How Neurodiverse People Are Like Hunter-Gatherers

How neurodiverse people are like hunter-gatherers: part
I cognition
January 01, 2021
For two years I have been researching how neurodiverse (ASD, ADHD, gifted, etc.) people
are like ancient hunter-gatherers. It hasn’t been an easy enterprise, as the only work that has
ever pointed to an origin of neurodiverse minds in ancient hunter-gatherer minds has been
Thom Hartmann’s “Hunter-Hypothesis” of ADHD. Personally, I am somewhat in between
neurotypical and neurodiverse, testing around 50% on online autism tests and 75% on
ADHD tests. Like most neurodiverse people I have always had a hard time fitting in and I
have a gifted son who learned to read by age two (hyperlexia) and who gets similar test
results as I do. I generally do include the gifted label in my use of the word “neurodiverse”, to
make it clear that not only people who are considered “having disabilities” belong to this
group.
Here is a preliminary list:

Cognitive
 Distractibility and hyperfocus

 Field-independent learners
 Pattern-recognizers
 Wider field of vision
Social:
 Less politeness/socially awkward (learn few social rules)

 Egalitarian
 Distrust of authoritarian behaviour
 High sense of justice
 Support the underdog
 Exceptional honesty
 No-ingroupism/nepotism
 Less gender dimorphism
Physiological:
 Chronotype (tend to be night owls)

 Hypersensitive to physical stimuli (sound, touch, etc.)
Anatomical:
 Ectomorph body types

 Later puberty
 Tend to look younger than their age
For simplicity, I’ll stick here with only two types: hunter-gatherer types and farmer types. I
usually include a third type (pastoralist types), but people are often mixed and of course, the
reality is much more complex.
Here is a comparison between hunter-gatherer vs farmer types when it comes to cognition:
Foraging and farming required different cognitive skills. One huge difference is that farming
requires a sustained focus on long and boring tasks, whereas hunters are more easily
distracted by all kinds of stimuli that may or may not be relevant. Once a stimulus is
perceived as relevant (e.g. a track of a potential prey) the hunter keeps (hyper)focusing on it
until the task is finished. Also, hunting skills are very different from farming skills. The latter
requires tradition and much more social learning. Once a young grown up a farmer basically
kept repeating the same tasks over and over. Hunting is very different, it can’t be learned by
tradition and social learning is much less relevant. It’s not young grown-up hunters who are
the best hunters (even though they might have a fitness advantage), but the older and more
experienced hunters. Hunting requires therefore much more self-directed learning.
Being high pattern-recognizers is another advantage. A hunter will perceive patterns leading
to the prey that are imperceptible to, like recognizing from the patterns on the surface of the
water where fish can be found. Neurodiverse people are therefore much more likely to
recognize patterns that neurotypicals (farmer types) miss. As farmer-types were more
dependent on social learning their cognition is more dependent on other people’s (e.g.
teacher’s) opinions. Neurodiverse people are often independent of collective truth and tend
to perceive patterns others don’t. Children with ASD and ADHD are also notorious for
pointing out logical flaws in a teacher’s arguments, which may often get them into trouble
with their teachers. All the more so, that hunter-gatherer minds don’t accept authority without
competence and they may become straightforwardly rebellious if they perceive the teacher to
treat them unjustly.
Finally, I have come across a wider field of vision for hunter-gatherer types several times in
my research. Scanning their environment for danger, prey and food sources foragers are
more likely to have a wider field of vision than farmer types who have to focus long on routine
work. This wider field of vision in hunter-gatherer types may interfere with learning to read as
the learner may be more distracted by neighbouring letters or images. In combination with
pattern-seeking a wide field of vision would not only allow a hunter to spot prey more easily,
but also make a hunter a great astronomer. I estimate that about 90% of astronomers are
hunter types and usually hunter type children can become obsessed with astronomy very
early on (before schooling) from my experience with my own children.
Most of the great geniuses and pattern-seekers in history (e.g. Edison and Einstein) had
difficulties adapting to school and most Nobel Prize winners have few fond recollections of
their time in school. Our different minds make it harder for us to go through the traditional
school system. Hunter-gatherer type children are often among the gifted, but also among the
twice-exceptional (2e) and more frequently among special ed children than farmer-type
children. Even for those who are gifted, you often get the “brilliant but lazy” type of student.
By now it should be clear that these brilliant students are not lazy but that their minds find it
incredibly hard to focus on rote tasks and crave for more interesting stimulation. Instead of
being able to show that they are super-learners, their boring school work turns them into
super-procrastinators. Hunter-gatherer type children are often much better at self-directed
learning (autodidacts) than learning in a classroom setting. I have met many neurodiverse
children who had amazing skills to show off: knowing everything about insects or the solar
system. And yet these children found it hard to learn telling the time when taught in school.
Very often these self-directed hunter-gatherer type children are great at learning with
computers, especially when they get to control their own learning. As a teacher, I have
noticed that there are two types of students who love learning with computers, whereas the
majority of children aren’t too happy about it or often even hate it. These two types are
special-ed children and gifted children. They are really one type: hunter-gatherer types.
Learning for hunter-gatherer type children is PLAY, learning for farmer type children is
WORK. If learning turns into WORK for hunter-gatherer type children, they start to do poorly,
if it remains PLAY they start to excel. The very same cognitive skills that helped our
ancestors hunt prey often turn hunter-gatherer type children into super-gamers nowadays:
hyper-focus, pattern-recognition, wide field of vision, and a sense of completing the mission
and perfecting your hunting skills (a love for life-long learning).

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How neurodiverse people are like hunter-gatherers: part

Thom Hartmann’s “Hunter-Hypothesis” of ADHD. Personally, I am somewhat in between

Here is a preliminary list:

 Distractibility and hyperfocus

 Less politeness/socially awkward (learn few social rules)

 Chronotype (tend to be night owls)

 Ectomorph body types

Here is a comparison between hunter-gatherer vs farmer types when it comes to cognition:

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