For at least the last 200,000 years humans were as intelligent as people living now. Civilization is a result of scarcity, hunter gatherers living in wide-open spaces with few people and plenty of animals and plants do not need to farm, They just go outside their front door and pick the food or shoot the food. What shelter, tools and clothing they needed to make were well made.
With hunter gatherers, it is feast or famine. They breed up to the supply of available food, then there is a change, any of a large number of causes, then they die off and start breeding up again.
When they have food, they tend to have plenty. When they do not, they starve.
Starvation during winter months was common among hunter gatherers in the new world, as recorded by numerous early explorers. Those who practiced agriculture tended to do better.
Freedom from hunger is a very recent phenomena.