I'm wondering if there is documented evidence that hunter-gatherers (including fishermen) lacked the capability to accumulate surplus? For some reason, we seem to think that the hunter gatherers were a desperate, starving lot who could never organize themselves well enough to develop because they were always on the move .. certainly this is JD's premise .. I just wonder if it is fact? To my knowledge, hunter gatherers actually spent only part of the time on subsistence food, depending on seasons and herd movements etc., and in some seasons gathered together in camps and temporary communities. I accept as fact that they were outcompeted by farmers and the resulting rise in population and concentration of population then drove development (along with disease and eventually severe environmental problems etc.) ... but I think JD too easily dismisses the h-g's as a footnote of history, an evolutionary dead end road.DWill wrote: Fishing is an interesting example where a major food source--maybe the most important of all, worldwide--comes straight from non-domesticated sources. It does seem that JD should have mentioned this activity at some point, if only to anticipate objections and try to explain how fishing doesn't alter his theory of continental development. During the period that JD is concerned with, the 13,000 years before about 1500, I would think that fishing would have provided mainly subsistence but not the potential to rack up food surpluses that grain and livestock provided. When industrial methods of catching fish and storing them became available to fisherman, that changed things. But it had to wait until relatively modern times. Fishing as we know it today is also done by settled people, even though they may travel far out to sea to find their prey.
With regards to fisheries, I would think that people migrated along major waterways, like the Nile and the Mississippi ... both of these rivers (and many others) basically run north south across the latitudes that are so central to JD's theory of east west migration. The rivers provided everything, water, food and transport .. they may also have impeded east west movement. Water of course is essential to crops so once irrigation was developed a major, reliable water source, preferably year round, would be required. So, sticking close to major rivers and their tributaries would make sense. Also, major river valleys may have similar growing and climatic conditions over a long distance even if latitude changes.
Thanks for the 'criticisms' link that you posted, I will check that out.