Let's be absolutely crystal clear, the ONLY problem facing humans on this planet, (over which they can and need to exercise any modicum of control) is population growth.
Sit down with a piece of paper or your favourite electronic word-processing system and make a long list of every problem that you can identify currently facing humans on this planet. Every one of those problems has its genesis in population growth.
Anthropologist were fascinated 250 years ago when introduced to the humans currently living in the portion of the continent formally known as New Holland and renamed by James Cook “New Wales”.
While the most fascinating aspect of these humans, to the 19th century anthropologist, was a current time, practical demonstration, of the behaviour of humans as hypothesised to be so in the stone ages, - Their was however curiosity as to their population density of the continent and partly responsible for the early speculation as being a consequence of recent coloniozing.
We now know thanks to current archaeologal speculation that modern humans colonised this portion of Sahul 60,000 years ago and Europe approximately 40,000 years ago. - some 20,000 years later.
Yet when the first fleet of colonising Europeans set foot on New South Wales the estimated population of Europe was 150 million. The then population of humans occupying the landmass now known as Australia is speculated by current day archaeologists as being somewhere in the a range of 0.5 to 1.5 million..Learn why so few …
Population growth does the same things to a group of organisms as individual growth. That is the switching on and off of certain genetic functions within the organism. But for communities of organisms it does a similar thing which is demonstrated by behavioural change. To mention just a few. The requirement for • increased resources; • heightened awareness; • developed aggression and defence strategies; • increased socialisation. All of these characteristics are present in a massive number of species and are by no means unique to humans.
Possession Island. |
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Wednesday, 22nd. (August 1770) Gentle breezes at East by South and clear weather.
We had not steer'd above 3 or 4 Miles along shore to the westward before we discover'd the land ahead to be Islands detached by several Channels from the main land; ……..At 4 o'Clock we Anchor'd about a Mile and a 1/2 or 2 Miles within the Entrance in 61/2 fathoms, … I landed with a party of men, accompanied by Mr. Banks and Dr. Solander, …
Before and after we Anchor'd we saw a Number of People upon this Island… From the appearance of the people we expected they would have opposed our landing; but as we approached the shore they all made off, and left us in peaceable possession of as much of the Island as served our purpose. ….
Having satisfied myself of the great Probability of a passage, thro' which I intend going with the Ship, and therefore may land no more upon this Eastern coast of New Holland, and on the Western side I can make no new discovery, the honour of which belongs to the Dutch Navigators, but the Eastern Coast from the Latitude of 38 degrees South down to this place, [Possesion Island- 10°43'S] I am confident, was never seen or Visited by any European before us; and notwithstanding I had in the Name of his Majesty taken possession of several places upon this Coast,
I now once More hoisted English Colours, and in the Name of His Majesty King George the Third took possession of the whole Eastern coast from the above Latitude (38°00'S) down to this place (10°43'S) by the Name of New Wales, Together with all the Bays, Harbours, Rivers, and Islands, situated upon the said Coast; after which we fired 3 Volleys of small Arms, which were answer'd by the like number from the Ship.
This done, we set out for the Ship.
Why So Few |
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The current, pretty much consensus, opinion of a significant number of archaeologists is that modern humans first colonised the southern continent (Sahul) at least 55,000 years ago and possibly as much as 60,000.
This consensus is based upon the dating of artefacts that are believed to have been placed in their current positions at that point in history and that these artefacts were the result of manipulation by modern humans.
Further assuming the scientific method used to analyse the historic dating process of fluorescence, carbon dating and DNA are not, in the future, found wanting as was
We can however, for the time being, accept that this position, on the first populating of the Sahul continent by humans at that speculated time, is a reasonable probability.
Given this however, we should still be cautious, because the oldest skeletal remains so far uncovered in Australia by anthropologist have been controversially dated at about 40,000 years ago [Ref] (following a consensus between scientists and the community nominating themselves as descendants of the skeleton) and for the time being also ignoring the situatisn that skeletal remains of humans of the same or older age have not been found in the norther part of Australia. The most popular route for colonization of the continent - [Ref]
And that despite the assumption that the area where the remains were found 'supported a significant human population' little if any publicity has been given as to the abundance of skeletal remains in this region or for that matter in the Australian continent itself.
And this oldest skeletal remains in Australia were found 760k inland from the coast and towards the southern end of the continent (approximately 2000+ km south from the oldest dated artefacts of human occupation)
And also given that the widely promoted archaeological popular theory is that Sahul was populated by pedestrian means starting up north in Indonesia and ending in Tasmania. So why is the oldest skeletal remains found almost at the end of this journey?-
So perhaps there is good reason to be cautious.
Never mind all that - moving right along.
Thanks to recent work done by NASA we now know the minimum population size that is essential for genetic survival of a group of humans, is a few hundred (however this has also been challenged as being insufficient to ensure long term survival with a figure quoted as a minimum of 20,000). - [Ref]
But let's stay with NASA number for the moment and say that over the course of many, many generation (@16 yr/gen) that 70,000 years ago a few hundred humans built the craft necessary to sail across the Wallace Line and a few hundred of the survivers of what must have been and enormous number of attempts at the journey, then eventually populated the Sahul continent.
Now archaeologists speculate that the first colonisation of Europe by the same species that colonised Sahul (modern humans) occurred approximately 40,000 years ago. That is 20 to 15,000 years after colonisation of the central and southern parts of Sahul., {northern part of the Northern Territory of Australia} was effected). [Ref] So the humans coloinizing the area now called Australia had an enormous start on the Europeans.
The population of Europe when the first Fleet arrived in Botany Bay was approximately 150 million. The estimated human population of Australia at the time was probably, say, about 1 million (but everybody's just guessing at a number)
The land mass of Europe is approximately 10.2 million km², the landmass Australia was then approximately 7.7 million km²
Adjusting to landmass equivalents and starting with a colonising population of 200 humans it took the humans in Europe, under a linear population growth rate of 1.321 per millennia (that is 1.321 humans alive at the end of a 1000 years for every 1 at the beginning ) to reached a population of 1 million in 33,000 years.
(The Global Growth Rate in the last 200 years for all humans has been @ 1.65 per millennia)
Applying the European population growth rate over a 60,000-year timeframe, the population in Australia when Cook arrived (1770) should have been 2.2 billion.
Comparing the climatic, ecology, geological fertility and social and biological evolutionary history of the two continents can be the only explanation for the significant difference between 1 million and 2.2 billion (1/2200th) after 60,000 years.
There are a number of scenarios that would reasonably explain the situation some of which are:
Actually, data from the publication for most recent archaeological excavation undertaken at Maggidee in the Northern Territory, which set the earliest date for human colonisation in that region, shows vertical profiles within their excavations where there are gaps with no artefacts at all.
Of course there is no way of knowing why this is so?
We must keep in mind that between 60,000 and 10,000 years ago Papua New Guinea was part of the Sahul continent and Papua New Guinea humans certainly could have been a continued repository for humans migrating into the southern sector of Sahul - now Australia.