Hunter Gatherers: A Conversation with Dr. Thomas Jennings

Speaker 1 Welcome to It's Not All Black and White, the podcast where we talk about the US healthcare system and the history of racial and gender inequality in medicine and healthcare. My name is Doctor Sanathia Bellefil Hines. I'm an assistant professor and a coordinator of diversity, equity, Inclusion, and community engagement at the University of Louisville School of Nursing. I have a doctorate in nursing practice and I'm a practicing pediatric nurse practitioner. Speaker 2 My name is Mary K Marlatt. I'm the archivist and assistant professor at the Kornhauser Health Sciences Library at the University of Louisville. I have a master's degree in history, and I am a published scholar who focuses on the history of medicine in Louisville, KY. So today we have Doctor Thomas Jennings from the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Louisville Department of Archaeology, and he's going to talk to us some about ancestral care and hunter gatherers. And way, way back when, people didn't have what we consider to be healthcare today. Speaker 1 Well, first, can you introduce yourself like completely like what type of what's your background, your field study, work, field of work, field of study? Speaker 3 Sure. So I'm an associate professor. I've been here since my 7th year here at U of L in Department of Anthropology and specializing in archaeology. And I have sort of 2 research directions. 1 is the earliest hunter gatherers in North America. So sort of when did people first get here? What were their lives like? How did they deal with the extinctions of Pleistocene large animals like mammoths and mastodons, sort of setting the stage for the Native American communities that exist today. So I think a lot about hunter gatherers. So it's, it's a good thing that's our topic. And then I also do some more community engaged archaeology with local community members, like historic cemeteries and we've done some stuff with Kentucky School for the Blind. So those are sort of my two my 2 pathways. Speaker 1 Oh, you sound like you're doing great work. So you mentioned you think about like when it started the Hunter and Gatherers. So what time are we Speaking of here? Speaker 3 Yeah. So if we go back to, you know, as far back as humans were here, we're talking, you know, modern humans evolving somewhere around 200,000 years ago in Africa. So that's a long time ago. And, you know, they're, we've basically been hunter gatherers until the, you know, invention of agriculture and domestication of things, which happened 10 to 12,000 years ago. So for, for the vast majority of the time that we've been humans, we've been hunter gatherers. And it's only really, really recently that our lifestyles have changed. Speaker 2 So what exactly do you mean by hunter gatherers? Speaker 3 So 100 hunter gatherers. Well, I'll sort of define it in terms of things that are not hunter gatherers, like agriculturalists, you know, large scale farmers planting and growing domesticated crops. And if we stick with plants sort of, you know, a little closer to hunter gatherers would be horticulturalists and horticultural societies who aren't, you know, in in the business of mass producing crops and and plant foods. Horticulturalists were smaller scale societies or are, and they're mostly families planting their own gardens and maintaining their own gardens. And then if we move to the animal side of things, there are pastoralists who are people who specialize in animals, you know, herders herding animals, herding Caribou, herding cattle, domesticated animals. So really domestication and intentional planting or corralling of plants and animals are, are what hunter gatherers are not. So hunter gatherers are gathering wild plants and hunting wild animals, collecting wild, you know, river fish, mussel, shells, clams, wild resources. So they're not actively necessarily changing the landscape or intentionally planting and domesticating things. They're they're going after what's there. Yeah. Speaker 1 Nice. Speaker 2 So what does health mean in those kind of contexts? Speaker 3 Yeah, and that's a big question because we should also say that hunter gatherers are really, really diverse and they have been for a long period of time. And so health was probably likely really diverse and ideas about health were really diverse among hunter gatherers. And so, you know, we're probably going to talk in a lot of generalizations today, but there's there's a lot of variation in who hunter gatherers were and, and sort of what their beliefs were and, and all of that, but. Speaker 2 Were they all nomadic people? Speaker 3 No, not entirely. I mean, they were all relatively more mobile than today, you know, not living in cities, although we're mobile like we, I've been here 7 years, I've moved around. So we're still kind of mobile. We maintain that mobile lifestyle, but we're not sitting next to our agricultural fields defending our, our crops and stuff. So many hunter gatherers were mobile, moving around at least seasonally. There's a range. We sort of divide mobile hunter gatherers between like collectors and foragers. You know, do you move your whole camp every, you know, few weeks to whatever resource you're looking for next? Or do you just move twice a year, you know, the rainy season and the dry season, But hunter gatherers were mobile. But then there are some hunter gatherer societies who lived in highly productive aquatic areas, you