XIVth International Economic History Congress

Helsinki, Finland, 21-25 August 2006

Session 95

Evolutionary Theories of Long-Run World Economic History:

The Theory/History Interconnection Re-Examined
_______________________________________________________________

The Great Experiment 10.000 BC – AD 1.500

Janken Myrdal

University of Agricultural Sciences, Uppsala, Sweden

email: janken.myrdal@ekon.slu.se

This is a draft conference paper, not to be quoted without permission of the author

1
 The experiment

Imagine that it were possible to conduct a gigantic experiment with the history of
mankind to study the importance of numbers and whether human development
follows particular patterns. One could then take a very large group of people, a
medium-sized group of people and a small group of people and put the large group in
a vast territory, the medium-sized group in a fairly large territory, and the small
group in a rather small territory. The three groups would be kept isolated from each
other for a very long time. And then the three groups would suddenly be brought
together to see how they had developed. Had the large group developed more
quickly? Had the three groups developed along more or less similar paths? When
they were brought together again, did the large group come to predominate over the
other two? Such an experiment would have to be done on a huge scale: it would
require continents and tens of thousands of years to conduct it.
By now perhaps some readers have already guessed at what I am aiming at:
this vast experiment has been carried out. In the end of the ice-age, with warmer
climate and a rising sea level for about ten thousand years there were three land
masses that were more or less cut off from each other: Afro-Eurasia, America and
Australia. Nearly all contacts were broken. Occasional sailors may have crossed the
oceans (i.e. Northern Atlantic and Bering Straits), but they have not had any cultural
significance, the most thoroughly investigated case being the few Vikings who
reached Canada’s eastern shores. But every experiment has some contamination, and
in this case it is nearly insignificant. 1 For the most part America and Afro-Eurasia
were isolated from each other by water as if they were on different planets for more
than ten thousand years until about 1500 when contact was suddenly and
dramatically re-established with transoceanic shipping, followed by the Spanish and
Portuguese conquest of America (and later the British of North America and
Australia). “The experiment” is thus the history of mankind from the split of the land
masses up until the first time of regular transports over the oceans.2
In what follow I shall elaborate on the results of this “experiment”, and for the
most part concentrate on technical and economic development. The three land
masses in the experiment are:

1. The large land mass is “Afro-Eurasia”. It is a vast contiguous land mass, our
planet’s veritable mega-continent. That Europe is just a large peninsula, rather like
India, on the Asian land mass is obvious. Nor is Africa a separate unit but rather
connected to and part of this land mass through trading routes along its eastern coast,
through transportation routes along the Nile and over Ethiopia, through trading
routes across the Sahara, and finally through water routes along the west coast and
over the Mediterranean.

2. The medium-sized land mass is North and South America. In America cultural
contacts were maintained across the narrow isthmus of Central America, and regular

1
“The experiment” is extremely large-scale, but actually just as one of those incidents History offers
us, which gives us possibilities to compare and test. From another angel Karl Butzer argues about
historical study as a laboratory test, see Butzer 1990 p 687.
2
This “experiment” has been observed also in earlier literature, cf. Wright 2000, pp 29, 54, quoting
Michael Kremer who published in the 1990s.

2
 contacs covered America from the Mississippi valley and areas north of it to the
southern Andes and lands to the east of them.
When humans arrived into America is one of the main debating subjects.
Today the generally accepted understanding is that people had come across earlier,
but not until about 10,000 BC a significant number of people came.3 And the
accepted scenario for this immigration describes how about 12,000 years ago, in the
middle of the ice age, Bering Strait went dry as the sea level sank from all the water
bound up in the ice and a corridor between the ice fields lay open between the North-
eastern corner of Asia and the north-western corner of North America. Another
track could have been along the southern coast of Alaska. At this time here arrived a
stream of people large enough to constitute the origin of those who populated both
the Americas, in a rather short time thereafter.

