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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

#21

Post by mncharity »

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…

> simplistic [...] yet the local extractive elites did not disappear, they persisted

Another complication is elites could be leveraged against each other. In the Ottoman Empire, Egyptian farming villages would use strikes to discipline local elites. Village(s) unhappy with local elite decisions would go on strike - slowing down or abandoning work, and moving in with family in nearby villages. The production drop would bring down a pissed and powerful Ottoman official on the local elite - "you will fix this, now".

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

#22

Post by ch4s3 »

tivert wrote: post #20
ch4s3 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 econ…

> 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).

Yeah, that's true but you can have electric trains and trams. Canals and sails are also totally useful for a coastal society.

> 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.

In the US alone, they're all over the place. There's 250 billion short tons of coal that's estimated to be commercially recoverable in the US today. A good bit of that isn't particularly deep. There's still surface coal all over West Virginia. A lot of of it just gets left around because its too dirty to burn under current law, or is a little to disperse to mine profitably in current energy markets.

Pumping isn't that hard if labor is cheap, the Romans did it with two cylinder pumps, person powered water wheels, and screw pumps. Pumping water is actually a key challenge that leads to important technology, or it did for us.

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

#23

Post by digging »

ijidak wrote: post #8
mikhmha wrote: post #4

I've thought about this idea a lot. It seems like the idea we have of the centralized empires of the past is mostly based on movies and fiction - and maybe from the actions of the last remaining empires in the 19-20th century. I think we take for granted advancements in communications and transportation that allowed for the governance of large areas of land in more recent history. Are maps of ancient empires even acc…

It's true. Control of many fringe regions was tenuous at times. For example, the Annals of Sennacherib show the Assyrians had to re-conquer areas that drifted after previous subjugation. But how do you draw those boundaries between subjugations? In the Bible, it shows that Nebuchadnezzar's armies had to repeatedly return to Israel to re-subjugate it between rebellions. No doubt similar rebellions could occur in many…

Borders are a more modern concept anyway, and even modern borders are anything but a line on a map. (Consider airports. Embassies. Checkpoints. Federal agencies operating inside neighboring countries to deter migration. Etc)

Boundaries are policies, not objects. They always have been.

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

#24

Post by allturtles »

> archaeologists working in the inland delta of the Middle Niger revealed evidence for a prosperous urban civilisation with no discernible signs of rulership or central authority

I don't have access to this article, but I'm skeptical. How would you conclusively determine that the ruins of a city without writing indicate a lack of rulership or central authority? Likewise, the fact that various archaeological finds are turning up more organized societies in previously unexpected places tells us nothing about how state-like and hierarchical they were, while all our evidence of cities from places where we have written historical records is of states that function on the basis of organized violence. This feels like ideologically-motivated wishful thinking. The author wants to believe that empires are not just bad, but "unnatural."

> What, exactly, were ancient empires ‘successful’ at, if extraordinary levels of violence, destruction and displacement were required to keep them afloat?

It comes down to whether you are with Hobbes or Rousseau. This author is clearly with Rousseau, and believes the natural state of humanity is to be free and happy and that empires are a kind of unnatural cancer. If you are a Hobbesian, and believe that violence and exploitation are endemic to human life, than what empires succeed at is to push the violence to the periphery, and allow those inside the orbit of the empire to enjoy a relatively peaceful existence.

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

#25

Post by StanislavPetrov »

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.

> if they want a huge population.

Then maybe our folly will save them from making the same mistakes?

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

#26

Post by sriacha »

signalToNose wrote: post #16
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.

Kurt Vonnegut Galapagos show is an alternative future

Heh, great book.

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

#27

Post by brabel »

golergka wrote: post #12
brabel wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That just shows people may want to flee from one empire to another, which does not counter anything.
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