know, on the coasts or next to rivers. And they were, you know, sort of living like you might expect horticulturalists to live, you know, because they're just abundant resources. So they didn't have to move as much. You know, fish are there available. Shellfish are available. So it really varies. Most hunter gatherers were really mobile, but some weren't. Speaker 1 So what stands out the most about hunter gatherers approach to health for me or care was how it was truly integrated in terms of lifestyle and health. There wasn't a separation between healthcare and living, it was all the same. So movement as you mentioned, diets whether it be seasonal, their communal relationships and their attention to the environment all acted in one to make sure that they prevented diseases like illnesses were not just treated, it was often anticipated and prevented through their lifestyle. Speaker 3 Oh, OK. Speaker 1 Sorry. Speaker 2 OK. So you were in the middle of your question, I think. Speaker 1 It was a statement. Speaker 3 Healthcare being integrated into kind of daily life. And you know, when I was thinking about hunter gatherer health, I was thinking there's probably, well, I don't know, you guys are in the medical field. So but I was thinking there might be sort of the visible health issues, injuries and things that you have to treat and take care of. And then there's some of the invisible stuff, which might be, you know, parasites or, you know, you know, respiratory illness or just other things and a hunter gatherers, you know, people living in environments for 10s of thousands of years, you know, learn the plants and animals of their environment. They learn what to eat, what not to eat. They learn what makes a good ointment for, you know, preventing infection of an illness. But getting back to being integrated in daily life, there's a spirituality among hunter gatherers. And, you know, ritual and religion is really varied among hunter gatherers, among people today. But from ethnographic studies, it seems it's really interesting in that, you know, ritual and religion and belief is really integrated into everything they're doing, you know, trying to be successful when they're going to hunt something, you know, so that they can kill that animal and bring it back and, you know, recognizing, you know, the integration between spirituality and nature. And so that's a lot of what sort of, you know, ethno medicine seems to be about is, is not only the physical illness, which a lot of hunter gatherers aren't thinking about, like germ theory or, you know, what's causing the illness, but. Speaker 2 They know not to step on a jellyfish. Speaker 3 But it seems common too, to not only sort of heal the physical side effects, but also sort of the what what might be some sort of spiritual issues. And so that's where we see a lot of the the medicine among hunter gatherer societies being sort of medical, but also spiritual and ritual related. Speaker 1 Because between the different societies, I'm sure they had thoughts behind why why somebody would be sick and some of that would be spiritual or ancestral in nature. Speaker 3 Yeah, exactly. And just as an example of something that we might not think of as making us sick, but we work with and partner with Southeastern Native American tribes and they have different beliefs around death in the afterlife and, and what happens after somebody passes on. And one thing that's really important is, you know, we do archaeology. Occasionally we'll find human remains insights or, you know, those kinds of things. But many Southeastern Native American tribes believe that if they're unprepared, then they should not see or touch or be around human remains of an ancestor or the funerary objects that they were buried with. So much so this belief that it can make them physically ill. And then they would have to go through a series of sort of cleansing rituals with their spiritual, medical, you know, professionals among their tribe so that they don't become physically ill. And so, you know, that just shows sort of the understanding of health and, and illness. And you know, ritual and belief is really closely, and I should make it clear that modern Native American, Southeastern Native Americans are not hunter gatherers, right? They're modern people, they're alive, they're doing the same things we do. But they those these belief systems show us the diversity of what health means. Speaker 2 Right. And I know in some cultures, the bones particularly are very important, like in the Chinese culture, when they first started coming to this country, they always wanted to take their bones back to China to rest peacefully. So there's that sort of thing too that's totally different. They don't mind being around them, but they want them specifically and their ancestral place, you know, that sort of thing. So something like that could be another, you know, belief of people that they needed to be in a particular place. Speaker 3 Yeah, absolutely. And just, you know, the process or the ritual surrounding death and when someone you know, truly leaves this world or if they ever do, all of those are sort of closely tied to and. Speaker 2 We still have that, yeah, which has come down from thousands and thousands of years ago. Yeah. Everybody has their own sort of thing that they do when someone dies, Yeah. Irish wakes, for example, or sitting Shiva and all those things, they're different cultures that do different things. Speaker 1 