A Guide for the Rise and Spread of a Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution

Introduction

In Guns, Germs, and Steel, geographer Jared Diamond asks why history unfolded differently on the different continents. You might ask the same for your world. One thing I've learned is that following guides like this lead you to look at your world in detail. A methodical approach like this can lead to surprising insights and leaps of imagination.

Back to the theme of the book: Consider an example from history; why did Europe develop bronze around 4500 B.C., but the people of the Andes didn't develop it until 1200 A.D.? Why different rates of development?

Or another example: Why was Hernan Cortes taking ships from Spain to conquer the Aztecs in Mexico? Why wasn't Moctezuma invading Europe?

1 - Prehistory

First we have to get up to the Neolithic Revolution, also known as the First Agricultural revolution.

The evolution of humans, their migration across the globe, and especially the Quaternary Mass Extinction event at the end of the Pleistocene epoch all matter in this time of pre-history. As humans spread across the world they wiped out some of the big mammals in the last Ice Age. Many large mammals went extinct, especially in Australia and the Americas. In those continents animals evolved without seeing humans and they had no fear. This is unlike in Africa. There, elephants that evolved along with humans knew they could kill and behaved accordingly. In the Americas and Australia many large potentially useful mammals were lost. Large mammals like cows are very useful for getting civilization started.

For scale, here is a brief timeline of prehistory

  • The earliest human-related beings, Homo erectus left Africa around 1.9 million years ago. This is the Out of Africa I expansion.
  • 1 million years ago, Java man is in Indonesia. This is the oldest hominid fossil. Hominids, (not modern humans though) have spread across Asia.
  • 500,000 years ago, early there are a few stone tools. Hominids have moved to Europe.
  • 300,000 - 200,000 years ago anatomically "modern" Homo sapiens show up. Northern Kenya / Southern Ethiopia is a site with lots of evidence as an origin location. Their expansion is the Out of Africa II expansion.
  • 130,000-40,000 years ago, there was a separate species whose brain was slightly bigger than ours: Neanderthals. They buried their dead and cared for their sick, but they disappeared a few thousand years after Cro-Magnons showed up.
  • 75,000 years ago the Toba Super-volcanic eruption in Sumatra is theorized to bottleneck the growing human population. Genetic evidence suggests we are all descended from a group of around 10,000 humans. Around this time Homo sapiens are moving across the southern coasts of Asia. This is a big migration. There are also theories about earlier and later migrations. There are also ideas of multiple migrations.
  • 48,000-15,000 years ago Early European humans, the Cro-Magnons, were painting in caves at Lascaux, France.
  • 50,000 the "Great Leap Forward" happened. We became human. In East Africa we have standardized tools, ostrich shells as jewelry, and the anatomical evolution of the voice box. Our voices led to communication and creativity.
  • 30,000-40,000 years ago Aborigines were in Australia. Watercraft must have existed.
  • 12,000 B.C. There are human sites in Alaska.
  • 11,000 B.C. There are New Mexico clovis sites.
  • 10,000 B.C. , over a thousand years people had made it all the way down through South America. They'd only have to move 8 miles a year to achieve that, easy for hunter-gatherers. Likewise for population, even if only 100 people came to America and had a growth rate of 1.1 % there’d still be 10 million people in the Americas after a thousand years.
  • For context, humans comfortably walk around 3 miles per hour. From Anchorage Alaska to Los Angeles is a drive of 3,000+ miles. That's about 1,000 hours of walking. If you walked for 4 hours a day that's 250 days.


R - Spread of Early Man.jpg

By 11-10,000 B.C. the stage is set. The last Ice Age is over and humans are about everywhere they can get to that really matters. A few long-term villages have been established. Shortly after this, the Neolithic / Agricultural Revolution will begin. Hunter-Gatherers will settle into farming.

Now we can ask: How much of history is pre-determined from this point? Did some people have an advantage at this point? Advantages that would lead to events like the 1520 conquest of the Aztecs by Hernan Cortes? Why wasn't it the 1520 conquest of Paris by Moctezuma of the Aztecs instead? Why did history unfold as it did?

Questions to ask and Rules of Thumb

How can we apply this to a newly created world? Here are some things to think about.

1) Where did humans originate on your world? Pick a large continent with an equatorial region. Within that continent, choose an area with access to water, proximity to savannas, and nearby mountainous regions where there are cool forests at the higher altitudes. Inland east Africa had ecological diversity ranging from semi-desert through dry savanna plains to well-watered uplands with extensive areas of montane forest and a lake-shore environment.

2) Humans left their first continent in waves and earlier hominids had already dispersed much earlier.

3) Given a thousand years a group of hunter-gatherers can spread across a continent as seen in the America's.

Application

Here's a rough biome map of my fictional world of Enratask, named for an anagram of Ratsnake. I found one last summer.

Ratsnake - Biomes.png


I chose a spot near the equator, on a large continent where grasslands like savanna, subtropical forests, desert, and mountains were nearby and decide that was the origin of humanity.

I spread that area out along grasslands, but avoiding mountains and deserts to a degree. That wasn't based in any solid evidence, just a choice based on intuition. I overlooked the factor of steppes and highlands. Once I had a feel for how far early humans would spread on their own until around the "Great Leap Forward" of 50,000 years ago.

From there I laid out pathways along geographic and ecological features. If there was nothing but grasslands and forests I moved the people a far way quickly. Areas with lots of mountains and deserts, I imagined taking longer so people only reached there around 50,000 years ago. Likewise going north almost to the tundra seemed like it would take extra time so they didn't reach there until 40,000 years ago. I stalled the humans out around peninsulas, archipelagos and short channels. That's why they didn't cross over to the large island/ small continent in the southwest until 20,000 years ago. This also sparked my imagination that that small island might be a source of materials suitable to make the move to ocean going.

I decided the Western Hemisphere would not be reached by early mankind and would have to wait for the development of ocean-going ships.

Ratsnake - Spread of Early Humans.png

I am not an expert in this subject, but learning about it is fun. Questions, comments, and critiques are welcome.