# How many years would it take to go from nothing to 2010 technology? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 12, 2010, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149 "2010-05-12T05:19:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/61 "2010-05-13T15:59:25Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Oh, gods, listen to me - I sound like Guy from _Galaxy Quest_ - “Can you construct some sort of rudimentary lathe?” (I can, BTW). > > But the fact is, a lot of the objections I’m seeing amount to the argument from incredulity. Just because some of you can’t conceive of someone building something from scratch, doesn’t mean no-one can, or actually has. . Oh, I can and do BELIEVE it, because I know people have done it. Hell, people have done it when they had to figure out how to do it without knowing how to do it, much less knowing the basic science upon which the workable techniques were based upon. Our ancestors were a bunch of clever, hard working frackers. IMO the HARD work is what some of you folks are glossing over. And not even hard work in the sweat of your brow sense. Hard work in that it just takes a long damn time to get so much accomplished when its all by hand and starting from absolute scratch. And thats even assuming no worries about food, injury, less than perfectly distributed/accessible resources, and the random chupacabre attack in the middle of night. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 4:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/62 "2010-05-13T16:28:26Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I could have a house at the same time, too, but it’d be more like [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rondavel). That’s exactly the sort of house you should be building (minus the glass windows of course), assuming you’re in an environment similar to southern Africa. With a bit of work you can have a comfortable waterproof and windproof and big-cat-resistant house using the techniques that local people used. But your house isn’t going to be a modern stickbuilt house made out of two by fours and sheetrock and bricks and indoor plumbing. But it’ll be a perfectly serviceable house. Around where I live I’d have a big problem collecting rocks for the walls to build a house that style, and I’d be much more worried about the roof. Staying dry through the winter would be the challenge. Five straight months of 1-5C and drizzle means hypothermia is a real problem, even worse here than in places with a proper winter, because snow is dry and drizzle isn’t. So you getting to start out in southern Africa is really cheating, because that’s where humans evolved, after all. I also think we have a mistaken idea about how hard it would be to hunt. Modern hunter-gatherers tend to live on marginal land, because agriculturalists took over all the really rich places. If we’re imagining a counter-earth where humans never evolved, we’d be shocked by the density of wildlife. If our colonists get sent to counter-New Zealand they wouldn’t even have to hunt, just walk over to a herd of moas, club one on the head, and the others won’t even run away, just look at you curiously. Go to the San Francisco Bay, and you just need to stroll down to the beach and collect bucketsfull of seafood. And in most places the wildlife will have an instinctive reaction to land predators, unlike New Zealand, but they won’t have any idea how to cope with humans. So, the most productive hunting and gathering areas on earth were first turned into farms, then into cities. So ironically the easiest places to hunt would be wherever a big city is now located. ---
**Author:** ![Todderbob](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e47774/32.png) [@Todderbob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Todderbob)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/63 "2010-05-13T16:51:21Z")
> [@billfish678](#): > > Okay, A GOOD iron ore deposit then. I’ll take your word on being able to use any old crappy ore deposit to make some useable amounts of iron. > > But the premise you can build a modern like frame and construction house, with electric wiring, making EVERYTHING from scratch, in no time at all is a bit much. It took me MAN MONTHS just to REFURB a rental destroyed by crackheads. AND I had all the right modern tools and I could just run down to the store and buy shit. > > There is a reason houses cost good money. There is a lot of manpower involved. And not just the construction, the manpower in making all the materials. And as a society we have it down to a science, can greatly leverage off of economies of scale, and have modern/industrial tools to do it all with. > > If houses were easy, I could hire a illegal alien to build one from scratch using only local resources on my property in the mountains for 10 to 20 thousand dollars in compensation for a few months to a years worth of his time. As I said before, he might be able to swing a decent log cabin, or an adobe/rock house, but he aint doing a frame construction house with glass windows, wiring, plumbing, sheetrock, paint, and I guess even aluminum siding with an HDTV just starting with his bare hands. I was pretty unspecific about no Television, or aluminum siding – both of which are things that neccesitate a large industrial base. Also, HDTV’s are one of those things that use microprocessors, no? I was specific in my exclusion of all things using those. Running electric wiring was _possible_, although not necessarily probable. That’d be among the hardest parts. On the other hand, plumbing would be relatively easy. > [@xtisme](#): > > Yeah, that’s how the Japanese make iron that then has to be processed into steel. Have you actually ever seen it made this way? It’s not nearly as easy as you seem to think or are implying, and you need tools in order to work the nearly every phase of the process. Where are you going to get those tools from? You also need a LOT of wood (since essentially you are slow heating it over a long period of time…several days IIRC how the Japanese do it). If we go back to before Europeans settled America, not even before Humans did, wood was ridiculously abundant. As it was in Europe before we “tamed” it. > [@xtisme](#): > > Well, you must be superman is all I can say. You can forage for yourself AND build all this stuff at the same time? We’re being provided with magic food supplies, remember? > [@xtisme](#): > > what I doubt is that you could forage AND build the type of system and process you are talking about in anything like a short time frame. Then you should re-read the thread. We don’t have to provide food for ourselves anymore. > [@xtisme](#): > > You weren’t foraging for food while trying to build a foundry, shelter, tools and everything else. You HAD all that stuff…and then you made iron. Actually, we’re not foraging for food here, either. We need to set up basic shelter, but that would only take a week, at best. You don’t need to start out with a complex house. A small shelter would do you fine – you probably wont be doing much but sleeping there for quite a while. > [@xtisme](#): > > Because going straight to iron will require tools and materials far in advance of going to copper or bronze, of course, so it will be an easier first step. Once I have bronze or copper tools (which you could get making simple stone vessels, clay and stone tools) you could then use those to make more sophisticated tools and processes…including iron at some point. I don’t believe that one could jump from nothing to iron in any kind of reasonable time frame, even knowing how to process it. > > -XT It’s not even necessary to jump straight to iron. One could make the copper and stone tools required to process iron pretty quickly. Quickly enough that it can be done by one or two people while the others are in the process of setting up the foundry. