{"id":2268,"date":"2018-01-07T17:33:13","date_gmt":"2018-01-08T00:33:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/xpertidea.com\/possiblesocieties\/?p=2268"},"modified":"2024-09-01T17:06:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-02T00:06:45","slug":"horses-change-the-circumstances-of-life-for-the-human-race","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/horses-change-the-circumstances-of-life-for-the-human-race\/","title":{"rendered":"10: A Dividing Line Between Eras, 6000 BP"},"content":{"rendered":"

10:\u00a0 A Transition between Eras<\/h1>\n

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From the very beginning of humankind, the human race was\nsplit into two divisions.\u00a0 The people\nwho lived in these divisions were entirely different culturally, economically,\nsocially, and spiritually.\u00a0 They had\nsocieties built on entirely different foundational principles.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

One of these types of societies evolved in response to\nevolutionary forces that forced them to adapt a certain way.\u00a0 All beings must adapt to the realities of\ntheir environment or they will perish.\u00a0\nFor lower animals (all animals without\n<\/i>the ability to think and plan on a conscious level), a clear rule\napplies:\u00a0 If a parcel of land is rich\nand productive enough that it can be <\/i>monopolized, it must be <\/i>monopolized.\u00a0 Beings that live on that land that can be\nmonopolized <\/i>who don\u2019t take active steps to monopolize it will be driven\nfrom that land by others who do take these steps.\u00a0 The animals that enforce monopoly rights to land are enforcing sovereignty <\/i>over a piece of\nterritory.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

These societies are built on the principle of territorial\nsovereignty.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Both humans and lower animals can have societies built on\nthis principle.\u00a0 Some of the members of\nour closest group of relatives, the pans, developed under conditions that\npushed them to divide the land into individuals parcels which they would then\nform into groups (troops) to fight over.\u00a0\nThey didn\u2019t work this out logically, go over the different kinds of\nsocieties they could have, and decide <\/i>on this one.\u00a0 They were not capable of the kinds of analysis needed for\nthis.\u00a0 This system was forced on them by\nnature.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The other type of society developed in other areas.\u00a0 Some areas can't <\/i>be monopolized.\u00a0 To\nmonopolize an area, the beings in them must be able to defend their homeland\nall the time.\u00a0 They can't do this if\nthey have to leave, because the land they want to claim can\u2019t support them\nperpetually, without them ever having to leave for any reason.\u00a0 If they have to leave, they can't expect the\nland to be \u2018theirs\u2019 when they return.\u00a0\nThey will have to fight for it as if they had never had possession of it\nat all.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

In the areas where the inhabitants couldn\u2019t monopolize land,\nthey couldn't form territorial sovereignty societies.\u00a0 They had to form other types of societies.\u00a0 Practical realities forced them to be\ntolerant and try to get along with others.\u00a0\nThey couldn\u2019t spend all their time fighting because they needed to work\nhard to meet their needs.\u00a0 They had to\nbe able to form trusting relationships with others who aren\u2019t part of their\nimmediate social groups.\u00a0 They had to be\nable to do this quickly.\u00a0\nNon-territorial pans, the bonobos, established these relationships by\nhaving intimate relations with the others they encountered.\u00a0 We don't have a lot of information about the\nway the early humans in these societies acted, but we know a lot about others\nwho had these same kinds of societies very recently, the native people who\nlived in the Americas before and during the early phase of the conquest.\u00a0 (Before they were affected by the conquest\nso dramatically that they could no longer practice their way of life.)\u00a0 We will see that many of the groups of\nhumans in these societies did the same things as the non-territorial pans (the\nbonobos).\u00a0 They wanted to get\nalong.\u00a0 Nothing was more important to\nthem and used intimacy to demonstrate and establish trust.\u00a0 This and other behaviors that we will\nexamine when we get to the point where we have detailed information about the\nway these societies operated allowed them to live in the areas where they\nlived.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The people in the non-territorial societies didn\u2019t have the\nintense need to organize massive industries to build weapons to fight their\nenemies.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t have the need to\ntreat the Earth around them as a storehouse full of resources to be\nplundered.\u00a0\u00a0 We all have affection for\nthe beautiful world.\u00a0 Unless we are\ncompelled to rape it to accomplish some higher goal (in territorial sovereignty\nsocieties, protection of the sovereignty is higher than everything else), we\nwant to show our affection and protect this world.\u00a0 As these people evolved and gained intellectual capabilities,\nthey found ways to put their feelings about the land and other people on the\nplanet into words.\u00a0 Here is a sample:<\/p>\n

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We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the\nblood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part\nof us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great\neagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the\nbody heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family.<\/p>\n

We know that the white man does not understand our ways.\u00a0 One portion of land is the same to him as\nthe next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land\nwhatever he needs. The Earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has\nconquered it, he moves on. He leaves his father's grave behind, and he does not\ncare.\u00a0 He kidnaps the earth from his\nchildren, and he does not care. His father's grave, and his children's\nbirthright are forgotten. He treats his mother, the Earth, and his brother, the\nsky, as things to be bought, plundered, sold like sheep or bright beads. His\nappetite will devour the earth and leave behind only a desert.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

This we know; the Earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the\nEarth. This we know. All things are connected like the blood which unites one\nfamily. Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within\nit. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound\ntogether. All things connect. <\/p>\n

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The ways of life of people who lived in these two different\nkinds of societies were as different as night is from day.\u00a0 We will see that even when people with these\ntwo societies life right next to each other they don\u2019t seem able to grasp the\nbasic idea that there are other ways to live.\u00a0\nBut there clearly are.\u00a0 We can\nlive other ways.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Let\u2019s take a look at the way these two kinds of societies\noperated in the early part of human history, the period between roughly 70,000\nBP and 6,000 BP.\u00a0 Then, we will look at\nchanges that happened around 6,000 BP that altered the realities of existence\non one of the landmasses of Earth (Afro Eurasia), and would eventually lead to\nexpansion for territorial sovereignty societies that allowed this kind of\nsociety to take over the entire continent and either subjugate, assimilate, or\nexterminate all members of the other kind of society.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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Territorial Sovereignty Societies <\/h2>\n

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Let\u2019s start our analysis of territorial sovereignty\nsocieties before humans evolved, back in the ancient times in Africa when the\npans were the most intelligent beings on the continent.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Some of the pans lived in areas close to oil deposits.\u00a0 The oil was under great pressure and, in\nplaces, it would seep to the surface and form pools and tar pits.\u00a0 These oil pools and tar pits would catch\nfire and burn for very long periods of time.\u00a0\nThe pans that lived around these perpetual fires were smart.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

They figured out\nuses for fire.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Fire is incredibly\nuseful.\u00a0 Those that had more capable\nminds (because of random chance:\u00a0 we all\nhave different genes) were more likely to figure it out.\u00a0 They had great advantages over others with\nless capable minds.\u00a0 They were more\nlikely to survive long enough to reproduce.\u00a0\nThe smarter pans produced more offspring than the less-smart pans.\u00a0 The average intelligence of the pans that\nlived under these conditions (those near fire) increased over time.\u00a0 Our minds are able to adapt to greater\ncomplexity.\u00a0 The new neurons needed\nspace and the brain sizes increased.\u00a0 The\nimpact was so great that, after several millions of years, the brains of those\nthat had adapted to fire were double the size of the brains of those who had\nnot done so.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

