What humans were doing for 200k years?

[Snip3r]

if the first known human fossil is 200k years old why the earliest known human civilisation is just few thousand years old? Why there was no reasonable developments for a very large time like 190k years?

 

[thorium1010]

if the first known human fossil is 200k years old why the earliest known human civilisation is just few thousand years old? Why there was no reasonable developments for a very large time like 190k years?

It is not possible to know what factors that led to human civilization. One main factor would be development of agriculture (ability to grow our own food) which helped us to settle down in various parts of the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture

 

[jim mcnamara]

Some bad environmental changes occurred during that period. Glaciation.
Places that were not under ice had different climates then than now. The Sahara desert was not dry like it is now.
http://www.livescience.com/21070-green-sahara-hosted-african-dairy-farms.html

For part of the time humans were dying off and migrating away from the last Ice Age.
Things began to thaw about 11000BCE, and human populations began to recover afterward. As mentioned above, agriculture is a requisite for "reasonable developments". Most known artifacts of early human agriculture are pretty recent -- after the last Ice Age.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

For most of that period, humans existed in hunter-gatherer societies. The formation of civilizations required a number of technological developments (e.g. agriculture, domestication of animals) that not only required time to develop, but also the right geographical circumstances. Jared Diamond's book Guns, Germs, and Steel discusses how these factors allowed for civilizations to develop in some places in the world (Eurasia) but not others (Africa and the Americas).

 

[Evo]

if the first known human fossil is 200k years old why the earliest known human civilisation is just few thousand years old?

Spear points made 500,000 years ago have been found.

Archaeologists Identify Oldest Spear Points: Used in Hunting Half-Million Years Ago

Nov. 15, 2012 — A collaborative study involving researchers at Arizona State University, the University of Toronto, and the University of Cape Town found that human ancestors were making stone-tipped weapons 500,000 years ago at the South African archaeological site of Kathu Pan 1 -- 200,000 years earlier than previously thought. This study, "Evidence for Early Hafted Hunting Technology," is published in the November 16 issue of the journal Science.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/11/121115141542.htm

Oldest evidence for processing of wild cereals: starch grains from barley, wheat, on Paleolithic grinding stone

When the water level in the Sea of Galilee dropped in 1989, archaeologists rushed to excavate Ohalo II, an ancient human settlement. On the floor of one hut they found a large, flat, basaltic stone. The stone’s uneven surface yielded starch grains of grass seeds, mostly from wild barley and possibly also from wheat. This evidence presented in the journal Nature (August 5, 2004), pushes back the date for the processing of close wild relatives of domesticated wheat and barley, a key step in cultural development, to 23,000 years before the present era. “Ten thousand years before people were cultivating cereals, they were processing wild barley: starch grain analysis establishes a clear link between an intensive exploitation of wild cereals and the subsequent development of plant cultivation and domestication in the region ” explains Dolores Piperno, lead author.

http://www.stri.si.edu/english/about_stri/media/press_releases/PDFs/oldest_evidence_wild_cereals.pdf

Grinding stones for other substances have been dated 40,000 years ago.

 

[Darwin123]

It is not possible to know what factors that led to human civilization. One main factor would be development of agriculture (ability to grow our own food) which helped us to settle down in various parts of the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture

Are we talking about technology or civilization?

Agriculture and animal husbandry allowed us to grow our own food. People have to work together in keep herds of animals together.

Many large communities feed themselves through fishing. Fishing is often associated with high technology. Fishing was probably a large incentive toward technological development even during the last ice age.

The major thing that changed is the end of the last ice age. Then agriculture, and husbandry became possible. However, some of the infrastructure for civilization started during the last ice age through fishing.

The Clovis people developed a rich culture during the last ice age. Presumably, they developed it through fishing. They probably didn't have animal husbandry or agriculture.

 

[nkalanaga]

Another theory I read recently was that the limit was population density. Hunter-gatherers lived in small, widely spaced groups, making it harder for new ideas to spread. Once the population density of an area reached a level where groups met frequently, rather than just through traveling individuals, cultural and technological changes spread more rapidly. This, in turn, may have led to the development of "civilization", at least partly by the need for better conflict-resolution methods.

For what it's worth, "civilization" originally meant "living in cities", which requires high population densities, at least locally. Of course, in modern usage, it's possible to be civilized without urban areas.

 

[Andy Resnick]

if the first known human fossil is 200k years old why the earliest known human civilisation is just few thousand years old? Why there was no reasonable developments for a very large time like 190k years?

Mostly they were spending all their time on social networks.

 

[Snip3r]

thx all for your replies!

Mostly they were spending all their time on social networks.

haha...very funny

by this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_historic_inventions i see the number of inventions are exponential for every 3k years...does it mean people are becoming exponentialy intelligent?ofcourse that's just a speculation!