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/64 "2010-05-13T17:03:21Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Yeah, that’s how the Japanese make iron that then has to be processed into steel. No, they get steel right away. > [@](#): > > Have you actually ever seen it made this way? Only on video. > [@](#): > > It’s not nearly as easy as you seem to think or are implying, and you need tools in order to work the nearly every phase of the process. I wouldn’t do it the Japanese way - too large scale. I have, on the other hand, seen and participated in making iron locally, using smaller furnaces made on traditional African models - around 60cm high, as much around, coiled clay lining, 2 tuyere holes. No tools needed other than sticks and stones. > [@](#): > > Where are you going to get those tools from? Sticks? They grow everywhere. > [@](#): > > You also need a LOT of wood (since essentially you are slow heating it over a long period of time…several days IIRC how the Japanese do it). Not wood, charcoal, but for making that first piece of iron, you only need a few cubic feet, and less than a day of smelting. > [@](#): > > You are going to make stone rakes and stone pokers and all the other stone implements you’d need in order to use this process for iron production?? No, I’m going to make a stone axe to cut the wood. I don’t need anything else, although some skins for bellows would be nice, there are other ways to get a draught into the furnace.I have no idea why you think I’d need a rake or poker. Once again, I’m not talking about a giant blast furnace here - are you aware of how bloomeries work? > [@](#): > > As for the hammer and tongs, you won’t need those until later Well, I’ll need them as soon as I want to process some of the iron into steel. That takes a combination of forge and hard hammering. > [@](#): > > …you are going to need a bunch of other stuff first. Like I said - some rocks, suitably shaped. Some stone tools - axes and adzes would be nice, but a knife at a minimum. Wood. Clay. > [@](#): > > Oh, it’s fairly easy to find all right. The problem is, it’s more technically challenging to actually process than you seem to think it is. Did you miss the bit where I said I’ve done this already? > [@](#): > > Which is why ancient peoples started with copper and later bronze, since both are easier to work with and require less technical skills and initial materials. Actually, while copper’s easier to find native, it’s technically harder to smelt than iron. You need to tap the furnace, you can’t just let it settle in a bloom like iron does. Ancient people started with copper because it occurs native and is easier to work than iron, as well as melting lower temps. But we’ve used iron as long as we’ve used bronze. Meteoric iron artefacts are not \*that \*rare. [And it wasn’t like there was a sudden switch.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_Age#Iron_use_in_the_Bronze_Age) And SubSaharan Africa never had a Bronze Age. The three-stage system is a Eurocentric simplification, not a deterministic cultural template. > [@](#): > > Well, you must be superman is all I can say. You can forage for yourself AND build all this stuff at the same time? Yes. If I was where I am now, geographically, but pre-human settlement, I could feed myself for the day with a couple of hours work. I’ve done it in exactly this environment in School of the Wilds. I’m a wild food nut. > [@](#): > > And you seem to be under the impression it’s easy, even without anything to start from. Or that hunters/gatherers are less sophisticated than they actually are. Most hunter gatherer peoples are either in small bands or they move around a lot. Not very many of them set up forges of the type you are talking about, for instance. Actually, the furnaces I’ve worked were based on a model used by a combo of pastoralists and HGs, in Angola. [Read all about it here, if you like](http://anthropology.ac.uk/Era_Resources/Era/P-C_Museum/herbert.html). > [@](#): > > I have no doubt that you are a superman and can forage at will…what I doubt is that you could forage AND build the type of system and process you are talking about in anything like a short time frame. It would take you and your stalwart band (well, in your case you’d be doing it alone, no doubt) literally years to build up to the point where you could make some trials at iron forging. Unless it’s something you’ve actually done I’ve said I have. > [@](#): > > (I’m sure you have one in your backyard and use it weekly) :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > , it’s going to take some trial and error as well. I’ll tell you from personal experience (if second hand), it’s not nearly as easy as you think it is. Experts have tried to duplicate the process in ways less sophisticated than those currently used by the Japanese (who’s process is VERY sophisticated), and the results have been less than successful. Good thing I never claimed to be making a katana. But I know I can smelt iron, and I know I produce steel from an iron bloom. I’ve done so before. It’s not that hard. Yes, it requires time, and sweat equity, but it’s not rocket science. > [@](#): > > Assuming you have indeed forged iron or even made steel, you used TOOLS to do it with. Only the most basic tools are needed. Rocks will suffice. > [@](#): > > You had materials at your disposal already, or the ability to get them. An ability I would retain. Being deprived of civilization isn’t going to magically render me paralytic with indecision or stupidity. > [@](#): > > You already had shelter, clothing and all the other things that make life possible. Hey, now, I did assume we weren’t being dropped dead naked on our new world. But even then, clothes are a luxury. As long as I have fire, I’ll manage. Ditto for the shelter - caves, lean-tos, fuck, I’ve made my own grass hut before. > [@](#): > > When you smashed your finger you had a doctor who you could go to to fix it. Actually, we were in the bush. Nearest doctor was a day’s ride away. > [@](#): > > You didn’t start forging iron from nothing, with nothing, and while also trying to survive, again with nothing. And