12 ms·
It amazes me that ancient people put up with such harsh conditions. Why not just move south, where it's warmer. I suppose part of the issue is lack of knowledge
by jayess 11y ago
It amazes me that ancient people put up with such harsh conditions. Why not just move south, where it's warmer. I suppose part of the issue is lack of knowledge of other places, but still. Why stay in such a harsh, difficult place?
- pc86 11y agoIf it's all you know you don't necessarily have any reason to believe it's any better elsewhere. And moving is probably more dangerous than staying put assuming you have relative shelter and food.
- DamnYuppie 11y agoI don't totally disagree with your sentiment yet I am sure these people traveled extensively across their ranges. If by staying put you meant "confined their travels to the known habitats of their prey" then I will agree with you. I do agree that after generations of following their prey knowledge of warmer or different climates would fade from their collective conscious.
- pc86 11y agoThat is definitely a better way to put what I meant, yes.
- euyyn 11y agoStill at some point they did move up there. We come from Africa, where it's cozy.
- bluedino 11y agoLess competition and more resources if you adapt.
- ehmorris 11y agoIt's almost better to ask this question of people living now
- strictnein 11y agoCold weather keeps the Californians away.
- crygin 11y agoArchaeological evidence indicates that the Inuit were generally involved in trade and border disputes with First Nations groups living south of the Arctic tree line. The "modern" Inuit that made contact with Europeans were a much smaller, more homogenous group than existed mere hundreds of years earlier, after being collectively forced to move south during the Little Ice Age.
- beat 11y agoFood. Colder climates often produce an abundance of food, relative to warmer climes, and less competition. Mammoths, specifically, are terrific targets. Bringing down just one could feed a tribe for weeks, and they had almost no other predators. And besides food, the carcass had an abundance of skin and fur, powerful tendons for "rope", ivory that could be carved into more subtle shapes than stone - all sorts of uses, relative to small game. A rabbit might feed a family one day, and you're competing with all sorts of dogs, cats, and predatory rodents for them. The human survival advantage is primarily intelligence. Intelligence is what made it possible for a coordinated, armed group of human hunters to bring down mammoths, when even sabertooth tigers and wolf packs couldn't do it. No competition for the biggest food source on legs? That's a huge win from a survival perspective.
- beat 11y agoI should add that the tribes who lived in the frozen lands eventually went out to sea and became whale hunters - an even larger food source, with even less competition.
- contingencies 11y agoIn addition to being easier to work, ivory is lighter than stone and wears differently / lasts longer than wood: important if you are surviving by nomadic hunting practices in an extremely hostile environment. Skin boats, which were eventually perfected by arctic peoples, used bones or ivory for structure.
- cgh 11y agoSpeaking as a hunter, your assertion that northern climates (I live in the north) produce more game is false. Deer populations, to use one example, thrive in warm temps. Also, compare the African savannah and its abundance of game animals to, say, northern Canada. The real reasons are probably topography and game habits. The north is generally pretty flat and the ground is often frozen, making travel easy. And in cold temperatures, game often clusters together for warmth and follows predictable movement patterns because there are only so many places to find food. And finally, snow makes it easy to track game of any size. These are all important in modern hunting too. Not much has really changed in that regard.
- flubert 11y ago>Why not just move south It seems like the real question is, why move north in the first place? Following big game? Sick of your war-mongering neighbors to the south? Less competition for resources?
- tosseraccount 11y agoLess communicable disease?
- PhasmaFelis 11y agoHumans have always tended to sprawl out. Arguably, all successful animals do as they reach the carrying capacity of their local environment and seek out adjacent territories. I don't think they were moving fast or far enough to notice the weather changing; by the time the next generation comes of age, a slightly colder climate is just "how it's always been." Repeat until Arctic.
- dsfyu404ed 11y agoIt's not harsh if it's all you know.
- lawpoop 11y agoProbably because of the other people already living there.
- melling 11y agoWhat amazes me is that people can't imagine how primitive the world must have been 45,000 years ago. How far back does recorded history go? 6000-8000 years? 600 years ago most humans thought the world was flat. There's some crazy statistic that 80% of Americans live within 50 or 100 miles where they were born.
- ashark 11y ago> There's some crazy statistic that 80% of Americans live within 50 or 100 miles where they were born. Family/social ties are a hell of a thing.
- mc32 11y agoI think the narrative that most humans thought the world was flat would be like 600 years hence people thinking most humans in 2016 believed climate change to be a conspiracy. What we have is surviving evidence from a few people thought the world flat. But that evidence does not necessarily reflect popular belief. Also for people inland, they may not even have had a reason to entertain the idea at all. That is most people may not have even considered the question. Obviously lots of early seafaring peoples held no such beliefs. Greeks, Phoenicians, Vikings, middle eastern traders, chinese traders, etc...
- melling 11y agoSo, 70% thought the world was round? http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/american-opinions-on-global-warming-a-yale-gallup-clearvision-poll http://environment.yale.edu/climate-communication/article/am... You would have thought countries would have claimed the New World a lot earlier.
- boxy310 11y agoThe main skepticism regarding Columbus was that they knew the Earth was much larger than what Columbus was projecting. It would be a generation before we had the technology and infrastructure to circumnavigate the globe by piggybacking off islands and friendly ports; to attempt to do so over what was assumed to be completely open waters in 1492 was tantamount to suicide. If Columbus hadn't stumbled upon the Bahamas when he did, his crew very likely would've died.
- Jtsummers 11y agoYou have to know that there's a better place to go to, or have a need/drive to move. If you find a local maxima (shelter and food are available, breeding is still feasible) and everywhere around you seems worse, why would you travel through those harsh conditions without the certainty that there was something better elsewhere?
- theklub 11y agoThere are people living there now, why not ask them? haha
- Gustomaximus 11y agoThe same could be said of people today. Many people have the option to move somewhere with better work/lifestyle options but where we are at holds us for reasons like family or simple inertia. Also likely there would be pre-existing tribes that would have some territorial ownership to good hunting/farming grounds, even if only used nomadically.
- Steko 11y agoThey came from the south. They moved north because it got crowded and no one was living there so game was relatively abundant.