It depends on which "people" you are talking about and what one means by "environmentally friendly."

Large-scale environmental modification has been something human beings have being doing since at least the neolithic period. Extinction of megafauna, for example, is tightly tied to human migration. Even into the early modern period, indigenous people in North America practiced forest clearing practices, using large fires, that had a significant local and global impact (and indeed one of the likely causes of the "Little Ice Age" was the depopulation of the Americas, because it radically changed the amount of carbon that was being released). And of course the Urban Revolution itself is characterized by extensive agricultural practices, often tied to mass irrigation technology that radically changed the face and character of the land. And we could talk about domestication of plants and animals as part of this.

Is this "environmentally friendly"? It depends on your construction of what "the environment" is, and what you think "nature" is. This is not to give modern people a blank check to do whatever they want in the name of "we've always done it" — the scale and pace of environmental modification has changed dramatically in the last 300 years, and scale and pace do matter when it comes to ecological systems and their consequences. The modification practices I mentioned before required literally millennia to develop, as opposed to those that came from just the industrial revolution, much less those that have only existed in the last century (plastics, complex petrocarbons, novel insecticides and herbicides, etc.).

But you're right to have your "primitive = closer to nature = good" alarm go off; it's a particular construction of nature (and "primitive") that leads to it, and is one that is frequently less informed by history than it is by idealized sentiment.

The discipline of environmental history spends a lot of time looking at exactly this topic. I would recommend looking into the work of William Cronon who has done much work on land-manipulation practices as well as the construction of "nature" as a concept, and the trickiness of being both a good historian but also being environmentally conscious.

This question is actually two queries conflated into one. When speaking about the 'environmental friendliness' one can address such behaviour on practical level and ideological one, i.e. ask whether people were not damaging the environment or whether they did not want to damage it. Furthermore, when speaking about the practical aspect of the question, one needs to ask whether people were acting in a way that was more 'environmentally friendly' or whether the damage was was simply offset by the nature's regeneration rate.

In short, pre-modern people had far smaller detrimental impact on the natural environment, not because of the will to do so, but simply because of their own inability to do substantial harm, with few exceptions. Between the relatively small population of the pre-modern societies and relatively simple and not that common technologies, the human ability to damage the environment was very limited. Yet wherever the civilization developed, it was followed by more or less harm done to the natural environment. It should be noted however, that because of relatively simple technology, technological processes were not introducing artificial harmful substances into the environment, so the harm was usually taking form of depletion of natural resources (trees, animals) and transformation of natural landscape (deforestation, use of land for agricultural and residential purposes etc.).

Furthermore, the two examples mentioned in the original post are connected with environmentalism, but they refer to rather modern phenomena. 'Eating from nose to tail' is sometimes brought in the discussion about modern culinary attitudes, but today it is just a fad, possibly brought by expiatory attitude towards the environment, while for people in pre-modern (also early modern and, to some extent, also present) times it was a necessity caused by relative scarcity of various products. In other words, people were generating very little waste mainly because they could have not afford not to do so and using food leftovers as a fodder for pigs or using scrap wood and irrecoverably damaged wooden elements as fuel was a way of saving oneself physically taxing work. Continuing the culinary example, internal organs were commonly eaten, because they were nutritious and throwing them away meant discarding food that could literally mean a difference between life and death, as natural famines were commonplace in some regions even as late as in early 20th century. On a side note, I would like to point out that avoiding internal organs is a chiefly American practice, as such animal products are still quite popular in many regional dishes around Europe (and possibly beyond) with intestines (used to pack sausage filling into), liver, kidneys and stomachs being the most popular ones, with brains and hearts being also used, but to less extent. Even blood is collected and used for blood sausages that are still very popular in England (black pudding), Germany or Poland. So this is more a cultural difference than a historical one.

The principle of maximized usage also applies to the use of other parts of the animals. Horn was a common substitute for glass in lanterns or windows, as well as a very popular and cheap decorative material. Hooves (another keratin product) were used for natural glue common in many crafting applications. Leather was relatively expensive material used for virtually anything that had to be elastic and durable - from waterproof clothing to saddles to wineskins. With relatively high cost of raising animals and small numbers of herds, using only the edible parts or only leather or hooves would be not economically viable.

