We have counter examples of human pods that never really achieved “civilization”.

What’s missing that make them more akin to orcas or wolves?

It is possible it is just time. Modern humans are considered to have existed for 300k~ years. Civilizations are about 6k years old.

So who knows. Maybe if you gave them an extra 10k years, they would have achived "civilization". It is not much for the scale of human existance. But it is longer than any of our civilizations has existed for.

▲

nobodyandproud an hour ago | parent [-]

For humans, I wonder if population size and density is also a factor.

That is, if there’s a critical mass and population size.

	▲	asdff 31 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		And makes sense with agriculture and civilization coming together. Agriculture improved the carrying capacity of an acre of land dramatically from what it was from foraging and hunting.