I wouldn’t here, either. First, I’d make a fire. Then, I’d knap some stone. Then, and only then, would the iron be an issue. That’s why I said one month. Half that time would be just getting together the basics for survival - food, shelter, tools. > [@](#): > > You weren’t foraging for food while trying to build a foundry, shelter, tools and everything else. You HAD all that stuff…and then you made iron. And I made it in two days of work. I never claimed that _boom_ there’d be iron. I said it would take a month, to make ONE blade. > [@](#): > > Next time you make some iron using the process you claim to use, look at all the stuff involved, then consider where it all comes from. Think about the tools you are using and where they all come from. Think about all the materials being used, and where they all come from. Clay from the river, iron ore from the hill, charcoal from the clamp. Replace the axes, shovels etc. with wood & stone equivalents, and I could do it again. > [@](#): > > Think about where you slept the night before In the open, in the bush, actually. > [@](#): > > , and ate, Venison, actually. Springbok, to be precise. Sure, it was gunshot, but before man, the springbok herds 'round these parts use to stretch for days. I doubt I’d starve. > [@](#): > > and what would happen to you if you burned yourself or your forge got out of control and you were injured, and what you would do at that point. Or aliens abducted me, or a tsunami overwhelmed me, or I had a heart attack. That’s kind of beside my point. > [@](#): > > Because going straight to iron will require tools and materials far in advance of going to copper or bronze, of course, so it will be an easier first step. I disagree. Once again, this is some overly prescriptive form of cultural determinism you’re pushing here. It doesn’t jibe with the archaeological evidence. Peoples have gone from stone to iron directly, more than once. > [@](#): > > Once I have bronze or copper tools (which you could get making simple stone vessels, clay and stone tools) you could then use those to make more sophisticated tools and processes…including iron at some point. You can’t actually work iron with bronze or copper tools, you know. That’s kind of the point of iron being the harder metal. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe that one could jump from nothing to iron in any kind of reasonable time frame, even knowing how to process it. Obviously, I disagree. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/65 "2010-05-13T17:56:34Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > The reason ‘many countries in Asia’ and ‘Israel’ could develop industrialization is because they had thousands of years of agricultural development and an existing infrastructure of trade and logistics, they had communities and tens of thousands of people who, already fed, clothed and supported at least minimally, had enough extra time to build up such capacity. Plus, in every one of those cases, they also had outside sources of capital and materials in order to create that capacity. > > Asia or Israel weren’t populated by a bunch of folks with no tools, no food, and no infrastructure, no trade and no external sources of, well, anything. They weren’t barely scratching by for survival, even if they were doing subsistence level farming. These folks would be the equivalent of a stone age hunter gatherer tribe without the stone or the age. > > 😛 > > -XT Like I said, countries in Asia as well as nations like Israel had export markets where they could sell goods and buy finished products, neither of which would be realistic for an isolated settlement. Back in 1950 Taiwan and South Korea had a lower per capita GDP than Kenya. After 5 decades of industrialization they were developed economies by the 1990s. > **[Countries Compared by Economy \> GDP per capita in 1950. International...](https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/GDP-per-capita-in-1950)** But they had export markets and could import goods from industrialized societies. However nations can go from dirt poor to a developed OECD economy in a few decades. I don’t think it’d take an extremely long time to develop agriculture with crop yields that could support everyone. The vast majority of agriculture is not used efficiently. We take most of it to grow beef, or use it for ethanol. If people strictly grew the most calorie and nutrient dense foods they could, and ate them directly (instead of taking 10 calories of corn and using it to grow 1 calorie of beef) then you could feed a large society with a fraction of the agricultural land we use right now. Within a few years steam engine tractors might be realistic. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/66 "2010-05-13T18:11:04Z")
Ignoring the later amendations, I think the challenge should go like this: -We can open a portal to an alternate history version of the earth where humans never evolved, but otherwise basically identical to our earth (ie, no race of super-intelligent tool-using crocodile people to deal with) -We can pick when and where that portal will open -We can send any number of people through, but only in one clump, and it’s entirely a one-way trip -Absolutely nothing other than the people themselves can go through (no clothes, tools, books, etc.) There’s an interesting question of motivation. That is, are the people trying to progress to 2010 technology absolutely as fast as possible (because we have a bet with the Q continuum or something?) or are they just trying to establish as comfortable a life as possible, meaning they want dishwashers and the internet? In either case, I think the key to success is threefold: (1) picking the right place to go to. The first priority is survival, meaning you need somewhere where the weather won’t kill you, angry large animals won’t kill you, and food and water will be easily accessible from day one. I’m guessing an island somewhere? Hawaii? New Zealand? One of the islands in the Mediterranean? The second priority is access to raw materials, so you want somewhere with plentiful deposits of clay/copper/iron/whatever. (2) planning, planning, planning. Once you know where you’re going, you’ll have a good idea of what types of raw materials (minerals, plants, domesticable animals, etc.) will be available. You can then spent a LOT of time ahead of time practicing and futzing around with precisely that set of raw materials and resources planning out a good progression of technologies and so forth. The plan should be precisely customized for exactly what that particular area has in abundance. (3) The real key is the people who will be sent through. I think to go whole hog you basically want to raise, Sparta-style, a large group of fanatically devoted incredibly knowledgeable and well trained young people. Basically, a group of 1000 or so 20 year olds with incredible redundant training in survival, building, science, etc. You probably want more women than men, because you’re going to want to have babies