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We don’t know that human guts were healthier overall in ancient times. Research finds that some contemporary hunter-gatherer groups have more diverse gut microbiomes than industrialized comparison groups, and ancient fecal samples can resemble microbiomes found in people living outside industrialized settings. But diversity and resemblance are not clinical measures of health, and neither kind of sample can rank the overall health of ancient and modern people.
What does “healthier gut” mean?
Gut health can refer to symptoms, digestive function, diagnosed disease, or the makeup of the microorganisms living in the gut. Those are related questions, but they are not interchangeable. Microbiome studies commonly measure features such as the number of microbial types in a sample and how varied their relative abundances are. A higher score on those measures does not, by itself, show fewer illnesses, better digestion, or longer life.
The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) cautions that more work is needed to connect gut-microbe diversity directly to human health. NIDDK’s 2017 research update puts it plainly: “Further studies are needed to directly link these differences in gut microbial diversity to human health.”
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What studies of the Hadza found
A small comparison with urban Italians
A 2014 study compared stool samples from 27 Hadza people in Tanzania with samples from 16 urban Italian adults. The researchers reported higher microbial richness and biodiversity in the Hadza group. They also found differences in the kinds of microbes present, including enrichment of Prevotella, Treponema, and unclassified Bacteroidetes. The authors discussed these findings in relation to the Hadza diet, which includes fibrous plant foods. The study describes a difference between two specific groups—not proof that one had healthier guts.
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The groups differed in more than microbiomes: diet, lifestyle, geography, and other exposures were not the same. The study therefore cannot isolate one cause or establish a general health ranking. Nor should any of the observed microbes be treated as a universal healthy-gut checklist. The study reported no Bifidobacterium in its adult Hadza sample, illustrating why a microorganism often described as beneficial in one setting cannot automatically define health in every population.
Seasonal change, not one fixed profile
A later study tracked Hadza microbiomes over a year and compared them with samples from 18 populations in 16 countries. In the seasonal sampling, some microbial groups became undetectable in one season and returned in another. The findings connect microbiome composition with changing ecology and food availability; they do not show that one seasonal profile is healthier than another. NIDDK’s account of the study reports that 188 Hadza people were sampled over the year.
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Modern Hadza are not ancient samples
The Hadza are a contemporary population living in a particular Tanzanian setting, not a direct stand-in for all prehistoric humans. The 2014 paper explicitly notes that “the Hadza are a modern human population.” Their microbiome can help researchers understand how diet and environment relate to gut microbes, but it cannot reveal the health of every ancient society or era.
What ancient fecal samples add—and what they cannot establish
Researchers can analyze preserved ancient fecal material, often called paleofeces, to investigate past microbial communities. A 2021 study reported that present-day non-industrial microbiomes more closely resembled the ancient samples it examined than industrialized microbiomes did. That is evidence about microbial composition and its history. Similarity does not establish better clinical health: paleofeces are not a complete medical record, and they cannot tell researchers how often a person experienced digestive symptoms or had disease.
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The available evidence is also narrow. Ancient samples represent particular people, places, preservation conditions, and time periods; they cannot stand for every population in “ancient times.” The ancient-sample finding summarized here comes from the study’s indexed summary; it should be read as a reported compositional comparison, not as a clinical verdict.
Why claims about an “ancestral microbiome” need caution
There is no single fixed ancestral gut profile established by these studies. Microbial communities shift with ecology and diet, as the Hadza seasonal findings show, and different populations can have distinct profiles. In 2023, a deep-sequencing study of Hadza samples recovered many microbial genomes missing from commonly used reference databases. Its authors analyzed 9.39 terabase pairs of sequencing data from 351 Hadza fecal samples. The finding underscores how incomplete existing population sampling remains; it does not define a universal ancient microbiome or a health target.
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These results support a link between industrialization, diet, and microbiome composition. They do not establish that industrialization alone caused a particular health outcome, that greater diversity is always better, or that an “ancestral” diet or product can restore a past microbial state.
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| Evidence | What it measured or reported | What it does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| 2014 Hadza–Italian comparison | Fecal microbiota from 27 Hadza people and 16 urban Italian adults; the Hadza samples had higher reported richness and biodiversity. Schnorr et al., Nature Communications (2014). | That Hadza people had healthier guts or better overall health; the groups differed in multiple ways. |
| Hadza seasonal study | Samples collected across a year; some microbial groups became undetectable in one season and returned in another. Comparisons included 18 populations across 16 countries. NIDDK (2017). | That a single seasonal profile is an ideal or healthier state. |
| Ancient paleofeces comparison | Reported closer compositional resemblance between the ancient samples studied and present-day non-industrial microbiomes than between those samples and industrialized microbiomes. | That ancient people were clinically healthier, or that the samples represent all ancient populations. |
| Hadza deep-sequencing study | 9.39 terabase pairs of metagenomic data from 351 Hadza fecal samples; many microbial genomes were missing from common reference databases. Cell (2023). | A single ancestral microbiome or a clinical measure of gut health. |
In short, the studies measure microbial composition in particular groups or samples. They do not directly compare the full health of ancient people with people today. The most defensible conclusion is that gut microbiomes vary with population, diet, environment, and season—and that the health meaning of many observed differences remains unresolved.
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