Now they're deleting the comments of anyone who disagree with them besides me

At least that gave the universe this gem of philosophy: "What I personally consider respectful is subjective, not objective, so it is not up for debate."

make your own mod, "scientifically realistic stone age" ;-)

Originally posted by Mk Z:

make your own mod, "scientifically realistic stone age" ;-)

The thing is, the game is already pretty close to scientifically accurate for what it does. The small influxes of migrants to early communities is proved by adaptions of Malthus' statistical models of migration. We even have footprints from small bands of ancient migrants. I think the mod maker also contested that non-essential buildings (like stone monoliths) would attract settlers, when the modern understanding is that ancient decorative works of all kinds were used... to attract settlers.

Maybe I could just release a mod that changes nothing and call it what you suggested

small influxes, not the chief source of growth like in the game. they have modeled the ancient society on a modern european country with total fertility <2 and constant immigration, more old people than kids, no sexual division of labor etc.

>decorative works of all kinds were used... to attract settlers
how was it established?

Originally posted by Mk Z:

small influxes, not the chief source of growth like in the game. they have modeled the ancient society on a modern european country with total fertility <2 and constant immigration, more old people than kids, no sexual division of labor etc.

>decorative works of all kinds were used... to attract settlers
how was it established?

Ancient societies didn't have sexual division of labor; human sexual dimorphism is low, so selecting tasks by body type would be irrelevant in a species struggling to survive on intensive foraging. Every indication we have shows that the oldest tribal societies were egalitarian until about the end of pre-history agriculture. I can see why you would think the comparison you've made between early humans and modern Europe must be incorrect, but our societies were actually more similar to people further back in the past. Our diets and social structures are more similar to ancient peoples than historical agricultural peoples. You might as well say the game is wrong for not having a priest class ruling society, because we don't have a priest class now. Well, that's how ancient society functioned in contrast to classical societies.

Considering that the early game represents semi-sedentary hunter-gatherers, it's not incorrect that they'd have older people in the population. People who subsisted on nuts, meat, and only some starches lived a lot longer. There was less proximity for disease, and less dependence on agriculture meant less susceptibility to disease. There's a decent amount of archaeological evidence for older people in neolithic societies. But the game might be over-representing just how old populations get.

Ancient villages did not grow out of some Adam and Eve complex where a single family founded it and grew internally from there. That's a fully debunked idea. Ancient people moved in small bands and disjointed communities. Those smaller communities tended to outgrow their ability to obtain resources, creating migrants. Those migrants settled in places which had a more easily obtainable source of food. In areas which were settling, that ability to obtain food was established by villages and cities. So, that migration would be a constant source of growth is accurate. It's why ancient societies developed around attracting migrants and establishing social dominance. To get people in and keep them there.

A lot of our common sense impression of what constitutes ancient society is based on agricultural ones who lived much more differently than ancient people. That's actually where the game suffers; their transition to the "bronze age" and "iron age" isn't a good representation of the progression of human pre-history. But, for instance, people didn't need to have a lot of children until the high agricultural eras. Human population booms happened in the ancient world, but it wasn't common or sustained until societies based around agriculture. The game doesn't represent that social aspect, but presents agriculture as simply something that happens as technology increases.

I guess that's a lot to say that things are a mixed bag, and the game isn't 100% accurate. But some things the game does well are not common sense explanations, they come from or coincide with scientific consensus.

Making my own "scientific" version of the game would mean nothing if I didn't have accurate and unbiased sources. And I don't want to spend all the time doing that just to stiff someone who was crude enough to make the claim that their personal ideas are "realistic."

Humans are classified as having a low dimorphism compared to other species. You're also comparing people living on two completely different diets separated by tens of thousands of years. In any case, dimorphism definitely isn't great enough to have impacted EMH cultures across the board. I'm not sure why you'd bother to look that other stuff up in on a research library but did the first one on Quora. Also, I think you're forgetting why we're talking about this. It was because you said the game uses the European egalitarian division of labor, but now you agree EMH societies were largely egalitarian but want to argue just how much ?

I'd rather not discuss what "makes sense," in your second paragraph, too much. It sounds like you're telling me to reject known evidence and assume that ancient people think the same way people within the last few hundred years did. How many other animals are you aware of that protect their females like you're suggesting? People aren't naturally aware of the logistics of their cultures. You're talking about a historical sociological phenomenon, not something that wholly applies to EMH.