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Another theory I read recently was that the limit was population density. Hunter-gatherers lived in small, widely spaced groups, making it harder for new ideas to spread. Once the population density of an area reached a level where groups met frequently, rather than just through traveling individuals, cultural and technological changes spread more rapidly. This, in turn, may have led to the development of "civilization", at least partly by the need for better conflict-resolution methods.

For what it's worth, "civilization" originally meant "living in cities", which requires high population densities, at least locally. Of course, in modern usage, it's possible to be civilized without urban areas.

Hunting/gathering is a very inefficient means of procuring food, so it is incapable of sustaining large, immobile societies. The development of animal husbandry and agriculture greatly increased the efficiency with which societies could produce food, allowing for larger population densities. More importantly, the increased efficiency of food production also enabled specialization. As only a small fraction of the population needed to work for food production, agrarian societies could dedicate a larger amount of the population toward non-food-producing pursuits such as government or science.

This is of course a great simplification of what happened, but I think it offers a better explanation for the greater rates of technological innovation in agrarian societies versus nomadic societies than your population density argument.

 

[nkalanaga]

Ygggdrasil: Your point about hunter-gather cultures being unable to support large populations is quite true, and actually fits with the theory I mentioned, which wasn't actually my idea. If relatively dense populations are required for rapid advancement, H-G societies would be incapable of such advancement, both because of limited population (fewer people to have ideas, less free time to develop them), and because of limited contacts (each group would have to develop their own ideas, rather than borrowing from others).

 

[jeannvk]

No, No No... they were learning to make beer.

Civilization all started when they developed a method to make a consistent brew.

Then reasoned out that if they replanted the bigger grains, the field would produce more.

( modern agriculture - domestication of wheat )

then some had to stay and protect the crop from herbivores, and while passing time, built a more permament shelter ( early villages )

Plus a better method of storing the grain, and bigger vessels to brew and store it in (pottery)

and then hunter gatherers came to barter for the beer, so the village expanded and planted more ( trade routes developed. )

 

[nkalanaga]

Jeannvk: That's probably at least partly true, as every culture ever to develop grain-based agriculture made beer from the grain, and apparently from the very beginning of the culture. Not only is beer fun to drink, but brewing it sterilizes the (often unsafe) water, and the yeast adds vitamins that aren't found in the grain.

Whiskey making in Appalachia started for much the same reason. The settlers west of the mountains could grow a lot of corn, but it was hard to ship to the cities on the east side. Barrels of whiskey were easier to ship, and sold for more money, so they turned the corn into moonshine.

 

[Darwin123]

No, No No... they were learning to make beer.

Civilization all started when they developed a method to make a consistent brew.

Then reasoned out that if they replanted the bigger grains, the field would produce more.

( modern agriculture - domestication of wheat )

then some had to stay and protect the crop from herbivores, and while passing time, built a more permament shelter ( early villages )

Plus a better method of storing the grain, and bigger vessels to brew and store it in (pottery)

and then hunter gatherers came to barter for the beer, so the village expanded and planted more ( trade routes developed. )

Partially true. Alcoholic beverages made agriculture more practical.

One couldn't become fully dependent on agriculture unless one had a way to preserve the food over the winter, spring and summer. You could supplement your diet using agriculture, but it wouldn't pay to become a full time farmer unless the food could be preserved.

Alcoholic beverages can be kept for a long time. The alcohol kills microorganisms that would destroy the food. Of course, the alcohol also kills pathogens. So adding it to food protects one from food poisoning, somewhat. So they also make it possible to settle near water sources that aren't clean.

Note that alcoholic beverages would be more important as a way to preserve food then as a recreational drug. If you want a recreational drug, opium and marijuana are probably much better to cultivate. So the humorous implication of your comment is a little bit wrong.

Actually, I am not sure anymore. Were poppies and hemp cultivated earlier or later then food crops? Don't hunters and gatherers have their own recreational drugs which don't need cultivation? I know that some American Indians were smoking tobacco without cultivating it.

 

[Evo]

Partially true. Alcoholic beverages made agriculture more practical.

One couldn't become fully dependent on agriculture unless one had a way to preserve the food over the winter, spring and summer. You could supplement your diet using agriculture, but it wouldn't pay to become a full time farmer unless the food could be preserved.

Alcoholic beverages can be kept for a long time. The alcohol kills microorganisms that would destroy the food. Of course, the alcohol also kills pathogens. So adding it to food protects one from food poisoning, somewhat. So they also make it possible to settle near water sources that aren't clean.

Note that alcoholic beverages would be more important as a way to preserve food then as a recreational drug. If you want a recreational drug, opium and marijuana are probably much better to cultivate. So the humorous implication of your comment is a little bit wrong.

