Thanks. I am glad that you got something out of it.
I think this one graphic is the thing that I am most proud of in my writing career. It took LOTS of work! On the other hand, creating it really forced me to sharpen my thinking, so it was worth the effort.
I look forward to reading the book Michael. I was one of those kids whose favourite class was social studies and that led me to pursue a history degree followed by a science degree. I remember when we played the game if you had 1 wish what would it be? People never guessed mine! It was to have unfettered access to the Vatican libraries (all of it) and live long enough to read it all (I know geeky).
It sounds like we have much in common, although I must admit that your childhood ambition was more ambitious than mine! Read the entire Vatican library!
Great graph! But it jerks me that "Herding Societies" are placed below "Agrarian Sociates" even though they are later and emerge from agrarian societies. Move the herding box to above its emerging technologies box!
Also herding societies evolved about 3000 BCE (Yamnaya).
Glad that you like the graph. It took me a long time to try to condense all the relevant information into one graphic.
I never mentioned it before but the vertical placement of society types on the graphic roughly denotes the complexity of the society. For that reason, I think Herding societies belong lower. It is also not clear if they evolved from nearby Agrarian or Horticultural societies or Hunter Gatherers.
Herding societies may be the only example of societies becoming less complex than previous society, although they were a certainly a big step up from Hunter Gatherers.
As for the origin date of Herding societies, you may be correct. I have seen wildly diverging estimates. And I would not assume that because Yamnaya later became Herders that the origin of the culture and the origin of the society type were the same. We need much more research on this topic.
For the purposes of this chart, the exact year does not matter so much as the order that society types evolved in history.
I think it's a bit confusing to use the y-axis of the graph for both "time" and "complexity", especially since the axis is marked with time units and there's no indication that it also tracks complexity. I think it's clearer to not include complexity in the graph, and leave it for the reader to understand that these societies are organized differently.
I think it's pretty clear that the Yamnaya were the first steppe pastoralists: I assume you know about the arguments in The Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David W. Anthony.
How much the emergence of herders depended on agricultural societies (to get technology from and to predate on) is an interesting open question. I would assume that there's a relationship, so that you can't have herders without agricultural societies.
Superb (the adjective doesn't do it justice) graphic! It's amazing that you were able to distill so much information into one picture.
Fantastic graphic that packs an amazing amount of concepts together and shows their proper interconnections. Thanks for this.
Thanks. I am glad that you got something out of it.
I think this one graphic is the thing that I am most proud of in my writing career. It took LOTS of work! On the other hand, creating it really forced me to sharpen my thinking, so it was worth the effort.
I look forward to reading the book Michael. I was one of those kids whose favourite class was social studies and that led me to pursue a history degree followed by a science degree. I remember when we played the game if you had 1 wish what would it be? People never guessed mine! It was to have unfettered access to the Vatican libraries (all of it) and live long enough to read it all (I know geeky).
LOL
It sounds like we have much in common, although I must admit that your childhood ambition was more ambitious than mine! Read the entire Vatican library!
I hope that you enjoy the book.
Great graph! But it jerks me that "Herding Societies" are placed below "Agrarian Sociates" even though they are later and emerge from agrarian societies. Move the herding box to above its emerging technologies box!
Also herding societies evolved about 3000 BCE (Yamnaya).
Glad that you like the graph. It took me a long time to try to condense all the relevant information into one graphic.
I never mentioned it before but the vertical placement of society types on the graphic roughly denotes the complexity of the society. For that reason, I think Herding societies belong lower. It is also not clear if they evolved from nearby Agrarian or Horticultural societies or Hunter Gatherers.
Herding societies may be the only example of societies becoming less complex than previous society, although they were a certainly a big step up from Hunter Gatherers.
As for the origin date of Herding societies, you may be correct. I have seen wildly diverging estimates. And I would not assume that because Yamnaya later became Herders that the origin of the culture and the origin of the society type were the same. We need much more research on this topic.
For the purposes of this chart, the exact year does not matter so much as the order that society types evolved in history.
I think it's a bit confusing to use the y-axis of the graph for both "time" and "complexity", especially since the axis is marked with time units and there's no indication that it also tracks complexity. I think it's clearer to not include complexity in the graph, and leave it for the reader to understand that these societies are organized differently.
I think it's pretty clear that the Yamnaya were the first steppe pastoralists: I assume you know about the arguments in The Horse, the Wheel, and Language by David W. Anthony.
How much the emergence of herders depended on agricultural societies (to get technology from and to predate on) is an interesting open question. I would assume that there's a relationship, so that you can't have herders without agricultural societies.