3. The small land mass is Australia. (I do not include the rest of Oceania.) Australia
was populated by human beings from 50,000 – 40,000 years ago. They had moved
along the seaboard of the Indian Ocean as they spread out from Africa. When the sea
level was low Australia and New Guinea were connected and the sound separating
this land mass from the Indonesian islands became rather narrow and could
apparently be crossed by humans on primitive boats. The whole continent except the
arid interior was populated 30,000 years ago. But as a result of a rise in the sea level
the connection with Australia was more or less broken over seven thousand years
ago. Fishermen from the New Guinea could land on the rather inhospitable northern
shore of Australia, but regular ties were not maintained. As an even smaller entity
Tasmania was separated from mainland Australia.4

The three main continents were at different levels of development when

transoceanic shipping again connected them. Australia remained in the stone age
without any agriculture. There did occur some development of tools, but also
technological losses. For example, it is possible that those arriving to Australia had
developed the bow and arrow but for various reasons later abandoned it. When the
size of the population is too small and isolated from the tide of innovation, some
technological developments tend to be lost, particularly if they do not provide
immediate advantages. For instance in Tasmania a gradual simplification took place
with some losses of technology.5 At the same time, America had reached the level of
the bronze age with higher cultures, social differences, large buildings, a written
language (that of the Mayan culture), and astronomy. Afro-Eurasia was far more
advanced that the other land masses. The level of technology around 1500 was much
the same throughout Eurasia, from China to Europe. Even in Africa there existed a
well-developed material culture with iron tools and cattle-raising.

Importance of size

3
See Diamond 1997, pp. 48-49; Mithen 2003, pp. 210-245.
4
Bellwood & Hiscock 2005 pp 265-267. Kingdon pp. 103-106 argues that Australia became inhabited
by humans perhaps already 60,000 bp, about this major controversy in Australian prehistory, see
Lilley 2006 p 15.
5
Cotterell & Kamminga 1992, pp. 7-8; Bellwood & Hiscock 2005 p. 272.

3
 The thesis of this article is that the greater the number of people who stand in
contact with each other, the more rapid is development. The basic postulation is that
humans, on the average, have the same ability to invent, acquire and adapt
technology – through history and in all continents.
As the number of people increases, more people become available to solve
problems, and many new needs may also arise. One factor that amplifies the
importance of population size is the division of labour; as the number of people
increases, some can be assigned to devote themselves to specialized tasks. When
individuals can concentrate on improving their knowledge, skill, and investment in
some particular area, the rate at which innovations occur may increase. Gradual
growth in the density of population will therefore create a benevolent spiral with
increased specialization and more and more innovations. Technological development
takes place ever more quickly, although in leaps and bounds interspersed with phases
of relative stagnation. I also assume a dialectical relation between changes in the
population and technological innovation. An increase in the population has stimulated
the adoption of techniques to increase agricultural yield, and an increase in
agricultural yield has made it possible to support a larger number of people. Such
two-sided interaction may be studied in many individual cases; here I shall simply
note that such a correlation does exist.6
The thesis is a simplification and a great many other factors than the number of
people also have an effect. There are for example built-in limitations, as ecological
limits in relation to available technology. Other factors that may hinder development
include wastefulness in the use of human resources as well as a rise in social and
political conflicts with a higher density of population, as societies become ever more
complex.
The fact that population size has a significant impact on historical
development is not a dramatic revelation. The grand old man of economic history in
the 1900s, Fernand Braudel, introduces in his history of the world civilizations 1400–
1800, from 1979, with a chapter about the importance of size, namely the number of
human beings, as a fundamental reality.
An inspiring contribution was made by the Swedish geographer Torsten
Hägerstrand, in a short but pithy essay from 1991. He elaborates a model of the
spread of innovation and inflates it to a global standard for the large continents. What
he emphasizes in particular is the role played by the crossroads. Not only do these
areas receive the greatest number of impulses from all directions, it is also here that
the possibility of new combinations arises. On this basis he can point to the Middle
East and Central America as the most likely places for the accumulation of mixed
knowledge. The fact that these very areas came to lead in cultural and technological
development in the early phase of civilization is related to their geographical position
as centres for flows of innovation.7 With the development of maritime transport and
subsequently of other forms of transport (e.g. air transport), the advantages held by
the centres of the land masses disappeared.
A recent contribution has been made Jared Diamond in Guns, Germs and
Steel, published in 1997. He tries to find the causes of the difference in level of
development between the various parts of the world. His point of departure is anti-
racial and he begins by describing his work amongst the talented population of New