So you had mentioned before that some hunter gatherers rely heavily on plants. You also mentioned hunting animals or if there's some who may be by the sea and relying on those organisms for a living. But I was thinking about how many of the herbal and natural remedies that we can use today came from earlier times and can still be used in clinical settings now. So like for example aspirin, do you all know where aspirin the basis of aspirin? Speaker 2 Can bark of a tree? I can't remember which tree, but it's the bark of a tree. Speaker 1 The Willow Willow bark. Speaker 2 OK. Speaker 1 Crazy. Yeah. So it was used for centuries for pain and it's the basis for aspirin. So there is a compound within the bark that is called salacin and it turns into sacilic acid, which is aspirin. That's cool. And so it's used for anogenic and anti-inflammatory. So things like that is something we don't normally think about and but it has come from, you know, 1000 centuries, you know, time earlier times and now we still use that to for in our healthcare practices. Sorry, I'm still not close enough. Speaker 3 You like to. You like to face him. Speaker 1 But you. Speaker 3 Keep fading in and out, but. Speaker 2 I want to make and she has a very low. Speaker 3 And you do, it's a little bit lower. Speaker 1 Than I will start yelling now and then. I think a lot of people don't think about honey. So we use honey normally for like food product, right? But it does it also has antibacterial properties. I know like from parents, sometimes they like, oh, I can use honey for like if a child is coughing and it kind of goes to throat or we put honey in our tea if we're sick. But it actually can also be used on wounds. Speaker 3 Oh wow. Speaker 1 Yes, and so just from like studying honey, something that is using that well, it has to be medical grade honey. You can't just grab honey out of You could, but I wouldn't my little. Speaker 3 Bear honey on my injury. Speaker 2 But they they also honey allergies if you use honey from your particular area that has that. Speaker 3 You've heard of that? Speaker 2 Yeah. So it's it's all sort of integrated there. I didn't know there was such thing as medical grade honey. Speaker 1 Though yes, it's sterile and it's formulated for wounds, but you can. Speaker 2 Use. I did know that that people used to do that, you know, put honey on wins to and it was antibacterial, but I didn't know there was medical grade honey. Speaker 1 So, well, you know, in the hospital we can't just take it out of the cupboard. Well, I. Speaker 2 Understand. Speaker 1 That if you're at home, you could probably try it. Speaker 2 Wouldn't hurt and honey never goes bad. Speaker 1 Which is interesting. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Like it doesn't require any, like preservatives of anything. And it's there to be used. And then when I think about like calamine. Speaker 2 Calamine lotion for rashes. Speaker 1 No, I'm sorry. Tea and caramel, caramel tea and peppermint tea. Like those plants like the different plants and how they are used for relaxation or digestion. They come from earlier times too, like and now that we know of the properties, people use it for different things. And so I think that's all kind of interesting that all of these were likely used by hunter gatherers for their perceived medicinal and health benefits. Speaker 2 Are there any archaeological evidences that point to any kind of healing practices? Speaker 3 Well, you know, some of the clearest evidence is among people who, from their, you know, skeletal remains clearly suffered injuries, which would be, you know, we might consider catastrophic or would hinder them from, you know, chasing down and hunting down an animal. And there's evidence of this even occurring before modern humans in Neanderthals. So Neanderthals are not human, but they were sort of closely related ancestral. They were alive before modern humans came about 200,000 years ago. And they're living mostly in Europe. And they were doing a lot of just hunting, it seems, based on the isotopic signatures of their bones, which is tells us about their diet. They were eating a lot of meat and they were hunting Pleistocene animals like woolly rhinoceros and, you know, Pleistocene elephants, like really large, dangerous. They didn't have bows and arrows. They didn't have rifles, they had Spears. And so they would run in groups up to these animals and just try and hunt them. And so they would break a lot of bones. They would get knocked around. Speaker 1 I can't even imagine. Yeah. Speaker 3 But what's really interesting is that even among Neanderthals, who we think don't have the same level of symbolic thought ritual, you know, they weren't, their technology wasn't changing as rapidly as us. So there is some sort of cognitive differences between US and Neanderthals, but still they were living to older age and people were surviving breaks, broken legs, you know, skull injuries and stuff and living because you can see they're re healing the bone growth. So even among the anertholes, they were caring for the injured and caring for the elderly. And that's certainly the case among modern humans too. You know, we see all of that kind of evidence and, and that's really clear, you know, care for injuries, it's harder to see care for illnesses. But we can see osteologically evidence of sort of long term health problems, which shows up, you know, in something as simple as stature, like if someone didn't grow to the