anthropology question - feral humans?

Question

I recently saw a program on wild animals which raised themselves in captivity and fully adapted to the wild with no adults.

Obviously humans have a lot more to learn and greater capacity but am I right in thinking that feral human children often are unable to survive in the wild (isolated from society) with out adults and the ones who do fail to learn simple survival techniques and have no language or way to communicate where other animals will be perfect capable.

If this is true is it a case of being so evolved and dependent on external sources of learning like reading and writing and spoken word that we have lost the basics which even a rabbit has?

Gray Bold · Accepted Answer

In actuality, there is no such thing as feral humans.  We cannot survive without a group, and it only takes a couple of days for a child to starve to death.

Cirbryn · Answer

> I recently saw a program on wild animals which raised themselves in captivity and fully adapted to the wild with no adults.

So they were raised in captivity and then put out into the wild as adults? That's not really equivalent to putting a human into the wild as a young child, is it?

Howard H · Answer

Humans have evolved to need care and teaching in their early years, presumably from family. We haven't
lost anything, we just have a different way of bringing up our young. That said, there is no reliable history of children raised by animals in the wild, despite fiction and folklore.

Anonymous · Answer

We're no more evolved or advanced than our ancient cave man ancestors.  They got along the best they could - and I imagine there were plenty who lost their parents at an early age.  But with humans, we develop so slowly, we do need care for the first two or three years.

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anthropology question - feral humans?

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