise, we’ve been learning about evolution, and how certain animals will evolve to adapt to their current conditions. Not only do animals evolve, so do humans. We’ve evolved a lot through the past millions of years. We’ve developed larger brains, more intelligence, and so on. As mentioned before, Lieberman said that early humans depended on being physically healthy for their survival. Now though, we no longer have to worry about staying fit to survive, so we no longer need to stay in shape. We can, but we don’t need to. So, it makes sense to me that we (humans) would also evolve to better suit the current conditions.

    It was surprising to me to learn that in the Stone Age, being able to lift things twice your own weight was incredibly useless. As Lieberman wrote, “The ability to lift above your head something twice or more your body weight is a bizarre, dangerous feat that probably had little practical value in the Stone Age.” I never thought about how ancient human races looked like, but I knew that I thought they incredibly muscular. Another intriguing fact I learned is that early humans had to rely on being physically fit to survive. I don’t know why, but I honestly didn’t think they needed to stay in shape to be able to live. One more fact mentioned explains how our ancestors were amazing athletes. Lieberman described how “typical hunter gatherers spent about two and a quarter hours every day doing moderate to vigorous physical activity.”

  5. vadym1 says:

    I think that humans didn’t evolve to exercise for a variety of reasons, and I agree with Lieberman’s theory.

    One way I know this is true is because nowadays, the only reason people exercise nowadays is mostly only to track their steps with some dumb Apple watch or Fitbit, and then show it off to their “friends” on social media. Back then, people didn’t exercise for this, but they probably also didn’t wake up and do a bunch of push-ups. They most likely only exercised when they had no choice. They were probably doing it and not even realizing it like for example, say they were hunting something. That was exercise. Exercise was just a regular thing that they would get out of surviving and doing things such as hunting and gathering food. Back then, exercise was an unavoidable part of life and no one cared about how many steps you did in the last 30 minutes.

    Another reason why modern humans exercise is just to stay in shape and burn off some calories. Well, back then, they would have no reason to do that. They didn’t have McDonald’s, KFC, Pepsi, or anything even close. They had to work hard to get the meat that they were hunting. It could be a tiny rabbit, but the amount of effort needed to catch it, gather firewood, and then cook the rabbit was huge compared to the number of calories you needed to catch the rabbit. If anything, they might’ve even avoided exercising because it made them skinny which they didn’t want because of the amount of effort required to get food.

    We also have access to all sorts of fancy equipment. We have treadmills, weights, dumbbells, bicycles, exercise mats, you name it. First, people back then had no need to exercise because it would make them lose energy. Getting that energy back would’ve been very hard. Second, even if they did have to exercise, it could only be basic things such as jogging, swimming, running and just a few other things. Exercise was bad. They needed to conserve their energy in the case of disaster such as an earthquake or a predator attack. If some bicycle were to magically fall out of the sky, they would probably use it to get around faster and be able to explore new territory faster so that they could move into better hunting grounds, kill the animals, and fuel up so that they can keep going. But science shows that no bicycle ever fell out of the sky back then, so that never happened.

    I completely agree with Lieberman’s theory about how early humans didn’t exercise. If his theory is correct, than it also answers a whole lot of other questions such as why modern humans don’t enjoy exercising as much unless we are forced to. After all, they are our ancestors and we inherited certain traits from them. Although, I bet they would be very surprised to see how we’ve evolved.

    But remember, I’m the guy who believes that Birds Aren’t Real.

  6. gordon says:

    While reading these articles I have learn that exercising was from evolution and changes that humans had made. Changes like making evacuator or elevator has made it so you do not have to walk the stairs. There are also cars and other types of transportation that can be use that I, so you do not have to walk or anything like that. I think that Lieberman’s theory Is correct because I also think that evolution has made us workout less. I think this because like I said before we made think that sort of made use a bit lazy. I also learn that physical activity does not always have to be exercise. Physical activity is doing things that require muscle movement or some other type of movement. Exercise on the other hand is something that is good for your health. I have also learned that early people don’t do thing that will take up lots of energy unless it is for food. Because they must do lot of hard work to get food. Remember they are only in small little tribe. Well, we just get our food ready for cooking or maybe even precooked or even better straight up cook. This is because these foods probably gone through lots of preparation before it came to you. It is very interesting that excursive was from evolution.

