The article talks about hunter-gatherers. I'm not sure the word "work" applies in the same way.

Maybe they only hunted for 3 hours on average in the good time. ... But they had other more existential threats. There is a reason they all switched to agricultural societies.

Seeing your babies die of starvation will do that.

Skimming the inc.com article and the linked ft.com article, they both mention "rarely having to work more than 15 hours per week", but what "work" isn't well defined. I heard someone counter this narrative by saying that the definition of "work" used only included time spent gather food, and doesn't include other chores (eg. cleaning stuff, fixing clothes/shelter, preserving food).

I highly doubt that, first because you can just look back in time 100 years and observe people living in the country to see how hard they worked.

Secondly, ancient humans did everything themselves. Their clothes, food, bedding, house, roof, EVERYTHING. There was no global supply chain, there was no clothing industry, there was just you, your farm, and your two hands.