These large-brained beings were so different that they were\nno longer in the same category as their ape ancestors.\u00a0 Later when scientists examined the remains\nand artifacts and classified them, they classified the new beings in a\ndifferent genus, the \u2018homos.\u2019\u00a0 They were\nin the genus that includes you and me.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Some of these members of this new genus lived in territorial\nsocieties.\u00a0 Territorial sovereignty\nsocieties are built around conflict.\u00a0\nThe species divides itself into teams, each of which takes control of a\nterritory and defends it by force.\u00a0 The\nnew members of the homo genus who evolved from the territorial apes (the\nchimpanzees) didn\u2019t invent <\/i>territorial\nsovereignty societies.\u00a0 They were born\ninto them.\u00a0 They had gained mental\nskills slowly over a period of millions of years.\u00a0 They descended from a long line of ancestors who had lived in\nthese societies going back fantastic amounts of time.\u00a0 It was all they knew.\u00a0\u00a0\nOver the generations, those who weren\u2019t mentally suited for this way of\nlife were not able to meet their needs as well as those who were mentally\nsuited.\u00a0 Those who were aggressive,\nviolent, loyal, and easy to anger found a place in the system and those with\nvery strong features became leaders.\u00a0\nThose that were passive, tolerant, considerate, and had empathy to all\nmembers of their species, even those their teams were trying to kill, did not fit\nin.\u00a0 They were less likely to have\noffspring and these genes weakened.\u00a0\n(They didn\u2019t disappear entirely.\u00a0\u00a0\nEven the most aggressive people in the world today have some members who\nrefuse to participate in the organized mass murder events.)\u00a0\u00a0 But the basic realities of territorial\nsovereignty societies encouraged certain ways of thinking and ways of\nacting.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

These instincts pushed them form into tight and loyal clans,\nthe type of clans that we now call \u2018countries.\u2019\u00a0 Their instincts told them it was correct to be loyal to their\nclans and show respect and deference to those in positions of authority, even\nif they had intense personal dislike for the individuals in authority.\u00a0 If their leaders decided war was necessary\nto protect the territory of the clans, the others followed and helped the war\neffort, regardless of their personal feelings for the leaders.\u00a0 They may not have loved their leaders, but\nthey have instincts they interpreted as \u2018love for their country.\u2019\u00a0 It was a part of their cultural and genetic\nheritage.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Their instincts (again, interpreted as feelings) told them\nthere were people they were supposed to hate and fear.\u00a0 Those members of their species who were not\nmembers of their clans lived outside the borders.\u00a0 They were dangerous, unpredictable, and capable of using great\ntrickery.\u00a0 At any time, they could\nattack them and, if their guard was down, wipe them out.\u00a0 Their logic may have told them that the\npeople outside were no different than the people inside.\u00a0 But their instincts told them to not trust\ntheir logic in this matter. The stakes were too high.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Their instincts\/feelings told them there was only one way to\ndeal with the outsiders:\u00a0 destroy\nthem.\u00a0 As they gained greater control of\nfire and other complex tools, the brains grew larger and their intellectual\ncapability grew.\u00a0 They used their new\nintellectual power to help them create new and better ways to do the things\ntheir feelings\/instincts told them to do.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

They gained control over the environment around them.\u00a0 Predators were killing their children.\u00a0 At some point, starting about 70,000 BP,\nthey had the intellectual capability to deal with this problem.\u00a0 They organized in some way that allowed them\nto wipe these predators from the face of the Earth.\u00a0 (We may not know the details of the way they did this, but we\nknow it happened.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Other animals were taking the food that humans wanted.\u00a0 Sometimes, humans experienced great hunger\nand famine because of these other animals.\u00a0\nThey were capable of dealing with this too.\u00a0 Again, we don\u2019t know exactly how they did it, we just know they\ndid.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

They eliminated the two most important checks that nature\nuses to control animal population.\u00a0\nThese checks on population were now gone.\u00a0 The human population could grow.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

The people inside the walls had very limited food\nsupplies.\u00a0 They walls were enormous and\nthey couldn\u2019t move them to increase their land.\u00a0 When the population grew above the number the food could support,\nthere was hunger.\u00a0 Since they couldn\u2019t\nmove the walls out, the only real solution was to create a new colony.\u00a0 They sent \u2018colonists\u2019 out into the world to\nfind new land that could produce enough to support clones of their system.\u00a0 They built new walls and the colonies began\nto sprout wherever the land produced enough to support them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

At some point, there was no more colonizable land in many\nareas.\u00a0 The people couldn\u2019t build new\ncolonies.\u00a0 They needed more land so they\ncould grow more food.\u00a0 But there was no\nmore land (at least none that met the requirements for colonization)\naround.\u00a0 So, they had only one\nchoice:\u00a0 they had to take land away from\nsome other country.\u00a0 Of course, the\npeople in the other country weren\u2019t going to let this happen if they could help\nit.\u00a0 They would fight too.\u00a0 They had great pressure to be smart:\u00a0 the better weapons and tactics they had, the\ngreater the chance of survival.\u00a0 They\nused their great intellectual capabilities to find better ways to kill.\u00a0 They got very, very good at organizing mass\nmurder events.\u00a0 It was, in many ways,\ntheir greatest skill.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

This is still true today.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

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The Other Society <\/h2>\n

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The great bulk of Afro Eurasia isn't productive enough to\nsupport a dense network states.\u00a0 Some\nplaces, mainly valleys along river, could support a few of the states.\u00a0 But most of the land didn\u2019t produce enough\nto be monopolizable.\u00a0 People could live\nin these other areas.\u00a0 But they couldn\u2019t\nmonopolize them.\u00a0 They had to share\nthem.\u00a0 They had to be tolerant and\naccommodating.\u00a0 They couldn't organize\nthemselves around violent conflict.\u00a0\nThey couldn\u2019t simply force the world to comply with their absolute and\ntotally unyielding requirements.\u00a0\n(Sovereignty is an absolute <\/i>concept.)\u00a0 They had to be flexible and comprising.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

You may compare these two societies to the societies of the\nchimps and the soc of the bonobos.\u00a0 The chimps\nhad territorial sovereignty societies with hard borders that were defended by\norganized troops and murderous violence.\u00a0\nThe people with territorial sovereignty societies lived like this.\u00a0 The most aggressive of these societies were\nin Europe.\u00a0 The people in these\nsocieties had both cultural and genetic forces pressing them to be territorial\nand violent.\u00a0 Their genes came mainly\nfrom Neanderthals, the human ancestors who had descended from the territorial\nchimps.\u00a0 Over thousands of generations,\nindividuals who had refused to comply with the standards of these societies had\nbeen outcasts.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

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If you are born into a system where war is constant and loyalty is\nhighly valued, and have genes that make you question the idea of patriotism and\ngive you feelings that organized mass murder is not a good idea, you won\u2019t be\nvery popular.\u00a0 You will have a harder\ntime finding a mate and finding a way to fit into the economy so you can make a\nliving.\u00a0 You be less likely to breed\nthan a hard-line patriot who screams for war at every opportunity.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The difference may be tiny and many pacifist people and\nnon-nationalists may still have children and raise them.\u00a0 But in territorial sovereignty societies\nthese genes will give a disadvantage to the people that have them.\u00a0 In natural law societies, which are more\ninclined to tolerance and peace anyway, these same genes will be beneficial.<\/p>\n

Over a long period of time, the genes of these two groups of people\nwill diverge.\u00a0 The divergence probably\nwon't be enough to prevent them from breeding with each other, but they will be\nenough to create two entirely different personality types.\u00a0 The people in territorial sovereignty\nsocieties will tend to be fiercely loyal to the entity they call their \u2018country,\u2019\nand easy to incite to violence.\u00a0 The\npeople in natural law societies will be more like the hippie apes, the\nbonobos:\u00a0 tolerant, empathetic, and open\nto discussion. <\/p>\n

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The Old Way of Life (Pre 6,000 BP)<\/h2>\n

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By 50,000 BP, humans gained enough intellectual capability\nto become the dominant species, at last in Afro Eurasia.\u00a0\u00a0 If you could go back to sometime before\n6,000 BP (when another change, discussed in this chapter, altered them\nforever), you would find people that could think about and discuss complex\nconcepts, in much the way they can.\u00a0 I\npicked the year 18,000 BP for the previous chapter, but this was an arbitrary\nchoice.\u00a0 I only wanted something long\nenough after the Pleistocene Extinction Period for the changed conditions to\nhave become universal that was before 6,000 BP, the period discussed here.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