as fast as your food supply will allow. The key here is that these 1000 people all learn MASSIVE amounts of basic information about chemistry, physics, metallurgy, etc. The plan is that you get the civilization up to a sustainable level of some sort within the lifespan of this generation, enough at least that you can produce and store paper (maybe something middle-age-y). Then this generation does a massive knowledge dump, so that future generations have a very good basis to work from. Maybe I’m being pessimistic about only being able to get to the middle ages, but I suspect that the diversity of technologies and raw materials (rubber, etc.) in even a fairly basic steam engine is going to require some kind of wide-ranging continent-sized civilization with roads and sailing ships and so forth to gather, and even if the amount of brain- and man-hours are there to get to that stage much more quickly, the infrastucture and population won’t be. I suspect that there’s a pyramid effect, where not only do you need each level of technology to build the next one, but you need a LOT of one level of technology to dependably produce a small amount of the next one, etc. Plus of course you’ve got to be feeding yourselves, building houses to live in (not just as technology demonstrations), having a legal system and culture, yada yada yada. I think it would make a fascinating book, in any case… ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/67 "2010-05-13T19:21:57Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > I don’t think it’d take an extremely long time to develop agriculture with crop yields that could support everyone. The vast majority of agriculture is not used efficiently. We take most of it to grow beef, or use it for ethanol. If people strictly grew the most calorie and nutrient dense foods they could, and ate them directly (instead of taking 10 calories of corn and using it to grow 1 calorie of beef) then you could feed a large society with a fraction of the agricultural land we use right now. Within a few years steam engine tractors might be realistic. Where are you going to get your corn seeds? The problem is that almost all of our cereal crops are the result of literally thousands of years of improvement. It required millions farmers examining their fields for improved varieties of plants. You can’t just turn any variety of grass into wheat with a few years of selective breeding. And these ancient farmers exchanged their improved plants over continent-wide trading networks. So crop improvements required massively parallel efforts. And the agricultural productivity of today is also due to tremendous inputs. You know, tractors, fertillizer, trucks, irrigation, weather satellites, trains, and so on. We feed corn to cattle because nowadays corn can be produced in stupendous quantities. But this is a very new phenomenon, in the old days people grazed their livestock, and fed them hay for the winter, because humans can’t eat grass while cows and sheep can. Our ancestors already grew the most calorie dense foods they could, because they didn’t want to starve to death. There are some plants that would be worthwhile to cultivate, but there won’t be many of them in any one place. Which means that for generations, agriculture is going to be a sideline, just like it was for the very first neolithic farmers. That won’t be so bad, because we’ll have superabundant wildlife around. But good luck getting your grandchildren to voluntarily plow fields that only grow marginal weeds, when there are plenty of antelope to hunt. Your explanation that hundreds of years in the future this agriculture thing will pay off won’t be very convincing. It wasn’t like agriculture was a conceptual breakthrough that required some genius to figure out that plants grow from seeds, and we could plant the seeds we want and get more of the plants we want. It was obvious to early humans how that worked. It was just that it was more effort than it was worth. So yes, you can start farming wild plants that you find at your site. But don’t expect much for your efforts. People prefer to live as hunters and gatherers, if they can. As for domesticated animals, I’m still kind of pissed at the Maori for exterminating the moas, because it seems to be if there were animal spre-adapted for domestication, it was the moas. No fear of humans, no fear of predators except eagles. What a waste. ---
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/68 "2010-05-13T19:48:15Z")
**MrDibble** ’s envisioned speed and ease of development has a strong fantasy flavor to it, I must say. Most usable primitive technology raw materials are scattered wide and thin over the land. Sure, an experienced flintknapper can turn out a bucketful of useful woodworking tool blades in an afternoon, provided he has a truckload of primo knapping materials at hand to start with. There are many locations in the world where knappable stone is rare and / or hard to find. It might take a dedicated knapper a month of daily scouting just to locate a good source, and that might lie 20 miles from base camp. How do you transport 200 lbs. of rock over rough terrain with no tools? Figure you’ll spend a week making backpack frames to carry out the rock bit by bit. With what will you be lashing the frames together, sans rawhide? Quick and easy plant cordage doesn’t hold up all that well under serious strain. Hammerstones for hard hammer reduction aren’t hard to find. But what will you be soft hammering and pressure flaking with to finish the stone tools? You don’t have sturdy bone, antler or copper to make soft hammers and pressure flaking tools out of (even today, flint knappers search high and low for good, natural-material soft hammers and they command high prices). Basic, survival-style flint tools are quick to make, but they only suffice for basic work, like cutting meat, shaving a pointed end to a stick or felling sapling-size trees (true hunter-gatherers did little else). For heavy duty work you need heavy duty tools, like Neolithic societies used: large, polished axe and adze blades set into good wooden handles. Hafting the blades for any sort of real felling, splitting and hewing work, needs raw materials like ash or hickory trees of c. 3" diameter that take time to process. Figure a month of seasoning axe shaft billets under good conditions. Making holes into thick hardwood as well as shaping the handles is tedious work with those simple flake tools one has at this point, even if most work is done on green wood. Them Neolithic stone tools are capable of serious work, but they still fall woefully behind steel tools. IME, woodwork with stone tools is extremely time-consuming compared to modern steel tools. A fireboard notch that I can make in 30 seconds using my Leatherman saw and knife takes ten minutes of whittling with a flint flake. These ten-minute stretches of tool maintenance quickly add up over the day. Stone-tool hewn 2x4s for house construction? A good stone-tool carpenter might be able to