6
Persson 1988 p. 18.
7
Hägerstrand 1991 pp. 158-159.

4
 Guinea. The differences that occur in the world do not have anything to do with
racial differences, which is a most important statement.
Diamond instead emphasizes differences in conditions provided by the natural
environment, such as plants and animals suitable for domestication. One factor
Diamond puts forward as an advantage for Eurasia is its extent east to west. Most
plants and animals are adapted to a particular climate and it is therefore easier for
them to spread along lines of latitude than lines of longitude, a factor which put
America at a disadvantage owing to its north-south extension.8 Diamond however
also declares that: “Larger population mean more inventors and more competing
societies”, and that the differences in size and population between the continents
“goes a long way toward explaining” why Eurasia had a more advanced technology.9
Another example could be taken from the recent world history presented by
John and William McNeill, where they write that Eurasia has the advantage of greater
size, and communications embracing its much larger population, which accelerated
invention.10

A model

To test the thesis about the importance of population-size I shall first present a
simplified model, and then try to find data to prove it. One factor I shall put to the
side are differences in the three large landmasses. It is part of the nature of
development that it does not occur at the same rate everywhere, and each of the
three land masses will therefore contain people at a number of different stages of
development. But I shall consider each of them to have an average level of
development as it is my view that the three land masses can be studied as wholes and
compared with each other for the very reason that they are large enough for
development to take differing courses within them. The investigation will thus be
limited to a comparison of the three isolated units in order to identify both similarities
and differences in their process of development.
As a consequence of my basic assumption of a general level of intelligence
among all human beings I also assume that knowledge about new technology was
spread at the same pace. Inventions were however not available at once everywhere.
David Christian has, in a discussion about the long history of technological and
cultural development, presented an equation over the number of possible connections
between “people or communities”: (n x (n-1))/2.11 This is also the equation used to
calculate the number of matches played in a sport tournament where every team
meets every other team. On a continent the tribes do not all meet, and geographers
have used other models. Especially Torsten Hägerstrand’s investigations from the
1950s, and 1960s have been of importance. He for instance pointed out that
probability of contact declined with distance. In a matrix model he proved how
innovation spread, and that the center tended to have most information.12
I have used this diffusion models from human geography to construct a simple
model of three “continents”. They are described as islands, of different sizes that are
8
Diamond 1997 p. 87 for a diagram on different factors.
9
Diamond 1997 p. 263.
10
McNeill & McNeill 2003 p. 36.
11
Christian 2004 p. 183.
12
For a presentation of Hägerstrand´s methods see Newbury 1980 pp. 50-56.

5
cut off from each other by impassable bodies of water. It is assumed that human
beings spread themselves more or less evenly over the surface so that the original
difference in population is the same as the difference in area. Furthermore it is
assumed that all human beings, on the average, are equally inventive and equally
receptive and are just as willing (or unwilling) to accept something new.
Every island is thus a matrix with a different number of “tribes”: there are 25
“tribes” on the largest “continent”, 9 “tribes” on the middle-sized one, and 1 single
“tribe” on the smallest one. Each area or tribe makes one technological invention per
century. They also adopt one technological invention per century from each of the
surrounding areas and pass it on in the following century to other neighbouring tribes
that do not yet have the invention. At most they have 8 neighbouring tribes (in the
centre), and in the corners of the “islands” they only have 3. On the small island there
are no neighbouring tribes.
With this model it is possible to show that the number of innovations will
grow more quickly on the largest island than on the others, and that centres will lead
developments for a time. To begin with, all tribes are at the same level of
development, but disparities quickly arise and grow. The most distant corners of the
large continent soon have passed the centre of the middle-sized continent. The centre
is however on both islands at the forefront and gets innovations from all directions
very soon. However, after five hundred years all the tribes on the largest island are
finally included in a technological flow, and each tribe receives 24 innovations from
outside and makes one of its own each century. Once this all-encompassing flow has
been achieved, the gap between the largest and the smaller continents with respect to
the number of innovations widens. (After five hundred years the tribe on the small
island will have 5 inventions. On the middle sized island there will be three levels with
respectively: 32, 34 and 37 inventions. The largest island will have six levels with
respectively: 55, 64, 67, 76 and 80 inventions. Beginning with the following century,
the number of innovation adopted by each tribe every hundred years is 9 on the
middle-sized continent, 25 on the large continent, and 1 on the small continent.)
The weakness of this model is that is does not account for an increase in
population. One might reasonably presume that an increased number of innovations
will lead to increase in productivity per unit area such that a larger population can be
supported on the same land mass. The size of the population should therefore
increase over time, and thereby also the number of innovations. Consequently,
according to this extended, more dynamic model, the large continent would pull even
further ahead of the others.
An even more serious weakness is of course that in reality historical
development has followed a more winding path, and most significantly, there are
inherent checks on development in the form of crises, ecological restrictions,
diseases, etc.
Though, simplifying is the nature of models.