Your third paragraph, the study doesn't discuss "modern hunter gatherers," there's no such thing (that seems to be a perspective which arbitrarily distinguishes Black nomadic tribes in Africa and Asia as distinct from nomad economy lifestyles, that is, those based on trading with sedentary people, that exist in the Arab world and the Great Steppe). It doesn't mention horticulturalists. It compares three populations from EMH to "archaeological" and "historical" human groups, the former of which aren't identified and the latter of which, it says, lived within the last 200 years. It compares samples of a few dozen to thousands. This is clearly not a holistic or efficacious study, which is probably why it doesn't seem to have made it to peer review. I'd say the very reason the article addresses this comparison is because it challenged the consensus point of view, built from archaeological evidence, that pre-agricultural people lived healthier lives than the people who proceeded them. That doesn't necessarily mean they lived to old age more often, though. The game really does have too many old people, but I'd like to see a good model for why EMH would not live as long beyond absence of evidence.

There's no evidence for "mass violence" in the Mesolithic. There's evidence of small-scale raids in some parts of the world, but people typically didn't live in large or organized enough communities to "mass" anything. Generally, its city life which led to violence of all sorts. And considering the city's late appearance in human history, it seems odd to think that migration would have been cut in the Mesolithic, considering the first cities consisted of aggregate people. You have to remember that this time period didn't have nations. There would be no way to tell people of one city from another. That's a recipe for relatively free movement. Put yourself in the thinking of the first agriculturalists. A group of farmers is going to kill free farm hands for... what, not being born in their city? Or you're going to put them to work and get more resources for your community?

That free movement is also why you wouldn't need a lot of children per family. There was no need to keep land in the family before organized land rights. In an egalitarian society, people freely worked, traded, and partook. It's later hierarchical social organization created by charismatic kings and religious leaders/organizations which created the social structures which we're familiar from history.

Which, by the way, your second study says that the outline of low EMH birth rates is the standard view. So... are you just trying to tell me there are other fringe viewpoints? They don't even account for why hunter-gatherers had low growth rates to their expected population; maybe the missing old people and ~4 children are victims of Nidhogg. Do you get that this would mean a ~5x birthrate with a low morality rate, thus a near 5x increase in population per ~20 years? But the actual EMH growth rate is nearly non-existent. What the study is actually doing is taking birth rates for people they consider hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists out of a modern population that has direct interaction with agricultural society. It's a stretch to suggest their sample of 50 modern women is informative of people from thousands of years ago, no matter their supposed mode of life.

But, yes, the game's strong suit is the first era, and even then, only if you suspend your disbelief. It's still better than someone claiming to have a "realistic" understanding of that singular well-represented era and then butchering it.

its low only compared to some other species but is higher than enough to justify labor division typical to most cultures. i picked first two quotes from google bc they are consistent with what i know. and you havent cited anything at all to substantiate your claims! what a snobbism lol. you still havent named a primitive culture without sexual division of labor. and if there are any you should prove this was prevalent (among the most archaic at least).

you said the game uses the European egalitarian division of labor

never said this, i said "no sexual division of labor". labor was divided not because of nonegalitarianism but because of what i've said before. you doesnt need any strength or endurance in the office or assembly line but hunting large game or say logging is different thing. skins should be scraped though and kids looked after so ppl were naturally distributed between different tasks according to relative advantage.

"modern hunter gatherers," there's no such thing

do you deny existance of HGs in the modern period lol ?
historical groups are identified in table s2. theres 30-50% living past 40.
i didnt say they lived worse than first agriculturalists i said there werent many old people among them! probably because the modern HGs which were studied are from better climates on average.
in comparison to farmers, they had lower child mortality, but farmers had lower adult mortality iirc, as inferred from the study of paleoindians of illinois, before and after the switch to agriculture.

it was mass violence compared to the size of the involved groups. share of violent deaths and cranial trauma suggesting of violence increases about mesolithic. it didn cut off migrations but made free movement of individual people unlikely. if you migrate you fight with the locals for hunting grounds and other natural resources. groups became more cohesive they typically didnt want outsiders they had enough own people. because food resources became restricted. read "Evolution of Human societies".

in the neolithic there was migration from near east to europe, farmers migrated to the lands of HGs, they were protected by the size of their groups. i doubt there was much migration between farmer villages (spare for exogamy) as natural resources still played a significant role in economy and prime soils (loess) were finite. immigrants would get inferior plots and would lose their status, theyd better found a new village in a good place.

What the study is actually doing is taking birth rates for people they consider hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists out of a modern population that has direct interaction with agricultural society

is/was (by the time of their primary studies) this interaction significant enough to invalidate the high birth rates? you reject direct evidence in the name of speculative concepts about how HGs should have lived. ive seen another study saying some HGs had high BR some low (so their pop was even contracting), probably theres a cyclical process of malthusian nature.

The Kung are not a primitive culture. They are a modern culture. Primitive compared to you? That's ethnocentrism.

