Ief History of Human Evolution and Economic Progress

A Brief History of Human Evolution and Economic Progress:
The Greatest Bubble - Human Population - Is Beginning to Peak
Publisher of the H.S. Dent Forecast
H.S. Dent Publishing, LLC
Harry S. Dent, Jr.
Table of Contents
2 A Brief History of Human Evolution and Economic Progress: The Greatest Bubble -Human Population -- Is Beginning to Peak
24 The Really Great Leap The Agricultural Age and Writing 25 Why Apes and Humans First Emerged in Areas like Africa then Developed to the Greatest Degree In Southeast Asia 26 The Mid-East as the Birthplace for Agriculture and Urbanization 27 The Emergence of Towns, Cities, Specialization of Labor and Writing 28 Urbanization: Towns to Cities to Regional Empires to Globalization 29 The Exponential Trend in Population Growth Since 1000 B.C. 34 The 3000-Year Western Civilization Cycle 35 How Western Civilization Emerged in Greece and Expanded Through Rome 36 The Long Shakeout of the Dark Ages
37 The Long Maturity Boom in Western Civilization - 1000Year Cycle 37 The Industrial Revolution Lead by Britain 38 The Democracy Revolutions and the Decline of Monarchies 39 A Summary of Inflation and Standard of Living Progress in Modern Times 40 Progress in Standard of Living in the Last 1000 Years 40 500-Year MacroTechnology Cycles - From Centralization to Decentralization 42 The 300-Year Cycles Before and After the Industrial Revolution 43 The 80-Year New Economy Cycle 43 The Baby Boom Spending Wave
3 An Important Time to Take a Longer Look at Trends 6 Smart Apes to Archaic Humans - 6 Million to 2 Million Years Ago 9 How Apes Evolved into Humans 10 How Ice Ages Have Driven the Emergence of New Species and Models of Man 11 The Last Four Major Ice Ages 13 The Early Stone Age - 2 Million Years Ago to 250,000 Years Ago 14 The Emergence of Modern Man and The Middle Stone Age 14 The First Successful Modern Migration Out of Africa 80,000 Years Ago 16 To Southeast Asia/Malaysia/Australia by 68,000 - 74,000 Years Ago 19 The Second Great Migration: 50,000 to 40,000 Years Ago 20 The Third and Greatest Migration: 35,000 to 22,000 Years Ago 23 The First CounterMigration and Clash of Ethnic Cultures in the Last Ice Age
A longer view of history only reinforces the greater reality and principle of exponential growth and progress over time vs. the straight-line view that our minds prefer - Harry S. Dent, Jr.
(C) Copyright, 2004, H.S. Dent Publishing
2 A Brief History of Human Evolution and Economic Progress: The Greatest

Bubble Human Population Is Beginning to Peak
The world is approaching a critical turning point. Population is beginning to slow for the first time since the last ice age around 20,000 years ago. At that time all ethnic cultures around the world were in the hunting and gathering stage of human evolution a stage that had lasted millions of years with little warfare and conflict among wandering tribes that were more egalitarian in nature. Since the end of that ice age around 13,000 years ago, agriculture has emerged creating the first towns, cities, empires, centralized governments, institutionalized religions, armies and increasing advances in technologies. A great bubble in human population has emerged exponentially and now that human bubble is almost certain to peak in this century already in Europe and to follow in Japan, China, the U.S., South America, India and Africa over the rest of this century. What does this mean for our future? Is most of world growth going to shift to Asia in the coming decades while Western cultures slow and decline? Will there be growing cultural clashes and conflicts between the lagging third world countries and the prosperous developed countries as we have already seen with recent terrorist threats? Will productivity from new technologies and globalization allow our standard of living to grow even in an era of slowing demographic trends ahead? In this special report we are going to give you a simple, but very powerful education and overview of the entire expanse of human history and evolution and even how we evolved into humans. And much of it is also counter to common wisdom much like our new economic logic. But it is also similarly very common sense, logical and clarifying. You might at first think: why should I be concerned with longer-term trends in history when Im just trying to survive and live the best life I can in the coming decades? From this simple overview you will see that we are in a very auspicious, but yet increasingly ominous time in history that will affect your life for decades to come, and your kids lives for even more decades. We are likely at a much more major turning point in history and economics than we were in the 1920s to 1930s transition from bubble boom to great bust, 80 years ago on our New Economy cycle. In the Western economies we are approaching a period more like the 70-year correction after the South Seas Bubble in 1720, and even more so, like the latter, less stable peak and plateau period of the Roman Empire from 100 to 450 A.D that was followed by a 500-year period of regression in growth and progress. Weve seen the peak of exponential growth trends in population and it is clearly slowing down for the first time since the Dark Ages began to set in with the only strong growth ahead in Southeast Asia and India and only until around 2065 (not even China past 2020 or 2030). The explosion in demographic growth and urbanization that started with the Agricultural Revolution 10,000 years ago is coming to a head and it will have major consequences for decades and centuries to come. Our research has been seminal in proving that demographic growth drives our economy longterm, including the more radical