Actually, I am not sure anymore. Were poppies and hemp cultivated earlier or later then food crops? Don't hunters and gatherers have their own recreational drugs which don't need cultivation? I know that some American Indians were smoking tobacco without cultivating it.

They drank beer for thousands of years because it was often the only safe source of "water". It wasn't strong beer and even children drank it in many cultures.

 

[nkalanaga]

Cannabis doesn't have to be cultivated. It grows very nicely on its own. Also, the original wild variety really wasn't much good as a recreational drug. It would make you a little mellow, but that was about it.

 

[turbo]

We should bear in mind that for a long time beer was fermented by naturally-occurring yeasts in the air. It is quite likely that the "bottom" (sediment) from such beers became the preferred leavening agent for the first risen breads. I like flat-breads, but after a few millenia of that, it must have been nice to have had access to some risen breads that were crusty and dependably chewy, not to mention long-lived and portable. Some of these developments in food-production were probably quite pivotal to allowing people to move longer distances and provision themselves during their travels.

 

[Chronos]

Humans were brought to the brink of extinction about 70k years ago by the Toba supervolcano eruption. Chances are, that also erased whatever prior cultural advancements that had been achieved. A series of ice ages thereafter did little to improve the human condition until the end of the last ice age about 11,000 years ago. When you are fighting day to day for your next meal, pondering 'big' issues is not a priority. Writing did not emerge until around 7000 years ago, when priveleged members of society had the luxury of not worrying about their next meal. Knowledge that did not impart essential survival skills did not persist prior to that time. Humans have done a remarkable job of archiving knowledge since then.

 

[nkalanaga]

Turbo: I hadn't thought of that. I knew that beer and bread yeasts were basically the same varieties, but hadn't made the connection to leavened bread. Interesting thought.

Chronos: The Toba eruption definitely had an impact, but the Ice Ages shouldn't have been an issue for humans in tropical and subtropical regions. Even the southern US had a temperate climate during the worst of them, and Africa was arguably better off than today.

 

[stargazer3]

Uhm, I hope I'll be able to add something to the discussion. As far as I know, a society relies almost completely on specialists for the development of civilization (let's just pretend that technolical progress equals civilization development). The specialists are the people who are contributing to their societies in a very specific way (as blacksmiths, warriors, priests, etc.), and often rely on other classes for their daily needs.

My point is that for the hunter-gatherer societies (we still have a few to check on), there are no specialists, the reason being, as already said, population density and nomadic way of life. When you live in a small group of hunters, no one needs to be goverened (conflicts are resolved in a "friendly" manner), and everybody should know how to get provision for the group, otherwise you're a drag.

Therefore, the question of "why hunter-gatherer societies didn't become technologically advanced over the past 200k years?" can be reduced to "so what stopped them from settling down?". And the answer to that one could be the huge amount of meat walking about for the past millennia (well, now I'm just openly quoting Diamond here).

Disclamer: my major is far from humanities, so if I'm bending the facts, please do hit me with something heavy, preferably a text reference :)

Offtopic-ish edit: Also, it would be very cool to write a heroic fantasy setting taking part directly before the Toba catastrophe. I think I now have an idea for a D&D campaign.

 

[nkalanaga]

Stargazer3: I suspect "easy food" was part of the reason. Any organism is lazy, in that it doesn't use more energy than needed. Farming is much harder work than hunting or gathering, assuming that the wild foods are plentiful. Basically, either one requires walking around with ones friends for a while. If the weather is bad, or one just doesn't feel like hunting, eat yesterday's cold roast, or grab some berries. The deer will be there tomorrow.

Farming is a job, and has to be done every day, whether one feels like it or not, or the crops won't be harvested and one will starve. The first culture to discover agriculture, as we know it, also invented real work.

Many cultures have a creation story involving humans being evicted from somewhere they didn't have to work. Could those be "memories" of the switch from hunter-gatherer to farming?

 

[Ygggdrasil]

The transition from a nomadic hunter-gatherer society to a settled agrarian society is still very much an open question and there are many hypotheses for the factors involved in the transition (see for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neolithic_Revolution). One explanation has to do with climate. The beginning of the Neolithic age (around 6000 BCE) saw much warmer climates throughout the world and Europe especially. This led to a great abundance of resources throughout Europe so that the hunter-gatherer societies did not need to cover as large an area to find sufficient resources. Thus, counterintiitively, more plentiful resources may have enabled hunter-gatherers to settle in particularly resource rich areas (http://web.mesacc.edu/dept/d10/asb/lifeways/hg_ag/transition.html has a nice discussion of this hypothesis). Indeed, this idea is consistent with nkalanaga's laziness principle. Why live nomadically when you can just find an area with plentiful game and wild plants and settle down there?

