Hopefully your minor infections are too foreign to them and don’t simply wipe them off the earth. And hopefully the food available doesn’t completely fuck up your modern digestion.
But I’m with you on going back really far. Before property ownership. Before human-caused climate change started (which was well before industrialization, due to cook/heat fires).
Downside: dogs and cats not domesticated yet. Probably no/limited pack animals either. If you don’t find the locals relatable or existing, you’re in for a rough time. Also most/all food hadn’t been selectively bred yet, and was nothing like what we are used to today, was all small, hard, seedy, not very sweet. Most foods we eat are also non-native, and were brought back from global exploration, so that varied diet you are anticipating might be largely salted or smoked meat, instead. Certainly the case if you go somewhere with seasons. I have a rough idea of what can be foraged around me, but most of it is modern cultivars. The wild ones are kinda meh, tbh, you have to get really creative to use them.
But a major upside is even if you are the dumbest person alive today, you’ve got a LOT of knowledge to offer such primitive societies.
There’s a lot of strong evidence that agriculture reduced variety in human diet considerably. But you’re right that the variety we have nowadays is hard to beat (though scurvy is making a comeback).
Hopefully your minor infections are too foreign to them and don’t simply wipe them off the earth. And hopefully the food available doesn’t completely fuck up your modern digestion.
But I’m with you on going back really far. Before property ownership. Before human-caused climate change started (which was well before industrialization, due to cook/heat fires).
Downside: dogs and cats not domesticated yet. Probably no/limited pack animals either. If you don’t find the locals relatable or existing, you’re in for a rough time. Also most/all food hadn’t been selectively bred yet, and was nothing like what we are used to today, was all small, hard, seedy, not very sweet. Most foods we eat are also non-native, and were brought back from global exploration, so that varied diet you are anticipating might be largely salted or smoked meat, instead. Certainly the case if you go somewhere with seasons. I have a rough idea of what can be foraged around me, but most of it is modern cultivars. The wild ones are kinda meh, tbh, you have to get really creative to use them.
But a major upside is even if you are the dumbest person alive today, you’ve got a LOT of knowledge to offer such primitive societies.
There’s a lot of strong evidence that agriculture reduced variety in human diet considerably. But you’re right that the variety we have nowadays is hard to beat (though scurvy is making a comeback).