If you went back to 18,000 BP, you would have found\ncity-states that were a lot like Faiyum in many places.\u00a0 In Europe, these city-states would be fairly\nclose together with little or no space between them.\u00a0 In other parts of the world, like along the Nile, they would be\nlaid out in a line, wherever the rich land is located.\u00a0 In places where rich lands were scattered,\nthe city states would be scattered, with great distances between them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Since most <\/i>of the\nland on Earth wouldn\u2019t have been suitable for territorial sovereignty societies\nat that time, we would expect most of the land to contain people who live in\nthe non-territorial natural law societies.\u00a0\nAt this time, the humans had wiped out all their major predators and all\nmajor competitors for food.\u00a0 The two\nmain natural checks on population growth would be gone.\u00a0 Without these natural checks, populations\nwould have to grow until they reached some other barrier.\u00a0 The only reasonable barrier I could think of\nis the food supply.\u00a0\u00a0 The population\nwould grow to the carrying capacity of the land, given the production methods\nin use at the time. <\/p>\n

The people in the city states would use fairly sophisticated\ntechnology.\u00a0 They would feel totally\nsafe inside their protected territory.\u00a0\nThey could plant grain without fear that bandits will arrive and steal\ntheir crop just before the harvest.\u00a0\nThey could invest in technologies to drive up their yields, like\nfertilizing the crops, leveling the land, and irrigation.\u00a0 Their city states would protect the property\nrights of individuals, so individuals could justify investing their time and\nskills into machine shops and other facilities to build equipment.\u00a0 The land in the city states would produce\nextremely high yields.<\/p>\n

The people outside wouldn\u2019t be able to take these same\nsteps.\u00a0 They wouldn\u2019t invest the time\nand effort into leveling land, fertilizing crops, or irrigation systems.\u00a0 Their land was not protected.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t be sure that others would not\nsimply force them off of any land they had improved. \u00a0They wouldn\u2019t have incentives to invest in improvements.\u00a0 They could raise some crops, but agriculture\nwouldn\u2019t have been nearly as important to them as it would to the people in the\ncity states.\u00a0 They would be more likely\nto live by following animals, hunting, or herding.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Prior to the innovations and changes that happened about\n6,000 years ago in Afro Eurasia (discussed below), these societies didn\u2019t come\ninto any real conflict for the same reason that the societies of the chimps and\nbonobos didn\u2019t come into any real conflict for millions of years:\u00a0 they existed in different \u2018habitats.\u2019\u00a0 The territorial sovereignty societies\nexisted only in areas that had rich patches of land that were \u2018colonizable\u2019 (or\n\u2018monopolizable.\u2019)\u00a0 The people in these\nareas needed land that was productive enough to fight over.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The people in the territorial sovereignty societies had\nweapons and advanced military tactics.\u00a0\nThere was a lot of land around them that was not particularly productive\nand had people with natural law societies living on it.\u00a0 They could have \u2018conquered\u2019 this land if\nthey wanted.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t do this\nthough, because they couldn\u2019t have their particular type of society on this\nland.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

They \u2018let\u2019 the people who lived outside the walls have the\ngreat bulk of the planet\u2019s land.\u00a0 Not\nbecause they are generous, but because this land didn\u2019t produce the surpluses\nthat were needed to support their preferred ways of life.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The people who lived outside the walls were used to\nfreedom.\u00a0 They could travel wherever\nthey wanted, as long as they didn\u2019t try to go into the city states without\ngetting the proper permissions.\u00a0 The\ncity states required everyone to pay for the right to simply be alive in some\nway.\u00a0 (At the very least, everyone had\nto make contributions to the defense of their \u2018country.\u2019\u00a0 In territorial sovereignty societies that\nhad money, this meant paying taxes.\u00a0 In\nsocieties without money, it meant turning over a share of whatever they made to\nuse for common defense and agreeing to be part of the military themselves for\nsome period of time.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The people with the natural law societies didn\u2019t have to pay\nanyone just to stay alive.\u00a0 They could\nsleep in their tents along the rivers.\u00a0\nThey could eat the fish, eggs, birds, venison, berries, roots, nuts,\nseeds, and other things nature provided.\u00a0\u00a0\nIf they didn\u2019t like the weather where they were they didn\u2019t have to put\nup with it:\u00a0 they could pack up and head\nsomewhere nicer.\u00a0 (Many people in our 21st<\/sup>\ncentury world want this, but they can\u2019t afford all the things they have to\nbring with them to bring their way of life in their travels; a fully-equipped\nrecreational vehicle can cost more than many people in the 21st<\/sup>\ncentury make in ten years.)\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The people with the natural law societies wouldn\u2019t have any\nreal conflict with the people with the territorial sovereignty societies.\u00a0 The main reason is that they didn\u2019t want to\nlive the way these people lived.\u00a0 They\nwere free.\u00a0 The people in the cities\nwere not.\u00a0 They could smell clean air\nand flowers.\u00a0 The people in the cities\nsmelled the stench of human offal.\u00a0 They\ncould listen to the birds singing and water flowing down the stream.\u00a0 The people in the city heard only mindless\ndin.\u00a0 As we will see in later chapters,\nwhen the conquest of the Americas started, a very large percentage of the\npeople with natural law societies committed suicide when they realized they\ncouldn\u2019t maintain their ways of life anymore.\u00a0\nThe conquerors wanted to \u2018assimilate\u2019 them into their societies.\u00a0 The people raised the other way didn\u2019t\nconsider life in the other societies to be living.\u00a0 As Seattle writes:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The white man does not seem to notice the air he breathes. Like a\nman dying for many days he is numb to the stench.\u00a0 When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses are tamed,\nthe secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the\nview of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, that is the end of living and\nthe beginning of survival.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Two entirely different cultures existed on earth during the\nearly era of modern humans (which started with the developments discussed in\nthe previous chapter, the new brain components that turned humans into the\ndominant species on Earth).\u00a0 But these\ntwo cultures weren\u2019t in any real conflict for most of this time because their\nways of life were so different that neither actually wanted anything the other\nhad.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Then something changed.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

As long as people had to fight and transport goods on foot,\nthe practical realities of warfare limited the size of the states to a\nrelatively small size.\u00a0 You can find the\nold footprints of these states all over Afro Eurasia.\u00a0 They tended to be about five square miles in size with borders of\nabout 15 miles.\u00a0 (I have lived in places\nlike this where the walls are still there.\u00a0\nIt takes me about an hour to walk from the wall on one side to the wall\non the other side.)\u00a0\u00a0 About 6,000 BP\n(6,000 years ago) this changed and the conditions of life for the human race\nunderwent a dramatic transition.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

An Amazing New Technology (In 6,000 BP):\u00a0\nHorses That Could Be Ridden And Could Be Trained To Pull Wagons And\nOther Equipment<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

All horse-like animals are in the zoological taxonomy of Perissodactyla <\/a>and the\nzoological family of Equidae<\/a>.\u00a0 This family has thousands of different\nindividual members, all of which are unique genetically.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