same height as the rest of their population or in the teeth, you can see evidence of like nutritional stress, particularly when they're children and then fighting through it. And, you know, that could be related to, you know, sort of not having enough food, but also like a serious illness that someone was nurtured through. So there's clear evidence that people and even not people like Neanderthals before us, we're caring for injured and elderly and sick people. So yeah, it's been happening for a long time. Speaker 2 Did they have specific people within the community do you think or I mean, it's some of, I don't realize a lot of this is speculation, but do you think they had people that were designated as healers? Speaker 3 Yeah. And that's a great question. So we try and answer some of those questions by looking at ethnographic hunter gatherers, like modern hunter gatherers before, even after, you know, Europeans were spreading and colonizing everywhere and that caused a lot of changes in the world and affected a lot of indigenous people. There were still places for a long time where people were living as hunter gatherers and so some anthropologists would, you know, research them and learn about their lives. So we get some information from living modern hunter gatherers and then we try and project and think about, you know, what, what life was like in the past and we have some other evidence about what life was like. So all I'll start with the ethnographic hunter gatherers where there are examples of having sort of ritual specialists and the ritual specialists, whether you want to call them shaman or or there's lots of other terms, often have a medical and health related component to them. Again, going back to everything being integrated, you know, daily life, ritual life, health, you know, all connected. But the question of were there specialists in the past is really interesting because what seems to be from what we've seen in the archaeological record, and again, I've been focusing in North America, is that among the earliest hunter gatherers, there seems to be a lot less gender division of Labor. So we've worked at a cemetery. My wife, Doctor Ashley Smallwood, who's also at U of LA, shout out to her. We have worked at a site called the Sloan site in Arkansas, which is a 12,000 year old cemetery where they are intentionally burying many people repeatedly. So it's like the oldest cemetery in North America and we're looking at what's what tools are buried with what people. And there are hunting tools clearly for like, you know, the stone points on the tips of at laddles. And then there are other types of tools like scrapers, which we might think would be for hide working or ads is which would be for like woodworking. And what we found is that people were buried with the same tools 12,000 years ago. And we actually worked at a site in Peru where there was a female buried with what if we didn't know this was like biologically female, we would have called a male hunting toolkit or some people would have. So there are these early examples 12,000 years ago here, 9000 years ago in Peru, and other examples that men and women were probably doing a lot of the same things or at least the the ideas about gender divisions of Labor weren't as as well defined. And it's only later in time in North America and the Southeast during the Holocene, maybe 6000 years ago, when people start shifting their focus, the diet focus more towards plants before domestication, but intensively, let's say gathering massed resources like Hickory and acorns or maybe more intensively focusing on shell resources and rivers. That's when it seems to be in those burials. During those periods we start to see more gender divisions in the types of artifacts people were buried with. So to circle back early on in our hunter gatherer lives, if we weren't dividing people by gender and if children are learning to do everything, then it makes me wonder whether or not there were like ritual and religious specialists or if it was really, you know, as you go, as you're working, you learn how to hunt, you learn what plants are important, you learn about your spiritual and ritual belief systems, and then everyone's working together. Speaker 2 And whoever's the best at hunting goes to hunt, whether they're male or female. Yes, because you can't afford to block your best person just because of their gender. Speaker 3 Yeah. And if, you know, a woman is having a child or recently had a baby, you know, you substitute someone in, you know, her sister or whoever, you know. So I think it would probably be a lot the same for, like, spiritual healing. You know, someone's really good at treating wounds. Someone's really good at, you know, healing your soul, you know, And it's only really later in time that humans really start dividing up jobs and responsibilities. Speaker 2 What stands out to you about like their approach to care, maybe preventative type of things because you know, they didn't just respond to like you said earlier, which things are, I mean, you break a bone, that's something you have to respond to. But what about do you know anything about the preventative things that they might have done? Obviously avoiding certain things would be a good start, but. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. And, you know, if we're talking about Neanderthals getting stomped on by a woolly rhino, you know, some of our preventative stuff is just, you know, we're, we're really good at, you know, modifying our technologies and our culture and our behaviors. And so the invention of the atlatl, which allowed people to stand, you know, 10 meters away from the animal instead of running up to it and trying to stab it. Speaker 1 Atlatl. Speaker 3 Yeah, at lateral is like the throwing spear. It's like this, I don't know about a foot to a foot and a half long stick that you hold in your hand. And then you can have a three foot or a four foot long spear, although it's lighter than a spear. And so the at later like lengthens your arm so that you can throw with more force. And so you hook the little spear on the end of it. And so it's better it, it's a lot more power than even throwing something like a javelin. So that was an important invention. And then a bit later on, the bow and arrow. So some of the preventative stuff is just improving our technology, improving our understanding of the environment. And then of course, like Sunithi was saying, learning the plants in our environment, even little things like, you know, developing poisons so that you don't have to go and chase something down. You can wait for it to slowly, you know, die if you're if we're talking about hunting, but all of those things are important and and of course, tight end would be, you know, ritual preparation before you are doing an activity to preparing yourself mentally and spiritually. Speaker 2 Kind of like carving up before a race or if you're a runner. Speaker 3 Yeah, yeah. Speaker 2 If you're going hunting, you get the best food for the day or two before, you know, because you need your energy or something like that. Yeah. Speaker 3 And, you know, listening to your music before a game to get you pumped up so that you're focused and ready. Speaker 2 You do the chance. You do the thing, you know. Speaker 1 Well, when I kind of think of what you're saying it think it makes me think of what we call integrative health models. Now everybody do not practice that per SE, but it's the opportunity to practice Western medicine or modern medicine and alternative medicine or remedies. And so I think, you know, that's what we can take away from the hunter and gatherer societies where they kind of bring in that technology, you know, evolving technology. Obviously we have more opportunities to change healthcare through our technologies and things like that. It's you mentioned it was slower, it's faster now, but all of those remedies is really what I'm speaking to, right? Being able to take advantage of our modern and also those remedies. And so thinking about mind, body and spirit when providing care or trying to prevent illnesses. Speaker 3 Yeah, And you would know this better than me, but I feel like I've read studies where even in, like, placebo studies where it's like the belief that something is going to work, placebo makes a huge difference. And so if part of that is spiritual, you know, and just having, you know, hope or belief that that what you're doing will work or trust in the person who's treating you, it seems like that would be really important. And among hunter gatherers, the person treating you was family or someone you know married to or related to your family. So. Speaker 1 That who love you. Speaker 3 The issue of trust, yeah, the separation that we have between our current healthcare providers is a barrier now, it feels like. Speaker 1 That's a great point you bring up actually, Never really thought about it like that. Speaker 2 What is one thing practice or about health or any other part of it because it all is entwined that you wish more people knew about. Speaker 3 That's a great question. Well, one of the things that's interesting about health and hunter gatherers and, and, and things is that a lot of our modern, let's say most famous or most annoying diseases are products of like agriculture and interaction with either animals that have been domesticated. Speaker 1 Or animals that came. Speaker 3 Along after we started living in towns and cities. Speaker 1 Like bird flu? Speaker 3 Bird flu. Regular flu. Speaker 1 Pants and. Speaker 3 Pigs, yeah, cows was like smallpox and things like that. And then there's diseases like related to rodents, like the plague and you. Speaker 1 Know Hantavirus? Speaker 3 Yep, Hanta in the southwest. And so you know, hunter gatherers had problems. They had, they were dealing with parasites and respiratory stuff and depending on where they were living malaria. But it wasn't the amount and intensity, and it was more localized because, you know, someone gets sick within one group of hunter gatherers, which might be 20 people, you know, it was easier to isolate, let's say, And so things wouldn't spread as fast. And so, yeah, there's a lot of, you know, there's good things. I feel like, you know, we've accomplished a lot as humans. But then there's also always sort of the alternative problem. And hunter gatherers, they didn't live as long. Their healthcare wasn't as great, but they also didn't work as hard or as many hours in the day, and they had fewer diseases to worry about and. Speaker 2 Probably better talking about malaria made me think about you learn, I guess you would learn very quickly not to sort of settle or camp near swampy places where there's mosquitoes. You know, on freshwater there's not. But the stagnant water or running water, but stagnant water attracts mosquitoes. And now we don't do that. We just spray them with poison. And well, it's true. I mean, people leave stuff