Theory: Lifecycle of the flock
Jorn Barger
history' [1], lately by analysing the patterns of the Bronze Age [2].
But, outside of the cities of the middle-east, most of the world was
still tribal hunter-gatherers in the Bronze Age, as they'd been (in
effect) for tens of millions of years-- small, nomadic groups doing
their thing... and leaving very little 'trail' for the historian to
trace.
And since the trails are so minimal, capturing them in a unified Web
timeline also presents special problems.
But what I'm thinking starts to resemble the prototypical alife
'flocking' model, except that the flocks have to have a few more logical
dimensions:
- individual 'birds' are born and die
- sometimes the flock splits into two
- usually either males or females leave the flock when they reach
sexual maturity
- often the flock will have an alpha male
- other males may challenge the alpha
The entire history of the Primate family might be simulated as a
sequence of changes in these basics, with added, incidental variants
like:
- flock's nomadic path in space (eg humans out of Africa 100,000 BP)
- diet
- seasonal migration patterns
- infinite variations on basic alpha-male sociology
So the timeline of the Bronze (or Stone) Age might treat
hunter-gatherers as 'flocks' with many unknown parameters, but with
best-guesses possible for the main ones...
[1] http://www.robotwisdom.com/science/history.html
[2] eg: http://www.robotwisdom.com/science/blacksea.html
--
http://www.robotwisdom.com/ "Relentlessly intelligent
yet playful, polymathic in scope of interests, minimalist
but user-friendly design." --Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel
george n. prince
This is a worthwhile project. So that you will not waste time
reinventing the wheel, I refer you to a book by Robert L. Kelly, The
Foraging Spectrum: Diversity in Hunter-Gatherer Lifeways (Smithsonian
Institution Press, 1995) ISBN 1-56098-466-X.
George N. Prince
Mercer Island WA
Jorn Barger
> I refer you to a book by Robert L. Kelly, "The Foraging Spectrum:
Thanks, that looks great-- I found a detailed partial summary here:
http://www.unl.edu/rhames/courses/kelly5_end.htm
Amazon's page recommends a related book called "How Chiefs Come to
Power: The Political Economy in Prehistory" by Timothy K. Earle that
looks very relevant, too... Recently I've been exploring an intuition
I've started calling 'mind wrestling' that refers to competitions for
power where physical strength never directly comes into play-- instead
it's a combination of will and cunning, that surely eventually leads
straight to lawyers and corporate game-playing.
The fact that Indo-Europeans and Amorites could conquer populations (eg
in Mesopotamia) that were culturally very different implies a hidden
advantage at mind-wrestling that must have gone far beyond the threat of
chariots and bronze swords.
And extending this concept into the present, we might analyse the
'mind-wrestling strength' of special-interest groups by their ability to
impose their agenda by manipulating the US pseudo-democracy: eg, how
effectively do they limit the expression of contrary viewpoints in the
media, and how unanimous are congressional votes on their issues...?