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> When did the Tasmanian pre colonial people have crops? My 'they' in "they lost tech like crops" referred to the Canary Islanders, as discussed by OP where th
by gwern 3y ago
> When did the Tasmanian pre colonial people have crops?
My 'they' in "they lost tech like crops" referred to the Canary Islanders, as discussed by OP where the botanical evidence shows crops disappearing gradually over time.
- defrost 3y agoIf that was the case then to what parallel technology in Tasmania were you alluding to as "ratcheting downwards" ? Also, population growth in the early stages of human history was important to establish enough labour to create an "idle" (as in "people|time not spent scrabbling for food|clothing|shelter") class able to advance technology for progress. That's been increasingly non essential since post WWII with the rise of semi and fully autonomous mining | processing | production. Smaller and smaller numbers are people are required to extract resources and meet demand for what is a population excess wrt strain put on the planets environment an atmosphere by current and growing consumption demands.