James Nicoll wrote:
> Yes, this is related to the Kill All Humans discussions elsewhere.
>
> POD: Ten thousand years ago.
>
> Faced with changing climates and having killed a considerable
> percentage of the large animals on Earth (or alternatively, the large
> animals having failed to deal with humans _and_ climate change), humans
> dig deep into their capacity for lifestyle innovation and come up
> with nothing. There is no neolithic revolution, no discovery of
> crops, no development of sedentry lifestyles. Instead, human population
> declines somewhat during the Younger Dryas and then rebounds, not
> unlike any other animal facing a temporary set-back.
>
> Human population world-wide remains at around five million.
>
> Now, does this actually prevent what we will call (to avoid
> heated arguments) the Sixth Extinction or does it just draw it out?
> Human populations with what appear to us to be fairly simple tool
> kits can still alter their environment: the Aborigines in Australia,
> for example, seem to have altered Australia rather handily with spears
> and fire.
>
> Some of the more interesting events of recent history would
> seem to be off the board: no eucalyptus in California, for example,
> and it seems unlikly that hunter-gathers* would introduce snakes to
> Guam.
>
>
> * Do they bypass agriculture and invent domestication? Vast herds
> but no farmers. Might have trade towns where the nomads exchange
> goods...
>
>
> --
> http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/immigrate/
> http://www.livejournal.com/users/james_nicoll
Well you got the POD right but the change-over was very gradual. This
week (April 15, 2006) Science News p 237 has an article on the wild
versus domesticated wheat in ancient sites in SE Turkey-N Syria
10,200 years ago no domesticated wheat
9,250 ya small amount of cultivated wheat
7,500 ya-6,00 ya progressively larger amounts of domesticated wheat.
Partial point is after 4,000 years some Near Eastern farmers continued
to tend and harvest wild wheat.
|
