Weapon/Tool Development/Anthropology... Formerly Blocking useless?

[pdg]

no the European neolithics had the whole of Europe ,Asian and a,short boat ride away Africa, they wernt by any means hemmed in

I would contend that they were.

Mountain ranges require that you have foodstuffs you can carry, which means storage, which means you have to be beyond hunter gatherer.

Seas (a short boat ride) need the same, but they also need boats of a size capable of carrying more than a few people - you can't develop a longship if you're nomadic because you can't carry it.

So, to get past those 'hemmings' means you have to have reached a level of stability and security that the indigenous peoples of larger areas never needed (or weren't able) to reach.

If that weren't the case, and everyone in Europe, Africa and Asia could just wander between each area, everyone would look the same.

Because they were 'hemmed in', a Frenchman looks different to a German, who looks different to a Spaniard, who looks different to an Asian - who all look different to a native American, who looks different to an aboriginal Australian, who looks different to an African.

 

[jobo]

Are you guys really getting fired up over stone axes and the level of technology the people that made them had?

Just lol.


Btw tomahawk tends to refer to the design not the material, and they are still in use in militaries today.

no at the moment its just a friendly exchange of ideas, I'm sure the fire up guys will be,a long when America walked up

the matterial IS the,design, try making a football out of stone and youl see what i mean

 

[jobo]

I would contend that they were.

Mountain ranges require that you have foodstuffs you can carry, which means storage, which means you have to be beyond hunter gatherer.

Seas (a short boat ride) need the same, but they also need boats of a size capable of carrying more than a few people - you can't develop a longship if you're nomadic because you can't carry it.

So, to get past those 'hemmings' means you have to have reached a level of stability and security that the indigenous peoples of larger areas never needed (or weren't able) to reach.

If that weren't the case, and everyone in Europe, Africa and Asia could just wander between each area, everyone would look the same.

Because they were 'hemmed in', a Frenchman looks different to a German, who looks different to a Spaniard, who looks different to an Asian - who all look different to a native American, who looks different to an aboriginal Australian, who looks different to an African.

but the,south Americans look different to the mid Americans who look different that the Inuit who look different that the,west coast natives who look different than the east coast natives, so either every one,was hemmed in ir no one,was

nb they have lots of mountains in America?

 

[hoshin1600]

the vikings were trading with the Canadian and American indians. it was common to trade European axes.
just saying...

 

[pdg]

but the,south Americans look different to the mid Americans who look different that the Inuit who look different that the,west coast natives who look different than the east coast natives, so either every one,was hemmed in ir no one,was

The south Americans were 'hemmed' from the north Americans by distance - ditto east vs west or mid/south/north/more north.

The difference is that the area they were 'restricted' to was larger, so for reasons I've given previously they didn't have the necessitation to develop.

 

[pdg]

nb they have lots of mountains in America?

As you added this after my previous reply I shall address it separately...

Look at the distance between American mountain ranges and European mountain ranges.

 

[hoshin1600]

Hannibal crossed the Alps in 218 BC in the Second Punic War. he brought elephants from Africa. it is a notable occurrence because no one thought it could be done.

 

[hoshin1600]

why are we talking about human migration?
people did not migrate much because the knowledge of food sources keeps them to areas that they know. as you travel the food sources and methods of procuring that food source changes. if you do not know the local food sources you starve.
if the food source changes due to something like climate change then people will be forced to migrate.

 

[hoshin1600]

lets not forget that we had an ice age. a 30ft wall of ice tends to keep people where they are.
then there is the Sahara desert. that is something you dont just wander off into.

 

[hoshin1600]

what was the topic again?????

 

[pdg]

why are we talking about human migration?
people did not migrate much because the knowledge of food sources keeps them to areas that they know. as you travel the food sources and methods of procuring that food source changes. if you do not know the local food sources you starve.
if the food source changes due to something like climate change then people will be forced to migrate.

Because...

You stick with hunting and gathering the local food.

Once you have thoroughly trounced the local competition you settle down and expand, so you need to farm.

Once you're farming you can support technological advancements and with that, an army.

With that army (sustained by farmed and stored food) you can cross previously insurmountable obstacles and invade other areas.

