What if we are not broken? How "neurodiverse" humans shaped history.
Introduction
So here's the thing - we've been sold this idea that some brains are 'normal' and others aren't, as if there's some perfect brain template we're all supposed to match. There isn't.
Humans haven't had any major biological adaptations in roughly 40,000 years. Our brains are essentially the same as our Ice Age ancestors'. The massive changes in how we live β agriculture (10,000 years ago), writing (5,000 years ago), industrialisation (200 years ago), and now the digital age β all happened in an evolutionary blink of an eye. We're running Stone Age brains in a Space Age world.
What we call "neurotypical" is merely the average. It's not the gold standard. It's not even particularly gold. It's more like... beige. The reality is that all human brains exist on a spectrum (technically a spectrum of spectrums), and the full range including those we slap labels on like ADHD, autism, or dyslexia are natural, valuable variations. Every brain is different. The ones we label just happen to be further from the arbitrary middle. Not bugs. Features.
This idea was explored in the 2017 documentary Horizon: ADHD and Me With Rory Bremner. Scientists said, "Hey, what if these aren't bugs in the human operating system but actual features we needed to survive?"
Archaeologist Dr. Penny Spikins and medical researcher Dr. Barry Wright dug into how traits we now medicate might have been the exact skills that kept our ancestors alive[4][5]. Instead of seeing ADHD or autism as things that need fixing, they're looking at them as natural differences that helped us adapt, innovate, and survive.
ADHD: The Hunter's Advantage in a Farmer's World
ADHD folks can't sit still, get distracted by shiny things, and make impulsive decisions? In the 1990s, some researchers started thinking those sound like excellent traits if you're trying not to starve in the wilderness.
Modern research is revealing something many people with ADHD have felt but couldn't articulate: that constant sense of not fitting in might not be about personal failure.
In 2024, Dr. David Barack and colleagues put people in a video game about berry-picking and found that people with ADHD traits performed significantly better[1][6]. They switched to new food sources faster and gathered more resources overall. Exactly what you'd want your ancestor doing when the berries ran out.
"If [these traits] were truly negative, you'd think they'd be selected against over evolutionary time," Dr. Barack pointed out[5]. Translation: if ADHD was really that bad for survival, we wouldn't still have it. But here we are, millions of us unable to sit through meetings but very good at finding the last parking spot at the supermarket.
This isn't a new idea either. Back in the '90s (when we were all worried about Y2K), the "hunter vs. farmer" hypothesis suggested that what we now call ADHD was Hunter Brainβ’ β constantly scanning for threats and opportunities, ready to pivot at a moment's notice. The exact opposite of what you need to do taxes or sit through a three-hour budget meeting.
In 2008, researchers studied Kenya's Ariaal tribe and found something interesting: men with the "ADHD gene" (DRD4 variant, for the nerds) were healthier and better fed if they stayed nomadic. But the same men struggled when they tried to settle down and farm[7][8].
Think about that for a second. When they were out there defending livestock and constantly moving around? ADHD traits = winning at life. When they had to sit still and watch crops grow? Not so much[9]. The same traits that make you excellent at defending livestock from lions make you terrible at watching crops grow all day. Who could have seen that coming?
It's almost like our brains weren't designed for cubicles. Perhaps unsurprisingly, researchers even found that populations with long histories of nomadic foraging have more ADHD gene variants[10]. Evolution tends to preserve useful traits.
Those traits that cause real struggles in modern life? They used to be survival skills. That inability to stick to one task that makes work so difficult? That's what got your distant ancestors to check out that weird rustling bush that turned out to be a whole herd of delicious deer. Or a predator, but at least they noticed it first. Understanding this doesn't make the daily challenges disappear β many people need support and treatment to function in environments that weren't built for their brains.
The important point is that these traits only became "problematic" when we invented classrooms and children (and adults) started spending almost all of their time inside. Think about what we ask of children: sit still for six hours, focus on abstract concepts, don't look out the window, don't fidget, don't talk. We've created an environment that's the exact opposite of what ADHD brains evolved for, then we're surprised when they struggle. From evolution's perspective, ADHD traits stuck around because they kept us alive[1][6]. Yet we label children who can't sit still for hours as having a disorder.
Autism: Focused Minds on the Ancient Frontier
So autism. We're talking intense focus, deep interests in specific things, and not being interested in small talk. Today's world says that's a problem. Prehistoric world? That's literally how you become the village's master toolmaker or the person who memorises every edible plant in an 80-kilometre radius.
In 2011, Jared Reser proposed his "solitary forager hypothesis." His basic argument? Autism isn't a disorder it's an evolutionary adaptation for a specific survival niche[11][12].
Think about it: in a sparse environment, you need someone who's content spending twelve hours alone perfecting their nut-cracking technique. While everyone else is gossiping around the fire, this person's out there becoming the Stone Age equivalent of a master craftsman. No social drama, no distractions, just pure focus on survival.
Reser called this the "autism advantage"[13]. That person who could memorise every animal track in the territory while ignoring the tribe's social hierarchy? They weren't antisocial. They were the reason everyone had dinner.