Empirical test

Also theories about “big history” should be founded on empirical data. My intention
is to find a measurable indication of technological progress, but also to present the
limits of this indication in relation to the question asked. The data used will be

6
discussed presenting different alternatives, which is necessary due to the uncertainity
of data.
To find a quantitative measure of the rate of development in terms of the
number of inventions is very difficult, and I will try another way. From the 16th and
17th century fairly good data about the population in most of the world is available
(and much earlier for China and also for parts of Europe). It is thus possible to
measure the number of people per unit area, with some security. If this is taken as a
measure of level of technology it contains an assumption that a greater density of
population is caused by an improvement in productivity per unit area (yield per unit
area). It must be noted that inventions (and their application as innovations) do note
solely lead to an increase in productivity per unit area. People have a number of other
goals for their innovative activities, such as to increase the productivity of labour, to
develop their mass of knowledge for its own sake, etc.
According to the goal of this investigation, the great experiment, density of
population will be measured on the average over a land mass so large that all
ecological differences are evened out. I assume that these land masses are so large
that, within each, the relative distribution of areas that are more attractive and less
attractive for people to settle in is similar. A closer study might upset this assumption
— but the relationship between human beings and the ecological environment is not
constant. As a result of technical developments areas that were once uninhabitable
can be transformed into areas with a dense population that people prefer to live in,
the wetlands in the delta of Euphrates-Tigris is a typical example.
According to my basic hypothesis a region, which initially has a larger
interacting population will experience a more rapid increase in population as a result
of an increased number of innovations than a region, which initially has a smaller
population. To achieve such a measure, I shall compare the area of the three separate
land masses with the size of their populations at the time they again came in contact
with each other around 1500 and up until the 1600s.
The population statistics used here for the 16th century are taken from two
assessments made at the end of the 1970s that are still used in various surveys. One
was made by the Englishmen Colin McEvedy and Richard Jones in their classic Atlas
of World Population History from 1978 with figures for population change land by
land. The second estimate was made by the Frenchman J. N. Biraben in 1979 and
adopted by the Italian Massmo Livi-Bacci in his well-known A Concise History of
World Population from 1989 (in English 1992). There is not any great difference
between the two estimates with respect to Eurasia, but for the other parts of the
world McEvedy & Jones choose figures clearly lower than Biraben’s (and Livi-
Bacci´s).
The figures for Australia are uncertain, of course, and are the result of a
backwards extrapolation from the time when the first Europeans arrived in the 17th
century. Only McEvedy and Jones gives data for Australia proper, and the numbers
could be too low. I have not included the rest of Oceania since the expansion across
the Pacific Ocean connects these islands rather with the system of production and
culture in South-East Asia, and the same is true of New Zealand.
When it comes to America there has been some discussion of the extent of the
catastrophic drop in the size of the population mainly as a result of diseases, but also
by the destruction of the production system, brought by Europeans at the conquest.
McEvedy & Jones argue in favour of the lower figures by pointing out that the
changes otherwise would be far too dramatic, when Livi-Bacci prefers higher

7
 numbers.13 In all likelihood, one must also allow for the fact that there was a
significant reduction not only in the better known central areas but also over wide
areas of both continents to which the diseases reached before the Europeans, and
recent research more and more leans towards the higher numbers.14
A similar discussion has been conducted concerning Africa and for this
continent as well McEvedy & Jones have chosen a cautious approach. It is quite
likely that even Biraben’s figures are too low. Diop-Maes cites a number of
researchers who estimate Africa’s population in 1500 to be c. 30–90 million,
however, her own proposal of 600–800 million,15 is so extreme that it cannot be
taken seriously. The agricultural systems in Africa possibly gave a lower general
population density than in Eurasia with several large regions with intensive
agriculture (such as China and much of India and also much of Europe).16 However,
even if the figure for Africa in 1500 is increased by several tens of millions, this
would not affect the final result since they are included in the figures for the mega-
continent. On the other hand, the figures do have significance for how Africa is to be
interpreted as part of the innovative flow and rate of increase within the mega-
continent.