  7. drew4 says:

    Daniel Lieberman is the one wrote why exercise is not important. Liebermann said that exercising is possible for the people now because they do not really exercise because they always on their phone, tv’s, and their technology’s. He also said that exercising long ago is for millennia ago. It was a bad idea to use energy on things that made them more tired or used lots of energy. There is also a lot of things that we always do but you do not know that exercising like shoveling the driveway and walk around your house is exercise. But our exercising things is like our physical activity for us. I our past lives we always do physical activity or exercising. Like on our past life like early people’s they want to walk or do things for their food, and drink is they also do things for their lives so that they can live. I feel also like Daniel Lieberman because people before is active but now they are not active as before. Even though I do not like people to nag me, and I also know that you do not want to be nag but they are doing it because they love us and because they do not want us to be sick.

    What I thought about blame the evolution is not good because were making the early people different from us. I also thought that were making early people disappear from this world. I mean the Early people is the one why we had so many good things now unlike before there are so many things to do just to get food and protect your family. I think that were making the world worse if were just eating, sleeping, and not do things that early people started before. My opinion about it is early people started a lot of things, but we need to continue it because they made it for us. They made things for us to survive now than before because for what I know is they made arrows to protect themself and teach it to their children when they grow up. That’s why most of the people know some things to protect ourselves from danger. My observation about the two articles is almost the same because there are things that the same words.I don’t agree with Gabriel Lieberman about the reason he wrote about evolution is the reason why we stop doing exercising. My thought about these articles is Kinda telling how, why, and why early people done the exercise.

  8. jessica62 says:

    I agree with what Lieberman said because of his examples were well said. However, I have a question. If we weren’t made to do so much exercise, them why do people find it so necessary in their daily life.? Why does lifting weights give you a abs, but walking around a track doesn’t? However through Lieberman’s evidence, i can clearly see why he would think that way. I understand what he means what he by wanting to take the lazy way rather than the hard way. But then that leads me to an other question. Why do people enjoy exercise so much if we would rather take the easy way in so many situations in life? I learned that the current Hadza hunter-gatherer tribe did not appreciate nice muscles , but was instead lean and did not have those disgusting paleo diets. I also learned that the people in the past did not do exercise since physical activities were part of their daily life.
    The theory Lieberman has is understandable but there’s a few gapes in between. Like, what part of the humans brain started telling them exercise is great? And why does our body not react the same way when we play football and play dodgeball? What’s the difference they’re all exercise.

  9. tiya1 says:

    Hello! Today I will be talking about Daniel Lieberman’s theory. Which is that we humans did not evolve to exercise. Early humans had a lot of challenges that we don’t have now. The environment was way different than it is now. The early humans were surrounded by wild animals/predators, and they needed to hunt their own food/prey. But now modern-day humans don’t have to face all those challenges. We don’t have to migrate and move to new places because of different types of weather. Therefore we don’t need the genetics that made early humans so active. We don’t have these genetics and we didn’t evolve to exercise because our body only gives us what we need. I agree with Daniel Lieberman’s theory because it is true. Humans don’t have all the challenges that early humans faced. We don’t have to hunt anymore, and we don’t need the skills that early humans had to have to survive in the wild. It’s not like we are not capable of exercising, but it’s that we have to choose and willingly do it.
    Some new facts that I have learned about early humans are that they were definitely not buff. The early humans did not waste their calories or energy for any other stuff other than hunting. Daniel Lieberman also stated that early humans did not have the strength to lift anything that was twice their weight or anything really heavy. It was out of the question because as I said before their nature was to not waste their energy other than hunting. Averaged out, hunter-gatherers/ early humans spent only two and a half hours doing physical activity. Hunter-gatherers also walked five to nine miles per day, modern-day humans as well have the capability to walk a huge amount of distance because we have endurance.
    Some other observations that I have are that the early humans spent in the wild. Sure they had shelter too, especially the Cro magnons but they were very self-dependant and didn’t rely on others. But why do humans now stay so sheltered and feel safer in their homes when our ancestors basically lived in the wild. Shouldn’t that make us feel safer in the outside world?

    Well, these were some thoughts on Daniel Lieberman’s theory and I hope you enjoyed reading!

  10. maya33 says:

