I could believe that there are times when a HG would spend only a few hours gathering the current day’s food - for example, when the salmon run or during a particularly good season for certain nuts or fruits, but those occasions are not the norm - and when they do happen, you don’t spend the rest of the time relaxing - you gather for store.
Didn’t think about that.
I have one. Haven’t thought about how the divisions are laid out. Knowing how multiplication works on it, I could recreate that function eventually. Would probably need a vastly oversize one to get accuracy without having any good tools for making small instruments.
An abacus would be good too. Simpler to make if you only need +, -, *, /.
would want a slide rule eventually for log and trig functions, but hardly know how to recreate them easily. We need a better mathematician than me.
The op proposed two scenarios that made him think. Stargate Universe, (alternate world,) and Terra Nova, (time travel on earth.)
Europe had barley and rye IIRC.
North America STILL has buffalo. They aren’t domesticable. They can’t be used for farming. You can raise them for meat, but you can’t use them to help with farm labor. There’s a good reason Americans overwhelmingly raise cattle instead of buffalo.
North American horses died out around 12000 years ago. They didn’t come back until the Europeans brought them (cite).
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We may have been responsible for that… But, California had Dire Wolves, and Smilodon… Dogs and cats can be domesticated… right? … (in a despairing tone) they can right?..
It might go quicker than you think.
Directed pollination. You plant all the seeds of a few dozen of the best examples of a plant. (keeping track of which are which.) Each example gets pollinated with itself and as many other of the best examples as is possible. you have to plant and pollinate the next generation strategically before you know what the seeds/fruit/etc. of that second generation look like. (A step that probably wasn’t thought of until Gregor Mendel.) By chance, you’re taking larger seeds, but the dna in those seeds is a cross with an unknown plant. We could potentially do it hundreds of times quicker. Still years, but you could have something usable in a decade. (This is just my best guess. I admit I may be missing something.)
I saw a program of someone working with a fox that humans hadn’t bothered to domesticate before.
I think you’re not getting my viewpoint. It’s not that we can’t get a FEW examples of desirable animals/plants within (actually less than) 10 years. It’s the quantity. Not only would these early colonists have to hunt/gather to support themselves, they’d have to collect enough food to domesticate large numbers of animals while also getting to industrial revolution era tech. Possible in under 10 years? Not plausible, even under nearly ideal conditions.
The arguments kevlaw and Damuri Ajashi make seem to indicate we can have pretty much modern dogs, large draft animals, and modern plant varietals in any quantities we want within 10 years to supplement our growing industrial revolution era tech. That’s beyond wishful thinking.
As for the rest of the post:
No clue on Dire wolves. They aren’t the same as regular wolves and may or may not be domesticable.
Think buffalo/cow or zebra/horse. One can be domesticated, the other can’t. Maybe dire wolves could have been domesticated, but it’s not something we can say for sure. If I’m going to be dumped in a situation where my descendants’ lives depend on the answer, I’d prefer more certainty.
Not sure about smilodon, either. Lions and Tigers don’t appear to be domesticable. Domestic cats may have come from a single outlier species (and they’re still not all THAT domesticated, as any cat owner could tell you). But would it matter? For the most part, we didn’t heavily domesticate cats, since they were mostly used for pest control. And if we have dogs (which have a nice built-in pack mentality), why do we need large cats to hunt with us?
Also, still doesn’t help with large draft animals.
I’m not saying it’s not possible. I’m saying there’s no way you can reasonably guarantee short-term success in terms of producing acceptable numbers of animals, particularly the kind you need to run farms.
Maybe, but that’s still a number of years before we get something reasonable.
Take a look at teosinte. This is widely regarded to be the ancestor of modern maize.
Sure, in a few years, you could get some larger kernels, but you aren’t going to get anything that produces close to modern yields of maize. Even with 19th century maize and modern techniques, it would take a decade to get our modern maize.
And sure, barley, rye, and wheat were probably easier to develop from their own respective ancestors than maize from teosinte, but “easier” is NOT the same as “easy”.
As with animals, I’m not saying it’s not possible. I’m saying there’s no way you can reasonably guarantee short-term success in terms of producing acceptable varieties of cereal grains. You’re still going to be doing a lot of hunting and gathering for the first generation to supplement food supplies (leaving precious little time for getting to industrial technology).
One example does not a generality make.
Again, look up zebra/horse and buffalo/cow. Why the focus on these animals? Because they are large and/or serve other purposes. They are large enough to out-perform a human at physical effort and can also be used for transportation.
Look at cats. They were barely domesticated and then basically left alone (many of the different “breeds” of cat were developed pretty recently), because you don’t need much differentiation for hunting pests.
Contrast with dogs. Dogs serve purposes other than pest control. Hence, several different breeds have been developed over the ages, each specializing in different things (hunting, herding, racing, etc).
Also, 4 generations of foxes are relatively easy to keep when you can spare them food and shelter without fear of running short for yourself (and you don’t have to hunt/gather for yourself, either). Remember, if you are to domesticate dogs or cats, you’ll need to do enough hunting to support your colony (which apparently supports a lot of mouths that aren’t hunting/gathering) PLUS spare food to keep the animals.