In those other areas, you can collaborate and develop new weapons to invade yet more areas.

Then, your army can develop ways to block attacks.

Then the competing armies, through ongoing smallish conflicts, can develop ways to block attacks.

Eventually, you get someone asking whether blocking those attacks is pointless!



(See, I had a plan aaaaallllll along )

 

[Martial D]

no at the moment its just a friendly exchange of ideas, I'm sure the fire up guys will be,a long when America walked up

the matterial IS the,design, try making a football out of stone and youl see what i mean

When I say design I mean shape, weight distribution, functionality and aesthetic. What it's made of would be it's composition.

 

[Martial D]

But at the same time there is a great variability of design ranging from broad heads and curved bits to narrow heads and straight bits, with pols that could range from plain curved, to hammer-pol, to spikes, to pipes.

To be fair, this was also true of the original stone type. Every tribe made them differently.

 

[jobo]

When I say design I mean shape, weight distribution, functionality and aesthetic. What it's made of would be it's composition.

bur it's shape, its weight distribution and it's functionality are all dependent on the matterial used . If i build a house out of Lego, it requires a completely different design to if i use bricks, though the end result will have some,similarities, which as over,all dimensions and colour, if i use red lego, so that's the,aesthetic element

 

[Gerry Seymour]

but that's a chicken ir egg argument, true, technology takes off, when you stop chasing your food all over the place .

but its developing the technology to control nature, ie farming that puts you in one place to develop further technology,

there are places in the world were farming is more difficult, hence the nomadic life style lasted thousands of years longer, the great plains are,NOT one if those places

I don't know enough on the topic to speak definitively, but there are some technologies that simply aren't likely to develop within a nomadic society. They won't develop those technologies THEN stop being nomadic. Mining seems one of those. It takes a lot of work to mine and smelt metal ore, and I can't see there'd be any payoff to a society to do that if they aren't staying put - or at least keeping only two locations (summer/winter), so the mine and facility is at hand a large part of the year.

In some places I don't doubt the retention of nomadic was is linked to the difficulty in farming. I suspect the inverse is also sometimes true (the move to agrarian ways is due difficulty in nomadic life). If the nomadic life is easy enough (as it is likely to be in temperate areas with sufficient natural flora and fauna, with no competing tribes nearby), I suspect some groups opt to keep that approach.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

no the European neolithics had the whole of Europe ,Asian and a,short boat ride away Africa, they wernt by any means hemmed in

I think it's less a matter of what they have access to, than population density. If the nearest tribe is 2 days away (with settlements) there's less conflict than if it's one day away. And the lower the density, the easier it is to subsist on a nomadic hunter/gatherer approach without conflict. I don't know the population progression in Europe when it moved toward agrarianism, but the population density was clearly centuries ahead of the Americas by the 1500's. That difference in population density (when you're looking at an area large enough to have competing societies) is likely a heavy driver of change.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

but the,south Americans look different to the mid Americans who look different that the Inuit who look different that the,west coast natives who look different than the east coast natives, so either every one,was hemmed in ir no one,was

nb they have lots of mountains in America?

That's a different span of area. France is slightly larger than the state of Texas. I don't think the same level of physical distinction occurred over the same geographic span in the Americas. There's definitely a recognizable difference between most Eastern US aboriginal tribes and those in the Southwest. But that's equivalent to opposite corners of Europe, not neighbor states.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

nb they have lots of mountains in America?

I missed this earlier. Nothing in the contiguous US really compares to the Alps and Himalayas. The closest you get would be the Rocky Mountains and their neighbors. The mountains further East would never have been an obstacle to travel. Anyone in average shape can hike over one of those, and the weather in them is only marginally harsher than the surrounding area. Moving west, the mountains created much more of an obstacle, especially in the Winter, but you're talking a distance between that takes the better part of a day (16 hours) to drive at highway speeds.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

lets not forget that we had an ice age. a 30ft wall of ice tends to keep people where they are.
then there is the Sahara desert. that is something you dont just wander off into.

I didn't even consider the differences in climactic shift. I really want to take a global anthropology course now.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

what was the topic again?????

It had something to do with martial arts, I think. Or beading. Maybe it was beading.