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> pastoralism and agriculture? Which landmass / culture / epoch are you trying to describe here?

by Jedd 2y ago

helpfulContrib 2y ago
[dead]
Jedd 2y ago
@helpfulContrib - I can't reply your message directly. I'm not trying to deny anything. I'm sure there were pockets of what we (modern) might recognise as agriculture, though not pastoralism (for obvious reasons). My question was actually just what it looked like, an earnest question to chrisco255, replying to elmomie, about the context of their statements. GP seemed to be talking global, and so did parent - which would make sense in the context of climate change (a global phenomenon) and also massive human population growth (also mostly global, resulting form settlements / agriculture).
- chrisco255 2y ago
  Most estimates put the total global human population at less than 1 million prior to the end of the glacial period and the beginning of the Holocene. For most of the globe agriculture was not possible. While canines were probably domesticated in the glacial period, they served as hunting partners primarily. It's actually quite hard to build fencing over large amounts of land area (like sheep and cows require) that is capable of keeping animals in, unless you have metal to cut wood with. The United States had open cattle ranging until barbed wire was invented in the 1870s, since it was too difficult to fence. And open ranging was only possible after horse domestication. We also do not see evidence of grain domestication or any kind of real farming until the start of the Holocene 10K-12K years ago. The climate was not particularly friendly to farming, and without access to metal, farming is orders of magnitude more difficult. The original article is about Australia alone, and 45K years ago, Australia probably had a human population in the low thousands, with it being on the frontier of human expansion at the time. There is no evidence of massive human population at that time or any time before 12K years ago. In fact, there's several population bottlenecks where they think the total number of humans alive globally was around a few thousand. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9650103/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9650103/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18922561/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18922561/
  - Jedd 2y ago
    This is good - in that it aligns with my understanding (though my knowledge was not that detailed on timeline, context, and figures - thank you for those). I know living, brush, or ha-ha type fences would have been possible - but agree all of those were easier with some metal utensils.

> pastoralism and agriculture? Which landmass / culture / epoch are you trying to describe here?

by Jedd 2y ago

> pastoralism and agriculture? Which landmass / culture / epoch are you trying to describe here?

helpfulContrib 2y ago

[dead]

Jedd 2y ago

@helpfulContrib - I can't reply your message directly. I'm not trying to deny anything. I'm sure there were pockets of what we (modern) might recognise as agriculture, though not pastoralism (for obvious reasons). My question was actually just what it looked like, an earnest question to chrisco255, replying to elmomie, about the context of their statements. GP seemed to be talking global, and so did parent - which would make sense in the context of climate change (a global phenomenon) and also massive human population growth (also mostly global, resulting form settlements / agriculture).

chrisco255 2y ago
Most estimates put the total global human population at less than 1 million prior to the end of the glacial period and the beginning of the Holocene. For most of the globe agriculture was not possible. While canines were probably domesticated in the glacial period, they served as hunting partners primarily. It's actually quite hard to build fencing over large amounts of land area (like sheep and cows require) that is capable of keeping animals in, unless you have metal to cut wood with. The United States had open cattle ranging until barbed wire was invented in the 1870s, since it was too difficult to fence. And open ranging was only possible after horse domestication. We also do not see evidence of grain domestication or any kind of real farming until the start of the Holocene 10K-12K years ago. The climate was not particularly friendly to farming, and without access to metal, farming is orders of magnitude more difficult. The original article is about Australia alone, and 45K years ago, Australia probably had a human population in the low thousands, with it being on the frontier of human expansion at the time. There is no evidence of massive human population at that time or any time before 12K years ago. In fact, there's several population bottlenecks where they think the total number of humans alive globally was around a few thousand. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9650103/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9650103/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18922561/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18922561/
- Jedd 2y ago
  This is good - in that it aligns with my understanding (though my knowledge was not that detailed on timeline, context, and figures - thank you for those). I know living, brush, or ha-ha type fences would have been possible - but agree all of those were easier with some metal utensils.