innovations that come from new generations of younger people and especially every other generation or every 80 years in modern times. When population growth slows, history has shown that major adjustments and setbacks follow from slowing innovation (from lower numbers of young people) to slowing growth in spending and productivity (from slowing numbers of the most productive workers and highest spending consumers) to rising social burdens from aging populations. But the good news is that this information revolution, the first major one since the printing press, is likely to continue to bring rises in our standard of living for decades to come, and likely longer, as we covered in Chapter 8 of The Next Great Bubble Boom. Yet the great challenges of integrating many different cultures and economies into a global economy are much greater than most would presume as the clashing of global cultures, ranging from the tensions between Europe and the U.S., to the rising terrorist threats from more backward Islamic and third world countries who feel that their ancient cultures are being threatened by the expanse and dominance of larger Western nations. Hence, the coming decades and even centuries are likely to be more difficult than most economists and technologists are presuming from the very strong trends in past decades and centuries.
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The real question comes back to what actually drives economic growth and human evolution. And our answer from studying long expanses of history is growing population (demographics, and especially the rise of new generations into their peak spending and productivity ages) and radical innovations in technologies that create new infrastructures in communication, transportation, energy, business/political models and lifestyles/living areas. If we look at human history there have been several big bang events that have launched us into greater phases of population growth and expansion in technologies and standard of living. The first was our large brains and stone tools 2.5 million to 1.5 million years ago. The next was arrow-head-like tools and the emergence of modern humans or Homo sapiens. The next was finer blade tools, art, ornamentation and greater cultural development around 50,000 years ago from which we first began to populate the entire world. But perhaps the greatest big bang was The Agricultural Revolution around 10,000 years ago that launched urban living, specialization of labor, centralized governments, armies/weapons and exponential population growth and density. The countries and regions that have dominated world GDP and military power since have typically been the ones that emerged first in that Agricultural Revolution. And that revolution occurred first in areas like the Mid-East where, by luck and geography, there was the greatest availability of plants and animals that could be domesticated and the greatest potential to spread agricultural to lateral lands with similar climates. In fact, the diseases that were brought by the new powers from domesticated animals (who had developed immunity) wiped out more indigenous peoples than they ultimately conquered with weapons in most emerging countries. You will be able to see where we are on all of the major cycles driving economic growth from a 4 million year ape to human evolution cycle to a 2 million year Stone Age cycle to a 10,000-year Agricultural cycle to a 3,000-year Western Civilization cycle to a 500-year larger information technology cycle, to the most current 230year bull market cycle since the Industrial Revolution, as well as the 80-year, 40-year boom/bust cycles we covered in The Next Great Bubble Boom. And more important, you will have a better perspective on life and change without having to spend many years getting an advanced degree in history or economics or archaeology or whatever. It will take just an hour or so in simple reading to get an overview of what really matters in long-term trends and how all long- and short-term trends play out the same way as well as affect each other. You will be able to see that all of these cycles follow the same exponential growth, bubble and four-stage S-Curve/life cycle patterns, and are still bullish at least for the rest of this decade, and in the larger view, for possibly much longer but at a slower pace and in different regions of the world. The human race appears close to peaking in numbers for a long time in the second half of this century, and that is significant. But we are too young as a species to likely become extinct for a very long time despite many prophecies otherwise. Yet many of the longer-term cycles we study beyond the baby boom generation spending cycle and the most recent technology cycle could be peaking around the end of this decade in much of the Western world as well and that makes this coming seasonal shift more ominous. The clearest trend is that the broader demographic cycles that have been driving our economy for a very long time are moderating with the first marked slowing of births and demographics in Europe, Japan, and the U.S. to a lesser degree. We are also seeing clear slowing in births across the board even in major emerging countries and regions from China to India to Africa. Hence, we are nearing the end of the greatest human population expansion in history. Our population may or may not be peaking forever, but it will at least be peaking in this century for a long time to come. The implications are bound to be enormous! We havent seen such a phenomenon since the last ice age set in over 20,000 years ago. However, we did see population flatten during the Dark Ages with enormous implications for slowing economies and a severe regression of urbanization and civilization throughout most of Europe. An Important Time to Take a Longer Look at Trends The Agricultural Revolution greatly expanded births per family and population density. The Industrial Revolution started to slow births in its latter stages with the widespread prosperity that followed, and the Information Revolution could ultimately have a decentralizing impact on population density as more people move to exurban
