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A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

aeon.co

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Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#11

Post by openrisk »

> Today it seems very possible that another 2,000 years of world governance by ‘powerful extractive elites’ could lead to the destruction of most life on Earth.

While it is difficult to assign a probability, the possibility of modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse in a relatively short time is not unthinkable. The combination of ever advancing technological capabilities and stagnant sociopolitical maturity should be prompting any thinking person to ponder how we could possibly learn and evolve long-term sustainable social structures.

The underlying 'freedom vs empire' theme that permeates the article is too simplistic. E.g., in the modern era empires fragmented into national states, granting "freedom" to populations self-identifying as "one people" yet the local extractive elites did not disappear, they persisted and promptly collaborated in a variety of supranational cartels.

The human society "equation" that would guide us how to reach a desirable stable state has never been written down. If it is close to anything it is highly complex and non-linear system, admitting a variety of solutions as "N" (our numbers) and "C" (the collective cultural imprints in our brains) keep cumulating, but "P", our planet, remains fixed.

Oppressive hierarchical societies seem to have been a relatively stable state in various phases of human development. This does not make them natural or inevitable under all conditions. Even a simple linear string will admit different solutions depending on boundary conditions.

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#12

Post by golergka »

brabel wrote: post #9
elphinstone wrote: post #6

There are interesting ideas here, but also a lot of presumption. Just because a people lacked stone writing and centralisation doesn't mean they were free of local tyrants and internecine tribal warfare.

I was thinking the same thing. I don't think there's evidence of anyone ever trying to flee from an Empire where they lived, at least if they were not there as slaves brought from another area. If the "outside" was so great, you would expect people to try to move there... everything I've read so far makes me believe the exact opposite has been true. People tend to want to move to more prosperous areas, just check the…

Soviet union was in most ways a colonial empire, and a lot of people risked their lives to escape from it.

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#13

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

dash2 wrote: post #10

Like these guys' fascinating book, The Dawn of Everything , this article introduces but over-interprets some exciting new data. A lot of what we're told about is new locations for urban life. But the claim that they weren't empires is arguing from absence of evidence. We mostly don't know what they were. For an interesting pairing, see Bryan Ward-Brown on the fall of Rome, interviewed here by Razib Khan ( https://www…

In a lot of the former Western Roman Empire, taxation ended when the empire fell. Standards of living also rapidly declined.

Taxation in the empire had funded public goods, like aqueducts, roads and security, which enabled large urban centers and long-distance trade.

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#14

Post by t43562 »

Surely it's all just about organising people on a larger and larger scale that has benefits? Perhaps an empire is a way to do that which works in the sense that some controlling centre has to be chosen and that's going to happen initially by war and conquest.

The rulers of tribes are going to want "freedom" so they can stay in the game of possibly building their own empire but that doesn't mean their people in the end wouldn't find some consolation in the stability of being under e.g. Roman rule.

I'm sure nobody wants to be under Russian or Chinese rule but if the rest of us cannot organise ourselves on a larger scale than they can .... it might eventually happen.

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#15

Post by arkh »

openrisk wrote: post #11

> Today it seems very possible that another 2,000 years of world governance by ‘powerful extractive elites’ could lead to the destruction of most life on Earth. While it is difficult to assign a probability, the possibility of modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse in a relatively short time is not unthinkable. The combination of ever advancing technological capabilities and stagnant sociopolitical matur…

> modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse

If it happens next potential civilizationable species will be fucked: we have extracted all the easy high density resource we could find. So no easy gas for them which may hamper any progress. Also no easy high nitrogen sources: food sources will have to not depend on this cycle if they want a huge population. And maybe a lack of helium if they're unlucky.

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#16

Post by signalToNose »

arkh wrote: post #15
openrisk wrote: post #11

> Today it seems very possible that another 2,000 years of world governance by ‘powerful extractive elites’ could lead to the destruction of most life on Earth. While it is difficult to assign a probability, the possibility of modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse in a relatively short time is not unthinkable. The combination of ever advancing technological capabilities and stagnant sociopolitical matur…

> modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse If it happens next potential civilizationable species will be fucked: we have extracted all the easy high density resource we could find. So no easy gas for them which may hamper any progress. Also no easy high nitrogen sources: food sources will have to not depend on this cycle if they want a huge population. And maybe a lack of helium if they're unlucky.

