Posted on 11/26/2002 7:57:18 AM PST by blam
How did he come up with that number? The number seems to small to sustain genetic viablity, when you look at the area we are talking about.
"How did he come up with that number? The number seems to small to sustain genetic viablity, when you look at the area we are talking about."
He does qoute a source, I just can't figure out which one relates to this number(to many to list all), here's how it was used:
"In 13,000BC the world's hunter-gather population was approaching eight and a half million. For tens of thousands of years, the growth rate had been roughly 0.0015 percent per year as our remote ancestors expanded into deserts,tropical forests and arctic regions....."
In a footnote he adds this: "This rate would increase to 0.1 percent after farming began in 9,000BC, and to 0.6 percent and 2.0 percent in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries AD, respectively."
I will add also, after the Toba explosion 75,000 years ago, I read one estimate that the worldwide human population was as low as 5,000. Toba was almost a human extinction event.
Got it and sorry I misunderstood your intent. I thought you were coming from an entirely different place.
Brave New World, Writer : Aldous Huxley
Bernard Marx is the most important character in the first part of the book. Huxley doesnt describe him physically in detail. Bernard is thin and very small, even though he is an Alpha, who are supposed to be bigger than the normal size. Bernard looks like a Gamma person. He is an outsider, because he doesnt feel so confident as the other people, hes never asked for dates, and the lower castes dont sometimes obey him as they should. Everyone regards him as an odd person...
In order to expand territory you must breed above replacemant level. Hunter gatherers and hearders typically range over the same territory and when the populstion gets too large they either split and emigrate or they drive their neighbors away and their neighbors emigrate.
I think that the numbers that you quoted, for after the Toba explosion were much too small.
Ah, see how easy it was to flush you out! When you are on the pontificating side of an issue you are all sweetness and light. But when challenged to actually think about a subject, it's brain lock-up followed by sputtering noises.
What follows is very well researched, including on-site study over 2 decades and post-Doctoral work at European Universities which might allow you to visit only in order to use the rest room. Please give us the benefit of your enlightened "research" on the topic. "Customs" and "Traditions" don't count:
3-MINUTE HISTORY OF THE ISRAELITES Four Thousand years ago, Abraham (a great-great grandson of Shem, a son of Noah) and a small group of Hebrews (of which there were & are many varieties) migrated from southern Iraq to Canaan (~Palestine). Several generations later, around 1853 BC, his Grandson Jacob (who was renamed Israel) and his 12 Sons and families moved to Egypt. As offspring of Shem, they were called "Shemites" or "Semites", as were his many other offspring. ~1453 BC, now as the 12 Tribes of the 12 Sons of Israel, and over 3 Million strong, these Semites bailed out of Egypt in the well-documented overland EXODUS and fled back to ~Palestine. But the Tribes "couldn't all get along" there, so ~922 BC these 5 Million Israelites split into the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. (In actual numbers, 5 Million people is about the same size as Ireland, Norway, Denmark or Israel today, and was 10% of the estimated 50 Million world population at that time. The world population is now ONE HUNDRED TIMES as large. Compared to todays 6 Billion people, the Israelites relative population would have been over twice as large as the United States of America!) The very large Northern Kingdom of Israel was made up of 10 of the Tribes. Inheriting the Kingly names which applied to all 12 Tribes before the split, the Northern Kingdom (alone) becomes known as the Kingdom of Israel or House of Israel, (also House of Joseph, House of Ephriam, House of Isaac, and House of Omri), and is led by the northern Tribe of Ephraim. Two hundred years later these Northern Israelites were taken into captivity by the Assyrians (~722 BC) and relocated to the northern Fertile Crescent area of Iraq/Iran. They were not diligent in updating their eMail addresses, thus were called, by some, the "Lost Tribes", or "Lost Sheep" or "Lost Children" of the Kingdom or House of Israel. (However at ~1/12 or more of the worlds population it seems unlikely they would actually disappear, or get "lost". The global population now ~75 Million.) A hundred years later, this "lost" Northern Kingdom of Israel with now over 6 Million Israelites helped the Medes and Persians overthrow the Assyrians, then escaped north through the Caucasus Mountains and around the Black and Caspian Seas, to explode into history ~610 BC as The Celts. These Celts mixed with (and fought against) each other, and with other scattered Israelites (proto-Celts) who had escaped from Egypt by sea nearly a thousand years earlier, before the overland Exodus. Also, with other Israelites who migrated from Palestine after the overland Exodus but before the Assyrian captivity and who had already established numerous outposts in Europe and elsewhere. These Millions of Celts grew to become Tens, then Hundreds of Millions as they migrated in waves westward and northwest to Galatia, Ephesus, Corinth, Thessalonika, Phillipi, Collosse, to what is today Hallstatt, Austria and Neuchatel, Switzerland (where exist major Celtic digs and museums) and beyond, to totally dominate Northern and Western Europe. These Celts (also as Cimmerians, Scythians, Danaoi, Massagetae, Milesians, Masilia, Sarmatians, Germani, Goths, Franks, Gauls, Lombards, Belgae, Angles, Saxons, Jutes, Vandals, Danes, Normans, and other assorted "Barbarians") are the rootstock of today's Europeans and Americans who became the backbone of global Christianity. The much smaller Southern Kingdom was made up of the Tribe of Judah & a mix of Levites and Benjamites. It was also known as the Kingdom of Judah or House of Judah. These Southern Israelites (aka Judeans) were taken captive in ~587 BC and removed to Babylon. Only ~50,000 Judeans returned to Palestine ~70 years later. They and their offspring are called Jews. |
Okay. I have not allegiance to those population numbers, it's just that I don't have any others.
