EMERGING CULTURAL PATTERNS:

100,000 BP TO THE PRESENT

Professor Roland Fletcher

Department of Archaeology

University of Sydney

Nanyang

Technological University

March 2015

Antikythera Mechanism 3rd-2nd c. BCE

Freeth

after Freeth and Jones

THE BABBAGE ENGINES 19TH c.

STAGE THEORY

PROGRESS - after SPENCER cf DARWIN

TYPE FOSSILS

THREE PROGRESSIVE STAGES

VILLAGE/SEDENTISM – AGRICULTURE – CHIEFDOM

Type fossils eg pottery, durable houses

CITY – LITERACY – IRRIGATION – STATE

Type fossils –e g writing, large monuments

CONURBATION – MECHANISATION – NATION STATE

Type fossils eg stream trains, modular architecture

TRANSITIONS in the GROWTH OF COMPACT

SETTLEMENTS

To settlement sizes greater than approx. 1 ha

See sedentism/ agriculture

To settlement sizes greater than approx. 100 ha

See the first cities

To settlement sizes greater than approx. 100 sq km

See the Industrial Revolution

Unlike Stage Theory an operational model indicates

the scale of even earlier and also future transitions.

5000 sq km

per century5 sq km

per century

0.05 ha

per century

Settlement sizes

before transition

Settlement sizes

before transitionSettlement sizes

before transition

1 ha 100 ha 100 sq km

MATERIAL PREREQUISITES and TRANSITIONS

Prerequisites manage:

SPACE

TIME

SIGHT and SOUND

An operational model of the ways in which material

prerequisites make interaction tolerable and

communication viable in larger and larger compact

settlements inhabited by more and more people

100 ha

Settlements where

prerequisites develop

The prerequisites occur at random eg on their

own or with other material entities, in the lower

third of the settlement size range in a region

eg in settlements less than 30 ha in extent in

China in the settlement size range prior to a

transition to settlements larger than 100 ha in

extent

sign and notation systems

multi-room, rectilinear structures

durable walling

large structures

internal segregation of settlement space

occur in any combination or in isolation.

100 ha transition

AnynagANYNAGaNYNAGanynagAnyang

Zhengzou

Settlements where

prerequisites develop

100 sq km

SALISBURY CATHEDRAL 14TH CENTURY

Salisbury Cathedral

Geneva and Clocks

16th-17th century CE

Smithfield market

LONDON 19TH CENTURY

Roberts

ILN 1855

Roberts

1903 1906EALING

THE TIME BETWEEN TRANSITIONS

AN EARLIER TRANSITION?

Blombos Cave, South Africa, after Henshilwood

circa 100,000 BP

Earliest known use of ochre in the site of GnJh-03 in the

Kapthurin Formation of East Africa, and at Twin Rivers in

Zambia is nearly 300,000 years old

Maastricht-Belvédère in Europe has the use of red ochre

by at least 200–250,000 years ago

The Pinnacle Point caves in South Africa have use of

ochre extending back 164,000 years

Blombos Cave in South Africa has habitual use of red

ochre from at least 100,000 years ago

T TIME BETWEEN TRANSITIONS

INCREASE IN ENERGY CONSUMPTION AFTER EACH TRANSITION

TIME BETWEEN TRANSITIONS

and

RATES OF GROWTH AFTER

TRANSITIONS

FUTURE TRANSITIONS

THE NEXT TRANSITION ?

TO COMPACT SETTLEMENTS LARGER THAN

approx. 10,000 SQ KM with > 100 MILLION PEOPLE

RATE OF AREAL EXPANSION – 5 MILLION SQ KM

PER CENTURY ?

AUSTRALIA circa 7.7 million sq km

About Australia

5 million sq km of “urban”expansion in one century

OF THE GROWTH OF THE CITY

OF LONDON: And of the

Measures, Periods, Causes, and

Consequences thereof (1682)

Now, when the people of London

shall come to be so near the

people of all England, then it

follows that the growth of London

must stop before the said year

1842, as aforesaid, and must be

at its greatest height A.D. 1800,

when it will be eight times more

than now, with above 4,000,000

for the service of the country and

ports, as aforesaid.

William Petty 1623-87

MAGNITUDE OF PREREQUISITES for

SUCCESSIVE TRANSITIONS

Example of information management and delivery

0.001 ha transition required ochre ?

1 ha transition required art

100 ha transition required writing, quipu etc

100 sq km transition required mechanised printing

10,000 sq km transition requires digital systems

Gutenberg and the

printing press 15th century

Mainz

Strasbourg

GUTENBERG 1439

VICTORIAN PRINTING PRESS 19TH c. CE

GUTENBERG 1439 UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS 2013

7th-4th mill. BCE

3rd mill.

BCE.

Schmandt-Besserat

GIZMAG

COMMUNICATION current digital systems relative to

future transition requirements are

equivalent to the level of the

ancestral forms of prerequisites

required for previous settlement

size transitions

“URBAN” GROWTH 5 million sq km of expansion per

century requires transformations

as great as the 18th-19th century

mechanical innovations cf

the artefacts of 17th c. Europe

SOCIAL INTERACTION will we shift to micro-second -

nanosecond punctuality??!!

FOR A TRANSITION TO COMPACT SETTLEMENT SIZES

LARGER THAN approx. 10,0000 SQ KM

WE HAVE TO CONSIDER IT UNLIKELY THAT MECHANICAL

TECHNOLOGIES WILL BE USED BECAUSE OF THE RATES

AND MAGNITUDES INVOLVED

IMPLICATION AND ISSUES

WE NOW KNOW ABOUT THE POSSIBILITY OF A FUTURE TRANSITION

BEYOND A COMPACT SETTLEMENT SIZE OF APPROX. 10,000 SQ KM

WE CAN ENVISAGE THE CLASSES OF MATERIAL PREREQUISITES THAT

WILL BE REQUIRED AND THE MAGNITUDE OF INNOVATION THAT WILL

BE INVOLVED

WE MIGHT THEREFORE BEGIN TO ENVISAGE OR IDENTIFY THE

REQUIRED INNOVATIONS

THE NEXT TRANSITION - BEYOND CIRCA 10.000 SQ

KM FOR COMPACT SETTLEMENTS - IS THEREFORE

LIKELY TO HAPPEN RATHER SOONER THAN THE

PREVIOUS ONES

THE TRANSITION ONCE IT STARTS WILL BE

EXTREMELY RAPID

PREVIOUS TRANSITIONS HAVE CREATED VAST

QUANTITIES OF WEALTH FROM INNOVATION

and

THOSE TRANSITIONS HAVE BEEN VERY UNFAMILIAR,

UNHEALTHY, DISTURBING, VIOLENT AND CRUELLY

UNPLEASANT FOR MANY PEOPLE.

THANKS TO

FACULTY OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES,

UNIVERSITY OF SYDNEY

for the support of the Angkor Research Facility

AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL

for support of research projects

and to

Martin King, Andrew Wilson,

Rosemary Whitecross and Kirrily White

for assistance and illustrations

Angel et al

THREE GREAT TRANSITIONS

Punctuated equilibrium in the magnitude and rate

of growth of settlements

Increase in settlement size

Increase in rate of growth

Each transition creates an abrupt increase in the

numbers of settlements and human population

AN EARLIER TRANSITION?