Table 1. Area and population in circa 1500 AD.

Area in million km2 Population, in millions, 1500 AD

McEvedy & Jones Biraben/Livi-Bacci

Europe 10.6 81 84*

Asia 44.4 280 245
Africa 30 46 87
Megacontinent:
Sum 85 407 416
-.-.
America 42 14 42
-.-.
Oceania 2 3 3
Of which
Australia 7.7 0.2 -
-.-.
Note: * Including those parts of Asia that were later incorporated in the Soviet Union; in McEvedy
& Jones 1978 pp. 157-163 the population of these areas is given as 5 million in 1500.
Source: McEvedy & Jones 1978 pp. 18, 122, 206, 270, 320, 329; Livi-Bacci 1992 p. 31.

In converting the figures into a hypothetical yearly rate of growth I make one
assumption, namely, that the density of the population throughout the world was the
same as in Australia before that continent was conquered by the British, i.e. about
0.025 persons per square kilometre (actually 0.026). This means that the world
13
McEvedy & Jones 1978 pp. 292, 298, 312 with maps showing the presumed density of population
in various areas in 1500 on p. 273, cf. Livi-Bacci 1992 pp. 50-55 where the population catastrophe in
America is discussed.
14
Mann 2005 p. 133, et passim.
15
Diop-Maes 1996 pp. 67-68, 272.
16
This is valid for the rain-forest, but also for eastern Africe. About ”islands” of high population
density, surrounded by more extensively used land, see Widgren 2004.

8
 would have had almost 3.5 million inhabitants in 10,000 BC. Biraben is one of the
few who has ventured to make a guess and he estimates that the total size of the
population in 10,000 BC was 6 million.17 One reason for the difference could be that
I include enormous tracts of empty land, deserts, mountains, etc, in my estimation of
average density. Another reason could be that McEvedy and Jones underestimated
the population of Australia before the arrival of the Europeans.
In my estimation I have counted on a constant population in Australia, but
actually a certain increase over the studied period from 10,000 BC to 1500 AD is
more probable. Archaeological indicators have been interpreted as indication a
tripling or quadrupling of the population between 2000 BC and AD 1.18 The
population increase would be about 0.05-0.07% per annum, which is surprisingly
high for a foraging population. This was however a period of technological change
on the continent, and such a growth could definitely not have been sustained through
the whole period in Australia.
Even if one assumes that before the separation brought about by the last ice
age the density of population in the world as a whole was 0.015 person per square
kilometre, this adjustment does not greatly affect the results, except for Australia,
which in that case would have had a growth rate of 0.004% per annum. The estimate
for the total world population in 10,000 BC would then have to be reduced
proportionately and would therefore diverge even further from Biraben’s figure.
Another figure, often quoted in archaeological textbooks, is a 0.0015% rate
of growth per annum before 10,000 years ago and subsequently, after the
introduction of agriculture, 0,1% per annum.19 The latter figure seems far too high,
and likely means the growth rate in those areas which had become agricultural and
not the average rate of growth for the whole continent. Also the first mentioned
number is to high, if it intends to be valid for all the many millennia foregoing 10.000
before present.
In table 2 the rate of growth has been calculated for 10,000 and 12,000 years
before 1500 AD, respectively. This time span is chosen mainly in consideration of the
time when the land masses were separated but also with some regard to when
agriculture began to spread and the growth rate to increase. Population growth has
probably accelerated over time but there is no reason to introduce such an uncertain
quantity into the calculations since it is the average difference between the land
masses I am interested in. Nor is there any point in attempting to estimate the
difference in the growth rate for example between remote parts of Siberia and the
densely populated urban areas of the mega-continent — again, because it is the
overarching and average relationship that is going to be compared.

Table 2. Population density in persons/km2 and population growth up to 1500 AD.

