Why didn't humanity advance pretty much at all between when they first evolved 200,000 BC and 10,000 BC
190,000 years of nothing.
>>859795
There weren't important enough population hotspots.
The more people you have the more you can pull more surplus resources together.
Farming played a pretty important part in this.
We did speed up a bit ~50,000 years ago (maybe due to the development/refining of language.
>>859795
my guess is ice ages
>>859795
We spread across the whole planet during that period, as well as mastering technologies such as fire and archery. Settling down doesn't work without crops, and the evidence suggests that no suitable crops existed before the neolithic. This could just be because that was when humans first started trying to cultivate them then, however.
It would be so damn lonely. The only people you would know in your short and possibly painful existence are your small tribe/family unit.
And then after 10,000 BC, we advanced everywhere at about the same rate.
It's pretty mind-blowing. I mean, people in the Middle East and people in New Guinea and people in Central America inventing agriculture independently within a few thousand years of each other?
Has anyone here read the 10,000 year explosion?
>>859795
Technological advancement, especially really early stuff like figuring out agriculture and metalworking, is largely trial and error/chance. With no means of communicating ideas across generations and large distances, it takes a while for anything to get done.
Incredibly relevant.
>>859795
Except they did advance, inventing things like needles, bows and arrows, spear throwers, new stone tools, methods to make fire, etc.
The problem was population density, and the inability to support many people who can devote their lives to figuring things out instead of just hunting and gathering. It was only after agriculture that we were able to reliably get enough excess calories available to support any sort of inventor or scholar or philosopher class.
>>859875
That's because of the retreating ice age and the climate becoming stable enough for long term agriculture to make sense.
>>859795
Development rate is roughly proportional to population size.
>>859894
Everyone knows population exploded in that time period, the question is why did it take so long to get there. That chart says nothing of the time periods we're discussing.
>>859999
Quads can't be wrong.
I thought we were also talking about the last ten thousand years too.
>>859972
I'm unable to back it up, but I've read early agricultural societies actually had less time on their hands. And I've read that one of the greatest benefits was just the safety in being able to stay put for longer periods of time.
>>860042
On average, yes. But there was a very slightly larger minority that was able to live off the caloric surplus now that the average person was doing more work.
>>859999
Agriculture, which was able to take root with the climate becoming more stable from the retreating ice age.
Ice age mother fucker.
>>859795
writing and the accumulation of knowledge
>>859871
It would the opposite of lonely. Being surrounded 24/7 by people you've known since birth and depend on to stay alive.
Modern society is the lonely thing. It's entirely possible to survive by having zero face-to-face contact with any human being for years.
>>860042
Well...
The idea that pre-agricultural humans were nomadic is not correct. They were mostly sedentary, unless you count a movement once every few generations, in response to changing conditions, as nomadic.
Pre-agricultural humans in historical times were mostly nomadic, but this is when agriculturalists controlled all the places that could support sedentary hunter-gatherers.
>>860046
The caloric surplus is the big one. Yes, farmers worked longer and had shittier lives, but there were far more of them.
>>860117
>They were mostly sedentary
>unless you count a movement once every few generations
Are you counting seasonal migrations within a particular region as sedentary? Like in the rainy season go to where food is plentiful and in drought stick close to water, when the salmon are spawning stay there for a few months etc.
>>859871
>muh huddled masses
please, the pains started with farming, before that people were healthier
>>859871
>It would be so damn lonely.
>The only people you would know in your short and possibly painful existence are your small tribe/family unit
Holy shit, pick one and only one you ignorant fool
>>860137
I think seasonal migrations are synonymous with hunter-gatherers in historical times.
In prehistoric times, the places where food is plentiful within a single year would have been within a few days walk. When these lands are being used by farmers, they have a higher population, and are more resistant to short-term crises, since they tend to have food stored.