"they have modeled the ancient society on a modern european country with... no sexual division of labor"

If you actually read the study rather than just table s2, it says that historical groups consists of general populations (people in cemeteries) from the 19th and 20th centuries. Are you telling me there are hunter-gatherers in Lebanon, Ohio? Because that's one of the populations listed in the "historical" group.

That article does not mention your pet idea of "modern-hunter gathers." No, there are no modern hunter gatherers. If I can trade my skins for candy bars, I'm not subsisting on hunting and gathering. That's like saying one of the men on Deadliest Catch is a hunter-gatherer because he doesn't farm. He participates in an economic exchange which is founded in agriculture. That's the case for practically all people in modern tribal societies, if they aren't sedentary or semi-sedentary themselves.

I'm sorry for not taking out extra time to looking up sources for information I intimately know. At least I'm not looking them up and still getting my information wrong. I may be a snob, but at least I can interpret a methodology report in a research paper. I thought we were talking about anthropology, not etiquette, anyway.

"immigrants would get inferior plots and would lose their status,"
Wow, I wouldn't expect the person who read Evolution of Human Societies to get this so wrong. Plots? Status? In an egalitarian farming society? The first human societies were communal. That's basic, basic stuff. Or do you think humans were born with status? How exactly do you determine plots of land and deeds of exchange without systems of writing?

Originally posted by Mk Z:

What the study is actually doing is taking birth rates for people they consider hunter-gatherers and horticulturalists out of a modern population that has direct interaction with agricultural society

is/was (by the time of their primary studies) this interaction significant enough to invalidate the high birth rates? you reject direct evidence in the name of speculative concepts about how HGs should have lived. ive seen another study saying some HGs had high BR some low (so their pop was even contracting), probably theres a cyclical process of malthusian nature.

Funny how you only see studies which agree with your opinion, ignoring that those same studies mention that my "opinion" is scientific consensus.

I don't know why we're arguing about all this. You can read whatever fringe opinions you like and say they're the one true-true. Sorry if I offended you, but I also maintain that I'm right about, at least, that what I've said are common ideas in anthropology.

Originally posted by Extra Big Meatball with Cheese:

Funny how you only see studies which agree with your opinion, ignoring that those same studies mention that my "opinion" is scientific consensus.

theres no such concensus, just a general understanding that population was nearly stagnant on the large time periods, that doesnt necessary imply low birth rate. it could be some sort of dynamic equilibrium. theres no clear understanding of the stone age demography so far.

Your reasoning is circular. They're primitive because their economy is primitive? Okay, primitive how? Who's making the judgement here? What constitutes traditional food sources? If I go net fishing am I hunter-gatherer for relying on a traditional food source? No, hunter-gatherers are defined by their struggle for food and the inconsistency of their diets. Many Anthropologists, I'd say most, distinguish them from nomads who interact with agricultural systems.

Again, circular reasoning. If they didn't meet the criteria they wouldn't be chosen for the study? Essentially they were chosen for the study because they were chose for the study. The study is already dubious because its comparisons aren't efficacious. You can't determine if one modern society is similar to an ancient one, no matter how similar you theorize, and not in such a blanket way as to not identify that the two groups (ancient and modern) are different.

No, I haven't read your book. But it's a theoretical treatise. Perhaps it has chapters about clan and tribal wars in a theoretical context. That sounds like a good coffee table book about wars that never happened, but that isn't particularly informative beyond a mental exercise.

Communal means integrated management of resources, sometimes based around group goals. It's different from the English word "commune." I guess you'll have to find a dictionary.

I think your beliefs are founded on ethnocentrism. You seem to favor the model of multiregional theory in your ideas on migration. Your ideas on "primitives" speak for themselves. Your thoughts on property ownership among the earliest farmers simply makes no sense against any meaningful consideration of cause and effect; certainly not anthropological evidence. Your concept of dimorphism and human evolution ignores the readily apparent idea that early human populations didn't grow because their egalitarianism and lack of resources made it difficult for EMHs to reproduce as much as later societies, at leas in waning times. Honestly, I half expected you to quote Jordan Peterson with that last bit. But it all rather stinks of the alt-right, especially now that you're blaming the "hippy" educational system for my talking about things that you're now admitting you're aware of, but were pretending were incorrect just a few posts ago.

Originally posted by Mk Z:

Originally posted by Extra Big Meatball with Cheese:

Funny how you only see studies which agree with your opinion, ignoring that those same studies mention that my "opinion" is scientific consensus.

theres no such concensus, just a general understanding that population was nearly stagnant on the large time periods, that doesnt necessary imply low birth rate. it could be some sort of dynamic equilibrium. theres no clear understanding of the stone age demography so far.

A good attitude, but it's splitting hairs on the difference between consensus and "commonly believe," which is what your source says. It certainly not something for which you should have pretended I was wrong about suggesting until now.