On the other hand, people in the discussed periods were pretty much using some practices that were considered 'heavy-handed', such as burning and clearing forests to make space for arable land and harvest lumber for construction and charcoal. These practices though, due to localized demand and relatively small populations usually were not intense enough to destabilize the natural environment greatly, thus not propelling people to take any conservationist actions into consideration, although the deforestation became more and more noticeable since the late Middle Ages. On the other hand, this as well as the water pollution in larger cities was something that did not go unnoticed, as Pliny the Elder in his Historia Naturalis notices 'quoniam tamen ipsa materia accedimus ad reputationem eiusdem parentis et noxia: nostris eam criminibus urguemus nostramque culpa illi inputamus. genuit venena. set quis invenit illa praeter hominem? [...] nos et flumina inficimus et rerum naturae elementa, ipsumque quo vivitur in perniciem vertimus' [In the following considerations we might notice that the Earth gives off noxious substances, although it is us who are are attributing our transgressions to it. Earth indeed gives off poisons, but what is their origin if not the man himself [...] we we are contaminating rivers and other elements of nature, and we even spoil what we live in'] and, in a truly modern environmentalist manner he adds 'qua in parte primum omnium patrocinari terrae et adesse cunctorum parenti iuvat, quamquam inter initia operis defensae' ['Here I feel obliged to defend the Earth and support this common parent, like I did in the beginning of this work'].

The same can be said of the waste disposal, as majority of the trash produced by pre-modern societies was purely of natural origin and largely bio-degradable. One notable exception was, of course, ceramic vessels that, due to the manufacturing process, were hardly degradable (and thus of great value to modern archaeologists). This pottery, being both cheap and ubiquitous was closest thing pre-modern people could have considered 'disposable' and indeed, in heavily-populated areas remains of such objects could have created large landfills. One of the best examples of such places is Monte Testaccio in Rome, an artificial mound composed almost completely of the pottery remains and measuring roughly 200 by 100 meters at the base and 35 meters in height, amounting to almost 600.000 m^(3), although it is conjectured that it has been even bigger when it was still used, as part of the landfill is now located under ground level.

Last but not least, there is a problem of deforestation and resulting decrease of the number of animals. Although the problem was not commonly addressed in the pre-modern time, there is at least one important exception. England, being located on an island, was not a subject to animal migrations and slowly shrinking area of forests and popularity of hunts enjoyed by the nobility caused the wild boar, ubiquitous in Central Europe to this day, to go extinct in mid-14th century. An royal request for an unspecified number of boars from the Forest of Dean (undated but issued in the name of Edward II, who reigned in the years 1307-1322) could have not been fulfilled, suggesting that even in early 14th century the boars became near-extinct in England. It should be noted however, that the problem was noticed and the earliest re-introductory efforts have been taken by James VI of Scotland (James I of England) who imported large number of boars from France and released then in Windsor in the years 1608-1611, although small-scale local reintroduction attempts could have occurred in mid-16th century, as there were documented sightings of boars in e.g. Savernake Forest in 1540s. Such decisions however, were rather unpopular among commoners who were complaining about the danger and damage to the crops. Loss of habitat, hunting and domestication caused the wild boar to be extinct again in England in the end of 17th century, what changed only in the second half of 20th century.

​

Hughes, J.D., An Environmental History of the World. Routledge, London 2001

Hughes, J.D., Environmental Problems of the Greeks and Romans: Ecology in the Ancient Mediterranean. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014.

Goulding, M., Wild Boar in Britain, Whittet Books, Stowmarket 2003.

Peña, J.T., Roman pottery in the archaeological record. Cambridge University Press, 2007.

You already have two good answers here, and /u/restricteddata already gave the most important bit imo in the sense that "it depends on what you consider environmentally friendly", so while writing this I felt like maybe this is wasted effort. But I'd still like to add some examples about why most statements about "sustainability" tend to be very poor and suffer from lack of methodology, and of bad use of the word "sustainability" in general, because it's my favorite meaningless buzzword and I like to make fun of it! Let me preface this by saying that I know there's of course plenty of legit, well-done, scientific research going on about the environmental impact of humans and sustainability. I'm not so much poking at that at as I am poking at various media, corporations, masses and organizations that rely on emotions, scare-mongering and that have turned "sustainability" and "green" and "environment" into buzzwords without clear definitions, to be slapped unto anything they want to promote.

You're definitely right in your suspicions of primitive farming being closer to nature and therefor better. Such a reasoning is more founded on common tropes, emotional plays, fear of the unknown (e.g. anything that requires some basic knowledge to understand: GMO's, pesticides, fertilizer, factories. These words alone are nowadays often associated with "evil" simply because people are uninformed or even misinformed), and declinistic thinking that opposes the "big bad scientists and secret governments", rather than actual properly acquired and analysed data, and when any actual statistics are involved, it's generally cherry-picked, misused ones.^1

As a quick counter-example to any claims of the superiority primitive farming therefor, I'll state that yields of a modern farm can sustain around 3,000 people per km^2 of farming land, compared to the most omnipresent and most primitive farming techniques of all time: the slash-and-burn method, which can sustain around 30 people per km^2 before it critically over-exploits the land and carrying capacity drop to lower than that. This hundred-fold increase in productivity means that, compared to a primitive subsistence farmer (who, btw works very organically and without GMO's), a modern person could consume/waste a whole cow every week and still end up more efficient, and thus more "sustainable" in terms of land-usage than a primitive person.