Area Population density in persons/km2 Annual growth in %

ca 10,000 BC 1500 AD 12 000 – 10 000 years

Australia 0.025 0.025 0

17
Livi-Bacci 1992 p. 31. This number is often quoted without discussion, and even a more detailed
reconstruction, region for region for the early millennia, is sometimes presented as a fact.
18
Bellwood & Hiscock p. 274.
19
Renfrew & Bahn 1996 pp. 434-435; Scarre 2005 p. 41.

9
 America
McEvedy & Jones 0.025 0.3 0.021-1.025
Biraben 0.025 1.0 0.031-0.037

Afro-Eurasia 0.025 4.8 0.044-0.053

Of which Africa
McEvedy & Jones 0.025 1.5 0.034-0.041
Biraben 0.025 2.9 0.040-0.048

Note: Biraben’s figures do not affect the final result for Eurasia: the population density in 1500
would be 4.9 and the growth-rate the same.

It is with some hesitation that I have reported the numbers with two digits,
since that gives the impression of greater precision than is possible for calculations
that lie close to being informed guesses. However, too much rounding would make
comparisons more difficult.
In the first place, it should be noted that the difference in growth rate between
Eurasia and Africa is very small, especially if Biraben’s figures are used, and, as was
mentioned above, even these probably underestimate the true size and density of the
population of the continent in 1500. Africa has been part of the mega-continent with
practically the same average rate of growth, and Africa was not cut off from the flow
in innovation within the mega-continent.
The relation between Afro-Eurasia and America is an interesting one. The
mega-continent Afro-Eurasia has a total surface area that is twice as big as that of
America and it has had a growth rate that is about or almost twice as large. One must
keep in mind the uncertainty of the figures, but one might perhaps have expected an
even greater growth rate in the large land mass. Such an expectation would be
founded on the importance of the sheer size of the population, but also on the fact
that a larger population leads to increased specialization of labour and thereby to
more rapid technological development. The figures in the table therefore seem to
suggest that there must have been some retarding factors that prevented the large
population from fully realizing the potential it holds for technological development.
In an interesting discussion on disease in prehistory Les Groube uses
population estimates to prove that disease probably played a major role to keep down
the population growth before as well as after the agricultural revolution. It is well
known that “crowd-diseases” increased in importance with the introduction of
agriculture, village-life and close living together with animals. Groube also points at
disease as one of the main factors that kept population growth near zero before
10.000 b.p. This could have been the long period when humans acquired “our
remarkably efficient immune system”.20 Other factors reducing the population growth
could have been wars (or fear of war) and slavery, where men and woman were
deprived of the ability to get offspring. These questions however leads over to the
history of growing societal complexity through history, a question I here leave on
side.21

20
Groube 1996 p 111, in his estimations he uses a “generously” estimate of 10 million humans 10.000
b.p. and tries to come to increase rates much under 0.0005% per annum before that.
21
Johnson & Earle 2000 deals with the relation between social complexity and population growth.

10
First conclusion: Importance of numbers

The main conclusion to be drawn is that size is sufficient as the principal explanatory
factor for the difference in population increase between the three landmasses. The
fact of the greater surface area of the mega-continent, which even initially provided
space for a larger population that interacted over the centuries, is sufficient to
account for the quicker rate of growth. This does not mean that no other factors have
had any impact. The distribution between infertile and fertile areas, as well as
opportunities for trade and contact have played some role, especially comparing
regions in the large landmasses.
It does mean, however, that on the basis of population size, and size of the
land masses, alone, the possibility that there could have been differences in
inventiveness between races, living in these land masses, can be eliminated.
Thus Occham’s scissor can be used against the catalogue of differences
presented by Diamond in his important book on human history. For instance the
north-south respectively east-west axis is probably not of such decisive importance as
he assumes. Once an effective system of technology had been established, its
innovations could often be spread both north and south. One example is the
successful spread of potato cultivation in Europe after the 16th century. It only took
a few hundred years before human beings were able to develop varieties that made it
possible to grow potatoes at the northern tip of Sweden. A further example is
provided by sheep and goats amongst domestic animals. In the wild these animals did
not extent much beyond West Asia. Today they have been spread more in a north-
south direction than in an eastern one. They are hardly found in China, even if this
country is on the same latitude as the Middle East, since they do not fit into the
Chinese system of agriculture, which is a very intensive agriculture that does not
allow for much pasture.
To understand differences we instead have to understand agriculture as a
system, which could exclude cultivable plants and domestic animals that were not
suitable to the system, even if these originated in the same latitude. There are large
differences between various systems of agriculture on the mega-continent (and even
in America). But these technological systems have developed in constant contact
with each other and with an exchange of particular technical innovations. The
comparison between America and Afro-Eurasia makes clear that within the great
technological opportunity that is offered there are various general solutions that can
develop into agricultural systems.
The next step in an analysis of “big history”, and the general direction of
development is therefore to attempt to identify the large coherent technological
systems, especially agricultural systems, and to determine their rise and fall. In
another context I intend to return to this question.