I was thinking favourable climate, plus pretty easy availability of lots of seafood. Hadn’t thought about the animal problem, but in terms of the difficulty with agriculture couldn’t we settle up and down the coast and get by with seafood for quite a while?
This.
That’s another interesting angle that can lead to some other fascinating hypotheticals. Like, how long is “pretty damn quickly” and “pretty soon after that”? Assuming you’ve got the wholehearted support of an already well-established group–say the Massachusetts Bay Colony circa 1650–can you make an iPod by 1700?
Other time machine counterfactuals that could be fun to explore: how long would a carefully picked team of 100 need to arrive before Waterloo to ensure Napoleon’s victory? (Is a week enough?) Or how long before Sept. 1, 1939 do you need in Warsaw to make Poland the power that can conquer Germany and the U.S.S.R. rather than vice versa? <g> The possibilities are endless.
If we’re bringing a hundred people, I’d think we’d want at least one botanist, plus the redundancy of another couple experts who have botany as a sideline, just in case the botanist runs into a sabre-toothed cat or somesuch fate.
Maybe I should have made it more plain, but I was assuming in my scenario that we’d be selecting people for this mission and training them much like the Apollo astronauts were selected and trained, but with even more care and intensity. (Maybe mix in the level of training and attrition involved with Seal Team Six.) I would think that would involve “dry runs” trying to apply survival skills in a real world environment (albeit with observers ready to pull out those who fail). I am meaning this to be like a kind of Apollo mission on steroids: we’ve found a rift to this alternate Earth, we can send a group through, but they can’t come back and can’t bring supplies with them, and we only get one shot, so we have to pick the best people and prepare them as best we can, at whatever cost. IOW, our best foot forward as a species.
As others have pointed out, most anthropologists (like my own father, who got his Ph.D. at Stanford–and yes, I’m guilty of credentialism there, mea culpa) believe this to be a common misconception that came out of Rousseau and Adam Smith without evidentiary basis. Here’s an interesting riff on the issue:
http://www.primitive.org/nothing.htm
It’s not an alien world but an alt-Earth (with an assumption that the lack of hominids did not cause any other weird wrinkles in evolution). However, you do not get your clothes. Everyone arrives naked, sorry (no glasses either, so everyone is going to need good vision to start with).
Actually, that simply bolsters my point. If you’re spending your time hunting/gathering, that doesn’t preserve much time/energy (in the form of calories) to support an industrial base by farming.
If you simply want to survive, looks like we’re set. If we want to re-establish civilization inside a decade, it looks like HG is just not going to cut it.
I think if you are someplace like Monterey Bay, a group of 100 could be well fed by ten individuals, and that could probably be reduced further once some good nets, spears, and other fishing equipment was available.
I was thinking favourable climate, plus pretty easy availability of lots of seafood. Hadn’t thought about the animal problem, but in terms of the difficulty with agriculture couldn’t we settle up and down the coast and get by with seafood for quite a while?
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Yes. The natives of the West Coast did just fine and had leisurely lifestyles. But, they didn’t build anything because they had to move around. They may not have been able to stay in one place to build anything in the first place without agriculture.
Maybe I should have made it more plain, but I was assuming in my scenario that we’d be selecting people for this mission and training them much like the Apollo astronauts were selected and trained, but with even more care and intensity. (Maybe mix in the level of training and attrition involved with Seal Team Six.) I would think that would involve “dry runs” trying to apply survival skills in a real world environment (albeit with observers ready to pull out those who fail). I am meaning this to be like a kind of Apollo mission on steroids: we’ve found a rift to this alternate Earth, we can send a group through, but they can’t come back and can’t bring supplies with them, and we only get one shot, so we have to pick the best people and prepare them as best we can, at whatever cost. IOW, our best foot forward as a species.
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Forgot to comment on Mangetout’s post previous. When I read the op again, I did also get that you intended we would have time to prepare ourselves, learn flintnapping, etc.
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So let’s say before you left you knew what you’d be facing.
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Just had a thought on this though… Sure, we can’t take metal tools, etc. (Terminator style? Nothing dead will go?) But, unless some aliens sent us the portal with the stipulation that only humans could go… The first things we’d be taking are plants and animals. “I’m bringing my very learned colleague, Madam Bovine, and her friend Miss Draft Horse.” Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite happy with the humans only scenario. I’m very interested in whether we could shorten the time to advanced technology. I’m just wondering why no one, not even myself, tried to bring plants and animals through the portal yet.
Ha, good question. I suppose I would have to resort to magic, or aliens, to dispose of this objection.
Oh, no. Don’t expect modern draft animals or large quantities of them. But, as there are only a few colonists, we don’t need that many half decent draft animals to make farming a lot easier. Even ten years in we’re only feeding a small village, not a city.
That was a joke. i didn’t expect to domesticate Dire Wolves and Smilodon. And I knew that buffalo and zebra couldn’t be domesticated. I would much prefer a locale that has the plants and animals we used the first time around. (i.e. fertile cresent.)
