Were ancient foragers the most knowledgeable and skilful people in history?

[Vijy]

On 11/1/2024 at 2:06 PM, Muloghonto said:

 

There is very little support for this theory in greater scientific community, mostly because the timframe of this so-called 'cognitive revolution' and 'agricultural revolution' is a period of nearly half a million years and there are plenty of climate related events to investigate for said extinctions of flora and fauna. 

Using cuba is a stupid example, this is not a feature of just 'fallen human' homo sapiens, this is a feature of EVERY predatory animal when introducted to a micro eco-system as invasive species at some point in history - plenty of hamster to golf ball sized rodents in the world have gone extinct within 2 centuries of cats showing up to that location, sometimes even wild dogs have driven species into extinction in micro ecosystems.  Micro biomes are areas of nitche evolutions but also areas of extreme vulnerability : approx 90% of the animal species in India went exting within a million years of India joining Eurasia, because of invasive hunter species arriving from Eurasia itself, so Cuba or Zeeland or such are just small potatoes in this discussion. 

Evolutionarily and in biological terms, even Australia is not considered a macroscopc ecosystem fyi, being just big enough to not really be a micro biome but nowhere large enough to show the same biological trajectory of the two world islands ( Afro-Eurasia & Americas). 

 

 

 

Agreed.  I would also add that the evidence for the so-called cognitive revolution (the upper paleolithic revolution) is poorly attested and quite heavily debated. I see it more as a gradual process with local spikes potentially along the way.

[Vijy]

OP, I know Hariri's work quite well, and even met him in person too. He is a very smart guy, but I would not make the mistake of taking everything in "Sapiens" at face value. there is plenty that is diluted for a broader audience, and this dilution has also introduced some problematic oversimplifications (see above post from Muloghonto and my response to it)

[Vijy]

On 10/28/2024 at 10:36 AM, Muloghonto said:

 

The timeline of your book is more or less accurate, especially after the  5K period - the higher bounds are subject to more revision over time ( as expected) but one notable error and example of western bias is putting capitalism's rise in the 1500s. No,that is 2nd birth of capitalism, with the first birth being in the 700s BCE-1100s CE Indo-pacific region, with the Srenis being corporate entities following a capitalism model that is similar to capitalism of pre-stock market era, where bonds exist but stock tradiing does not. 

 

Yeah, there were several instantiations of (proto-)capitalism. The Mahajanapadas era was a vibrant one in India; and the Song dynasty also exhibited facets later on, but before the 1500s.