Second conclusion: Parallelism

The great experiment, the comparison of the three land masses, can be approached
from a completely different angle that highlights another interesting fact, namely the
similarity between them. When the inhabitants of the three land masses faced each

11
 other in the 16th century (in Australia a century later) it turns out that they all passed
through more or less the same stages of development.
It is true that the Australians lost their knowledge of the bow and arrow
probably partly in connection with the effective and disastrous outhunting of the
continent’s mega-fauna they carried out at an early stage. However, technological
advances were later made in other areas, for instance the well-known boomerang. In
about 3000 BC a technique was developed of using stone chips in a fashion similar to
techniques developed in many parts of the rest of the world a few millennia earlier:
small chips of stone were broken off and fixed to an implement with resin, a
technique which offered a number of advantages (sharper edge, more easily repaired,
etc.). And after 2000 BC an indigenous technique of using artefacts more
economically was developed.22 The Australians were fewer, but as inventive as any
other group at the earth.
The parallelism becomes even clearer if America is compared with the mega-
continent Afro-Eurasia, which is often referred to in overviews (I will not quote the
literature extensively). These landmasses started off at the same level with hunting
societies at a high stage of development. The mega-continent then went through a
process of development that America also experienced after a certain and increasing
delay. Agriculture was introduced for the first time almost simultaneously in the Old
and the New World, and the hunters who emigrated to America were likely at such a
developed state — equal to that prevalent in most parts of the world — that they
were close to adopting agricultural technology.
In America high cultures emerged in several places from the Mississippi valley
through Central America to the Andes. Advanced forms of agriculture were
developed in these and adjacent areas with cultivated crops and to a lesser extent
with domestic animals (such as the llama and turkey). There was similarity even in
some of the details, for example in how irrigation systems or terracing were
constructed. Further parallels can be seen in technological developments. Stone
technology was replaced by metal technology, and the first metals that people learned
to use for tools were copper and tin. The fact that America had not yet discovered
iron follows from the logic of technological development, for this metal required a
source of greater heat. The construction of buildings and masonry followed the same
forms in the New as in the Old World.
There are also parallels in the development of knowledge. The Mayan art of
writing with ideographic signs resembles others found on the mega-continent.
Astronomy describes the same phenomena, of course, and mathematics follows the
same laws. Not only that — there are parallels in the structure of society. A
hierarchic society, with taxes, wars, kingdoms, even intrigues and alliances like those
in the Old World can be found in the New. This has been discovered in recent years
after the Mayan script was deciphered. As a result it has been possible to reconstruct
the intricacies of politics in the lower Yucatan from 600 to 800 AD.23 The society
that the Europeans met was in fact partly comprehensible to them.
Apart from the importance of size, the great “experiment” with the three
isolated land masses seems also to show that the development of human culture —

22
For earlier references see Fagan 1989 pp. 246-247, for later references see Bellwood & Hiscock pp.
268-272.
23
A wonderful description based on written documents of war and intrigue amongst the pre-
columbian Mayan cultures can be found in Shele & Freidel 1990.