America had a great many members of the family\u00a0 Equidae <\/a>until the pleistocene\nextinction events.\u00a0 This landmass had\n\u2018horse like animals.\u2019\u00a0 But all members\nof this genus that existed when humans first arrived disappeared in the\nextinction events.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Most members of this animal family also perished in Afro\nEurasia when modern humans arrived.\u00a0 But\na few of them continued to exist.<\/i>\u00a0\nWe don\u2019t know the exact reason that these animals were spared, but it\nprobably has something to do with milk.\u00a0\nAll mammals produce milk to feed their young (this is how the species is\ndefined).\u00a0 Milk is an extremely\nimportant food for migratory people.\u00a0\nThere are still migratory people in Tibet, Mongolia, Siberia, and\nNorthern Canada that rely on dairy products for a large part of their\nnutritional needs.\u00a0 In many of these\nareas, horses or horse-like animals provide the milk.\u00a0 (You can buy horse diary products <\/a>in\nstores in these areas.)\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Migratory people can bring milk, cream, and butter with\nthem, in endless quantities, by bringing horses or horse-like animals.\u00a0 If you have horses that you can milk, you\ndon\u2019t need a refrigerator:\u00a0 you can go\ndirectly from the horse into your mouth and have food that is germ-free and\ntotally healthy.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We know the early humans in parts of Afro Eurasia spared some\nhorse-like animals, even though the humans in the Americas wiped them all\nout.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know the exact reason,\nbut it seems logical that they kept them because they gave milk.\u00a0 Whatever the reason, however, we know they\ndid spare these animals in Afro Eurasia.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

In the early days (going back 7,000 to 70,000 years ago) the\nhorse-like animals were not suitable for the things we use horses for now.\u00a0 However, over long periods of time, the\npeople who kept the horse-like animals would have bred them to create new\nvarieties that were suitable for different uses.\u00a0 This was not an easy task and took a very long time:\u00a0\u00a0 Scientists have identified 273 different\nprecursor horse-like animals in the genetic mix of modern horses.\u00a0 Breeders worked with different animals to\ncreate animals capable of doing the things they wanted done.\u00a0 Early hose-like animals were generally quite\nsmall.\u00a0 But herders of these animals\nwould selectively breed them to make them bigger and stronger.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

About 6,000 years ago, they succeeded in creating breeds\nthat were capable of carrying adults on their backs and capable of pulling\nheavy wagons and other equipment.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Ridable horses must have seemed like marvels to the first\npeople who saw them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Where did these innovations take place?\u00a0 <\/p>\n

There is a lot of controversy about this.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The people of three areas (Spain, the Ukraine, and Arabia) all\nclaim these changes took place in their area and their people are the ones who\nfigured out how to make this happen.\u00a0\nThis is a dangerous topic to bring up in areas where people have great\naffection to horses, because many people who tend to drink a lot of alcohol\nhave very strong opinions about it and get violent when people dispute their\nclaims.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As soon as people saw them, they wanted them.\u00a0 They could change the life of the person who\ngot it.\u00a0 they are fantastically useful\nin war, so military leaders wanted them very badly.\u00a0 They could carry troops at 10 times the former speed and they\ncould haul wagons with hundreds of times more cargo than humans could carry on\ntheir backs.\u00a0 Migratory people wanted\nthem too:\u00a0 they didn\u2019t want to have to\ncarry their things when they traveled.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

A healthy mare (female horse) can produce a foal (a baby\nhorse) every year.\u00a0 She can therefore\nproduce two new horses, enough to replace herself and her stud (the male) every\ntwo years, and produce four new horses (enough to replace herself and her stud\ntwo times over) each four years.\u00a0 If\nhuman breeders want to produce horses as rapidly as possible, they can double\nthe population in 4 years.\u00a0 If you\nstarted with 10 horses and went through 10 doublings (this would take about 40\nyears), you would have 10,240 horses.\u00a0\nIn another 40 years it will double 10 more times and you would have more\nthan 10 million animals.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Once people had bred useable animals in enough numbers to\ncreate a viable gene pool, horse populations explodes.\u00a0 Within a few centuries, horses would be\ncommon everywhere in the Afro-Eurasian continent.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know the details about the spread of early horses\nin Afro Eurasia.\u00a0 We do know what\nhappened, however, in the Americas.\u00a0 The\nfirst horses were brought to the Americas by Spaniards about the year\n1500.\u00a0 (Horses went extinct in the\nAmericas Pleistocene extinction events and there were none before the Europeans\nbrought them.)\u00a0\u00a0 Horses are very hard to\ntransport so they didn\u2019t bring a great many.\u00a0\nBut they breed very rapidly and by 1900, a mere 4 centuries after the\nfirst horses arrived, there were more than 20 million domestic horses <\/a><\/i>in\nthe part of America now called the \u2018United States\u2019 alone.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Advantages Of The Horse <\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 This\nquote is from Britannica:\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When Cort\u00e9s sailed for the coast of Yucat\u00e1n on February 18, 1519,\nhe had 11 ships, 508 soldiers, about 100 sailors, and\u2014most important\u201416 horses<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The writers on Britannica think the most important cargo on\nthe ships were the horses.\u00a0 If you read\nbooks about the conquest you will understand the importance.\u00a0 (I recommend the wonderful and extremely\nwell researched book \u2018The Conquest of Mexico\u2019 by William Prescott, which is\navailable in the references section of the PossibleSocieties.com website.)\u00a0\u00a0 The horses were the key to Cortez and his\nsmall contingent of solders conquering what many scholars today think was the\nmost populous valley in the world, the great valley of Mexico, with more than\n30 million people with a dozen different cultures, all in a period of less than\ntwo years.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

This is from another Britannica article:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In 1531 Francisco Pizarro\u2019s expedition of 180 men and 37 horses\nsailed to the Inca empire in Peru.\u00a0 A\nSpanish priest met with the Inca emperor Atahuallpa, exhorting him to accept\nChristianity and Charles V.\u00a0 After\nAtahuallpa refused, Pizarro\u2019s forces attacked, captured, and later executed\nAtahuallpa, enabling Pizarro to occupy Cuzco, effectively conquering the empire.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Again, if you read accounts of the conquest by people who\nwere there, you will see that this conquest (this time of about 12 million\npeople, also according to Britannica) would not have been possible without\nhorses.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Horse made enormous difference in war.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The horse changed the dynamics of Afro-Eurasia in many\nways.\u00a0 Of course, it made it possible\nfor a well-organized military to conquer and hold vast amounts of\nterritory.\u00a0 But it also made it possible\nfor the sedentary and stationary lifestyle that was common in the city-states\nto expand into large new areas.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

With a few horses and some equipment, a family could plant\nand harvest hundreds of acres of land.\u00a0\nThey could go out to work in the morning (after having eaten a hearty\nbreakfast of eggs from their henhouses and pancakes made of flour from stored\ngrains, and bacon from their pigs) and come home and sleep in the same bed each\nnight.\u00a0 They could live just like they\nlived in the city<\/p>\n

A lot of people lived in cramped quarters in\ncity-states.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

They would have liked to have had more space.\u00a0 But they couldn\u2019t move outside the walls\nbecause they couldn\u2019t live the same way there.\u00a0\nThey couldn\u2019t be defended.\u00a0 They\ncouldn\u2019t keep homes and sleep in the same beds.\u00a0 They couldn\u2019t go to stores.\u00a0\nHorses changed all this.\u00a0 Mounted\nsoldiers could protect farmers living outside the gates, at least most of the\ntime.\u00a0 (Watch TV westerns and you will\nbe able to get at least some idea how this happened.\u00a0 The farmers are threatened by either \u2018Indians\u2019 or bad\nwhites.\u00a0 The sheriff can usually find a\nsolution.\u00a0 If not, they call in the\ncavalry.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

With horses to haul in supplies, they could have their\nluxuries:\u00a0 Glass for their windows,\npot-belly stoves to keep them warm, jars and pots to put up fruits in the\nsummer; clothes made in mills that may be hundreds of miles away<\/p>\n

If a town with stores is 10 miles away, people without\nhorses can\u2019t go there more than once every few months.\u00a0 With horses, they can ride to town every day\nif they want.\u00a0 They can enjoy almost all\nof the benefits of living in town, but still have plenty of space to move.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Conquest of Afro-Eurasia by States<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

