Timeline for How small can an isolated society be at the technological level of the 18th century to also be self-sufficient?
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| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Oct 17, 2023 at 20:00 | comment | added | Brobi | I really don't want to be ironic. Tasmania is simply the only place that meets three neuralgic requirements: Size, remoteness, and access to copper and tin. As an aside, Tasmania is a fascinating place. I suspect a suitable population size, given population density, would be at least 25000, but perhaps even three times that is too low. What would be your estimate for the northeast as the heartland? | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 18:57 | comment | added | Gault Drakkor | Did you choose Tasmania for the irony? Tasmania is the poster child for the hypothesis that a society needs certain thresholds of population to maintain a given technology. There is physical evidence there of the resident isolated population post sea level rise slowly losing technology(and population) that the mainland kept. | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 16:38 | answer | added | Richard Kirk | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 16:34 | answer | added | JBH | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 14:17 | answer | added | John Dallman | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 13:48 | comment | added | Brobi | Thank you, AlexP! The ancient Romans, Greeks, etc. were already making ink. Maybe that's not the bottleneck yet. But to avoid any misunderstanding: My point is not to covering all the possibilities of an 18th century European state. My point is to have a small society with no more than 18th century technological capabilities colonize northeastern Tasmania in relative isolation with otherwise good conditions. I am curious about the ideal or optimal population size for this. | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 13:06 | comment | added | AlexP | I believe you might be grossly underestimating the scientific and technological level of the late 18th century. For reference, the American and French Revolutions occurred in the late 18th century; watch a good historical film, such as La révolution française (1989), to get a feeling of how complex was the technological level of the time. As a trivial example, and to explain why I included gum arabic in my previous comment: they cannot even make ordinary plain normal 18th century ink, because it used gum arabic as a binder. | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 12:16 | review | Close votes | |||
| Oct 20, 2023 at 18:05 | |||||
| Oct 17, 2023 at 12:10 | comment | added | Brobi | What I am trying to do is to make the settlement of the northeast corner plausible. Since it is to be as small a society as reasonably possible, I hope that the soil and all other conditions in this limited corner would realistically allow it. My main question on this is the population size. PS: It's early afternoon here in Austria. I still have a few hours to scratch my head. ;-D | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 12:09 | comment | added | Brobi | ● Second, on the internet you can download a PDF called "thematic study of the tasmanian flour milling industry". It mentions water mills on the East Coast and in Scottsdale. Admittedly, this was not an entire industry. | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 12:09 | comment | added | Brobi | Many love thanks for these great tips, dear KerrAvon2055!!! To get rid of the headache this problem is giving me, please allow me two desperate objections: ● First, I chose Scottsdale because its founding is justified as follows: The area was first surveyed in 1855 and was described as, "the best soil on the island ... well watered, with a mild climate" by the surveyor James Reid Scott, for whom the town is named. | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 10:31 | comment | added | KerrAvon2055 | Pre-industrial revolution, the large majority of trade was by rivers or coastal trading. Power for mills was supplied by muscles or, preferably, waterwheels - windmills are a definite second choice due to the variability of the power supplied. Which means that your major centres, the centres of trade and where lots of milling will occur, need to be either on a navigable river (eg Launceston on the Tamar) or on the coast (eg Burnie, Devonport) or both (eg Hobart at the mouth of the Derwent). Scottsdale makes no sense as a pre-industrial capital. (And btw, it's evening here in Tasmania.) | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 9:17 | comment | added | Brobi | 1.) This reaches limits, I am fully aware of that. Through cultural conformity and religious conviction, this society accepts this and holds on to bronze. With very few exceptions, perhaps. 2.) This refers to the technological level. That is, the craft, machine and chemical possibilities at the height of the 18th century. 3.) A single village would not be able to mine, smelt and process copper, tin, and probably gold, lead, etc., as well. Especially since agriculture employs a not insignificant number of the society. | |
| Oct 17, 2023 at 8:29 | comment | added | AlexP | (1) Bronze can replace steel in many applications, but far from all. Very far from all applications. (2) I do not understand what the question means by "self-sufficient 18th century economy". There was very significant long-distance trade in the 18th century. For example, tea and coffee. They had tea and coffee in the 18th century, and they did not grow them in England or France. Or indigo. Or gum arabic. (3) The point being that you can easily have a self-sufficient village in the 18th century, but it definitely will not have the entire set of technologies available in 18th century Europe. | |
| S Oct 17, 2023 at 7:40 | review | First questions | |||
| Oct 17, 2023 at 13:20 | |||||
| S Oct 17, 2023 at 7:40 | history | asked | Brobi | CC BY-SA 4.0 |