Episode 22: Autism as Ancestral Inheritance

Autism is not new. It’s ancient. This episode explores the sacred roles neurodivergent people may have once held in ancestral communities (including research!)—and how those echoes live on today. Through personal story, anthropology, archaeology, and spiritual remembrance, Jenn offers a soul-centered reframing of autism and ADHD as ancestral gifts navigating broken modern systems, and not as pathologies to be fixed.|
Referenced Studies for Show Notes
1. Attention deficits linked with proclivity to explore while foraging
royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098…b.2022.2584

2. Pattern Unifies Autism
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7907419/

3. Conceptualizing the Autism Spectrum in Terms of Natural Selection and Behavioral Ecology: The Solitary Forager Hypothesis
www.researchgate.net/publication/23…ger_Hypothesis

4.Ancient Roots: A Cambrian Explosion of Autism Susceptibility Genes
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/aur.2984

5. The Shaman’s Secrets- Archaeology Magazine
archaeology.org/issues/march-apri…ic-shaman-burial/
6. Ancient Sorcerer’s “Wake” Was First Feast for the Dead
www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/art…er-tortoise
7. The Strange Prehistoric Triple Burial of Dolni Vestonice
www.historicmysteries.com/archaeology/…urial/33932/
8. Why This Paleolithic Burial Site Is So Strange (and So Important)
www.sapiens.org/archaeology/paleo…c-burial-sunghir/