Of course that's just if you select land-usage as your definition of "sustainable". What else could we consider "sustainable"? A typical claim for "unsustainable" is the ubiquitous use of claims of the water usage of various production methods, crops and fodder for animals. The stated amount of liters water that is supposedly "spent" on a crop or piece of meat for example is never literally tap water sprayed unto the land; it's "virtual water" usage, which can even be 100% rainwater that would otherwise have ran into the river and then into the sea. That would-be-seawater still ends up as an infographic to convince people on social media that X is bad because it uses water. The reality of the actual impact on carbon footprint, energy usage, flora and fauna, et cetera, meanwhile is lost, because it is too complex and not very catchy. The worst thing about this is that substantial problems can and do definitely exist with water usage in some places. But the blanket statements and abuse of numbers that has become commonplace stains any honest attempts at raising awareness to the truly big problems.

What if we use the aforementioned virtual water usage as a criterium? Well, then the primitive human was an absolute jerk to the environment for sure! A typical hunter-gatherer is estimated to have needed anywhere ranging from 0.4-1400 km^2 per person to sustain themselves^2 which for a relatively temperate climate (900 mm annually) means he consumes over 1,300,000 liters of water annually, or 3694 liters per day, just for his food production! Compare that to the 3,000^3 liters a modern person uses, and we've apparently improved despite not being hungry half the time and eating lots of meat! Apparently we've become more "sustainable"? It gets worse if I improve my cherry-picking-fu by looking only at a hunter-gatherer in a very harsh climate who needs 1000 km^2 . He needs about 800,000 liters daily; or about 250 times as much as a modern person. We're 250 times more "sustainable" now!

Alright, obviously that's all skewered. But what metric isn't? The delving of ore and production of metal is generally viewed as "not sustainable", because the deposits run out. Think that over for a second. If we refine copper into a wire and then throw it into the sea, did the copper atoms disappear of the face of the Earth? No, it's just that their extraction became unfeasible. The copper didn't go anywhere, it's still on the planet, just like the water we use for crops isn't disappearing. It's something we learn as a child yet we've collectively forgotten when the word "sustainable" comes rolling by. When a deposit runs out, what is actually meant is either the mass available for profitable extraction is zero or the mass available to current production methods is zero. Generally the former, but it's conceivable that you could still extract the minerals albeit at a loss.^4 Using this metric, neither Copper age civilizations, nor Iron age or medieval people have been "sustainable". They all notoriously used surface deposits or very shallow, very rich mines, that were very limited in mass. If we consider "sustainable" to mean that we access long-term sources instead of short-term ones, then primitive civilizations were less "sustainable" than we are now. If instead we consider "sustainable"^5 to mean absolute usage of metals in tons, or usage per capita, then we are much less "sustainable" now. Which one is it?

I guess the point of this is that "sustainability" and "environmentally friendly" and all such terms really are useless if they are not defined clearly on the spot, and even when they are they are still pretty useless because everyone uses a different definitions anyway so a serious researcher won't really write about "Sustainability of steel foundries in Uzbekistan", no he will write about the "Carbon footprint of steel foundries in Uzbekistan" or the "Impact of alumina refinery residues on bathyal ecosystems". Being specific matters in literally every scientific discipline, and environmental research is no exception. This goes doubly for the difficult process of trying to draw comparisons between the past and present. A good comparison between the environmental impact of people in the past and the present is a multi-disciplinary project which requires expertise and a very clear scope. While it is moderately easy to draw some extremely narrow comparisons between two specifically picked average Joe's from a certain place and time (say: the average medieval peasant living somewhere near Cologne around the year 1500) about a single well-defined variable (such as the percentage of the slaughtered animal they used, CO2 production, or permanent deforestation, or non-degradable waste production), it is senseless to try and make a blanket statement about the "environmental friendliness" of "people from the past" versus "modern people" because there is no single definition of what is "environmentally friendly" or "sustainable" and there likely never will be.

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^1 ^(I know there's plenty of legit environmental research going on, this is just about the uneducated blog-writers and masses propagating misinformation)

^2 ^1.5 ^km ^^2 ^(is about the mean. Lower is for very lush environments and 1400 is for extremely harsh climates that solely depend on hunting)

^3 ^(Using some figure from FAO 2003. Don't actually use these calculations seriously. They are deliberately cherry-picked to prove a point about lack of scientific methodology)

^4 ^(When people scaremonger about how the global nickel/copper/REE/whatever reserves are going to "run out in X years", it's good to remember that almost every mineral reserve has been continually set to "run out in X years" for the past centuries now. It doesn't mean they actually will, because we find new ways to extract them or previous ones become profitable, so most reserves have actually grown. Even the global oil reserves are still growing and projected to grow a bit more, though fossil fuels are a special case because they are actually not "sustainable" in the sense that their value is in their chemical energy/molecular composition, not in their atoms, and thus in using them they do literally disappear of the face of the earth...)

^5 ^(I'm just going to keep on using those sarcastic quotation marks now)