    For starters, first reading this website, he says that the reason why we don’t like P.E. or exercise is because of science. Problem is that I actually like exercise and P.E.. I started lifting weights when I was around 9 or 10. I loved running when I was 7. And since they were kind of saying that they were something we don’t really need anymore that much because of the technology we have now, are they saying what I like doing is useless? If I’m wrong, too bad. I read it that way and now I’m angry. Well, it’s just a hobby. You can’t judge me like that because I want to do it. I can just imagine some people just saying this theory to make an excuse to not do push-ups in high school. But if others don’t like to exercise, then it’s fine if they don’t like it. That’s their opinion. But I just felt this theory was kinda weird like how he said “people are weird” when they’re working out. I’m weird, but you can’t call me weird because of something I like to do. But later on looking on this blog he does at least tell us that those were others opinions and hobbies. Thank goodness for that. One of the things I learned was that Early humans aren’t like bodybuilders as they were actually kinda like the Hadza hunter-gatherer tribe today. I was a little confused on why they didn’t look like bodybuilders or aren’t like bodybuilders. But they would actually lift twice their weight above your head. And it isn’t something that the early humans needed all the time. He says that the early humans were actually more like the hadza tribe today because they didn’t waste their energy on tasks that weren’t that connected to hunting. Another thing that I learned was that hunter-gatherer tribes walk 5-9 miles around a day. I knew that they were travelers but wow. But to be honest, even though it is very impressive, I do understand why we have not continued to adapt that skill. Since we have things like stores and food sent to us from multiple places, It makes sense we don’t need that skill if the skill was to only find more food. One last thing I’ve learned about Early humans was that even if they were known to be very good at walking for miles straight, turns out they actually aren’t that athletic as many people expect, myself included. As they said on our given websites, they only spend about two and a quarters half hours a day doing multiple physical activities. Which was a lot smaller than I expected.

  11. vincent30 says:

    I agree with this way of thinking. Doing exercise isn’t really for a purpose, unlike doing tasks that require physical activity. Back then in the ages of early humans, physical activity was only done because work was more physical back then. Now we don’t have to do that much physical activity because we have computers, vehicles, and other technology that can make tasks less laborious. People don’t do much anymore because we don’t have to. Something else will do physical tasks for us. Here is an example of this: you don’t have to walk a long way to get to a place, you could just use a car.

    Reading about this topic, I had learned that people don’t do exercise because they don’t have to do it. I learned that the early humans didn’t exercise, they had to do a lot of work, that is how they did physical activity? I have also learned that humans had never evolved to exercise, and humans never made the choice to start exercising.

    Some other interesting things that I found out about were facts like how humans don’t like exercising because it wastes energy. Back then, wasting energy was something that could cause problems. I also found out that there are people that are labeled exorcists. Exorcists are people who make people feel bad about not exercising as much as they do. I think people shouldn’t feel bad for not exercising. But I also believe that you should exercise, because it is good for you.

    To sum it all up. I agree that people don’t do exercise because it is a choice, not a must. But I also think that each person should have exercise so you can keep up your health. I think it makes sense that early humans didn’t want to waste their energy on exercise, because that would not be good if they lost energy for no purpose. It is how dogs eat as much food as they can because their ancestors didn’t have much food, and when they did encounter food, they didn’t want it to go to waste because they didn’t know if they would get another meal. I think this theory makes a lot of sense and I agree with it.

  12. kareena5 says:

    Exercise and early humans!

    Daniel Lieberman’s theory that humans have not evolved for exercise seems reasonable to me. His theory which he describes in simple terms explains how early humans “exercised” compared to what we have been taught through commercials and other media about exercise. Early humans did a lot more physical activity, by having to hunt for their food, or hide so not to be hunted as food by their prey. In the 21st century, humans have evolved and so has tools, examples stairs are now electric it is called escalators. We can now store food in deep freezers which are farmed and packaged by machines therefore we don’t need to hunt for our food.

    I agree with his theory because I think a lot of people probably dislike exercising, because we humans are built differently. We have access to technology so we can conserve our energy and use it on activities that are more rewarding or required e.g., in workplaces. We need to make sure that we are not eating more calories than we use, to avoid diseases such as diabetes and obesity. I agree that exercising is good for you, it helps with weight management, it also improves brain and memory function, it improves the quality of sleep.

    That being said, “choosing to lounge on a couch instead of go for a run is an evolutionary response to conserving energy” as early humans would only hunt and gather food for about two and a quarter hour and conserving their energy for the next day. Early humans hunting and gathering for food was not considered to be exercise it was considered to physical activity. In my perspective we need to be more physically active to maintain a healthy lifestyle and that can take the form of exercise or other physical activities. I for one would obviously choose sitting on my couch binge watching Netflix and eating popcorn rather than going for a run…. other people may have different interests.

    There were several things that I found interesting from the articles, for example the use of treadmills to punish prisoners and to prevent idleness in Victorian times, as well as the amount of time that an average hunter-gatherer spent on physical activity each day. The reference Daniel Lieberman made about the use of treadmills as punishment made me curious, and funny, it’s exactly how I feel about exercise, that it is a punishment 🤗. I found, after some research that the early treadmills or tread wheels were used primarily for farm animals. The use of the treadmill as punishment was considered more humane compared to other methods of punishment.

