How small can an isolated society be at the technological level of the 18th century to also be self-sufficient?

Question

Good morning everyone!

I am pursuing the idea of a society inspired by the ideals of "small is beautiful". Smallness has a value in itself. And that is what I want to express with the following quirky society:

I imagine that in the late 16th century, refugees of faith from Europe would land in Tasmania and establish their own civilization. From then on, other small groups from Europe would arrive regularly and reinforce the new society. In this assumption, the aborigines could accept the new faith and be absorbed into this society - so there would be no violent colonization and no human enemies in Tasmania.

These journeys could be financed and organized by wealthy patrons. It would be done on a small scale, because it is also to be done largely in secret.

I would like to see this civilization in Tasmania. This island is really on the edge of the world, is very isolated, and yet abundantly equipped with all the necessary resources. Especially with necessary mineral resources.

This society would be characterized in particular by its bronze orientation (production, processing and use of bronze). That is, although the island is rich in other useful metals (including iron ores), these people hold on to "their" bronze. From the beginning of the settlement until our modern days, this society resorts to bronze when it comes to metals - with a few exceptions, perhaps.

Because it is a small society, it is logically also a small-scale mining economy. For the production of bronze and its distribution, this means more concretely: artisanal mining. For an economy at the level of the 18th century, this is not a problem anyway.

Because Tasmania is much too large, I would concentrate settlement in the northeast corner (George Town, Dorset and Break O'Day), mainly along the coast. So the heartland is simply the land mass between the Tamar River and the east coast. Today's Scottsdale would be the capital.

In addition, there are a few small settlements in the inhospitable and hard-to-reach west, just because of the rich mines there. That is why there is only one harbour town there, Strahan. And even that only has a few hundred inhabitants in reality. The few settlements on the west coast exist even today almost solely because of the mines there. Even today, it's more like a colony.

There are three reasons for this division:

1. The northeast is extremely livable, but does not allow too much settlement (small is beautiful).
2. The southeast (in the Hobart area) would easily allow a much larger civilization, but is excluded for this very reason (again, small is beautiful).
3. The west has enormously rich mineral resources such as copper and tin (which allows the production of bronze). However, this part of the island is almost hostile to life, which is why only a small part of the civilization lives there (mainly from mining).

In this assumption, the connection between the rugged west coast and the productive northeast coast is exclusively by boats.

All in all, the said society is concentrated on the coast of the Northeast, is at the technological level of the 18th century and covers its metal needs almost entirely with bronze only.

So my question is: If I want to keep the whole thing reasonably realistic, how small can such a society be in terms of population size? Or, in other words, how big does such a society have to be in terms of population?

Answer 1

At least hundreds of thousands

In another answer I explained the dependencies required for a technology-based society. It's applicable to the 1700s as easily as to the far future. You need thinkers to develop the tech. Robber barrons to build the tech. Workers to use the tech. Technicians to fix the tech. And all their families and all the support structure for those families and all their families etc. etc. etc.

Thus, I can't imagine (believably) a society of fewer than hundreds of thousands supporting 18th century tech. I am assuming that we're talking about Europe's 18th century - the Age of Sail. Not quite the "industrialized" level of technology, but still requiring substantial industries.

Answer 2

We don't know for sure

We do not have examples of societies anywhere close to the technological development of 18th-century Europe existing without external trade. All the societies we know of with Iron Age or better technology engaged in trade over significant distances. Sometimes that was within a large society, rather than with other societies, but it always existed.

To make this question answerable, you need a lot more legwork. You need to research all the technologies of an 18th-century society, find out what resources they require, and work out how you can get them in Tasmania, or work around their absence.

For example, you presumably want printing? That means you need the right metals for type metal alloys, and the right substances to make printer's ink. There's an immediate problem in that you need gum arabic for the usual inks of the period. You can't grow the trees that produce it in the Tasmanian climate, so you'll need an alternative of some kind, without relying on modern synthetic polymers or dyes.

That's just one of hundreds of resource questions you need to answer.

Answer 3

People usually trade with their neighbours. Maybe you should have a look at communities with no obvious neighbours.

A lower bound is probably set by St Kilda. That had been inhabited for thousands of years, though it may have been deserted and re-populated. The last permanent inhabitants were evacuated in the 1930s, but the population had problems when it fell below about 120 people, making them more vulnerable to random events, such as crop failures, or infant deaths. It is quite possible that St Kilda supported a stable population for a long time before it started getting regular visitors with unfamiliar diseases in Victorian times. a Disease came from visiting boats - neonatal tetanus, and 'the boat cough'.

Tristan da Cuhna has a population above 200. Pitcairn Islands had a stable population of 230 in 1930, but has since sunk to about 50. No place is wholly isolated these days, so it is hard to judge on today's data. My guess is that you need more than 200 people to survive untouched for centuries. That is rather less than a figure of 400, which I remember

The Minimum Viable Population for human colonies is given as somewhere between 50 and 500. These figures are not exact, and are contested, but they do not wholly disagree with the histories I have found. Go much below 100 and you are in trouble. Stay above 200 and you may last for centuries.

The quality of life may be changed by the occasional passing boat. A bag of cement (for example) mended the Pitcairn Islands' water tank. Doubtless they could have done some repair themselves, but small things like that can make life a lot easier. Does your colony exist in complete isolation?