sitting in their yards that collects water and then provides place for mosquitoes together. And that rather than trying to keep the water from gathering and keeping the mosquitoes down, we just spray it, which is counterproductive in many ways. Speaker 3 Yeah, that's the thing too. Like the world, world is full, you know, hunter gatherers. The landscape was more open, so they can choose. Speaker 2 They could choose that, but after they learned that if you, if you stay near this swampy area, you're going to get sick more than likely, particularly during the summer. And maybe we'll come back here in the fall or in the winter when it's not, you know, no mosquitoes around. And I know they didn't realize it was the mosquitoes there. The early theory in modern people was miasma. But still, you know, you learn that swampy areas aren't healthy. You know, that's sort of. Speaker 1 For whatever reason. Speaker 2 For whatever reason. Speaker 3 Yeah, it's also cool to think about, you know, sickle cell, you know, we might call a sickle cell disease today, but in the past and in those areas still it's it's your body protecting you from malaria. And so, yeah, even the ideas of what is a disease and what is like, you know, a beneficial in our in our history, Yeah, is is. Speaker 1 Different. Very interesting, yeah. Speaker 2 So how can these perspectives from the hunter gatherer people inform the way we approach healthcare, our food systems, particularly today? Speaker 3 Yeah, You know, we hadn't even talked about diet really, which is, you know, we, we hear a lot about, you know, every now and then, you know, do the Neanderthal diet. Speaker 2 The Paleo. Speaker 3 Yeah, or whatever. And there is something to be said for thinking about, you know, who we are evolutionarily. And the fact that hunter gatherer diets were varied and they were diverse and they weren't eating processed foods and they weren't eating lots of carbs. Like, it was only after the innovation of agriculture that human societies started focusing on cereals and carbohydrates and those related sugars. And that allowed us to feed more people. But it also caused a lot of health problems, dental problems. Like hunter gatherers didn't have cavities really. Agriculturalists. Early agriculturalists had a lot of cavities. Speaker 2 Most people didn't have cavities up until like medieval times because even when sugar was available and good grain was available, it was only the very wealthy and they had bad. Speaker 3 Teeth and. Speaker 2 The the regular people mostly didn't have bad teeth until around the medieval time, which is like a drop in the bucket compared to, you know, the the end of falls in the early 200,000 years ago. Speaker 3 Yeah. And so we can think about, you know, what are our bodies adjusted to over the 150,000 years we were hunter gatherers before we started focusing in on plants or domesticated animals like, you know, milk and lactose tolerance, you know, is another thing that's only relatively recent when cows were domesticated. So I think, you know, there's a lot of opportunity to think about what hunter gatherer diets were like and, you know, living healthier that way, but also thinking about processed foods or how much, you know, carbohydrates we should have in our diet and what does that mean for our health. But then we also, of course, have to take into account the economic situation that we live in. You know, usually it's feels like, you know, wealthier people can say, I'm going to go on this all protein organic diet. You know, where if you have, you know, you're, if you're working three jobs and you have family and you're, you know, trying to feed your kids, maybe you can't afford to have a hunter gatherer diet right anymore, which is ironic considering hunter gatherer diet used to be free. But you know, right, but so there's a lot to think about, but I think it hunter gatherers can inform us on, you know, what we could and should and maybe think about eating a little bit more of. But also, you know, like we've been talking about, you know, health and spirituality and beliefs and, you know, integrating our whole lives so that we're healthier, connected people. Speaker 1 Yeah, I think nurses are in a unique position to be able to do that. So talking about modern medicine and and bringing in that time tested or those time tested remedies. Speaker 3 Yeah, absolutely. And if we're thinking about, you know, needing to build relationships and connections, you know, the doctors are busy, it feels like, but the nurses you know, are who you interact more with, you know, especially when you're in the. Speaker 2 Hospital, but at the beginning and. Speaker 3 At the end of your care, you're coordinating with them. They're giving you the results from your tests. You know, unless it's super serious, you're dealing with the nurses more. And so it feels like, yeah, nursing is an opportunity to return to some of those those, you know, communities of care that hunter gatherers used to build and develop. Speaker 1 Great. Well, I thank you for being here with us today. Speaker 3 Thank you for having me. Speaker 1 The hunters and gatherers and they're lifestyle and they're, I feel like you covered a lot actually. Speaker 3 Like we did too. Hopefully it was good I. Speaker 2 Learned them. I learned a lot myself. Speaker 1 Doctor Thomas Jennings from A&S Archaeology. Speaker 3 Anthology, but I do archaeology, yes. Speaker 1 Thank you. Yeah, thanks. Speaker 3 For having me.