    Early humans didn’t look like buff like body builders, they were strong and lean. Instead, they conserved energy to not to waste calories on activities that was not spent on gathering food. Daniel Lieberman compares the early humans to the existing Hazda tribe that can be found in Tanzania. From reading about the Hazda, they depend on resources around them and their diet vary based on the season, wet and dry. The Hazda people hunt for their food, and therefore, do a lot of physical activity.

    Other early humans such as Homo Habilis was at 10-14 years old, compared with us; average expectancy of 71-72. Although a much shorter life spans the way of living by early humans can helps be better at physical activity and using our energy wisely. Early humans also had different diets, compared to us where with technology today there are a lot more processed food. This provides explanations for our further lack of physical activity.

    While I don’t want to be buff like a body builder, I would like to be healthier, this starts with more physical activity. Early humans had the right thought of at least two and a quarter hours physical activity each day, we should all aim for at least half an hour each day, doping an activity that is not just walking from home to school or typing on my computer.

  13. damian4 says:

    The early human session was interesting I learned that the early humans were similar to modern humans which is us. They were very active and ate things we never even seen before ( I think) some species were similar to each other while others were different and had strange behaviors. I also learned that sometimes they make unusual tools like a hand ax for example it’s not like modern axes which have a handle. I agree with Liberman’s idea but at the same tie I also don’t agree with it because it depends on who the person is some people like doing exercise and some people dislike it because we get tired and the people that like it loves to do it for being fit or being able to do things they can’t in the past like being flexible. I sometimes like doing exercise but I like doing it slowly because I like not doing exercise it saves your energy but at the same time it’s for your own good some people can’t even walk or have other disabilities. Overall I think it’s good to exercise to be healthy I hope others exercise too.

  14. aumi1 says:

    I think that Lieberman’s theory makes sense. In the past, early humans didn’t have to force themselves to exercise. They got it naturally, from running from predators and pursuing prey. Now, in a time where we don’t have to run due to fear of being eaten or chase after small animals so we don’t starve, we naturally save our energy. This is because our body thinks, why do excessive work and just feel tired? We already have a steady source of water and loads of food leftover, and we aren’t in any danger, so why not relax? We don’t necessarily have to do it, so why sentence your body to 1 exhausting hour of running per day? This is why Lieberman’s theory makes sense to me. Our instincts tell us that we don’t have to exert our body. Our instincts tell us this because exercise is voluntary exertion, and if we don’t have to strain our body, why not save our energy instead? We feel like we don’t have to exercise, and we feel lazy.

    Some Early Human facts that I’ve learned by reading these 2 articles are (1) how humans evolved to only expend the needed energy, and to save as much as we can. This is why we feel lazy, and don’t exercise. We do this so we can save energy. (2) Hunter gatherers normally spent about 2 and a quarter hours doing moderate/vigorous physical activity a day, which really isn’t that much compared to people who run often, like marathon runners. (3) To be able to lift something close to 2 or more times your body weight was an unnecessary and dangerous act to do in those times, as there isn’t any actual use of doing that, at least during that time. (4) An average hunter gatherer walks about 5-9 miles per day. This is because Early Humans – or humans in general – are really good at walking due to our body adaptations and cellular structure.

    Some observations of mine are how Early Humans mainly spent their energy only on absolutely necessary things, like building shelters or gathering food. Now, we can get food just by walking or driving to the nearest market, or even just sitting at home and having it delivered to your doorstep. Thus, exercise becomes mandatory in our day to day lives. If we had to do some physically demanding tasks to get our food, shelter, and clothing needs met, we wouldn’t have to force ourselves to exercise. We would also be more healthy by doing this, as we have to exercise if we were to meet these 3 demands in those times. Early Humans were also stronger than (most of) us for that reason. Yes, we do get some exercise, but not as much as the Early Humans did. Again, this is due to them exercising more than us because they are forced to.

    Anyways, these are my thoughts on Lieberman’s theory. Overall, I think the theory makes sense. It was also fun to read and research about the theory. I learnt a lot, too.

  15. mattias12 says:

    I honestly think that this is a pretty good theory. It explains that we don’t enjoy exercising simply because we have not evolved to exercise. This is just a theory and it might not be proven yet, but i agree with this because it explains a lot on why we don’t enjoy or like exercising. It not only says a lot but it makes a lot of sense that we just have not evolved into exercising. I think that it explains so much if you think more about evolution and how he studied the Hadza hunter-gatherer tribe in Tanzania. Like when I was thinking about the theory and had some questions but then it was answered right away with the theory. Or when it said “ It’s not that we’re weak or lazy or failing at life if we don’t want to get up and run a 5K; it’s simply that burning extra calories is not something that humans as a species have ever had to do before.” this really got me thinking “ What if early humans did exercise but we just have not discovered it? Because 65% of the world has not been explored yet. Any fossils could not only be on land but could also be underwater because of how the tectonic plates move.