make a couple of six-foot lengths per day of back-aching work, provided some big coniferous trees were felled first. Alas, felling, cutting and splitting large tree trunks with Neolithic tools is very labor-intensive. Just making a single good wooden glut (splitting wedge) - ten seconds with a band saw - takes some serious time and blisters by hand, as I’ve learned. I could go on and on, based on the months I’ve spent in Stone Age surroundings over the years. Every single branch of primitive technology, from braintanning for clothing, to wild plant utilization for fiber, to fire-making\* for everything would face similar obstacles of hard-to-get raw materials and little means to process them in quantity. Nothing much is going to happen over the first year, save for basic scouting for raw materials, a first batch of usable tools, clothing and primitive-style shelters. Any real Iron Age will be years away. \*The Hadzabe of Tanzania, the last hunter-gatherers in the world, living near the cradle of humanity, make 30-mile treks to the mountains to obtain their firedrill sticks, as the right kind of bush doesn’t grow anywhere else. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/69 "2010-05-13T20:04:16Z")
First off, MrDibble, I apologize if my tone was snarky there…I really didn’t mean to be. I’m not going to be able to cover everything you posted as I just don’t have the time atm. However: [QUOTE=MrDibble] No, they get steel right away. [/QUOTE] No…they don’t. What they get is a form of iron that is then cut up and parceled out. Those pieces of purified iron are then taken to individual smiths, who heat it up and forge weld it into bigger pieces, that are then combined with straw and other stuff and beaten the crap out of, until they finally get steel. > [@](#): > > I wouldn’t do it the Japanese way - too large scale. I have, on the other hand, seen and participated in making iron locally, using smaller furnaces made on traditional African models - around 60cm high, as much around, coiled clay lining, 2 tuyere holes. No tools needed other than sticks and stones. What would you end up with there? It would be iron (pig iron of some type would be my GUESS). How would you work it with no tools? Rocks and sticks are only going to get you so far, unless I’m totally missing something here. You can cold forge copper, and to a certain degree I guess you could do that with purified iron (I have a hard time believing that’s what you are going to get out of your proposed system here…though, honestly, I don’t know much about traditional African model iron production, so maybe that’s the disconnect). I guess my question would be, what exactly do you get as a product out of your traditional African model system? > [@](#): > > Sticks? They grow everywhere. How will you work iron with sticks? Or sticks and stones? > [@](#): > > Once again, I’m not talking about a giant blast furnace here - are you aware of how bloomeries work? Did you read the linked article I gave on the process? IOW, I’m well aware you aren’t talking about a blast furnace, and yes, I know how a bloomery works. I may not know or perhaps be grasping how your African model system works, since it doesn’t sound like the kind I’ve seen in operation (which all require more than sticks and stones), but I understand the basics, yes. What I don’t understand is what product your system is delivering. Because most of the bloomery systems I’m familiar with produce basically pig iron, which would then need to be processed somehow to actually be useful for anything, including tools. > [@](#): > > Did you miss the bit where I said I’ve done this already? You SAY you have done so, but that doesn’t make it so. My real disbelief comes from your claim to be able to do all this in a couple of days with a couple of sticks and stone and actually get something useful out of it. I believe that you’ve forged iron in the way you claim, but I don’t believe you produced a steel knife blade out of what you’ve described so far with no other resources than some mud, some sticks and a couple of stones. Sorry…but like you claim, I’ve actually done this and seen it done, and seen historical recreations as well, and while I don’t claim to be anything like an expert, I know approximately what the process is and what’s needed. That said, I haven’t ever seen the African model (I’ve seen mainly Japanese and eastern Asian and European methods of iron production and forging), so perhaps the African’s were able to do the things I’ve seen without all the other stuff I know was involved in the processes I’m familiar with. > [@](#): > > Actually, the furnaces I’ve worked were based on a model used by a combo of pastoralists and HGs, in Angola. Read all about it here, if you like. I will do so…and I thank you for the link. Skipping through some stuff here as I’m running out of time: > [@](#): > > You can’t actually work iron with bronze or copper tools, you know. That’s kind of the point of iron being the harder metal. Well, you can work with iron with bronze tools because I’ve done so, but actually my thought was to use the bronze and copper tools to allow you to harvest the materials and help with the infrastructure needed to produce iron eventually. > [@](#): > > Obviously, I disagree. Fair enough. -XT ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/70 "2010-05-13T22:18:15Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > In either case, I think the key to success is threefold: > (1) picking the right place to go to. The first priority is survival, meaning you need somewhere where the weather won’t kill you, angry large animals won’t kill you, and food and water will be easily accessible from day one. I’m guessing an island somewhere? Hawaii? New Zealand? One of the islands in the Mediterranean? > > The second priority is access to raw materials, so you want somewhere with plentiful deposits of clay/copper/iron/whatever. > [@Lemur866](#): > > Where are you going to get your corn seeds? The problem is that almost all of our cereal crops are the result of literally thousands of years of improvement. It required millions farmers examining their fields for improved varieties of plants. You can’t just turn any variety of grass into wheat with a few years of selective breeding. And these ancient farmers exchanged their improved plants over continent-wide trading networks. So crop improvements required massively parallel efforts. This is going to be a big problem for long-term population growth. Easily domesticated crops and animals are not found everywhere. Some domesticated plants are similar to the wild varieties, but others (corn) would take centuries to make useful. I hadn’t thought about animals until now. They’re useful for their muscle power too, not just for eating their muscles. ---
