Vocab
sedentary- a lifestyle with lack of physical exercise
hominid- any member of the biological family Hominidae
Humans have gone from hunters and gatherers to modern industrialized humans in just a short period of time.
We went from having to forage for food and pick of the remains of other predator's kills. Also, the energy gained from foraging was oftentimes less than the energy it took to find the food. So, we moved on to other foods.
"Except from some maritime cultures, foraging societies could not attain population densities needed for functional and social diversification."
When population did start growing, however, foraging alone could no longer support everyone. So, cultivation and agriculture were more heavily relied on. Developments in plowing techniques emerged, and with that new crops, such as rice and wheat, were able to be harvested. The use of large animals to help harvest and plow progressed when populations grew. It began with cattle, and then moved to horses.
"One well-fed American horse preempted cultivation of food grains capable to sustain about six people- but it could work at a rate at least ten times higher than an average man, offering a substantial energy advantage."
When population grew even more, there was a need for something even more powerful than horses, and so internal combustion engines emerged.
As we moved along, wood was used for everything from making tools to heating homes. They also used wood to make charcoal.
From wood there came waterwheels and from waterwheels there came windmills. From windmills there came the use of copper and steel and iron for mechanical building.
Questions
The ultimate source of energy in a pre-Industrial society is the sun.
An example of innovation within pre-industrial societies is a windmill.
A disadvantage I find with the energy sources available to pre-industrial societies is what if a civilization is not near an area with a lot of water or wind? Then what do they do?
My Questions
What kind of energy worked best?
Why didn't pre-industrialized societies use animals even sooner?
If charcoal is so wasteful, why did they continue to use it?
Interesting questions.
ReplyDeleteFor your first, I don't know. It probably depended in part on the location and on what equipment people had at hand to utilize a given energy source.
The two big obstacles to use of animals were innovation and food: somebody had to figure out how to domesticate an animal (which sometimes overlapped with shaping the biology of the species itself, over multiple generations); and you had to be able to produce enough food energy to be able to afford to feed some of it to your animals.
Charcoal was used because it was the only way they knew of for producing the high heat needed for certain applications, particularly making steel.
Look again at the relationship between energy expenditure and energy return on foraging.