Mark William Henshaw wrote:

> for instance, the Mongols had
> excellent mounts, but I'm not sure if they understood how to farm;

ams: The Mongols' homeland in the Gobi desert was not suitable for
farming. That's why the Chinese expansion stopped at the desert's
edge. Except in bad times, it does produce enough grass for grazing.
The Little Ice Age began about a century earlier in East Asia than in
Europe; a resulting drought which occurred in the early 13th century
seems to be what drove the Mongolian tribes to unite for the first time
under Genghis and invade China after bribing their way past the guards
on the Great Wall. Collective ambition or Genghis's personal genius
seems to have figured less in making the union of the Mongol tribes
possible than simple desperation. The ancient Aryan invasion of India,
the volkerwanderung of Europe, the Arabian conquests, and the Viking
raids and migrations--all in the Dark Ages-- the Manchu conquest of
China in the 17th century and the acceleration of European colonization
of the New world in the 17th and 18th centuries all coincided with
significant cooling episodes which were geologically minor but for
humans of vital consequence. However, it's probably the hydrological
cycle rather than global cooling per se that causes most of man's
problems. It's just that a cooler world is also a drier world.

>
> >also the Maians seemed to have good mathematics and literacy, but I
> thought they were also highly superstitious and uncultured in other
> ways...)>

ams: Yes. For example, they, like the Aztecs and Inca, practiced human
sacrifice.

>
>
> 1. AGRICULTURE - Farming and domestication. Until a society learns
> to subsist through agriculture, it cannot remain stationary for long
> enough or in large enough groups to build any improvements onto a
> land. Knowledge in the Agriculture domain increases the travel speed
> of your units (via domestication).

ams: It also can't accumulate lots of possessions, or libraries, or
support either large populations or substantial numbers of persons
involved in activities other than food acquisition. There is little or
no personal property; most property is communal. Theft is only
perceived when you are raided by a rival band. There is no
"domestication" of humans (slavery or serfdom), because slaves or serfs
cannot produce a sufficient surplus to justify their existence, so you
take no prisoners during your tribal battles--unless you plan to marry
them or eat them. There are no disease epidemics, because sanitation is
not a great problem in nomadic societies, and because our most serious
diseases were acquired from the enslavement--oops, I mean
"domestication"--of animals which is based on a agrarian and herding
economies.

However, I would make farming and domestication separate factors.
Nomadic herdsmen can and do exist without farming, and farmers (hoe
agriculture) can and do exist without domesticated animals.

>
> 2. INDUSTRY - Crafts, metalworking, and trade.

ams: crafts and trade are innovations of pleistocene hunter-gatherers.
(BTW, I believe we are still in the Pleistocene and this renaming of our
era as the "Holocene" is a purely anthropocentric conceit based on no
objective criteria.) Metalworking was later and many societies never
developed it. Mining and metalworking seem to depend on the development
of agriculture and settled lifestyles. I think it should be a separate
factor from industry, because manufacturing and trade have often existed
without metals of any kind.

> MH: Without industry, a
> society has no currency,

ams: You mean money. Currency refers specifically to *paper* money. I
also think money should be a separate factor in its own right. In fact,
I would add these three as separate factors to your list:

MONEY

LITERACY

NUMERACY

See below for my reasoning on literacy and numeracy.

>
>
> 3. CULTURE - The arts, sciences, and religion, and also the level
> of "civilization" in society which comes from the ground up. Without
> knowledge in culture, literacy is impossible

ams: Literacy probably originated for the purpose of mundane record
keeping. The first true alphabet and early arithmetic were produced by
private Semitic merchants for business purposes. Clumsier
pre-alphabetic writing probably originated to facilitate bureaucratic
record keeping by early governments. Religion and the arts benefitted
only incidentally. The arts in particular may have originated as a
human equivalent to the peacock's tale (sexy son hypothesis). Religion
seems to serve a fundamentally different social function from art, one
that is more fundamental to collective survival, so I would make ART and
RELIGION separate factors. Until very recently in human history (and no
doubt prehistory), RELIGION and GOVERNMENT/LAW were very closely
related. Art and religion are both of great antiquity and human
universals. Science (not the same thing as technology) is not. It's
basically a European invention of the 17th century. I would make
SCIENCE a separate factor.

> MH: Advances in culture automatically increase the unity and
> patriotism of the peasants.

ams: Not so sure of that, but it reminds me of another factor:
NATIONALISM. Economists are beginning to realize that nationalism has
played an important role in accelerting industrialization. It also
increases loyalty to the state, legal and tax compliance, and
facilitates the recruitment of loyal, motivated, "citizen-soldiers."
But it's not the same thing as "government." It has roots in primordial
human psychology, yet it is more like an ideology. Heck, let's be
trendy and call it a meme. Classical Greece and Rome were early
varieties of nationalism, but they never figured out how to make their
proto-nationalisms work much beyond the level of the polis
("city-state"). Perhaps modern nationalism should be described as
LINGUISTIC NATIONALISM, since it forged a single national consciousness
out of people speaking related dialects but otherwise not necessarily
having much more in common with each other than with nearby populations
speaking substantially different languages. It was an amazing
innovation, one which forever eluded the ancient Greek city-states.
There is also a close relationship between nationalism and popular
participation or representation in government; basically, I think the
sustenance of national solidarity requires some form of popular
representation.

>
> 4. GOVERNMENT - Law and order, the level of "civilization" imposed
> from the top down. Without knowledge in governing, roads and
> courthouses can't be built. Improvements in government automatically
> increase the morale of warriors in battle (via discipline and
> organization of command structure).
>
> 5. NAVIGATION - Essentially seafaring ability, but also the amount of
> exploration carried out. Navigation allows longboats and ultimately
> docks for large ships which greatly speed travel. Improvements in
> navigation automatically boost the effectiveness of agents and
> informers (via familiarity with other cultures and languages achieved
> through exploration and long-range trade).
>
>
> Also, might a hierarchical rather than multi-factor explanation be
> more applicable?

I think many anthropologists feel that technology

> developed in a specific order, beginning with agriculture (and
> related developments such as pottery and domestication) at the
> bottom, but it seems to me that a culture could learn other
> technologies (navigation is a primary example) before agriculture.


ams: Yes, some, but not all.