We know a lot about the conquest of the Americas by European\nstates.\u00a0 This happened between 1492 and\nabout the year 1890.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The conquest actually began November of 1493, when Columbus\nreturned to what he thought were islands in the Indian Ocean (actually islands\nin the Caribbean sea) with armies to conquer them.\u00a0 It proceeded very rapidly, with Mexico conquered in 1521 and\nSouth America brought under the control of conquistadors by the end of the\n1530s.\u00a0 Plagues were spread that wiped\nout most of the native people in North America, but the area was not brought\nunder control of European powers right away, allowing their populations to\nincrease.\u00a0 The second phase of the\nconquest involved taking the remainder of the lands.\u00a0 The final event of the conquest is often considered to be the Wounded Knee\nMassacre.<\/a>\u00a0 It happened on December\n30, 1890. <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We know a lot about this because it happened recently, a\nlarge number of records were kept, many writers wrote accounts of the period\nfrom various different perspectives.\u00a0 We\nwill go over this information when we get to that point in history.\u00a0 We don\u2019t know much about the period that\nstarted about 6,000 years ago when the entities called \u2018states\u2019 expanded from\ntheir walled enclosures to take over the land outside.\u00a0 But we do know that the states expanded very\nquickly outside of their walls once the people in the states had horses.\u00a0 By the time that we have written <\/i>historical records, states with\ngovernments were dominant in all areas that the records cover.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The oldest written records we have found so far go back to 4200\nBP.\u00a0 Again, this means 4,200 years\nbefore the present, or 4,200 years ago; this would make the date about 3200 BC,\nif you prefer the Christian dating method.\u00a0\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know much about the details of the conquest of this\npart of the world by territorial sovereignty societies.\u00a0 We do know that there are still nomadic and\ntraveling people in many parts of Afro Eurasia.\u00a0 Until recently, it was thought that these people, originally\ncalled \u2018Gypsies\u2019 and now called \u2018Romani,\u2019 all came from the same place,\nsomewhere in India, in ancient times, and them spread throughout Afro Eurasia\nby about the sixth century.\u00a0 The stories\nof their history since the sixth century are similar to the stories of the\nhistory of the \u2018Indians\u2019 in America during the late stages of the conquest,\nwith numerous attempts to wipe them out.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

New tools are making it possible to go deeper into their\nBackgrounds.\u00a0 The following illustration\nis from a 2005 study: A\nnewly discovered founder population: the Roma\/Gypsies<\/a>.\u00a0 It shows that the genetic heritage is\nliterally all over the map.\u00a0\u00a0 They\ndidn\u2019t originate from India, specifically, they originated from everywhere,\nwith genes from all over Afro Eurasia.\u00a0\nThis is what we would expect if they had natural law societies with no\nfixed homes.\u00a0 They traveled.\u00a0 In their travels, they met other bands.\u00a0 There is a taboo in natural law societies in\ngeneral against having relations with members of your own band.\u00a0 (This is considered to be incest.\u00a0 It was the highest taboo in pre-conquest\nAmerican societies, as discussed by Ancient\nSociety by Lewis Morgan.<\/a>)\u00a0 The genes\nnaturally mix.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Gypsy<\/a>

Gypsy (Roma) Genetic evidence of origins and migrations<\/p><\/div><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before the military use of the horse, most of the land of\nAfro-Eurasian was not in any country (city state) at all.\u00a0 It was free land, unowned and no one had any\nmore rights to it than anyone else.\u00a0 But\nthe states grew fairly quickly.\u00a0 Within\na thousand years, the states had conquered much of this land.\u00a0 In some places, all of the unowned land was\nconquered and, after the conquests, the states were touching each other, with\nthe border of one the border of its neighbor.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

The people who ran the militaries of the states now had a\nlot more to fear than they had before, when there was space between them and\ntheir enemies.\u00a0 Their enemies were right\nthere, on the other side of their borders.\u00a0\nIn most cases, the borders were not the very high and well fortified\nwalls that had been the borders of the city states.\u00a0 It was not practical to build these massive structures over\ndistances of hundreds or even thousands of miles.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Some people tried.\u00a0 You can\nfind some ruins of these walls in various places.\u00a0 But once a thousand mile long wall is breached, the entire wall\nbecomes less than useless.\u00a0 The enemy\ncan simply move down the wall and remove the defenders.\u00a0 The wall actually helps <\/i>the attackers because they control both sides of it and they\nhave significantly more freedom of movement than the former defenders.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

These great walls were built but they became useless quickly and\nthe borders were no longer located along the walls.\u00a0 Eventually, most people (those who were reasonable and logical)\nstopped trying.\u00a0 A few\n<\/a>continue to this day.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The borders between countries were now very long and very\nhard to defend.\u00a0 In the old days, when\nthe countries were separated by large distances, the people really didn\u2019t have\nmuch to fear from other countries.\u00a0 Both\ncountries had about the same kinds of weapons.\u00a0\nBoth had massive walls that were well fortified.\u00a0 Attackers would have had to breach the walls,\nall in plain sight of the defenders, who could pour down arrows, spears, and\nburning tar on the attackers from safe places behind parapet walls.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But times changed.\u00a0\nThe countries grew larger and their borders much longer.\u00a0 The new long borders were much harder to\ndefend and there was less and less open space (that didn\u2019t belong to any\ncountry at all) between them.\u00a0\nEventually, the countries were one against the other.\u00a0 The old defenses would not work\nanymore.\u00a0 They needed new ways to\nprotect their monopoly rights to the land that they claimed.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Until this time, weapons were quite primitive.\u00a0 They used the same basic weapons as\nNeanderthals had used hundreds of thousands of years earlier:\u00a0 bows and arrows, javelins, and slings.\u00a0 All the states had the same weapons.\u00a0 To gain advantages, they would need\nsomething new.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Bronze Age<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

People had had some metals for a long time.\u00a0 Lead, copper, zinc, and tin can all be\n\u2018smelted\u2019 (removed from ore using a combination of smoke and melting) in an\nordinary wood fire.\u00a0 But none of these\nmetals was remotely as hard as the rocks they used for their knives and\narrowheads.\u00a0 They were all very soft and\nweak metals, not really useful in war.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But it is possible to make very hard, strong, and useful\nmetals by mixing some of these soft metals and heating to melt them\ntogether.\u00a0 These mixtures are called\nalloys<\/p>\n

Modern bronze is a mixture of 88% copper, 7% tin, and 5%\nlead.\u00a0 You can make bronze yourself if\nyou want, in a fire pit in your yard.\u00a0\nYou can watch internet videos that show you how to do it.\u00a0 The first to make bronze didn\u2019t hit on this\nratio right away.\u00a0 They found mixing two\nmetals made the result stronger and harder.\u00a0\nThey experimented.\u00a0 Eventually\nthey hit on the ratio above, which is the ratio we still use today.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Bronze is extremely hard.\u00a0\nYou can find bronze items in many museums.\u00a0 Most of the bronze items I have seen are weapons.\u00a0 Bronze can be cast into any shape\ndesired.\u00a0 If it cast into a sword, the\nedge can then be sharpened by rubbing it on a stone.\u00a0 You can make it as sharp as a razor.\u00a0 It will cut off enemy\u2019s hand or head with a single stroke.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Armies with bronze daggers, battleaxes, swords, halyards,\npikes, and with arrows and spears with bronze tips can easily defeat armies\nthat only had tools made of rocks and sticks.\u00a0\nIf you run a state and have bronze weapons, while your enemies only have\nweapons made of rocks and sticks, you are going to be able to defeat them.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Bronze items have been found and dated to as far back as\n2775 BCE.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 BCE means \u2018before current era.\u2019\u00a0 It is the replacement term for BC, which meant \u2018before\nChrist.\u2019\u00a0 It means the same thing, so\n2775 BCE is the same year as 2775 BC.\u00a0\nTo get the date BP, which means before the present, add the year number\nby the Christian calendar. \u00a0If it is the\nyear 2025, the year BP is 4800 BP.\u00a0 I am\nsorry for having to use these confusing terms, but they reflect the standards\nof the time and reflect dates you will find from other sources.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

