An interesting piece in the New Scientist lays out one reason for long term population density in the Desh – our forefathers were technologically proficient hunters –
Thirty-five thousand years before nanotechnology became a buzzword, a different kind of diminutive innovation transformed India. The advent of stone microblades set the stage for the subcontinent’s explosive population growth, new research suggests.
..”It allows people to more reliably and more cheaply slaughter animals,” says Lawrence Guy Straus, a paleoanthropologist at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, who was not involved in the study.
This development, along with an ice age which transformed the proto-Indian subcontinent into a habitat patchwork created effects that are arguably still with us today. For example, in addition to species biodiversity, recent DNA research also suggests that Desi human biodiversity also began about this time –
..In India, however, this ice age shortened the monsoon season and transformed what had been a rather homogenous tropical landscape into a patchwork of savannahs and deciduous forests bordered by desert, Petraglia says.
..These changes almost certainly would have split up ancient populations, but they could have spurred their growth as well, Petraglia says. By treating the mitochondrial DNA of contemporary Indians as a sort of molecular clock, the researchers documented an expansion in Indian genetic diversity dated to around the time of this ice age.
So while today’s marauding bands of Silicon Valley desi dudes are armed primarily with laptops, their predecessors were armed with the smart bombs of their day. Cool.
Ha,ha, funny post.
‘Our forefathers’ might be a bit misleading given that it’s a mitochondrial DNA study which traces maternal lineage. Our forefathers were most likely marauding West Eurasians not native to the subcontinent. Nitpicking’s done, now the soul of my east asian-looking Bharat Maata can rest easy. 😉
i think that the view that south asia was the region outside of africa with the highest long term effective population is probably going to pan out. the middle east gets too dry, and much of the rest of eurasia gets too cold, during the glacial maximums. south asia gets cooler and drier, but there’s enough habitable regions to keep it well populated.
‘Our forefathers’ might be a bit misleading given that it’s a mitochondrial DNA study which traces maternal lineage. Our forefathers were most likely marauding West Eurasians not native to the subcontinent. Nitpicking’s done, now the soul of my east asian-looking Bharat Maata can rest easy
this is a simplification, but there’s something to this. here are links to total genome content vs. mtDNA.
Rather pathetic that we have to go back thousands of years to find something that our desh civilization supposedly innovated. Even if our desi/eurasian forefathers built these microblades, it was all for nothing considering the dismal progress of technology since then. You could go to great lengths to refute this, but the unassailable fact is that Western civilization kicked off whatever progress we made in the last couple of centuries. Were it not for western civilization, the desis armed with laptops in Silicon Valley would still be back in the desh land churning out yarns of cloth at the spinning wheel.
Come on. We all know Desi neanderthals were vegetarian.
Here’s another cool one
http://www.visualizingeconomics.com/2007/12/09/comparing-population-growth-china-india-africa-latin-america-western-europe-united-states/
Sanjay wrote:
Sanjay is Prema.
Actually, Sanjay probably isn’t Prema.
Prema has been known to bash arrogant whites as well as arrogant desis.
“You could go to great lengths to refute this, but the unassailable fact is that Western civilization kicked off whatever progress we made in the last couple of centuries. Were it not for western civilization, the desis armed with laptops in Silicon Valley would still be back in the desh land churning out yarns of cloth at the spinning wheel.”
Why did you leave out Japan? Are you too “boxed-in” in your own beliefs to maybe think before making sweeping extrapolations.
“last couple of centuries”
Great. So maybe it was well thought out to some extent. Because the Chinese practically discovered/invented everything from the Crossbow to Gunpowder to Paper to Printing before the Europeans go ‘inspired’ (Apart from indigenous empiricism and logic of the Greek school and its results, about everything else.)
“Were it not for western civilization, the desis armed with laptops in Silicon Valley would still be back in the desh land churning out yarns of cloth at the spinning wheel.”
