roseembolism (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
roseembolism) wrote2009-03-25 09:45 am
roseembolism) wrote2009-03-25 09:45 am
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Rant: how advanced could a lost civilization be?
The question that was asked on a forum I read was:
How advanced could a hypothetical pre-Ice Age culture have been and not left any traces behind? How destructive was the advance of the glaciers and the ravages of time? Would, say, an Iron or Bronze Age society have been able to exist and slip through the cracks of time?
My answer is:
Though glaciers pretty much sweep clean areas they pass over, the problem with an advanced civilization remaining undetected, is the population required to maintain one. As a civilization becomes more advanced, the need for more and more specialists increases; you don't just need a blacksmith, you need the people to make the tools that make the tools to make the tools the factory uses. For another example, just consider the sheer number of medical specialties, and the specialized support staff needed. So, bearing that in mind, the minimum size needed to maintain a technological civilization at our level is evidently at least one million people.
Add to that fact that population combined with technology means extensive resource use. That is, worldwide exploration and resource use. So even if we didn't find the city ruins, it would quickly become obvious to anyone doing digging that something was going on worldwide, as in: disturbed geological layers from mines; evidence for large-scale agriculture; earthworks; mingling of species from distant continents (consider how potatoes and tomatoes came to Europe); creation of specialized animal and plant species; evidence left in ice cores of contaminants; evidence of radical changes in large areas of topography...and probably hundreds of other pieces of evidence.
The bottom line, is that maybe you could hide a smallish bronze age civilization, if it was in say, Antarctica, and if it was far more conservative than historical civilizations have been (i.e.: no attempts to actually leave or explore the world). Anything beyond that strains credibility.
So that's what I think. Any comments?
How advanced could a hypothetical pre-Ice Age culture have been and not left any traces behind? How destructive was the advance of the glaciers and the ravages of time? Would, say, an Iron or Bronze Age society have been able to exist and slip through the cracks of time?
My answer is:
Though glaciers pretty much sweep clean areas they pass over, the problem with an advanced civilization remaining undetected, is the population required to maintain one. As a civilization becomes more advanced, the need for more and more specialists increases; you don't just need a blacksmith, you need the people to make the tools that make the tools to make the tools the factory uses. For another example, just consider the sheer number of medical specialties, and the specialized support staff needed. So, bearing that in mind, the minimum size needed to maintain a technological civilization at our level is evidently at least one million people.
Add to that fact that population combined with technology means extensive resource use. That is, worldwide exploration and resource use. So even if we didn't find the city ruins, it would quickly become obvious to anyone doing digging that something was going on worldwide, as in: disturbed geological layers from mines; evidence for large-scale agriculture; earthworks; mingling of species from distant continents (consider how potatoes and tomatoes came to Europe); creation of specialized animal and plant species; evidence left in ice cores of contaminants; evidence of radical changes in large areas of topography...and probably hundreds of other pieces of evidence.
The bottom line, is that maybe you could hide a smallish bronze age civilization, if it was in say, Antarctica, and if it was far more conservative than historical civilizations have been (i.e.: no attempts to actually leave or explore the world). Anything beyond that strains credibility.
So that's what I think. Any comments?
no subject
That's why in my Under the Green Moon setting, one can't really go anywhere without tripping over remains of a past civilization. There's no such thing as a a pristine wilderness in my setting; even the oldest forests have grown up and over something.
no subject