Hi Ray, I can't cope with the encyclopaedic detail of your last post, so let me try a potted history of mankind:
1. 100,000/50,000BC-30,000BC Appearance of modern man (Cro-Magnon version of Homo Sapiens) coming out of Africa and migrating preferentially along seacoasts and up to the edge of the retreating Ice Age across EurAsia. Small group social structure. Stone and bone tools, including primitive hunting spear. Variety of hunting methods according to various habitats. Consecutive inter-group trade of absolutely essential materials such as salt to enable migration to succeed. Beginnings of art (ornaments and instructional cave drawings), music (bone flutes) and probably prose (oral history). 2. 30,000BC-20,000BC Discovery and use of spring-loaded hunting spear (atlatl) enabling large animals to be systematically hunted and the beginning of extinction of many large grazing species. Migration of man across all of EurAsia, necessitating considerable development of trade, including important local-consecutive trading in obsidian (volcanic stone capable of sharp edges) and various varieties of wood for different tools and weapons. 3. 20,000BC-11,000BC Further development of atlatl into the bow-and-arrow enabling smaller animals and competitive predators to be systematically hunted and many made extinct or scarce. Migration across EurAsia into the Americas. 4. 11,000BC-10,000BC Sudden lowering of temperature by 10 degrees C. Not enough is yet known about habits/population of man during this important climatic period, but probably a mixed regime of hunting and early development of primitive agriculture. 5. 10,000BC-circa 1600AD Resumption of "normal" inter-Glacial temperatures. Agricultural Revolution. Systematic breeding of a small number of pacific grazing animals and species of cereals. Foundation of large hierarchical empires. Huge increase in world population. Gradual evolution of local-consecutive trading into long-distance caravan and ship-based trading. Migration to every habitatable island on earth (with the accidental exception of Madagaskar). Diminution of normal height and weight of the average man in agricultrual regimes. Brief, local attempts at industrialisation in China and elsewhere. Extensive ship-based trade along coastlines of empires/cultures -- Chinese, Arabic, Mediterranean. The arts also flowered enormously on the basis of this prosperity. 6. 1600AD-2000AD The Enlightenment and systematic start of the scientific method leading to Industrial Revolution. Gradual stabilisation of population in developed countries only and the gradual regaining of normal height and weight. Medical improvements in undeveloped agricultural-based countries causing further boost to already over-large populations. Beginning of breeding of his own species (starting with weeding out Downs Syndrome, etc, at foetal stage). World-wide ship-based trade. Several developed and undeveloped countries on verge of steep population decline due to man-induced illness of Aids. Realisation that another Ice Age is due, mainly due to changes in large oceanic currents but perhaps delayed by global warming possibly produced by CO2 from extensive fossil-fuel use. First ventures into space. 7. 2000AD- Sudden realisation that mankind, and possibly most species on earth, face inevitable extinction from either super-volcanoes and/or asteroids of 15-20 kilometre size and above. Serious discussion of possible migration to artificial or existing habitats to enable man to survive and, probably, rapid evolution of new species of mankind as a result. ----- The above is off the top of my head during my morning pot of tea and I'd welcome corrections from FWers. Keith Hudson __________________________________________________________ �Writers used to write because they had something to say; now they write in order to discover if they have something to say.� John D. Barrow _________________________________________________ Keith Hudson, Bath, England; e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _________________________________________________