What reductionism. Whatever happened to the process improvement (more Indian IT companies are CMM 5 than western ones), process innovation (practically all quality standards were developed in Japan). The fact that India has produced institutes like the IITs that offer education almost at par with their western counterparts is in itself a huge innovation, albeit not a very conspicuous one. What about Chandrayaan? The marvel of its low-budget execution? I believe most of the technology is indigenous or a derivative of Soviet space tech, but I guess your unassailable argument was formed on the basis of the Soviets being European too (Hitler rolls in his grave)
Last: What of the Nano ? How would you explain that, genius?
P.S : Re-evaluate your self-loathing. It pisses others off.
But I also recall reading that over the these thousands of years desi mitochondria have evolved to do more with less. Straining to recall what little biological science education I have had (which is bound to make me look stupid given all the Razibs/PhDs/MDs who read this), I think the upshot was that somehow we better utilize/produce ATP after thousands of years of scarcity. So it is it that we enjoyed early bounty or that we evolved early on to get more “MPG” in a desh that gradually became less fertile? Also I have heard that hunter/gatherer populations are smaller in number but the individuals are physically larger than agricultural descendants? Was the real leap fwd in population due to agricultural innovations circa 5,000 BC in the Indus (preceding the urban Harappan phase) and other river valleys as opposed to earlier hunting innovations?
KolaNutTechie said:
Seriously? It was not that long ago when the only variety to the vehicles on desh roads were your choice or black, white and occasional red Ambassadors!! Took India long enough to put a foot forward.
Thing back you self ascribed Techie. The Model T started the revolution. Not the Spinning Wheel. Exactly which part of the everyday vehicle, did the Desi actually innovate? Give me one. I’ll give you a hundred that the Desi copied off when coming up with Nano.
Where would Chandrayaan without NASA? Where would Japan be without the US prop-up after WWII? And exactly which in which of your studies of recent warfare is the wonderful awe inspiring Chinese Crossbow a part of the tactical attack or defense mechanism?
Perhaps CopyCatTechie would be a more accurate representation for your handle going forward.
I think the reason India’s population is so huge is because of the incredible fertility and sheer vastness of the Indo-Gangetic plains. Some of the world’s most intensive agriculture has been taking place there for a very long time now. That has enabled a big population, and it is those regions of the subcontinent that have always had the highest population densities. It’s all about the carrying capacity of the land.
Before this starts into a cultural bash fest, I will say all civilizations go through periods of innovation and torpor. India produced some great theoretical deas pre 1,000 A.D. without Western influence, but the ” hands on tinkering” aspect of innovation (engineering ?) always seems to have been missing. People take the baton and run with it, sometimes the person who started the race gets lost in the dust? Case in point, who has done more in the past 600 years with the methods of natural philosophy first articulated by the Greeks? The Greeks themselves or the universities in what used to be the Germanic “barbarian lands”? Practical innovation/engineering, as opposed to theoretical mathematical musings of which we have a long indigenous tradition, does seem to me like a Western import, the question is what do we do with it? US companies like Ford created modern manufacturing techniques but 1980s Detroit looked on in wonderment on what was going on Japan. It’s not where the ideas came from that is important, but how we improve upon them
That, and there hasn’t been too much major migration away from the subcontinent en-mass to continents. Compared to that European occupy 4 continents (Europe, North America, Australia and yes, South America too ).
Sorry Sanjay: way too much polemic. It might give more of an insight into your grey areas for your psychologist to interpret, but its reading value is execrable. Verdict: FAIL
“US companies like Ford created modern manufacturing techniques but 1980s Detroit looked on in wonderment on what was going on Japan.”
Yes, and it has culminated now. Bankrupty, gas-guzzlers and the Toyota Prius make a great case study on how to read the writing on the wall and “innovate”
ducksauce said: “Before this starts into a cultural bash fest, I will say all civilizations go through periods of innovation and torpor. India produced some great theoretical deas pre 1,000 A.D. without Western influence, but the ” hands on tinkering” aspect of innovation (engineering ?) always seems to have been missing….”