12
 especially technological but also social development — follows certain laws. There is
nothing automatic about such an empirically proved regularity, and developments
could follow different tracks and were determined by different conditions, for
example in China’s vast river valleys and inland compared with Europe’s smaller
scale landscape and pleated coast. From a quick glance at the map of the world it
might seem that China was predestined to become a unified empire with its back to
the sea just as Europe’s political fractiousness and seafaring peoples seem to be a
product of geography. Matters are not quite this simple, however. The building of
empires has its own requirements and internal logic.
The similarity between America and Afro-Eurasia has been a source of
speculation about whether the culture of the Old World had spread to the New long
before the conquest of the 16th century. The pyramids in Egypt and Mexico have
been pointed to as evidence, but a pyramid is the natural form for any early attempt at
raising an imposing building (with the Tower of Babylon as the archetype). The fact
that this was the perfect form for building an imposing structure with simple
techniques was quite simply overlooked by those who preferred to see all higher
cultures springing from the same source.24 Speculation about such relationships can
still be found in modern research. One example still used in textbooks is a map of
how terracing spread across the world.25 Arrows originating in western Asia stretch
across the continent and then over the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans (in the latter case
with question marks discreetly attached) to show how the technique spread. But
terracing is the obvious technique to adopt in order to prevent soil erosion or
cultivate steep slopes. It is possible that the technique spread, but it has also been
discovered independently in many places.
That such independent yet similar and partially parallel development has
occurred is now generally accepted. Theories about culture spreading from one place
of origin have largely been abandoned. However, the full theoretical consequences of
this fact have yet to be drawn: to what extent is history determined? To go further let
us now search within the overarching similarity for vital differences that show in what
way development is not predetermined.
I shall take up two differences in the agricultural systems of America and
Afro-Eurasia, one well known, the other less recognized. The fact that the New and
Old World exchanged cultivated crops and domestic animals — maize and turkeys
from the New World, beef cattle and wheat from the Old — is so obvious that I do
not intend to discuss it further. The well-known difference that I instead wish to point
out is that domestic animals, particularly draught animals, played a much greater role
on the mega-continent. The reasons are fairly well known (though of course hotly
debated). When the first human beings landed in North America they (probably)
brought disaster to the mega-fauna and the major herding animals that could have
become domesticated were exterminated. The horse did not reappear until it was
reintroduced by the Spaniards, after which it became the most important domestic
animal of the prairie Indians (a resource which enabled them to conquer the prairies

24
Notorious amongst those who tried to view the world as one single civilization that was spread from
the West is Perry 1937 (1924), with a map on p. 112 f summarizing the argument of how “culture and
military aristocracies” were spread in circles throughout the world with their origin in “Aryan” in
western Asia and the Mediterranean area. Compare about Perry in Barnard 2000 p 53 and he
remarks, p. 47, that theories about diffusionism could lead to the conclusion that humans are
uninventive.
25
Atkins, Simmons, & Roberts 1998 p. 121; the map was first published in 1961.

13
 in a new way). In western Asia the domestication of first sheep and goats, and soon
thereafter cattle and pigs was early combined with the cultivation of two types of
grain, those from which wheat and barley originated; this took place in the period
9,000 – 8,000 BC. This gave direction to a large part of the mega-continent’s
agriculture and it was a necessary condition for the extremely high degree of
integration of stock farming and cultivation that characterizes Europe north of the
Alps. In other parts of the mega-continent draught animals, especially cattle or
buffalo in front of the plough, and dairy animals also played an important role. There
are however some divergences to demonstrate that animal farming did not always
hold such a position. In Africa the plough did not reach south of Ethiopia, and south
of the Sahara it is hand labour that predominates in agriculture despite access to
cattle. Nor is the use of milk something to be taken for granted. It is indeed one of
the basic foods in Europe, the greater part of Africa, Central Asia and South Asia —
but not in East or South-East Asia.
That American peculiarity — agriculture without draught animals and with a
less pronounced role in general for cattle — only proves that such a thing is possible.
It reminds us that the mega-continent’s combination of cultivation and animal
farming is only one of several possible developments within the overarching trend
towards cultivation and domestication. Moreover, it is quite possible that the llama,
for example, could through breeding eventually have become suitable and more used
in transportation and cultivation in America if the native path of development had not
been interrupted by colonialism.
The less known difference is a technique of cultivation used in America but
not in Afro-Eurasia — drained field agriculture. Everywhere that there existed higher
cultures in America the inhabitants have dug up earth and collected it in raised
“islands” for cultivation, especially in wetlands. This agricultural technique could
become a very intensive form of gardening that supported a large population in a
small area, for example in Lake Mexico.26 No comparable form of cultivation can be
found on the mega-continent, even though the cultivation of wetlands and drainage
were very common. The underlying explanation for its development in America was
this was a way to make farming more intensive without the use of animals.
The great experiment thus shows us some over reaching similarities, but also
that different paths are available, when we walk into the history of path-dependence.

Janken Myrdal

***

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