    Some interesting facts that I learned are:
    1. If you don’t exercise you can also burn calories by fidgeting.
    2. Early humans did not waste any calories that did not involve finding and catching food.
    3. “Victorian times treadmills were used to punish prisoners and prevent idleness. They would walk for hours a day on enormous and steplike treadmills”

  16. icheng1 says:

    1.what I agree or disagree about Lieberman’s theory.

    I agree with Lieberman’s theory is, because he said if you can sit and watch T V, or run or even walk, but I will choose to sit down, and watch TV, and not spending extra energy, but its income is only grown a couple of centers meter, so I think no one will do that. Now in the world there is a lot of inventions humans will rely like cars like to drive instead of walking, and even there is online apps to get food by like just lying on the couch and then wait and the food will just come to them. And their devices like watching tv playing video games, and all of that is not a good habit, and if you keep that going you will get fat, unhealthy, and even get sick, so I will go outside for a bit every day, so I will not get any terrible things happen to me. If you just outside for twenty minutes, it is ok. I agree when Lieberman said if you exercise your body blood will get moving, and make them stronger, and it can make you buff, so this is some things I agree with him.

    2.what I learned from Lieberman’s theory.

    I learned when you just run a tiny you are exercising because your body is heating up it is like a microwave, so it is easy to run I cold wheatears like when it is raining. Second things I learned is it can help you lose wight, lower chance of heart dieses, not high blood sugar, better health, and mood, it will make you live longer for example if you are going to live until 80 years old, and when you exercise it can make you live longer two years, it can make your bones stronger, make your sleep better, because you are tired. This is some things I learned from Lieberman theories.

    3. My thoughts, about Lieberman theory.

    My thought was how did early humans evented exercising, and what time, how did it get it poplar, and which country, and what is the first type of excising?

    4.my opinions of Lieberman’s theory.

    My opinions are it is very important to exercise every day, and I like it when Lieberman post it online, so if someone do not exercise, and when they saw this, they might exercise in the future. I liked it when you start with a story then you start to talk about exercising, so this some opinions about Lieberman’s theories.

  17. yasmine1 says:

    BLOG POST

    For someone who doesn’t believe in evolution religion wise and my opinion I don’t understand how it affects how modern humans I mean I like playing sports like basketball and 4-corner soccer, but I hate running even though those sports both involve running but who says that counts right? Alright am about to rant so beware because when I start to rant it get BAD so don’t say I didn’t warn you. These people are saying that the Early Humans had to do exercise and now since they did enough exercise because they had to now, we have a choice, like honestly it makes no sense like believe whatever you want but I just don’t understand how they even got this information. AND it’s coming from HARVARD. ONE OF THE BEST UNIVERSITYS IN THE WORLD. I am very confused with all this so called “proof” because there just saying that they did enough exercise for us. I learned quite a bit from this for example I learned that they HAD to do exercise I didn’t know that, they walked 5-9 miles a day. Woah there that’s a lot of miles (not the airplane kind), and some would wake up in the morning and run marathons. Alright here’s the part where I rant so beware. IT MAKES NO SENSE like honestly Lieberman thinks that sense they did a ton of exercise when they were on planet Earth now, we have a choice. If you really think about it, it’s a right and part of having freedom to not do that much exercise a day like 5-9 MILES A DAY I don’t even do that in 2 weeks which I know sounds like a brag although sounded very sad, but god why did you have to do 5-9 miles a day? Was it like running away from some dinosaurs like dude stop being a coward and beat the crap out of it like a man or woman. I mean now am going to have to get a time machine, grab my hammer, go back in time, and kill it like it’s not that hard I just explained how I can do it and then after I killed the dinosaur, I can kill you for being a little baby and then come back to February 2021 and still be stuck in quarantine which by the way is boring and am going insane, anyways my opinion is that there is not enough evidence to back it up so unless you have enough proof to back this theory up don’t say it. Anyways that’s it for this blog post love you byeeeeeeeeee.