Once settled these societies could then begin to experiment with domesticating plants and animals and eventually invent agriculture. Farming could then spread throughout either through adoption by other societies or conquest (as agrarian societies can support much higher population densities, they would have a competitive advantage over hunter-gatherer societies).

 

[stargazer3]

nkalanaga, I disagree with you that hunting is easier than farming. Of course, I've never tried hunting down anything bigger than me with crude stone tools, nor did I do lots of farming. Nevertheless, if, as you say, wild food is plentiful, there will be more people around to eat it, making both hunting and gathering a competitive job at least. As food disappears, you have to endure migration together with population decrease (if the predator-pray model can be applied here).

As for farming, it is not necessarily an everyday job. For example, back where I'm from the ground freezes during the winter, making farming impossible. That's we we have so many winter holidays:) Of course, agriculture wasn't born in such a climate.

There is another thing to consider: we now take domesticated crops for granted, but back then switching to farming might not have been evident, since no one could've known what good will come out of those little wild weeds.

I also think that before saying that something isn't a real work one should try it for himself, no offence meant:)

 

[Ygggdrasil]

From the link I posted above:

It is a common misconception that huntergatherers must live in straitened circumstances, on the brink of starvation and malnutrition. One should keep in mind that present-day hunter-gatherers are restricted to regions such as semi-deserts and arctic areas-the least hospitable regions on Earth. Modern studies of such societies have shown that the opposite is the case, and that they normally have a very stable supply of food, often with a large surplus. The !Kung Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, in Botswana, whose technology is similar to that of the Mesolithic hunter-gatherers of Europe, provide a good example. In this dry desert area, they not only successfully manage their food supply, but can also afford to be very selective when gathering edible plants. It has been estimated that the !Kung collect and eat only about one-quarter of the plant species available, and that they spend only two or three hours a dav searching for food - less than 20 hours a week.

 

[nkalanaga]

Stargazer3: To go with Ygggdrasil's comment on how long !Kung spend on hunting, I'm also going by comments from hunters I've worked with. If hunting was a difficult activity, I doubt that so many modern humans would do it for fun.

Ygggdrasil's comments on population density in Neolithic cultures goes back to my earlier post. Not only could they domesticate plants more easily if they could remain in one place, but, as he said, the abundant resources would support more people, allowing for more new ideas, and easier spread of those ideas.

I doubt that there was anyone reason for the sudden development of civilization after the Ice Age, but rather a number of factors all came together in the areas where it first appeared.

 

[stargazer3]

Ygggdrasil, thanks, that clears it up a little bit. However, I'm still confused about natural food sources depletion. So these groups we're talking about actually not only controlled the food sources, but also their population numbers? I thought it was natural to assume that if you have food abundance and everyone is well fed, there'll be more children born, leading to more balanced (and competitive) life for the h&g societies.

nkalanaga, but modern humans are using modern technologies for hunting! unless your hunter fellows use stone axes and crude bows, I don't think it's fair to compare.

Overall I agree that I may have been a victim of misconception. If hunting and gathering is easier than I thought, it makes even more sense to me that agricultural sites did not appear until ~7000BC.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Part of the answer re: resource depletion is that because children must physically be carried around with the group, there are inherent limit on the frequency with which women in these societies can bear children.

 

[enosis_]

Part of the answer re: resource depletion is that because children must physically be carried around with the group, there are inherent limit on the frequency with which women in these societies can bear children.

It seems reasonable the growth of the group would encourage cultivation or other resource management - perhaps even capture and breeding of animals?

 

[enosis_]

I just realized that money and sex aren't on top of the list.

 

[phungus420]

Stargazer3: I suspect "easy food" was part of the reason. Any organism is lazy, in that it doesn't use more energy than needed. Farming is much harder work than hunting or gathering, assuming that the wild foods are plentiful. Basically, either one requires walking around with ones friends for a while. If the weather is bad, or one just doesn't feel like hunting, eat yesterday's cold roast, or grab some berries. The deer will be there tomorrow.

Farming is a job, and has to be done every day, whether one feels like it or not, or the crops won't be harvested and one will starve. The first culture to discover agriculture, as we know it, also invented real work.

Many cultures have a creation story involving humans being evicted from somewhere they didn't have to work. Could those be "memories" of the switch from hunter-gatherer to farming?

Bingo.

The predominant view, that agriculture lead to higher population densities doesn't fit the facts. Agriculture developed in areas where population density got so high (the river valleys) that agriculture became the only way to sustain the population. People were planting seeds and selectively breeding for tens of thousands of years before sustained agriculture took hold. People just didn't farm because they didn't have to, and only started doing it when it became necessary. Also you see the rise of a ruling warrior caste at the same time, presumably to keep people doing the crappy work of farming.