How Societies Morph With the Seasons

The social world of the BaYaka, a group of foragers that lives primarily in the Central African rainforest, is guided by the seasons. But seasonality dictates more than their diet. “They require entire social reorganizations,” writes Cecilia Padilla-Iglesias. “Leadership, cooperation, and even spiritual life transform with the seasons.” In this Sapiens essay, Padilla-Iglesias explains that throughout history, humans have been similarly flexible and socially fluid. It’s today’s industrialized, capitalist society—fixed, stagnant, unequal—that is the anomaly. “[I]n my home countries and many others today,” Padilla-Iglesias writes, “institutions seem immutable, changing only during revolutions, coups, or wars.” Padilla-Iglesias writes a thoughtful, eye-opening piece that inspires us to rethink the way we live.

As an evolutionary anthropologist working with the BaYaka, I initially presumed people simply adjusted because of the seasonal availability of different foods. But their changes extended way beyond sustenance into the realms of politics, economics, rituals, and relationships.

These shifts starkly contrast with my own homes in the U.K. and Spain, countries seemingly locked into fixed sociopolitical and economic orders. BaYaka flexibility made me rethink my assumptions about what is “natural” for human societies, including gender roles, hierarchies, and social group sizes.

Recognizing humanity’s long tradition of social fluidity puts the present into perspective: The “Western world” is not the culmination of a 10,000-year-long march but an anomaly in a 300,000-year-long history of Homo sapiens’ cultural adaptability.