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areas. This means that once the developing world of almost 5 billion people (out of over 6 billion total) today adopts the industrial and information revolution models of the developed countries which they are doing rapidly from China to India we could be in for much slower economic growth around the world. This is likely to occur from around 2065 onward and by 2020 to 2030 in China. We are very likely to see a tumultuous period of transition to an era of more stable or declining population that could at the least last many decades, and more likely centuries. That is why we think that a long-term overview of history and cycles is so critical at this juncture in history. The greatest boom in history could indeed turn into one of the greatest downturns and an extended time of economic, political and cultural clashes within countries and among countries already occurring clearly in the MidEast, and now spilling over into America/Europe with the terrorist threats, and likely later into Asia. We have been predicting for years that the peak in the Nikkei index in Japan could be a peak that will not be exceeded in most of our lifetimes. That will almost certainly be true for most of Europe, and likely for the Dow and broader markets in the U.S. after 2010. Developing countries are following rapidly as they industrialize, having fewer kids, and facing the same environmental constraints we are facing but even more so. As demographic growth continues to a lesser extent in much larger populations in China, Southeast Asia and India, the expansion of the world economy will continue in cycles, but competitive advantage and profits will shift more to companies and governments in those countries. Only the most multinational companies that retain their leadership will benefit from the continued explosion of Asia following the demographic slowing in Europe, North America and Japan. By 2020 Chinas economy will exceed the U.S. in purchasing power parity, and by 2050 Indias will likely as well. Hence, the economic dominance of the U.S. today will plateau by the end of this decade and recede in a matter of decades to follow. Military and political power will inevitably follow on a lag. There will be continued bull markets from the echo boom spending cycle in the U.S. from around 2023 to the late 2030s to early 2040s or so, and even stronger bull markets in developing countries that explode into industrialization and information-based economies over the coming decades from Southeast Asia to India. From 2010 to 2020 China, South Korea, Japan and Southeast Asia will be the best place to be invested, but from 2020 to 2050 India, Pakistan, Indonesia and perhaps Africa, should see the strongest growth. It certainly is possible that such world growth in an increasingly global economy could translate into higher stock markets and growth in the U.S. But the potential slow plateau and/or fall of Modern Day Rome, the U.S. and West Europe, will to some degree slow the growth of the rest of the developing world initially and cause a time of retrenchment in globalization, urbanization and technological progress for a while. This will be due to the very difficult challenge of integrating so many very different nations and cultures into a more global economy where they see priorities in life and the world very differently. That could then lead to a longer-term period like the Dark Ages after the fall in Rome from the mid-400s to the 900s A.D a five hundred-year bear market in economic progress! For people who argue that global growth will make up for the demographic downturn we are projecting after 2010, remember, that even in todays increasingly global economy, Japan just experienced a 13-year bear market with persistent economic slowing and an 80% decline in the Nikkei, while the rest of the world was booming. And they have a more export-oriented economy than we do. We have already seen the bare beginnings of a major backlash against globalization and new technologies from the more fundamentalist third world cultures that feel threatened by our new technologies and more liberal lifestyles, with only the tip of the iceberg being the terrorist attacks that erupted on 9/11/01. There is more to come and this trend is very likely to worsen dramatically in the downturn we are predicting from 2010 to 2022 or so. The U.S. and the developed world could be like Rome waiting to be brought down quickly or slowly by the Huns, and then ultimately advance again in new and better directions down the road. The biggest question from our research is simply whether this