Kurt Vonnegut Galapagos show is an alternative future

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#17

Post by bregma »

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #13
dash2 wrote: post #10

Like these guys' fascinating book, The Dawn of Everything , this article introduces but over-interprets some exciting new data. A lot of what we're told about is new locations for urban life. But the claim that they weren't empires is arguing from absence of evidence. We mostly don't know what they were. For an interesting pairing, see Bryan Ward-Brown on the fall of Rome, interviewed here by Razib Khan ( https://www…

In a lot of the former Western Roman Empire, taxation ended when the empire fell. Standards of living also rapidly declined. Taxation in the empire had funded public goods, like aqueducts, roads and security, which enabled large urban centers and long-distance trade.

Apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system, and public health ... what have the Romans ever done for us?

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#18

Post by ch4s3 »

arkh wrote: post #15
openrisk wrote: post #11

> Today it seems very possible that another 2,000 years of world governance by ‘powerful extractive elites’ could lead to the destruction of most life on Earth. While it is difficult to assign a probability, the possibility of modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse in a relatively short time is not unthinkable. The combination of ever advancing technological capabilities and stagnant sociopolitical matur…

> modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse If it happens next potential civilizationable species will be fucked: we have extracted all the easy high density resource we could find. So no easy gas for them which may hamper any progress. Also no easy high nitrogen sources: food sources will have to not depend on this cycle if they want a huge population. And maybe a lack of helium if they're unlucky.

That seems true if you only think about coal, but we started with wood and any future world without people would have a ton of that. Whale oil too would also be available. Depending on the time periods we're talking about, there would be a LOT of oil wells that could be discovered via the crumbling infrastructure left behind. Surface level coal my be gone in most places, but large mines full of coal site idle in a lot of places now for economic reasons, and energy poor society may dig out these deposits. On the scale of millions of years, there could well be additional hydrocarbons produced, and methane could be used by some future sapient organisms.

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#19

Post by tivert »

> Or maybe, by then, none of it will really matter very much, because the past will itself have been automated. Instead of historians, we’ll have ‘history machines’ based on algorithms and databanks: more facts on file, designed by survivors of the final bureaucratic assault on what was once fondly called ‘the humanities’.

Honestly, I can't imagine that a machine like that won't devolve into a Ministry of Truth.

Re: A revolution in archaeology is transforming our picture of past populations

#20

Post by tivert »

ch4s3 wrote: post #18
arkh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> modern civilization suffering catastrophic collapse If it happens next potential civilizationable species will be fucked: we have extracted all the easy high density resource we could find. So no easy gas for them which may hamper any progress. Also no easy high nitrogen sources: food sources will have to not depend on this cycle if they want a huge population. And maybe a lack of helium if they're unlucky.

That seems true if you only think about coal, but we started with wood and any future world without people would have a ton of that. Whale oil too would also be available. Depending on the time periods we're talking about, there would be a LOT of oil wells that could be discovered via the crumbling infrastructure left behind. Surface level coal my be gone in most places, but large mines full of coal site idle in a lo…

> That seems true if you only think about coal, but we started with wood and any future world without people would have a ton of that. Whale oil too would also be available.

I think the point is you can't go far with those fuel sources (e.g. you can't have a trucking industry that runs on whale oil).

> Surface level coal my be gone in most places, but large mines full of coal site idle in a lot of places now for economic reasons, and energy poor society may dig out these deposits.

How deep? In a thousand years (let alone a million), will the mining tunnels have collapsed and/or filled with water? Even if the tunnels still exist and are serviceable, an "energy poor society" is probably not going to pump out the many millions of gallons of water needed to get at the coal.

Current humanity has shown very little capacity for heavy investment with only a long range payoff (say taking 100 steps at a time vs. 1 or 2 steps). The problem is with removing all the easily extractable energy resources is that, is it puts the remaining ones too many steps out of reach for someone starting at square one. If you've got 2 6-sided die and someone has to roll 100 with them to get to the next step, it's never going to happen.

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