Yes, descriptions that resemble ADHD go back to at least 1775. But the idea that it was mainly an advantage for our hunter ancestors has not been shown: ancient DNA even suggests that genetic variants linked to ADHD were selected against for tens of thousands of years. Here is what history, genetics and our modern environment tell us.
- History: Weikard in 1775, Crichton in 1798, Still in 1902.
- Genetics: these variants become less and less common in ancient genomes, mostly European, dated from 45,000 to 2,500 years ago.
- Hunter versus farmer: an image popularised by an author, barely tested.
- Modern society: the setting makes difficulties more or less visible, but three decades of studies show no rise in the condition itself.
Descriptions going back more than two centuries
In 1775, the German physician Melchior Adam Weikard devoted a chapter of his medical textbook to "lack of attention". For Russell Barkley and Helmut Peters, who found and translated the text in 2012, it is the earliest known description of attention disorders in the medical literature.
In 1798, the Scottish physician Alexander Crichton described "the incapacity of attending with a necessary degree of constancy to any one object". When it is innate, he wrote, it shows very early, gets in the way of education and generally lessens with age. He did not mention hyperactivity, and his patients may have had other causes of inattention, such as epilepsy, a 2010 historical review points out.
In 1902, the British paediatrician George Still described 20 children with a "defect of moral control", meaning control of their actions, without intellectual impairment. According to the same review, many of these cases look more like conduct problems today, although some of the children probably had ADHD. In France, Désiré-Magloire Bourneville and other authors had described an equivalent of ADHD between 1887 and 1901, according to the World Federation of ADHD.
The official names are recent: "hyperkinetic reaction of childhood" in the American DSM-II manual in 1968, "attention deficit disorder" in the DSM-III in 1980, then "attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder" in 1987. So ADHD is not a modern invention, even if these old texts did not necessarily describe exactly the same condition.
What ancient DNA reveals
ADHD is largely heritable (heritability of 70 to 80% in twin studies) and involves thousands of genetic variants, each with a tiny effect. A Spanish, Danish and American team tracked these variants over time. It started from a large genetic study (19,099 people with ADHD and 34,194 controls, of European ancestry) and measured their frequency in ancient genomes, mostly European. Its results, published in 2020 in Scientific Reports:
- the older the samples, the more common these variants are: their frequency has steadily declined since the Palaeolithic;
- the models point to natural selection against these variants between 45,000 and 10,000 years ago, so before farming, and again over the last 2,000 to 3,000 years in a British population;
- this decline is explained neither by African gene flow (admixture) nor by Neanderthal ancestry.
The authors consider these results compatible with the idea of a "mismatch" between traits and environment, but on a much older timescale. The hunter-farmer hypothesis, they write, cannot explain why these variants would not have been beneficial for at least the past 45,000 years. Limits: these variants explain only a small part of the risk, they were identified in people of European ancestry, and the study does not say that our ancestors had ADHD more often.
Hunters versus farmers: an image, not a proven theory
The idea comes from a popular book published in 1993 by Thom Hartmann, an American author and radio host, not from a scientific study: ADHD traits would have made good hunters, then turned into a handicap with farming. In 1997, child specialists led by the psychiatrist Peter Jensen proposed a related idea: these traits could be useful in some environments and costly in others. Tests are rare:
- Among the Ariaal of Kenya (2008), a variant of a dopamine receptor gene, DRD4 7R, linked to ADHD in some studies, went with a higher body mass index in 65 nomadic men, but a lower one in 87 settled men.
- Among the Rendille, a closely related population, a 2025 study of 259 children found no link between this variant and nutritional status.
- In an online foraging game (2024, 457 adults), those whose ADHD questionnaire was positive left a depleting patch sooner and earned rewards at a higher rate. A computer game, with no diagnosis.
The "superpowers" often quoted are no better established: hyperfocus remains poorly defined and little studied (2021 review), and in a review of 31 studies (2020), divergent creative thinking was higher in people with many ADHD traits but no diagnosis, not in those with a diagnosis, although creative abilities and achievements were common in both groups.
Does modern society make ADHD harder?
- Context matters. The World Health Organization classification (ICD-11) states that ADHD manifestations vary according to the structure and demands of the setting: hyperactivity shows most when self-control is required, and inattention may not be evident during highly stimulating, frequently rewarded activities. Long, unstimulating tasks therefore make them more visible.
- School shapes who gets diagnosed. In a meta-analysis of 25 studies (more than 8 million children), the youngest in a class had about a third higher risk of an ADHD diagnosis. In US states where the school entry cut-off is 1 September, 85 in 10,000 children born in August received the diagnosis, against 64 in 10,000 born in September (2018).
- The condition is not becoming more common. In a review of 135 studies covering three decades, the share of children who meet the criteria, measured with standardised methods, did not increase.
- Screens: a two-way link. According to a review of 28 longitudinal studies (2024), young people with ADHD symptoms are more prone to problematic digital media use, and that use is in turn linked to more symptoms later, possibly through sleep.
We found no study measuring whether our era is, overall, harder for people with ADHD than earlier ones. And ADHD is not just a mismatch with the setting: on average it is linked to more accidents, more educational difficulties and more unemployment, according to the World Federation of ADHD.
Dopamine: what we actually know
You often read that the ADHD brain has "fewer dopamine receptors in the prefrontal cortex". The best-known study (JAMA, 2009) used brain imaging to compare 53 unmedicated adults with ADHD and 44 controls: measures of the dopamine transporter and D2/D3 receptors were lower in the reward pathway, notably the nucleus accumbens, not in the prefrontal cortex. A 2024 review of more than 40 years of research concludes that dopamine is involved, but evidence for a "low dopamine" state is limited. See our article on the low dopamine myth.
Why so many diagnoses today?
A Danish study published in 2026 in JAMA Psychiatry analysed the DNA of 20,111 people diagnosed with ADHD between 1994 and 2016: the more recent the diagnosis, the lower the average genetic predisposition. For the authors, this supports broader diagnostic criteria as an explanation for the rise. Details are in our article on the moving diagnostic threshold. On the claim that ADHD is a "social construct", see our fact-check of a TV documentary.
Leonardo da Vinci, Franklin, Churchill: why they cannot be diagnosed
An earlier version of this article presented them as examples of ADHD. We removed them, because a retrospective diagnosis cannot be verified. ADHD is diagnosed in an interview with a clinician. It requires symptoms before age 12, in several settings, with real impact, and other explanations ruled out: biographies and letters cannot show this. Even an author who defends retrospective diagnosis presents it as a more or less plausible hypothesis, and calls for ethical caution (Muramoto, 2014).
If you recognise yourself
The real question is not about your ancestors, but whether inattention, restlessness or impulsivity get in your way today. Our adult ADHD questionnaire (ASRS v1.1) is a self-assessment questionnaire that takes a few minutes: its result is not a diagnosis, but it can help you prepare for an appointment. Talk to your doctor; if the wait for an assessment is long, here is what you can do in the meantime.
Frequently asked questions
Is ADHD a modern invention?
No. Close descriptions go back to 1775, and the condition has been found in studies from Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Australia and the Americas. What is recent is its name and its criteria, set from 1980 onwards.
Was ADHD an advantage for hunter-gatherers?
This has not been shown. A few small studies point that way, others do not, and ancient DNA rather suggests that ADHD-linked variants were already selected against 45,000 years ago. Some traits may have helped in some situations, without ADHD being an overall advantage.
Is there more ADHD today than before?
There are more diagnoses. But over three decades of studies, the share of children who meet the criteria has not increased, and the Danish genetic data mainly suggest that the diagnostic threshold has moved.
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