**Author:** ![ChrisBooth12](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@ChrisBooth12](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChrisBooth12)\ **Post date:** [May 13, 2010, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/71 "2010-05-13T22:44:03Z")
That hardest part would be to get everyone to work together…Who is in charge of different projects, do people have to work? Leadership? Government, laws, that will be the hardest part ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/72 "2010-05-14T00:24:50Z")
> [@ChrisBooth12](#): > > That hardest part would be to get everyone to work together…Who is in charge of different projects, do people have to work? Leadership? Government, laws, that will be the hardest part I agree that would be important. But that’s a known, solveable problem. I’m in no way convinced it’s harder than any of various parts of the “actual” work, such as ramping up production of copper enough to make useful amounts of copper wire, or what have you. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/73 "2010-05-14T07:47:00Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > First off, MrDibble, I apologize if my tone was snarky there…I really didn’t mean to be. It’s cool. I think I’ve found where our misunderstanding is: > [@](#): > > My real disbelief comes from your claim to be able to do all this **in a couple of days** with a couple of sticks and stone and actually get something useful out of it. I never claimed this. I claimed a month. A month of \*gradually \*building up a toolset and \*gradually \*producing better and better iron, _ending up_ with steel. I don’t claim to be able to produce blade steel from the first smelt. Hell, just burning the charcoal would take a couple days, especially since I’d likely use what wood I could pick up at first. **Toxylon** , I’m well aware of how time-consuming it can be to have to re-knap stone tools and find raw materials. Especially in the less temperate areas of the world. But my estimates are based on my \*specific \*environment (South-Western South Africa) and the various resources (minerals, woods, food plants, animals) I personally know are available right here, and how they were [used](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howiesons_Poort) [historically](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stillbay) by HGs and pastoralists. Same with my estimates on foraging times etc. If I were \*anywhere \*else, I wouldn’t claim anywhere near the same ease of living, or the same ease of manufacture. I wouldn’t claim to be able to make bronze easily, for instance, because it’d be a month on foot to the nearest copper (although I know where to mine tin right here on this mountain). That’s also why I’d go straight to iron, it’s more useful _and_ ubiquitous and I know how to make it _from the available resources_. There’s a reason the Southern Cape coast saw the birth of culturally modern humans - it really is the ideal environment. From the spectrum of food, gourd and fibre plants available, to the kinds of woods that grow here for tools and charcoal (ironwood, for instance), to the ready availability of good heat-treatable fine-grained quartzite and silcrete for tools (not flint, here), to the extremely productive oceans which provide [ready](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abalone#South_Africa) protein for the taking, to the kinds of animals that occurred here, to the mild weather, this place really is the bomb. Of course, there would be lions and leopards and wild dogs as a risk. But in the OP’s scenario, I wouldn’t be alone, so I’d hope some guys with sharp sticks and fire would protect their smith until I could tool them up with steel. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > In either case, I think the key to success is threefold: > (1) picking the right place to go to. The first priority is survival, meaning you need somewhere where the weather won’t kill you, angry large animals won’t kill you, and food and water will be easily accessible from day one. I’m guessing an island somewhere? Hawaii? New Zealand? One of the islands in the Mediterranean? > > The second priority is access to raw materials, so you want somewhere with plentiful deposits of clay/copper/iron/whatever. “An island” and “access to raw materials” would often turn out to be mutually exclusive. Maybe New Zealand. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/74 "2010-05-14T16:10:11Z")
New Zealand would be both great and horrible. It would be great because it would be perfectly safe, mild climate, covered with already tame moas. Horrible because there would be very little to eat besides moas, which were almost certainly very slow breeding animals. If you wanted to set up a colony with 21st century tech on a mirror earth, New Zealand would be ideal. But if you’re sent naked with no tools and no crops, you might never make it through the technology bottleneck and your great-great-grandchildren would eat the last moas and the population would collapse. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/75 "2010-05-14T16:44:39Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > “An island” and “access to raw materials” would often turn out to be mutually exclusive. Maybe New Zealand. If you pick an island that’s close to a larger mainland (so clearly NOT New Zealand), maybe you can set up your beachead there which allows you to build generation 0 tools/weapons (flint and wood) and start growing crops, and then fairly easily (with dugout canoes?) head over to the mainland where your generation 0 tools allow you to fend off the bears (or what have you). Showing up in a the perfect spot for resources does you fairly little good if you’re all eaten by lions within 5 minutes. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/76 "2010-05-14T16:55:12Z")
I think you overestimate the ferocity of carnivores. Even if we’re talking about a population of naive carnivores who don’t know enough to be afraid of human beings, it’s not enough to worry about. Our hominid ancestors used to live out on the savannah with nothing more than a few sticks and some sharp rocks. If you’re in a group, and can make a fire, and waves some sticks around, you’re pretty much safe from anything. Even a grizzly bear is going to think twice. ---
**Author:** ![Ruken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f475e1/32.png) [@Ruken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ruken)\ **Post date:** [May 14, 2010, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/77 "2010-05-14T23:28:18Z")
I don’t think any of the native plants of New Zealand have been domesticated. What would you grow? Just because they haven’t been domesticated doesn’t mean they can’t be, but it might take quite a bit of breeding to get something useful. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/78 "2010-05-16T20:40:49Z")