However, bronze tarnishes over time, in the same way that\nsteel rusts an most analysts I found seem to think that bronze was being made\nup to 825 years before that, or starting about 3,500 BCE (or about 5,525 BP,\nsee text box above).\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Bronze weapons provided great military advantages to those\nwho had them.\u00a0 Other states had to\nfigure out how to make bronze themselves or they would almost certainly be\ndefeated.\u00a0 If they were defeated, the\nvictors would bring the new technology to the area.\u00a0 Either way, the technology spread quickly.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Iron and Steel<\/h2>\n

Bronze is a very useful military metal.\u00a0 But steel is much, much better.\u00a0 A steel sword will slice right through\nbronze armor.\u00a0 A steel arrowhead can cut\nthrough the thickest leather to kill the solder underneath.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

I want to explain the process of making steel, because you\nreally need to understand its incredible difficulty in order to understand the\nsocial changes that will take place in systems that produce steel.\u00a0 Steel is an industrial<\/i> product.\u00a0 It is\nextremely hard to make (as you will see shortly), requires a great many\nworkers, all of whom have to be very skilled.\u00a0\nThe next transition will take us to an industrial <\/i>society, the type that dominates the world now.\u00a0 Industry requires a great many complex\nstructures that are not necessary in non-industrial systems. \u00a0It needs money, for example; it needs courts\nand rules to protect private property rights, it needs massive roads and other\ninfrastructures, and it needs an investment system that allows large amounts of\n\u2018capital\u2019 to be raised and dedicated to the project.\u00a0 All industrial societies are necessarily extremely complex.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think you can really appreciate the\nchanges that will happen next, in the historical account, without understanding\nhow difficult it is to make steel.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

If you want to make steel, you need to start with iron.\u00a0 Iron is one of the most abundant elements on\nthe earth.\u00a0 But it is not found in metal\nform.\u00a0 It is found mixed with oxygen, as\n\u2018iron oxide,\u2019 also known as \u2018rust.\u2019\u00a0 To\nget metal, you need to remove the oxygen.\u00a0\nThe process of removing the oxygen is called \u2018smelting.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The term smelting is a combination of\u00a0 the word \u2018smoke\u2019 and \u2018melting.\u2019\u00a0\nIt uses smoke to get metal to melt.\u00a0\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The smoke is needed because smoke\ncontains carbon monoxide.\u00a0 This gas has\na very strong affinity to oxygen:\u00a0 each\nmolecule of carbon monoxide wants to grab another oxygen atom from somewhere to\nform carbon dioxide, with is a very stable material with extremely strong\nbonds.\u00a0 You generate the carbon monoxide\nby building a fire.\u00a0 You put the ore\ninto the fire (this is described below).\u00a0\nAs the ore heats, the chemical bond between the oxygen and ore gets\nweaker and weaker.\u00a0 At some point, the\nbond is so weak that the carbon monoxides attraction is stronger, and the\noxygen flies out of the ore and into the smoke.\u00a0 At this point, the\u00a0 metal\ninstantly melts.\u00a0 It will drip through\nthe fire to the ash below.\u00a0 You can wait\nuntil the ash is cool and sift through it to find the bits of metal.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The process is the same for al\nmetals.\u00a0 But the temperature needed for smelting\nis different for each metal.\u00a0 The softer\nmetals smelt at relatively low temperatures.\u00a0\nYou can smelt them with a wood fire.\u00a0\nThis is not true for iron<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

To smelt iron, you need an extremely hot fire.\u00a0 Wood doesn\u2019t burn hot enough for this.\u00a0 Natural gas doesn\u2019t burn hot enough.\u00a0 Coal doesn\u2019t burn hot enough.\u00a0 Oil doesn\u2019t burn hot enough.\u00a0 The only natural fuel that burns hot enough\nto smelt iron is pure carbon.\u00a0 The only\ncommon source for pure carbon is charcoal.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

If you want to smelt iron, you need charcoal.\u00a0 You will need a lot of it, as you will\nsee.\u00a0 (One of the main justifications\nfor the exploration to the new world in the 1400s was a search for wood.\u00a0 The forests in Europe had all been cut down\nto make charcoal, mainly to use to make steel.\u00a0\nThe mills had all shut down for a lack of fuel.\u00a0 One of the first things that Columbus did\nwhen he began conquest of Haiti was begin cutting down the forests there to\nmake charcoal.\u00a0 This was the \u2018black\ngold\u2019 of his day.)\u00a0 The text box below\nexplains how to make charcoal:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Wood to charcoal:\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Wood is made of hydrocarbons, which\nare molecules with both hydrogen and carbon.\u00a0\nTo get pure carbon (charcoal) you need to get rid of the hydrogen.\u00a0 You do this by heating the wood to a very\nhigh temperature under conditions that prevent it from catching on fire.\u00a0 To prevent this, you need to make sure that\nno oxygen (from the air) is in contact with the wood
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If you want to do this, you need to\nbuild a kind of igloo out of clay blocks, large enough for you to sit\ninside.\u00a0 It needs a chimney on the top\nat least 6 feet high and an opening at ground level big enough to crawl through\nwith loads of wood for the fire inside.\u00a0\nYou then pile the wood you will turn into charcoal over the igloo\u00a0 to a depth of about 5 feet.\u00a0 You then cover the entire thing with about a\nfoot of dirt.\u00a0 Then build a fire in the\nigloo.\u00a0 (The air for the fire will come\nthrough the opening you walk through to carry the wood.)\u00a0 Keep it very very hot for about 2 days.\u00a0 You will have to work furiously this entire\ntime to make sure there is enough wood in the igloo to keep the fire inside at\nthe right temperature.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Then let it cool for a few days and\nremove the dirt.\u00a0 You have\ncharcoal.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It takes about three tons of wood\nto make a ton of charcoal this way.\u00a0 You\nput a ton and a half of wood on the igloo to start.\u00a0 You burn the other ton and a half.\u00a0 After the process is over, the charcoal will be 2\/3 as heavy as\nthe wood originally used to create it.\u00a0\nIt is very unpleasant work and requires a lot of skill.\u00a0 You have to understand a lot of things to do\nit right, and you have to do them all well.\u00a0\nBut all this is necessary to make steel.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Once you have charcoal, you need to make the smelting\nfurnace and the bellows.\u00a0 You can make\nthe smelter out of clay.\u00a0 It needs to be\na certain shape with a chimney and a hole in the bottom for the bellows.\u00a0 People used to make the bellows out leather\nthat is fastened to two large boards.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Once you have this set up, you can start smelting iron.\u00a0 You start by building\u00a0 a fire in the furnace using charcoal.\u00a0 Then you need several people who will rotate\nwith each other to pump the bellows as rapidly as they can.\u00a0 This bellows blows air (which contains\noxygen that the charcoal needs to burn) through the pulverized fuel, causing it\nto burn more rapidly and making it hotter.\u00a0\nIf you watch this being done, you will see that even the strongest\nworkers can\u2019t last much longer than 10 minutes on the bellows at the required\npace.\u00a0 This means you will need to\nrotate people onto this task.\u00a0 You will\nprobably need at least 6 people for this; that gives them one 10 minute shift\nevery hour.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

You also need a large number of people pouring of pulverized\ncharcoal down the chimney and into the furnace.\u00a0 As you do this, the fire gets hotter and hotter.\u00a0 At a certain point, it is hot enough.\u00a0 (You will need someone who has done this\nbefore to tell you when you are at this point.)\u00a0 Now you can start mixing tiny bits of iron ore into\ncharcoal.\u00a0 Keep pouring the ore and fuel\nmixture into the chimney for about 18 hours.\u00a0\nYou need massive amounts of fuel for this.\u00a0 All this time, your helpers must be pumping the bellows\nfuriously:\u00a0 if they slow down for even a\nfew seconds, the furnace will become too cool and all effort so far will be wasted:\u00a0 you will have no iron.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