We wouldn’t, but we wouldn’t know which one would work first, would we. I would suspect dogs, but I don’t know. That’s why I would prefer the Fertile Cresent to California. California is a different question than the Fertile Cresent. Could it be done where it never was, vs. could we shorten the time it took. I think we should answer the second question first. Because if we couldn’t even shorten the time it took, we wouldn’t be able to create civilization where it never was, either.
No, but it has some striking implications for the domestication of dogs. in that the foxes got many of the same traits dogs have, floppy ears, changes in coat color.
Ha, good question. I suppose I would have to resort to magic, or aliens, to dispose of this objection.
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I think I was intrigued by the challenge of trying to reduce the time to advanced tech using only what they had available to them, and the knowledge we brought with us. Bringing our own plants and animals wouldn’t answer the question I wanted answered.
Another thing that would help prevent the genetic collapse of our group… Were assuming we can only bring so many people; small group, and all that. We bring greater genetic diveristy. Every woman who goes is artificially inseminated with the child of a man and woman who aren’t able to go on the expedition.
But.
I think we’re missing the most important question of the entire thread. (and this is a joke.)
We get to write the history books. We get to tell the next few generations who invented all of the things we’re making. How do we divy up the credit amonst ourselves so that our own personal brilliance is remembered for all time? We get to rewrite all the stories that get passed down. Who gets to be the hero’s of all the stories?
Back to serious discussion.
Going through naked is a serious disadvantage to survival. We would need fire, weapons and shelter in the first few hours. Food and water in the first couple of days. Clothing and blankets soon, (in less time than it takes to tan hides. You can die of exposure to cold overnight in even the warmest climates if you’re naked. We might have to wear untanned hides that are going to smell and rot in the first weeks.) But, we would be trained in what we need to do. We would have a plan going in, and everyone would be assigned their tasks. (One group flintnapping spearheads, hand knives and axeheads. Another making tool shafts. Another starting fire. Another starting shelters. etc.) We would have a plan for all of that basic survival stuff… And we really have to assume we’ve done that to start the question we’re trying to answer. What tech do you want to get up and running first? How do we shorten the time to high tech?
Been out of town, so a quick comment on this. The place I am at has a ten foot water wheel. Sucker weighs 8 tons, and has re-bar to help keep it true. It was also designed to run an entire machine shop, plus provide extra power to run some textile machines, so we don’t need that much to start with. A much smaller (and easier to make with hand tools) wheel is all we need to get the forge and the combo saw/grist mill going. Then we use that tech to build a bigger wheel.
I think we should also tap into the wisdom of noted primitive survival expert Roy Hinkley, Ph.D.
I saw what you did there, professor.
I think people are overestimating the difficulty of creating vacuum tubes. Granted you’re not going to start producing compactrons and nuvistors and 7591As overnight, but if you have the technology to build light bulbs you can make crude but functional triodes. People have built them at home, and even if you take apart a commecial vacuum tube (that’s a dud or commercially worthless, no Telefunken 12AX7s please- and be careful besides the glass there’s lot’s of sharp metal) there’s nothing that you even need a modest microscope to see.
Even if the knowlege of transistors was maintained we’d probably start with vacuum tubes because the technology to make them is so much easier.
My SWAG was Iron Age in 100 years (not modern tech in 10 years). Any technology that we haven’t re-created by then is lost for good - which is why I think it makes sense to cherry pick a handful of anachronistic technologies (like paper, electricity, printing, genetics, medicine) to fast-forward. I don’t think we have a hope of getting to electronics so it doesn’t even figure into my planning. Maybe practical steam engines and printing presses are the pinnacle of my initial civilization. After that, our descendants will make better progress than humans 1.0 because of the breadcrumbs the founders left behind but it won’t be magically better. x2, maybe.
I can’t speak for DA, but I said there’s no need to rush agriculture and that hunter gathering could easily keep us ticking over for a generation at least until farming kicks in. We need to eventually get to the point where agriculture is more efficient than H/G - no need for modern quantities for a long time. There are only 100 of us after all. Likewise, animal domestication is a background project. Domestication will be useful enough when it pays off that it’s worth fast-forwarding the technology even if it takes generations.
I was imagining Monterey Bay too. I expect that, once you got up to speed with hunting and gathering you could survive handily with less than 25% of your resources spent on food production in Monterey Bay. Also, back to non-traditional farming, I wonder if sea lions could be farmed and or domesticated? I bet kelp is pretty tasty too.
Would there be sufficient population to support iron age tech?
I doubt we’ll have every iron age technology up and running but I think we’ll be farming, building substantial buildings and making iron tools. Maybe no cities or viaducts just yet.
don’t underestimate the difficulty of surviving as hunter/gatherer, 100 people will deplete your local resources in a few months (with some exceptions, such as the old happy hunting grounds of the Mandan along the upper missouri) and you’ll have to keep moving. swidden agriculture is fairly easy, but this is also going to require moving around a lot. in my part of texas ag would be limited to a few edible gourd species and the various (mostly invasive) wild greens, grapes, plum, the closest to a wild grain would be the seed heads of amaranthus, curly dock, and cattail.
technology seems to develop in response to threats from other culture groups, so you ought to split up into different tribes and learn how to make war over limited resources.