  18. salina1 says:

    I agree with the theory Daniel Lieberman has developed; our society has created many tools to make the world we live in easier but that also means that makes us work less in times we should be working. Seeing as thousands of years ago and humans didn’t have such technologies and had to work harder, this also means they burn more calories, they had saved all the calories and they couldn’t waste any. Since prehistoric humans had to reserve their energy for more important things, we evolved to always save our calories and energy. However, now, we have many devices to help us, and we no longer need to save our calories but burn extra ones. Daniel Lieberman’s theory has taught me that to early humans, losing extra calories could be fatal, they needed to conserve all their energy, they had to save their energy to hunt, gather food, protect themselves against animals and more. I also learned that certain things that we consider to be “good for us” in the exercising department aren’t helpful, like standing desks. Some people believe that not sitting down will help burn calories, but it doesn’t, however, fidgeting does help, it also helps with blood flow. What is also interesting that I didn’t know before, is that (in America), only 20% of people exercise as much as they should, at its minimum, each person should be exercising for 150 minutes. This isn’t much of a problem for me because I do several types of dance and do more than 150 minutes. But I learned that unlike to popular beliefs, people do not need to exercise very hard, but even moderate exercising will be enough, that could include light jogging, gardening, swimming, tennis and slow biking, these are all easy things to do, but you’re still exercising. From the information given, we can assume that they weren’t our version of “fit”, they didn’t have any super bulgy muscles but instead they had leaner bodies and were probably quite thin. We can also observe that prehistoric humans probably burned half the calories they got from the food they hunted because of how energy exhausting hunting would be. From the information given in the websites and from what I’ve learned about early people is that people have evolved to also become leaner because muscly had a downside. You see, many early people including the Homo-Habilis and Cro-Magnon, had burlier bodies, however in Daniel Lieberman mentions that early people had lean bodies. This means at some time, humans evolved to have this body. This means that the burlier bodies were unnecessary in some way or have some disadvantage. After reading all the articles, it seems that it will be very unlikely that humans will ever evolve to want to exercise again considering the lifestyle most people live. However, it may be possible because our bodies need the exercise so we could evolve to need/want to exercise, this is a random idea, but our bodies maybe could possibly evolve to not need exercise. We humans may in the far future if we continue living like this, go extinct. Overall, this is a theory that i could spend more time on and research more on because if this theory is correct (which is what I think), I think there is a lot more we can learn and discover using this theory.

  19. albert4 says:

    I do agree with Lieberman’s theory as we only evolved to invent things and the more, we invent the more we don’t need to exercise as exercise was only needed because we had to escape from predators but by discovering new inventions, we didn’t need the hassle of escaping from predators. I also once had the decision to exercise but I chose not to. The choice was when my dad said if I want to go exercise outside with my brother I said no and my brother. Not because we were going to use the computer, (because we weren’t allowed) but because I felt lazy even just walking outside. The second part of Lieberman’s theory I also agree the part where we all feel ashamed when someone brags about how much pounds they can weigh or how much pounds lost in how much time. I had someone brag to me and it motivated me as well as made me embarrassed as I can’t do as much as them, so I did try but gave up which also shows that Lieberman’s theory also is there we choose to exercise but choose not to. I think a lot of the reasons why we don’t like to exercise is because we have no reason to exercise as most daily jobs are on machine and not a lot of running needed and when getting to work (when you’re an adult) you would go on a bus and get there taking the least amount of time. Another reason why we don’t want to exercise is because we don’t have a reason to exercise with the machines discovered and yes, I repeated that sentence, but machines have become such an ESSENTIAL in our daily life we don’t need to exercise.

    Something I learned from the articles is we evolved only to escape predators and ran in order to migrate from place to place. We are also unevolved as we became less agile and lazier. (2nd thing about early humans) Even though we used to hunt, and exercise we never looked buffed or like body builders but instead we looked like Hadza hunter-gatherer tribe. They weren’t buffed neither skinny but still had the skills to survive. They used their skills when needed and didn’t waste the calories if it wasn’t needed. (3rd thing I found out that I didn’t know) Back then we didn’t have as much energy as we did now so preserve the energy was important which is why we only used energy back then when needed. Not only this but preserving the energy was harder as they gained something else but lost something which in this case was the energy. So, you gain something, and you lose something.

    I think some interesting facts is that 5-mile run is 500 calories lost which is 100 calories for each mile. But if you walk a mile, you lose only 50 calories. An American age 20-30 usually spends 20 mins a day on exercising and once they’re about 50-60 they exercise for 12 mins. Somehow exercising was caused by humans inventing which led to people becoming more lazy.

    i do terrible when doing blog

  20. tamara4 says:

    With The early humans being a big social studies topic I have learned and expanded my mind into way long ago and i am so happy that I can share my thoughts and feelings about the topic. I would look at myself as a very athletic person being over 56 long arms and long legs i have had a lot of experience with physical activity always playing soccer and volleyball and sometimes dance I have learned to love it while other of my friends rather crochet or draw or even read a book which I don’t really understand. But I believe you can enjoy anything as long as you put your mind to it just like I hated eating vegetables and now I love some carrots but of course I have to add hummus. And not liking some thing to a point that you would fear away from it at all cost all you need to do is not or become a professional athlete but all you need to do is to train your mind to open up to new things. With my dad I was always push but not in a bad way to try new things I have been Avery lucky to try many sports as a child and I still am I have learned to love it. And so has my dad because currently my dad was in the Burnaby now for doing wemhof which is a breathing exercise that trains the body to take and adapt to cold temperatures. with cold water and cold showers already having a big impact on getting rid of depression and preventing Alzheimer’s he helped him and his friends learn new things with starting off a couple of workouts then breathing then they go into below zero waters and breathe even more teaching them selves to not be afraid of the cold but embrace it and with cold water being some thing that people shy away from and Exercise being similar I know that everyone can train their bodies to embrace exercise. Not to a point that people all over the world are all skinny or super in shape but for most people it is a way to take time for themselves. But the impression that others don’t enjoy exercise then some people is very true.

    One of the many things I learned from the articles that Ms. Panesar gave us was that in between the 20s and 30s you are active for only 20 minutes a day but once you get into your 60s you’re active for only 12 minutes today with that Bing number change eight minutes might not seem a lot, but once you put it into the big picture as in years eight minutes of lost exercise do you have big and important effects on the body. This is important information that I am now very glad that I have learned because I want to change that number for 20s and 30s when I’m in my 20s and 30s I want to spend as much time as I can working and improving myself. And I have learned that we were made to not do physical activities. With certain people on lockdown and some people incapable physically to do these activities like go on a run there are many ways you can train the mind because mine is the matter to make yourself get up in the morning and get your day started. The Avery last thing that I have learned is that when the world was still evolving to what it is today hunter and gatherers spent two hours and 15 minutes every day getting food which in the long run is an a lot for the many things that they were limited to eating they couldn’t just go outside to the grocery store pick up some extra cheese to put on top of the pizza.

    In the mini other articles that we were given through our teacher I learned sexist and discriminative it was only really later in life that we looked at people maybe it’s the way they look at the colour of their skin or simply their gender or sexuality that we looked at them less than a person. Some other thoughts I have had over the many pieces of paper that I have read is that we all at one point weather Certain people like it or not we all evolve from Africa which if you really think about it makes racism or any sort of prejudice behaviour that makes people to change them selves to “ fit in“ really unhelpful and truthfully when you are caught doing something racist sexist or truthfully any form of putting other people down to make yourself feel better you look truthfully dumb, and it’s only till those people are confronted that the most famous quote ever witch is “it is just a joke” is said. sure it can be a joke but a joke that will stick with someone until the end of days a joke that will make someone feel as if they don’t belong in their own house and most importantly a joke that shows humanity in the society that we live in today how insecure and selfish you are. But only Until science is brought up that we are all as one and I think more than one time a day that we all need to learn were early humans came from truthfully understand why we look different why we don’t have the same metabolism why we don’t have the same skin colour but people are so focussed on themselves that they won’t open their eyes to something you so why don’t you start today and open your eyes to exercise.

  21. sandra8 says:

    Lieberman’s Theory
    Personally, I do kind of agree with Lieberman’s theory because overall, the reason why many of us don’t like to exercise is because we chose not to and there is no need to. Yes, exercising is healthy and everything, but in today’s society there is no point in being so active unless you are wanting to become an athlete or something. In other words, we have already been adapted to another kind of life style (climate) that doesn’t really require that much exercising which is why many of us don’t occasionally exercise (not that we don’t). But I do believe we have lost many of our ancestor’s abilities to adapt to the environment such as natural sense of danger and self protection. With new creations like cell phones, TV, and other kind of technical devices, I think it does makes sense that we would more likely to choose them over exercising.
    A fact I had learned about early humans from this article is that they actually didn’t do as much exercising as we thought. It is just that they are built to be active in order to gather food, travel and live in such environment, unlike us who now have grocery stores, vehicles, and a convenient environment. In the article, it also said that typical hunter gathers only spend around 2 and ¼ of an hour doing physical activities in their daily lives which isn’t that much as thought it would be (yet they are still more active than us because they need to adapt to the environment).
    Another fact I’ve learned from this article is that our ancestors also would have avoided unnecessary physical activities if they have the choice to. It is because it is an instinct that many of us have. Why waste your energy when there is an easier way out? Exactly, in fact it is considered abnormal to not think like that way. The only reason why we think early humans such athletic is because they didn’t have the convenience we have now. In other words, they were forced to look athletic in order to adapt to the environment. Plus, the environment also gave them better skills to survive which is why it may seem that they are very keen at exercising (they are but, I believe they will choose laziness over exercising if they had the choice to).
    One last thing I learned is that hunter gathers were extraordinary walkers who could walk 5-9 miles a day (which is a lot). We are also built to be extraordinary walkers too! There is a reason why we don’t lose much weight by walking and the reason is because we don’t work hard on it. When a normal person walks for a mile, it only burns around 50 calories but, walking could be extremely healthy for our immune systems.
    In my opinion, physical activities are needed and are important for our health and immune system but, it’s just not required in our new society and living style as much as the early humans. I also agree with Lieberman’s saying that it’s not our fault that we don’t like physical activities because why feel bad for something that isn’t top priority in our lives? Anyways, it is normal to have your instincts toward laziness because it’s a common instinct that everyone has but, it is best to start avoiding that laziness. The reason why is because exercising at a certain period of the day could also develop a good habit and make good rules in your life. But what I don’t agree about is the sentence “humans have not evolved to exercise” because many of us still exercise and there are some people who tend to adapt a habit to exercise in their daily life. Also, I don’t think evolved is the right word because we could exercise but, we just may not choose to. You could say that majority of people are lacking exercise compared to our ancestors but that is because the change of our surroundings so technically we still exercise but not as often.