Come to think of it, I have another question for **MrDibble** ’s steel-knife-in-a-month project. On what day of that month do you get fire, and what method do you use? While I can think of many ways of making fire, most of them require some other technology which itself requires fire, and the rest are based on unreliable natural phenomena. To sum up: Flint by itself, contrary to popular belief, can’t be used to start a fire. Flint and steel can, but of course that’s putting the cart before the horse. Fire by friction requires really good tinder, which depending on local flora, might be impossible to find, or might be available for only part of the year. Practically speaking, it also requires carved wood (which means at least rudimentary flint tools), and multiple people working in shifts and a firebow (does leather production require boiling? If so, we’re back to needing fire) help a lot, too. A fire piston does not require fire to make, but it does need very good tools (very advanced, for flint) to carve it. And like the sticks method, it needs good tinder. I don’t think I need to explain why matches, a lighter, or a Fresnel lens is out of the picture. You could mold a thick lens out of ice, if the climate is appropriate, but the most primitive way I can see of making an adequate mold would be baked pottery. You could pile up a bunch of damp, oily rags and wait for them to spontaneously combust, but that could take months, and besides you’d probably need fire to render or refine the oil. Or, of course, there’s the way our ancestors actually did it, which is to get some natural source of fire and preserve it very carefully. Which means you’re waiting for a fire started by lightning or volcanism, which would probably take longer than a month. On the broader topic, what can you do from scratch? The generation-zero technologies I can think of off the top of my head: Bludgeoning weapons. Find a fallen tree branch or a rock, and swing it or throw it. This is already enough to make humans the apex predator. Basketry. You can weave wild grapevines, and a few other materials, into functional baskets with nothing but your bare hands. Sun-dried pottery. In some places you can dig clay out of the ground with your bare hands which is suitable for shaping as-is. This can get you vessels for holding liquids, and eventually even buildings. You might want to shape it around a basketry framework, for more strength for the weight. Crude flint edges. The flint itself isn’t hard to come by, but working it requires tools to do a good job. Once you’ve got all that, the next step is to use your sticks and stones to go hunting. Even if God or the social scientist or the TV network crew is supplying us with food, we’ll need the hides, bones, antlers, and eventually fats for other technologies. Antler and crude flint tools can be used to make the tools for proper flint-knapping, and hides will give us clothing and crude cord. I don’t know if tanning requires fire, but it will be greatly helped by those later-generation flint tools we just made. And then we can use some of that animal cord to strap flint to sticks, to make axes, spears, and arrows. While all this is going on, we’re also keeping a sharp eye out for natural fires. Fire will let us bake pottery better than the sun-dried stuff, cook our food, and help keep us secure from animals. And, of course, it’ll be essential for almost any sort of metalworking. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2010, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/79 "2010-05-16T22:09:29Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Fire by friction requires really good tinder, which depending on local flora, might be impossible to find, or might be available for only part of the year. Practically speaking, it also requires carved wood Not if you’ve watched a U.K. TV survivalist whose name completely escapes me for now. Not Bear Grylls, the other one. What he did was to take three pieces of wood, two flattish, one cylinderish, and use a bow-drill constructed from a flexible piece of wood as the bow and a twisted shoot as the cord. The tinder was grass that had been left to dry. Using the bow-drill with the cylinder on one of the flat pieces, and pressing down with the other flat piece he got an ember, which he transferred to the grass, and after a bit of blowing, got a flame, and there was the fire. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2010, 11:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-many-years-would-it-take-to-go-from-nothing-to-2010-technology/539149/80 "2010-05-17T11:51:42Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Come to think of it, I have another question for **MrDibble** ’s steel-knife-in-a-month project. On what day of that month do you get fire, and what method do you use? On day one, probably hour 3 or 4, by past experience. > [@](#): > > Flint No flint here, anyway. We do have vein quartz, though, which will serve. But you forget that flint can also strike quite nicely against _pyrites_, should they be available. They’re not, in my chosen location, but they might be at someone else’s chosen site. And it is something I’ve been specifically trained to find in the field (remember - geologist. I know what a gossan looks like in the bush). > [@](#): > > Fire by friction requires really good tinder, which depending on local flora, might be impossible to find, or might be available for only part of the year. I know where to find good tinder locally (bracket fungus is a favourite, as is milkweed floss), and I was assuming we would come at a time of our choosing, as per the OP. Although bracket fungus is a year-round thing, and pretty common worldwide. Tinder is only a problem in a desert, IMO, although I can find it there too (sun-dried \*Euphorbs \*are excellent tinder) -and why would you start the Long Climb in the desert? > [@](#): > > Practically speaking, it also requires carved wood two peeled dry sticks, about 1" in diameter, tied together with twine, work as well as a carved board for a firenotch. > [@](#): > > , and multiple people working in shifts and a firebow (does leather production require boiling? If so, we’re back to needing fire) help a lot, too. Why do we need leather? Plant fibres make a good-enough bowstring. And if your bow and notch are well-made, you don’t need teams of anything. One person should be able to start a fire, or you’re doing something wrong. And you don’t need boiling to process leather, BTW. The main ingredients are an alkali for dehairing (ashes from an old fire, or the juices from any one of several local plants would do) and a fat for the emulsion tanning part (brains are traditional - the rule is any animal generally has a big enough brain to tan its own hide) or tannins for proper tanning - it is possible to tan with just ground-up bark. In fact, that’s exacly how the Khoekhoen made their leather - piling up layers of wet dehaired skins and pounded _Rhus_ bark, and leaving it for a few days. Most of the work in making primitive leather is in the hand-processing - scraping off every trace of flesh, dehairing, softening, all require intensive hand labour. > [@](#): > > A fire piston does not require fire to make, but it does need very good tools (very advanced, for flint) to carve it. umm, you can make a serviceable fire piston