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will happen sooner or later, and how long this global clash of cultures, economics and politics will take to play out. But history is clear in demonstrating that flattening demographic growth tends to result in longerterm periods of corrections and adjustments, like the Dark Ages. The Great Plague in the mid1300s was an example of a short-term environmental disaster (from rapidly expanding towns and cities that couldnt handle their sewage) that caused infectious disease to spread rapidly through rats and insects creating a short-term decline in population and an economic decline. The fastest growing developing countries are seeing more rapid urbanization turn into environmental and congestion nightmares that are greater than what we have experienced over a longer time frame to accomplish such growth. The Western technology growth curve has stimulated this globalization, industrialization and urbanization trend around the world into larger populations in the East. New technologies are already contributing to lessening environmental impacts in developed countries and new win/win environmental approaches are emerging even today that will help even more. But such impacts may come too late at first in developing countries. It may just be that the backlash of such irrational, and at the extreme violent, third world cultures are warning appropriately, we are growing to fast and that the Lexus is threatening our olive tree. Such a clash does seem inevitable in the coming decades and even centuries from the 3000-year, 1000-year, 500-year, 300-year, 80-year and 40-year cycles we will look at more closely in this special report and even from much longerterm cycles. In fact, to get the greatest overview of history and cycles and where we are at we will briefly review the entire history of human development in a very simple and summary form with cycles that are as long as 2 million years way back in the evolution from apes to humans when change came much, much slower than today. Human progress has been very exponential, to say the least. A longer view of history only reinforces the greater reality and principle of exponential growth and progress over time vs. the straight-line view that our minds prefer. And exponential growth always ultimately turns into a bubble that ultimately crashes. We have learned from studying cycles in the past, that the greatest surprises or threats can come from larger cycles that we are not aware of, like a ten-foot set of waves that suddenly hits the beach after a long series of three-foot waves, not to mention a tidal wave very infrequently. Most experienced surfers know when such sets of larger waves are likely to roll in daily and seasonally, and our economic cycles similarly become more predictable as we study them from a longer-term perspective. The key insight is that the shorter-term and longer-term cycles of the past are progressing in an exponential fashion such that they dont appear able to sustain themselves too much longer for now at this critical juncture in human history despite our unprecedented progress in recent decades and centuries. It doesnt mean the end of human civilization as many are forecasting, or economic progress. But it does suggest a major slowing in demographic growth and a quality of life revolution, that may paradoxically first bring some significant threats to our quality and security of life at first. This is already becoming evident in the late stages of the greatest boom in history with the growing threat of terrorism. The fundamental demographic and innovation/technological principles we study can bring much simpler insights into what appears to be a long, complex evolution of human beings and economic progress that few scholars can even seem to grasp. This is the type of simple overview that should be taught in high school and college, but isnt as of yet. You can see the critical demographic trends and technological innovations that have shaped human history without being a scholar or studying volumes of history books just this summary report and some credible books that we reference. In fact, you can end up a lot clearer than many scholars with the advantage of such a Big Picture view as many experts are often lost in the incredible detail that their research necessarily entails (and we are very thankful for their very detailed research that has helped build this information revolution in knowledge and our research as well). To get the overview of human evolution we have to start with the very, very slow emergence of early humans (hominids) and modern-day Homo sapiens, which actually started to emerge between 2 to 6 million years depending on how you define it. We wont spend much time on
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that, just enough to put it into perspective. We will focus more on the first significant event in modern human history that paved the way first for the population of the world by modern humans and then for modern civilization: The emergence of modern humans out of Africa around 80,000 years ago and the critical migrations and advances that followed to populate the world with different ethnic cultures, out of which the first vestiges of urban civilization emerged only in the last 5,000 to 10,000 years. The most summary insight is that we are nearing the peak of a very long-term boom much like the boom in Greece and Rome that started around 550 to 600 B.C. and peaked in the mid-400s A.D. a 1000year boom! The present boom began long before even the Industrial Revolution that we showed in Chapter 2 of The Next Great Bubble Boom. It began coming out of the Dark Ages between 900 and 1000 A.D. (after an approximate 500-year bear market) and it appears to be peaking in this century (around 2065 according to population projections), and likely in the coming decade for Europe and possibly even for the U.S. That would put us in an era much like the latter era of Rome only now it is the U.S. that is the world leader of a global, free trade capitalistic empire. This explains why our standard of living is the highest in the world, but also why we are the target of discontent among many fundamentalist countries and cultures that are still living in a much earlier era of evolution, culture and economics.