What and where are your population numbers?
That is a very interesting speculation. But vast areas of the world even today have virtually no population at all. The "# per square mile" is rarely reported as zero, but in reality it is very close to that. Much of the desert. Most of the high mountains. Virtually all of the seas.
Southern Africa was virtually empty when the Dutch landed there in the 1600s as traders, then along with the French Hugenots as refugees from the religious persecution going on in Europe. There were no blacks within a thousand miles to the north, and only a very few very primitive aboriginals. Not nearly enough to call that vast area "occupied".
When America began filling with Europeans the average population per square mile was clearly near zero. In no sense of the word were there enough Indians present to call America "occupied". (Revisionist history notwithstanding --- and no, you can't have ALL of western america as your own just to graze some mangy buffalo. {ggg}. The railroad is coming through!)
When Leif Erikson landed in Newfoundland ~1,000 AD he was met by local Indians. That figures, since this was at the waters edge that's where the few Indians would be found. But there were nowhere enough Indians present in North America then, or later, to in any sense call it "occupied".
Moving back in time, I wonder how many people were in western Europe around 600 BC when the Celts moved north and westward out of the region of the Caucasus? I haven't seen a number, but think we make a mistake to think in terms of todays crowded Europe. After all, the action at that time was virtually all in the region of the Med. and the warmer climes.
Was Europe then like Southern Africa, or America only 400 years ago? Pretty much empty. Was it like North America 1,000 years ago, virtually empty? Was the area of the Ukraine virtually empty, like the American west only 200, or even 100 years ago? The Celts had not yet left northern Iran/Iraq and passed through the Ukraine to settle and dominate Europe as they would do in the years following. Maybe, like their European offspring settling America, and their European offspring settling Southern Africa, they had no virtually one to "displace" when the arrived?
If you accept Woolsey's estimate of Ur at 60 to 80 thousand at its peak then you add all of the other city states in Sumeraria, Syria, Egypt, China, Palistine, Asia Minor, and India. Then you add in North and South America, Europe, Africa, Central Asia, South Asia and Australia, I think the numbers would supprise even me.
One of the problems that a person faces when doing population estimates is that it is not what was is known but what is yet to be discovered.
Here are some dates of worldwide catastrophic events as recorded by the tree rings: 3195BC, 2354BC, 1628BC, 1159BC and 540AD. (two minor events at 207BC and 44BC). These were worldwide events and do not include localized catastrophies. Millions of people died in these events and reduced populations enormously. It has never been a steady smooth growth in populations. Some people a lot more educated than me call some of those dates 'near-extinction' events.
If you read the reports of the early Spanish explorers the American continents had a goodly sized population, the Anastazi were driven out by climate change, for example, small pox did a number on the rest.
East Africa, the Nile basin, and the area below Lake Chad down to Angola had a fair population. the Middle East, Asia Minor, Iraq and Afganistan. were heavily populated. Climate changes have converted some areas that were inhabitable to areas that are uninhabitable.
Of course I know, but how local were the events? Did the catastrophe that ended the Sargonite Empire affect the population living on the Merrimack River, in Mass?
Rupp plotted out a major event every 20MM years since the disaster at the KT boundry, with several minor/major events at approximately 5mm year intervals. Each of these events is marked by a mass extinction, the last good extinction we has was when the mammoths and the Ice Age fauna went South, the rest I think were minor.
How about some NUMBERS? Those descriptors tell nothing.
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