India did produce great theoretical work early on (Panini innovated linguistic techniques which were ‘rediscovered’ in generative linguistics in the 20th-c., the number zero etc.), but there was “hands-on”/engineering innovation as.
Case in point: wootz steel, better known as damascus steel, was developed in South India and exported from there all over the world. [ See: [URL=”http://met.iisc.ernet.in/~rangu/text.pdf”]http://met.iisc.ernet.in/~rangu/text.pdf[/URL] (there’s a [URL=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wootz_steel”]wikipedia page[/url] of course: but you have to go to the [url=”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_steel”]damascus steel page[/url] to see pictures ) ]
“Practical innovation/engineering, as opposed to theoretical mathematical musings of which we have a long indigenous tradition, does seem to me like a Western import, the question is what do we do with it?”
I think your concept that Indians don’t do “hands-on tinkering” is leaving out the cultural concept of jugaar (forgive my spelling, I only recently learned the phrase in Hindi, but I forgot the exact spelling). This concept was just recently explained to me, but once I knew the term, I had an “aha!” moment myself. So, as it was explained to me, jugaar is the concept of using what you have to innovate. This could be repairing your autorickshaw using some burlap sacks refashioned to fix the cover, as a basic example. But if you consider it, innovation is constantly occurring all over India all the time. People know how to innovate in their everyday life, taking what is available and using it for whatever purposes they need. I think that’s a pretty important kind of innovation, and very practical as well, and not only that, but I think a distinctly desi kind of innovation which is threaded throughout desi culture.
19 · be_slayed on July 26, 2009 08:22 AM · Case in point: wootz steel, better known as damascus steel, was developed in South India and exported from there all over the world. (there’s a URL of course: but you have to go to the damascus steel page[/url] to see pictures ) ]
Thanks for this great article. Originally, the conventional wisdom of how iron spread through out India was around was found here: http://ces.iisc.ernet.in/hpg/cesmg/peopling.html#sec9
15 · ducksauce on July 25, 2009 12:42 PM · Direct link The Greeks themselves or the universities in what used to be the Germanic “barbarian lands”? …It’s not where the ideas came from that is important, but how we improve upon them
Ducksauce, great and interesting points. You’re right about Germania being barbarian lands. But I think that it was the Romans who referred to them as “unreformable barbarians” (as opposed to the Celts who were reformable).
You’re second point is also good. Japan and S. Korea did NOT invent the car. But their cars are better than the ones in Germany, USA, etc.
Saahnjay wrote:
You could go to great lengths to refute this, but the unassailable fact is that Western civilization kicked off whatever progress we made in the last couple of centuries.
Progress? Hardly progress, wouldn’t you say? Pop quiz: The dramatic GDP change coincides with what major historical event?
Good ideas and technology spread every which way, as they are bound do. To attribute exclusive ownership of a good idea to a hemispherical entity is, as Obama would say, pretty darn stupid. The ‘western’ in western philosophy/democracy is very different from references to ‘western’ in the Industrial revolution. But seeing as how you like proper attribution, please join me in the campaign to reclaim basil. That seed should never have been spread outside its native India and Iran! Pasta with pesto sauce shall henceforth be declared either Indian or Chinese cuisine.
i think it would help if you people would try to view the world from my vantage point, the god’s eye point of view. the fact that some of you were able to industrialize and modernize a century or two before others, is just a mere couple of seconds to me. one must consider how much time actually exists in eternity
For Saaahnjay the self loathing Skeptic:
Here’s quite a descriptive coverage of subcontinental history of science and technology.
Given the pace of global warming and its disproportionate effect foreseen on developing countries (and already occurring in Bangladesh and other places), the developing countries seem have much less time and opportunity.
and even if we avoid global warming, one day the sun will burn out and then this earth gig is up. may i suggest you earthlings start speeding up the space colonization process? at the end of the day, that’s the only thing that’ll save you.