If you do this right, after 18 hours there will be iron\nmetal in the furnace.\u00a0 The metal turns\ninto a liquid as soon as it loses its oxygen.\u00a0\nIt then drips out of the mixture and flows to the bottom.\u00a0 You will want to put a mold on the bottom to\ncatch the iron.\u00a0 It will harden to the\nshape of the mold.\u00a0 The standard mold\nlooks like a mother pig nursing her piglets.\u00a0\nBecause of this, the iron in this form is called \u2018pig iron.\u2019\u00a0 <\/p>\n

If you are very skilled and good at cutting your costs, you\nwill be able to smelt about 2 pounds of pig iron with the three tons of wood\nyou started with<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Steel<\/h2>\n

For weapons, nothing beats steel.\u00a0 Because steel is so strong, a thin and light steel sword will be\nmuch stronger than a heavy and awkward bronze sword.\u00a0 The person with the lighter and stronger sword will have a great\nadvantage over someone with a heavier but weaker weapon.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

You have to do a lot of hard work to turn iron into\nsteel.\u00a0 You can find many descriptions\non the internet, but here is a quick one:\u00a0\nTake the pig iron and hold it with tongs.\u00a0 Put it into a very hot charcoal fire.\u00a0 Leave it there until it glows white hot.\u00a0 Then take it out and hammer it into a thin\nsheet.\u00a0 Then fold the sheet in half and\nhammer the halves into a new thin sheet, heating as necessary.\u00a0 Keep doing this.\u00a0 You will have more and more sheets, each of which will get\nthinner and thinner.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The difference between iron and steel is carbon.\u00a0 Steel has between 1% and 3% carbon.\u00a0 The carbon comes from the smoke of the charcoal\nfire.\u00a0 You need to literally beat it\ninto the metal.\u00a0 The more carbon the\nmetal has, the harder the steel.\u00a0 The 1%\nsteel is considered \u2018soft\u2019 steel.\u00a0 It is\nstill much harder than iron and has many uses, so a lot is made.\u00a0 The 3% steel is very hard, suitable for\ntools and swords.\u00a0 There is a television\nshow called \u2018forged in fire\u2019 where people compete to make steel knives using\nthis method.\u00a0 They have machines to do\nthe hammering, so they can make good steel in a few days.\u00a0 But if you did the hamming by and, you would\ntake several months to make a good knife or sword.\u00a0 Back when the work was done by hand, officers would often pay\nmore than a full year\u2019s salary to get a high quality sword.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Steel is a fantastic product.\u00a0 It now holds together skyscrapers that are thousands of feet\nhigh; it forms the hulls of submarines that travel thousands of feet below the\nocean, it is the shell for bombs and rockets, and almost all useful tools are\nmade at least partly of steel.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

As of the 21st<\/sup> century, nearly all military\nweapons are made of steel; for most military uses, nothing superior has been\nfound in spite of 4,000 years of searching<\/p>\n

In 2000, archeologists found the oldest steel weapon to be\ndiscovered to date at the Kaman-Kaleh\u00f6y\u00fck archeological site in Turkey.\u00a0 Here is an excerpt from the press release:<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

A piece of ironware excavated from a Turkish archaeological site is\nabout 4,000 years old, making it the world\u2019s oldest steel, Japanese\narchaeologists said on Thursday.\u00a0 Archaeologists\nfrom the Middle Eastern Culture Center in Japan excavated the 5-centimetre\npiece at the Kaman-Kalehoyuk archaeological site in Turkey, about 100\nkilometers southeast of Ankara, in 2000.\u00a0\nThe ironware piece is believed to be a part of a knife from a stratum\nabout 4,000 years old, or 2100-1950 BC, according to them
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 An analysis at the Iwate\nPrefectural Museum in Morioka showed that the ironware piece was about 200\nyears older than one that was excavated from the same site in 1994 and was\nbelieved to be the oldest steel so far made in 20th-18th centuries BC.\u00a0 The ironware is highly likely to have been\nproduced near the Kaman-Kalehoyuk site as a 2-cm-diameter slag and two\niron-containing stones have also been excavated, Kyodo news agency quoted the\narchaeologists as saying.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Industrial Evolution\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

Before the steel age began, states didn\u2019t have to be very\nbig or well organized.\u00a0 Most of\u00a0 the city states probably looked a lot like\nFaiyum looks today, as seen in the image above:\u00a0 rich farmlands surrounded by a convoluted collection of paths\nthat go around the mud huts where people live and operate little kiosks that\nsell the things they can\u2019t make themselves.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t going to work for a city with heavy\nindustry.\u00a0 To support heavy industry,\nyou absolutely need a highly organized economy.\u00a0 This would not be a simple task for the people who lived in 5,500\nBP (before present).\u00a0 They didn\u2019t have\nany idea how an industrial system worked.\u00a0\nThey would have to figure it out themselves, basically with trial and\nerror.\u00a0 They would need a lot of things\nthat we take for granted now and think we understand (because we use them every\nday) but aren\u2019t really intuitive or easy to figure.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Consider the thing we call \u2018money.\u2019\u00a0 The early city states didn\u2019t really need<\/i> money.\u00a0 In Faiyum, people produced mostly rice.\u00a0 If you aren\u2019t a rice farmer but keep chickens for their eggs, you\ncan trade your eggs for rice, both to feed your chickens and meet your own\nneeds.\u00a0 Others may fish or make hats out\nof rice straw and trade these items for things that they need.\u00a0 The government can collect taxes in rice,\nwhich can then be used to feed the troops.\u00a0\nBarter can meet the needs of the pre-industrial system.\u00a0 But it is hard to imagine putting together\nthe resources needed to build and operate an industrial system without\nmoney.\u00a0 Even today, no one seems to have\nattempted it; I can\u2019t imagine anyone trying and succeeding 5,500 years\nago.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

This seems simple enough at first.\u00a0 If you need money, create it.\u00a0\nGovernments print it and then tell people \u2018this is money\u2019 and they start\nusing it, right?\u00a0 But if you had never\nseen money and a government told you these little pieces of paper were able to\nbuy anything in the sate, you would probably laugh.\u00a0 Even today, economists argue about what money is, how it works,\nand why people continue to accept it.\u00a0\nThere must be some reason.\u00a0 If\nyou wanted to build a steel mill 5,500 years ago, you would have to figure out\nhow to make money and<\/i> how to get\npeople to accept it.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The industrial state will also need infrastructure.\u00a0 You need a lot of charcoal to make\nsteel.\u00a0 You can\u2019t have people strapping\npiles of twigs to their horses and then traveling from the forests (which get\nfarther away as the closer trees are removed) to the charcoal plant, and expect\nto keep a large steel mill operating.\u00a0\nYou need roads that are big enough for heavy wagons.\u00a0 They have to be good roads:\u00a0 if the wagons can\u2019t make it through, the\nsteel production stops.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

You will need a lot of workers.\u00a0 These people will have to devote their lives to dangerous,\nextremely unpleasant, and very difficult work.\u00a0\nThis work must be done right so they must be well educated and they must\nbe able to remain motivated and keep working year after year, as many hours as\nyou can get them to work.\u00a0 They need to\nbe motivated as children just to get them to take the time to go to school and\nlearn the skills.\u00a0 The schools must\nexist and have funding.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

At first, these states won\u2019t be very good at these\nthings.\u00a0 Even today, 5,500 years into\nthe industrial period, states seem to be struggling to figure out the next\nstep.\u00a0 But they have to try.\u00a0 They were born into a system where people\nhave fantastically strong genetic and cultural tendencies to identify them with\na group of people, in this case a state, and to use the resources of that group\nto fight other groups to gain territory for their group.\u00a0 This may not make much sense but it is\nreality:\u00a0 we can all see the fanatical\npeople who operate current states doing everything they can to fan hatred and\nfear to make their people fight harder. \u00a0Once people understand how to make steel, they know their enemies\ncan have it and may use it to destroy them.\u00a0\nThey need more than the enemies.\u00a0\nThey may not know exactly how to organize an industrial economy to make\nit happen.\u00a0 But they have to try to figure\nit out<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

