You know the early humans who lived in Europe 25k years ago? The ones with stone tools who carved thicc portable woman statues?
How many do you think there were in all of Europe?
I'm shocked to learn the estimates are only 30,000 people! Hardly even a small town... and spread over so much space. Humans were rare animals. Our shift to numerous is more extreme than I think we realize.
It explains why technology changed so slowly. Not enough people!
@futurebird It’s also wild that even m back then they’re already was already long distance trade. I always wonder, how did the traders find each other? Things like ocean seashells must’ve been extremely valuable to the in the interior cause they never knew when the next goods were going to arrive.
@mckennas@futurebird
well there was a megafauna extinction near the end of the Pleistocene. We meet the definition of "megafauna" typically used: a typical adult size of 44kg or more. (yeah, this is smaller than many people think they when they hear "megafauna", but I blame Paul S. Martin. ) Maybe it's just luck we didn't get taken out in that extinction event.
To be fair those weren't the only people on earth... more came up later out of Africa which I think is understudied in this period since ... IDK that's where all the humans were.
@futurebird@mckennas
yeah, I should have remembered that before making a cheap joke. Africa was definitely the center of and most dense area of human population at that time, and I would guess probably remained so until relatively recently, until the development of high density rice farming in southern China and southeast Asia.
@futurebird@Kierkegaanks Today when we look across the world we see thousands of different cultures and languages. But, with the utter isolation of settlements and the vastness of space and time, we must’ve lost far more than we’ve ever encountered.
@futurebird I remember hearing once that at the time of Renaissance the entire population of the world was equivalent to the current population of New Jersey.
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