The First Volunteers

Shanidar 1 couldn’t have survived without help. He suffered a severe blow to the head, lost his right arm at the elbow, sustained damage to his right leg, and experienced progressive, profound deafness. There were no pain meds. Only cold, and cave bears looking for easy prey. And yet, Shanidar 1 lived to around fifty years old, which in the Ice Age made him ancient.

He could not hunt. He could not carry. He probably could not even chew tough meat. And yet, morning after morning, someone brought him food. Someone dressed his wounds. Someone stayed.

The bones of Shanidar 1 were excavated from Shanidar Cave in Iraqi Kurdistan in 1957, and they tell a story that challenges the idea that prehistoric life was purely brutal. His Neanderthal skeleton bears evidence of severe trauma — a skull fracture, a likely amputation, leg damage — all suffered early in life. Yet he survived for decade. Archaeologist Pat Shipman called it "a testament to Neanderthal compassion."

Shanidar 1 is not alone. In 2024, researchers described a Neanderthal child — nicknamed "Tina" — found in a cave in Spain, whose inner ear showed the unmistakable anatomy of Down syndrome. Tina was completely deaf, prone to severe vertigo, and unable to maintain balance. She lived to at least six years old. Also in the Ice Age. While the group was constantly on the move. Scientists concluded that Tina’s survival required sustained, community-wide care from birth — care given to someone who could never repay it. This is some of the earliest confirmed evidence of true altruism in the human story.

In prehistoric Vietnam, a 4,000-year-old skeleton shows a man with a paralytic condition who was fed, moved, and cared for throughout his adult life — by a community that was experiencing a famine. “That tells us people mattered,” said archaeologist Lorna Tilley. “They were valued.”

Written records of organized charity come much later. Mesopotamian temples redistributed grain around 3,500 BCE. Hammurabi’s Code protected widows and orphans. Ancient concepts of dāna, zakat, and tzedakah provided templates for doing good deeds. But the impulse itself? It predates all of that by hundreds of thousands of years.

Compassion and volunteering are older than civilization, older than writing, older than the wheel. They are, it turns out, just as essential to living interdependently as any tool ever invented. Volunteering is literally in our bones.

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Some of the hardest people I've ever known have also been the kindest. Have you ever seen a fierce human go out of their way to be giving or compassionate? Drop me a line – I’m curious!

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Open-Source Learning is yours. Free. Get the white paper here. Use what works and customize whatever you need, however you want. I’m here to help.

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Curiosity is worth practicing. That’s how we get better at it. When it’s done particularly well, curiosity can be elevated to an art form. Curiosity makes life worth living. I am literally Curious AF. And now you can be too! Click HERE to unlock your free membership subscription. 

Here is a taste of what I’m doing, reading, watching, and thinking about.

What I’m Reading –

Three hundred fifteen million years ago, a photon slipped free from the clutches of its parent star and raced 93 million miles across the void. Some 99.9999999 percent of its fellow photons kept on sailing past eternity. A rare few, after billions of miles, bounced off the craters and canyons of some savagely bleak world in the outer solar system. Still others – after a billion billion miles more – mutely scattered off disembodied nebulae, drifting through space. But our photon was headed to the most interesting place in the known universe: the Earth.

So begins "The Story of CO2 Is the Story of Everything" by science writer Peter Brannen. From the New York Times Review of Books:

"This ambitious, absorbing book begins with the origins of life and stretches through the rise of human civilization and technology, including all the modern woes associated now with the troublesome greenhouse gas.

By the end, the reader feels convinced: Evolution and human prehistory and wars and the Dutch East Indies Company and the attack on Pearl Harbor and Reagan and Thatcher and and and and and and. … All of it looks like the story of carbon dioxide, after all."

Tech That Finally Solves Your Younger Self's Gmail Address Problem –

When I taught high school courses, I routinely advised students who were writing resumes to open new Gmail accounts with usernames that were more professional than their eighth grade choices.

Now, according to Android Authority, you can change your Google account username without losing your data. The path: Google Account settings → Personal Info → Email → Google Account email → Change Google Account email. Google started testing the feature earlier this year and it's now widely available across the US.

Quotes I’m pondering –

Last weekend, while I was completing my sixth Ironman triathlon in Oceanside, CA, my wife and daughter attended the local version of "No Kings," the largest national protest in American history. They held simple signs with thought-provoking quotes.

You ask me what forces me to speak? A strange thing; my conscience.

– Victor Hugo

It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest.

– Abraham Lincoln

Thank you for reading! This publication is a lovingly cultivated, hand-rolled, barrel-aged, ad-free, AI-free, 100% organic, anti-algorithm, zero calorie, high protein, completely reader-supported publication that is not paid to endorse any political party, world religion, sports team, product or service. Please help keep it going by buying my book, hiring me to speak, or becoming a paid subscriber, which will also entitle you to upcoming web events, free consultations, discounted merchandise, and generally being the coolest person your friends know:

Best,

Know someone who is also Curious AF? Please share this edition with them!

David Preston

Educator & Author

​https://davidpreston.net​

Latest book: ACADEMY OF ONE