from bamboo or a similar noded reed like _Phragmites australis_, a suitably-sized hardwood stick for the piston, and some latex-soaked plant twine for a seal. Once again, something I’ve done. > [@](#): > > And like the sticks method, it needs good tinder. Already covered this. > [@](#): > > You could mold a thick lens out of ice, if the climate is appropriate, but the most primitive way I can see of making an adequate mold would be baked pottery. Why not just a hollow dug in the ground, or a suitable gourd or seedpod? The lens can always be polished with body heat afterwards. Not that we have the climate for ice lenses, anyway. > [@](#): > > Or, of course, there’s the way our ancestors actually did it, which is to get some natural source of fire and preserve it very carefully. Depends what you mean by “ancestors” - Ötzi the Iceman, for instance, carried a quite-sophisticated fire-making kit. **Including tinder fungus and pyrite**. > [@](#): > > On the broader topic, what can you do from scratch? The generation-zero technologies I can think of off the top of my head: > Bludgeoning weapons. Find a fallen tree branch or a rock, and swing it or throw it. This is already enough to make humans the apex predator. I can do much better than this, for both hunting and melee weapons, from scratch. Assuming you’re not against using from-scratch cordage and gum glue in your “from scratch” category, or the use of say sandstone as an abrasive to sharpen points, or thorns as arrow barbs. I can make a bow from scratch. I can make poisoned, barbed arrows from scratch. I can make a blowpipe with poisoned darts from scratch. I can make a barbed, forked fish-spear, from scratch, I can make a shafted hammer (a river pebble in a split stick, tied with twine) from scratch. I can make an [atl-atl](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlatl) from scratch. I can make a sling from scratch, or a [fustibalus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sling_%28weapon%29#Staff_sling). I can make a macuahuitl with shell bladelets. I can make bolas. I can make a[throwing stick](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Throwing_sticks). > [@](#): > > Basketry. You can weave wild grapevines, and a few other materials, into functional baskets with nothing but your bare hands. Offhand, from where I am sitting, I can, in an hour, lay my hands on enough fibre and the like, using only my hands, to make basket, cord, rope, even. You can weave anything from grass on up. Let’s see, around here there are grasses, Restios, papyrus and other sedges, bullrush leaves, several kinds of climbing vines like black-eyed susans and morning glory, palm leaves. Then there’s several trees with usable inner bark that can be stripped with fingers, teeth and mussel shells. > [@](#): > > Sun-dried pottery. In some places you can dig clay out of the ground with your bare hands which is suitable for shaping as-is. This can get you vessels for holding liquids, and eventually even buildings. You might want to shape it around a basketry framework, for more strength for the weight. There are better from-scratch solutions for carrying water - gourds and other curcurbits come to mind, as well as ostrich eggs. Of course, after fishing or trapping or hunting, there’s bladders, but that’s not from scratch. Although, like I said, I have caught fish (“tickled”, as they say) with my bare hands > [@](#): > > Crude flint edges. The flint itself isn’t hard to come by, but working it requires tools to do a good job. It’s my experience that a few minute’s searching of any quartzite scree field will turn up at least one or two pieces with an immediately-useable edge. And the primary tool for fired quartzite knapping is a hammerstone, which is usually a river cobble or the like. Mussel shells have a sharp-enough edge for cutting and debarking cordage material. > [@](#): > > Once you’ve got all that, the next step is to use your sticks and stones to go hunting. Even if God or the social scientist or the TV network crew is supplying us with food, we’ll need the hides, bones, antlers, and eventually fats for other technologies. I’d start with spearfishing and fish trapping, actually, as well as shellfish gathering. And I’d set up snares and deadfalls for small game, it’s a more-efficient hunting method. Once again, cordage comes into it. Also, seal colonies and seabird colonies in a pre-human landscape would be excellent places to start gathering food, and other resources. > [@](#): > > Antler and crude flint tools can be used to make the tools for proper flint-knapping, and hides will give us clothing and crude cord. I don’t understand this obsession with soft percussion knapping techniques espoused in this thread. You don’t need antler for knapping, hard percussion and hardwood and bone pressure flaking can make a perfectly serviceable toolset, especially if you lean towards using bladelets and polished tools. An Ishi stick can be made from bone. But if you want to go the soft percussion route, then bone and hard wood (I believe I mentioned ironwood before? It’s the world’s hardest wood) will suffice. And bone can be found by beachcombing. As long as you’re not put off by scavenging from rotting seal and whale carcasses. IME, there’s always at least one carcass on the beach, and failing that, there are older bones. > [@](#): > > I don’t know if tanning requires fire, but it will be greatly helped by those later-generation flint tools we just made. And then we can use some of that animal cord to strap flint to sticks, to make axes, spears, and arrows. Why do we need animal cord? A combination of plant cord and glue would work as well. There are many plant glues that could be made, from pine pitch to \*Acacia \*gums. > [@](#): > > While all this is going on, we’re also keeping a sharp eye out for natural fires. Fire will let us bake pottery better than the sun-dried stuff, cook our food, and help keep us secure from animals. And, of course, it’ll be essential for almost any sort of metalworking. We don’t need natural fire. Are we not men? I think people don’t seem to know enough about their natural resources. Wild foods are there for the taking, fire is easy to make, many resources are available if you know where to look. I’m fortunate, I’ve made quite a study of both local foods and useful plants, and the local prehistoric lifeways, because of both my cultural heritage and my interest in living history, as well as being professionally educated in the mineral resources of the local landscape. But I’d hope anyone who undertook such an exercise would first take the time to acquire those skills too. My opponents are arguing from the reduced skillset of the modern urban man, and the impoverished resource base of the modern landscape. I’m saying that anyone with the right training and experience will see that there’s a rich bounty possible, if you know where to look. Pick the right place, and the living really is easy. 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