It may seem that this particular discussion is being presented in\nthe wrong time period.\u00a0 You may be\nthinking:\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u2018Aren\u2019t industrial\neconomies very recent things?\u00a0 Didn\u2019t\nall important industrial innovations take place in the last 200 years?\u00a0 How could this be relevant to a discussion\nof events 5,500 years ago?\u2019
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 As we will see shortly, this isn\u2019t\ntrue.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There are people that think we can\nnever have sound societies if industry exists and want to \u2018disappear\u2019 it (to\nuse George Orwell\u2019s term for \u2018make it appear it never existed\u2019).\u00a0 We will look at two of these events in the\nnext few chapters.\u00a0 The most notable was\nstarted by Emperor Constantine in the year 322 AD.\u00a0 (Note: AD is the same as the politically more correct term CE,\nfor current era.\u00a0 It is the date under\nthe Christian Calendar.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 At the time,\nthe European area was well into the industrial age with numerous large plants\nproducing enormous amounts of both steel and cement.\u00a0 (You can read about the steel in works of Homer written in circa\n880 BC, in Herodotus "History" circa 446 BC and in Aristotle\u2019s\n\u2018Physics\u2019 circa 350BC.\u00a0 You can see the\ncement work with your own eyes in Europe where massive edifies built of\nconcrete built 2000-3500 years ago are pretty much everywhere.)
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Although many such attempts have\nbeen made, the most successful was that of Emperor Constantine, which started\nin the year 322 AD.\u00a0 All books were\nburned, all schools closed, all corporations shut down with their assets turned\nover to the church, a new book that Constantine ordered written, called \u2018The\nBible,\u2019 was composed in Latin and only vetted priests were allowed to learn to\nread Latin.\u00a0 The result was a \u2018dark age\u2019\nthat lasted more than a thousand years and resulted in a decline estimated to\nbe 50% of the population.\u00a0 (Without\ntechnology, only primitive techniques could be used and production\ncollapsed.)\u00a0\u00a0 We will look at the events\nthat led to this and the reason it happened in later chapters.\u00a0
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Yes, most of what we know now about\nrunning an industrial economy is new.\u00a0\nBut we aren\u2019t learning it the first time, we are relearning <\/i>this\ninformation.\u00a0 If you watch the\nnews, you will see that many people want to try the same thing again.\u00a0 They want to send us back to the dark age\n(again).\u00a0 We have been here before and\nwe are making the exact same mistakes we made before.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Principle of Group Augmentation<\/h2>\n

 <\/p>\n

The purpose of this book is to reconstruct the past events\nthat put the human race onto the path we are now on.\u00a0 This path leads to ever increasing problems that will take us, if\nwe stay on this path long enough, in our extinction.\u00a0 If we want to find a way to get onto a path that leads somewhere\nelse, we have to understand the forces that put us on this <\/i>path.\u00a0 We also have to understand the forces that\nare pushing us forward toward the end.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

One of these forces is the evolutionary force called \u2018group\naugmentation.\u2019\u00a0\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Evolution works by competition.\u00a0 Animals compete as individuals.\u00a0\nThe fittest individuals survive these competitions and pass their genes\non to future generations.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Groups also compete.\u00a0\nThe fittest groups<\/i> (where\n\u2018fittest\u2019 means \u2018best at getting the group what it needs\u2019) survive.\u00a0 Group augmentation works by dividing the\nanimals into individual groups and pitting the groups against each other in\nbattles for territory.\u00a0 (\u2018states\u2019 are\ndifferent competing groups).\u00a0 Group\naugmentation works wherever the ability of a large group of individuals to work\ntogether matters.\u00a0 It works on bees,\nants, and other eusocial\nspecies<\/a>.\u00a0 Our ability to act\ntogether as states, and the larger collections we call \u2018nations\u2019 matters:\u00a0 the states that are best at conquering and\nholding territory get the highest quality territory.\u00a0 They can eat when people from states that don\u2019t work as well are\ndefeated and lose the land that once fed them.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Bees and ants and other eusocial animals without the ability\nto think and plan on a conscious level have no choice but to continue to\ncompete.\u00a0 If they competition gets to a\npoint where it threatens to wipe out their entire species, they can\u2019t stop\ncompeting:\u00a0 they don\u2019t have the ability\nto take this into consideration.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

We are different.\u00a0 If\nwe find ourselves under the influence of forces that threaten to wipe us out,\nwe can organize a plan to get out from under that influence.\u00a0 This is possible.\u00a0 Other books in the Possible Societies<\/i> series explain how\nto do this.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

But before we can take any plan to make changes seriously,\nwe need to recognize that these forces really do exist.\u00a0 We have to understand that we are on a path\nthrough time.\u00a0 We have to understand how\nwe lived in the past, going as far back as possible.\u00a0 We need to understand that there is a process that causes animals\nto change and evolve according to certain rules.\u00a0 We need to understand that this same process works for us.\u00a0 We need to understand that this process is\nnot necessarily benevolent.\u00a0 It may not\nmove us where we want to go.\u00a0 If it is\nmoving somewhere we don\u2019t want to go, we need to understand what we must to do\nto break away from the path it has put us on and get us onto another path<\/p>\n

Until about 570 BC, there is no historical evidence that\nanyone made any serious attempt to bring the idea of intelligent design into\nanalysis of society.\u00a0 This should not be\nsurprising:\u00a0 we don\u2019t have much real\nevidence of the thoughts of anyone that goes back more than 2,600 years,\nbecause very few written documents remain of the earlier period.\u00a0 The next chapter resumes the history in 570\nBC.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Bear in mind that when we get to this period, we are not\nstarting with cave men who hit girls over the head with clubs and drag them\ninto caves for sex.\u00a0 We are starting at\na time when people know how to make both steel and concrete (the most important\noutputs of heavy industry) and have been making these things for\ncenturies.\u00a0 It is very, very hard to\nfind an efficient way to organize industrial states to make them good at\nwar.\u00a0 They don\u2019t have it all figured out\nas of 570 BC.\u00a0 (We don\u2019t really have it\nfigured out now, as you can tell by watching the news.)\u00a0 But they have been trying various different\nthings for a long time.\u00a0 Evolution has\nbeen operating this entire time.\u00a0 States\nbetter at organizing themselves for war have advantages in war.\u00a0 States that are not good at this get\nconquered.\u00a0 They are taken over by\nbetter states, who then move their organizational structures (the ones that\nwere better at making them better at war) to the conquered areas.\u00a0 Over long periods of time, society has been\nevolving in ways that gradually eliminate any features that may make the states\nweak, passive, concessionary, liberal, or non-confrontational.\u00a0 Evolution reinforces<\/i> any characteristics that make the states more cohesive\n(those that promote patriotism and nationalism), more aggressive, more willing\nto sacrifice.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Many people could see that these things are not\nworking to promote what we might call a \u2018sound society\u2019 (one that can advance\nthe interests of the human race as whole over the long term).\u00a0 By the year 570 BC, many people could\nclearly see that the competitive, territorial, aggressive societies that were\nin place at the time could not meet the long term needs of the human race as a\nwhole.\u00a0 We needed something else.\u00a0 Many people tried to figure out what else\nwas possible.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

10:\u00a0 A Transition between Eras     From the very beginning of humankind, the human race was split into two divisions.\u00a0 The people who lived in these divisions were entirely different culturally, economically, socially, and spiritually.\u00a0 They had societies built on entirely different foundational principles.\u00a0 One of these types of societies evolved in response to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2268","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2268"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5918,"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2268\/revisions\/5918"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/factbasedhistory.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}