Fast-forward to 2018, when Dr. Penny Spikins (University of York) and colleagues took this idea further β into the realm of art and innovation. Their research suggests that many of the world's earliest great artworks (like the cave paintings in Lascaux or Chauvet) were likely created by individuals with autism spectrum traits[14][15].
During the Ice Age, they argue, humans faced harsh conditions that favored people who could focus obsessively and think in remarkable detail[15]. Such individuals would excel at complex, time-consuming tasks: knapping superior flint spearheads, memorising vast landscapes for hunting routes, noticing subtle patterns in animal behaviour β all crucial for survival[15][16]. These same skills also translate into artistic talent: the ability to visualise and recreate scenes from memory with precision, to capture 3D reality in a 2D painting (an exercise in pattern and perspective)[17].
While others socialised around the fire, these individuals were creating what would become humanity's artistic legacy.
Dr. Spikins suggests that without the "autism-related abilities" that evolved under Ice Age pressures, humans "would not have been able to survive in [such] a freezing environment" or develop the realistic art that appeared 30,000+ years ago[4]. Some of our species' greatest early achievements β improved tools, navigation, even the dawn of representational art β may owe a debt to autistic minds contributing to prehistoric societies.
Modern genetic findings support the deep roots of autism. A study published in Molecular Psychiatry (2024) found that people on the autism spectrum carry an enrichment of Neanderthal-derived DNA variants compared to neurotypical individuals[3]. These results hint that autism's genetic origins trace back to ancient times β possibly inherited from archaic human cousins. (Notably, this doesn't mean Neanderthals "had autism" in the modern sense, but that certain gene versions passed down from them contribute to autism today.)
The fact that autism-linked gene variants have been conserved across tens of thousands of years and multiple human species underscores how persistent and integral these brain differences have been in human evolution[18][19]. Rather than being new mutations or anomalies, traits like those seen in autism are part of an ancient heritage β potentially preserved because they offered something valuable to those early communities.
It's also worth noting the work of psychologists like Simon Baron-Cohen, who argues that the "systemising" minds often associated with autism were driving forces in human invention. In his book The Pattern Seekers, Baron-Cohen posits that the same genes behind autism endowed early humans with a unique talent for recognising patterns and understanding logical rules, sparking the cognitive "big bang" of tool innovation around 70,000β100,000 years ago[20][21].
The ability to think "if I do X, then Y will happen" (for example, "if I attach a sharp stone to a stick, then I can make a spear") is a form of causal reasoning that may have been especially strong in autistic brains. This aligns with the archaeological record of a sudden flowering of technology and creativity in Homo sapiens β suggesting that autistic pattern-seekers were among those leading the charge in inventing new tools, musical instruments, and art forms[21][22].
Dyslexia: The Explorer's Gift
Dyslexia. Can't spell, letters jump around, reading is a nightmare β we all know the story. But researchers discovered the dyslexic brain isn't broken. It's just optimised for something way more interesting than spelling "restaurant" correctly on the first try.
A 2022 cross-disciplinary study from Cambridge concluded that people with dyslexia have specific cognitive strengths in exploring the unknown, which would have been essential for human adaptation and survival[24][25]. Dr. Helen Taylor and colleagues found that human brains seem to have this trade-off between exploring new information and exploiting what we already know[26][27].
Think of it like this: you need some people in your tribe who are good at perfecting the wheel. But you also need that one person who's like, "Yeah, but what's over that mountain though?"
Guess which one the dyslexic brain prefers? The dyslexic brain naturally gravitates toward exploration over optimisation.
People with dyslexia tend to excel at big-picture thinking, creativity, and spatial reasoning[25][26]. Sure, they might struggle with the whole "letters staying in one place" thing, but they're the ones who'd suggest hunting the mammoth from a completely different angle that nobody else thought of. They're not tied to conventional thinking because conventional thinking requires reading the convention manual, and... well.
The Cambridge researchers call this "complementary cognition"[27][28]. In other words: we evolved to need different types of thinkers. While some people were perfecting the wheel, others were already wondering what was over that next hill. Both useful, unless you're trying to teach them standardised spelling.
And get this β dyslexia affects up to 20% of people worldwide[29][30]. That's not a bug that common. That's a feature that evolution kept around on purpose.
Today's dyslexic folks often end up excelling in art, engineering, entrepreneurship β fields where innovative thinking is valued[31]. Richard Branson, Steve Jobs, entrepreneurs who challenged conventional thinking. In prehistoric times, having someone in your group who couldn't follow the beaten path meant your whole tribe was more likely to survive when the beaten path led straight off a cliff.
One researcher pointed out we need to value this explorative thinking in schools and workplaces[32]. Instead of making kids feel stupid because they can't memorise which vowels are supposedly silent.
The evolutionary lens shows our brains evolved to be different for a reason. Some refine existing tools. Others venture into the unknown. Both equally important.