  22. sho1 says:

    I didn’t like this movie, because this is rude to real early humans, the real early humans are not like that not like the early person that eats everything, the early people that name’s the rock, and all early humans was suck at hunting, they finally caught a one rabbit in one day, if I was real early humans and I watch this I will be so angry at the person that who made this. This movie is not scientific, because the start of the valley there was a big hole and early humans started soccer I mean football, next few years later the bottom of the hole is filled with a nature, impossible how can plant and animal live in the place that doesn’t have water, this is same as leaving the bucket filled with water in the room waiting for fish in the bucket, and why is there a dinosaurs when human exist, dinosaurs extended billion years when human was born, this movie doesn’t tell any things, at the end of this movie cave humans won and got back they valley and promised to leave alone the valley forever, we are humans we don’t make a promise with soccer I mean football humanity isn’t like this it is like this “You want to challenge the battle of football to get back the valley from us? Oh **** no, you care about yourself, but we don’t care about you, and we only care about us, also we need to live too and it is still survive of the fittest so the valley is ours! Goodbye forever! Enjoy the worse outside world of the valley!” the early humans were still lucky, because the king was huge idiot and trying to use early humans to get more bonds which means a money in that plac. We need to think by our self that how to save the early humans, and early humans lives in this place so let’s leave this place. This is the reason why I don’t like this movie. I agree with Daniel Lieberman’s opinion, but I think it is little bit wrong, because Daniel Lieberman’s reason was “The reason we don’t like to exercise is actually our body is usually made to not waste calories or energy, because early humans didn’t had food to eat that much and we received early humans DNA of not Wasting calories and energy.” this Daniel Lieberman’s opinion is actually true but there is people that loves to exercise, because people has different DNA then others, we are made to be different because of DNA some people feels in different ways than others and I also seen a person that doesn’t eat that much but really loves to exercise, this means people is made of different ways different thinking, different skills and different looking.

  23. marko20 says:

    I do agree because before early humans had to hunt and kill animals to survive but now people just have to buy it in a store or supermarket. They also had to be on their toes they needed to hunt to get animal for their skin to wear for warmth. and we barley have to do anything all we need to do is go on a shopping spree. A new thing I learned about early humans an average hunter gather walked 5 to 9 miles a day. they also had to be active to survive and last of all they were way more active than us.
    What were some of your other thoughts, opinions and observations given what you know about the various types of Early Humans? 20-25 sentences please!
    I was surprised because how true his was thinking of its early humans are the only reason why we don’t have to go hunting and go on hunts for a long time begging to find animals to kill. I’m also very interested in this topic it’s so strange to think we are lazy we are super lazy compared to people back then. It feels weird to think that they ran so much and killed the animals that we fear now in days it’s strange but also cool to know. But all honesty I think this is also Kinda not true at the same time because we might not have to walk five miles but some of us have to work our butts off for our family because some people are broke or poor. I have started to realize the early humans are not the smartest but are hardworking people. It’s very weird to think we went from running 5 to 9 miles to just sitting on the coach because of evolution its super strange why are we lazy? But its true I defiantly would pick the couch any day but I know some people who wouldn’t and for me those people are the hard working people.
    The person who found this out is really smart who would know that we are the lazy ones I always thought we were the people who would do the most. One of my other thoughts are that what if we are nothing compared to them what if they knew more than us what if they were also stronger and even what if they were a smarter generation than us. I know that we built houses but what if they were smarter in tactics and hunting. Its also strange when they said exercises is weird I was confused why was it weird for me it was not but still I didn’t do it but I thought to myself why did people think exercises were weird didn’t people love to do them?

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