The Diverse Tribe: Collaboration and Adaptation
Taken together, these findings reveal that humanity evolved with diverse brains. Our ancestors did not survive ice ages, predators, and migration by all thinking and behaving the same way. Instead, groups that could leverage a mix of cognitive styles likely had the edge. The intense focus of one person could complement the brash curiosity of another; the methodical planner could team up with the quick adaptor. Scientific reviews have started referring to this as an evolutionary feature, an essential characteristic β the idea that we "evolved to specialise in different, but complementary, ways of thinking"[33]. By having individuals who naturally varied in attention, social interaction, memory, and creativity, a community became more resilient and versatile in the face of challenges.
Evolution never stopped acting on our brains. As Dr. Spikins' work showed, even within Homo sapiens over the last 10,000β40,000 years, shifting climates and lifestyles continued to shape the diversity of our brains[34][35]. The agricultural revolution and then modern industrial life might have diminished the apparent "fitness" of some of these traits (making school and office environments difficult for those brains), but that doesn't erase the adaptive legacy those traits carry. Understanding this legacy is changing how we approach people with these brain differences today β from education to employment, there's a growing appreciation that these brains can offer specific strengths and fresh perspectives if we make room for them, much as they once helped guide our evolution.
As evidence mounts that brain diversity is an ancient and integral part of being human, there's an academic shift toward acceptance and understanding of these differences. The term "neurodiversity" (coined by sociologist Judy Singer in the late 1990s) originally meant that all neurological variation is natural, valuable, and needed β just as biodiversity strengthens an ecosystem, brain diversity strengthens our species. What science now confirms is that ADHD, autism, dyslexia and more are not modern abnormalities; they are our heritage. They are the torches different people carried so that humankind as a whole could walk further, see more, and survive together.
Conclusion
The narrative emerging from recent research turns our understanding of neurodivergent conditions upside down: instead of clinical problems, they're evolutionary adaptations that helped shape who we are as a species. This doesn't minimize the very real challenges that conditions like autism or ADHD can bring in modern settings β living in a world designed for the average brain is hard, even for those of us who are only moderately affected. But it does show those challenges are mismatches between ancient trait and modern environment, not intrinsic flaws. You're not broken. You're trying to run ancient software in a modern operating system that wasn't designed for you.
Understanding this evolutionary context doesn't make the daily struggles disappear. It doesn't make it easier to focus in open offices, navigate social situations that feel like speaking a foreign language, or manage the anxiety that comes from constant overstimulation. But knowing that your brain is working exactly as evolution intended, just in the wrong context β that's an important starting point.
The real damage often comes not from the traits themselves, but from years of being told you're wrong. When a child with ADHD is constantly reprimanded for behaviours they can't control, when an autistic person is made to feel alien for their natural way of processing the world, when someone with dyslexia internalises that they're "stupid" β that's where the actual harm occurs.
Consider what happens in schools: children who need movement are punished for fidgeting. Those who think visually are failed for not grasping linear teaching methods. Kids who hyperfocus on their interests are told to "pay attention" to subjects that feel meaningless. By the time they leave education, many have internalised a deep sense of being fundamentally flawed. The anxiety, depression, and trauma that so often accompany neurodivergence aren't inherent to these conditions. They're the compound effect of living in environments that treat your natural brain wiring as a defect. It's the psychological toll of a lifetime spent trying to force a square peg into a round hole, being told the problem is your shape rather than the hole's design.
Where do we go from here? We start by recognising that we literally need each other. Modern society's cult of individualism has systematically dismantled the very thing that made us successful as a species β our diverse, interconnected tribes. We're sold the lie that we should each be self-sufficient, that needing others is weakness, that we can buy our way to completeness. But this isolation strips us of our collective strength. In our ancestral tribes, the hunter's impulsivity was balanced by the toolmaker's focus, the explorer's wandering by the keeper's memory. Together, we were greater than the sum of our parts. Alone, we're just struggling individuals trying to be everything at once.
From there, we push for real change: designing schools, workplaces, and societies that work for all types of minds, not just the average. The story of human evolution is also the story of human brain diversity[34] β and it's a story still being written today.
In the spirit of using AI to augment human creativity. Here is this article in song format... What If We're Not Broken
References
Barack et al. (2024) on ADHD and foraging behavior[1][6]; Eisenberg et al. (2008) on ADHD-associated genes in nomadic vs. settled peoples[7][8]; Reser (2011) on the solitary forager theory of autism[11][12]; Spikins & Wright (2018) on autism traits enabling Ice Age art and survival[15][4]; Casanova et al. (2024) on Neanderthal DNA's role in autism[3]; Taylor et al. (2022) on dyslexia as an evolutionary specialisation for exploration[25][27]; and the broader shift in understanding brain differences as described by Baron-Cohen (2020) and others[20][21].
Sources
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[2] [4] [14] [15] [16] [17] [34] [35] Prehistoric autism helped produce much of the world's earliest great art, study says | The Independent
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[24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31] [32] [33] Developmental dyslexia essential to human adaptive success | ScienceDaily