A clash between the third world and the first world, especially with the U.S., has already begun and will inevitably grow as economic conditions deteriorate after 2010. So, expect the growth of terrorist, political and military threats, especially between 2010 and 2022 or so as we warned in Chapter 5 of The Next Great Bubble Boom. This report focuses in much greater depth on the issues of the human population bubble peaking and the clash of world cultures that was introduced in the Epilogue of The Next Great Bubble Boom. Lets start by looking briefly at the true dawn of human history. Smart Apes to Archaic Humans 6 Million to 2 Million Years Ago Changing cycles in climate and weather have clearly been the greatest driver of human evolution and economic progress when we look at longer time expanses in history. We are living in a time that is relatively warm compared to the last 6 to 8 million years that has generally seen cooling trends, marked by re-occurring ice ages that have shaped natural and
human evolution far more than any other factor up until the recent millennia of massive technological advances, population explosion and environmental challenges which such a warm period has progressively allowed. Human population has been growing exponentially for about 50,000 years. There has been a growing bubble in human population especially since the Agricultural Revolution that has grown extreme since the Industrial Revolution as we showed in Figure E.1 in the Epilogue of The Next Great Bubble Boom and we repeat in Chart 1. Worldwide population is forecast to peak around 9 billion by 2065. This population bubble represents an even longer-term trend that now seems more clearly to be coming to a peak in coming decades and represents a much, much bigger phenomenon than the technology bubbles we discussed in Chapter 2 of The Next Great Bubble Boom. This peaking is being created by falling birth rates around the world as we urbanize and grow more prosperous. And birth rates are falling everywhere,
from Africa to India to China to Europe to North and South America on a predictable curve. Birth rates are the slowest in Europe and Japan, but are catching up everywhere in the world as we get more urban prosperous and prefer fewer kids that we can raise better with exploding costs of education. What happens if human population actually peaks and declines? Our economy will have to switch towards productivity and technological innovation even more to continue to prosper, but slower growth in innovative young people will work against that trend. Scientific research since Darwin (especially evolutionary, archaeology, anthropology, biology and genetic research) over the last 150 years has brought incredible insights into how we emerged from apes into modern human beings as well as evolution in all of nature. Astronomy and physics has given us even greater insights into the earth, solar system and universe further back than most of us would ever want to consider all the way back to the Big Bang (the ultimate bubble in the making). These insights were concepts that most religious and scientific scholars didnt want to admit for a long time from the earth being round, to the earth revolving around the sun, to humans evolving from apes, and on and on. But the greatest insight for human evolution is that the transition from apes to humans proceeded extremely slowly (like any S-Curve at first) and it was extremely difficult, just like a new venture or childhood. It literally took forever 6 million years for truly modern humans to emerge from the most intelligent apes which we
branched off of along with our closest cousins, chimpanzees, with many, many lines of archaic humans, including most recently the Neanderthals (our closest modern cousins), dying out in the process. And its been 65 million years since mammals in general started to emerge into dominance out of the sudden decline and mass extinction of the dinosaurs! This represents a classic exponential or bubble progression 60 million years from the peak of dinosaurs to the peak of apes and then 6 million years to a peak of humans in population growth. We tend to make great leaps in populations and economic progress in 1/10th of the time as progress grows exponentially, or conversely we make ten times the progress in the same period of time. That is the true nature of growth that is always bubblelike if you look back far enough and we will! But if we look back at the S-Curve, such exponential growth only occurs in the first stages (from .1% to 1% and from 1% to 10% adoption). As new trends truly enter mainstream penetration, they start to hit limits to growth, namely smaller remaining markets to penetrate and environmental constraints. As the S-Curve progresses from 10% to 50% there is 5 times the growth in the same period of time vs. the 10 times growth before. In the 50% to 90% Maturity Boom there is only 1.8 times growth, and so on to lesser and lesser degrees. Growth always occurs in more exponential progressions until limits of growth start to set in. Exponential growth (bubble-like) is the only reality in nature and it takes long periods of time to see that
straight-line trends only seem to exist in shorterterm time frames and arent at all the nature of growth and evolution. Between about 23 million years ago (the first ape fossil found) and 6 to 8 million years ago, apes (primates) and many mammals flourished in the forests of Africa during the latter stages of a long, very warm age dating back to about 270 million years ago (after the last very long-term ice age season ended). Apes have always been vegetarians and survived largely on gathering leaves and fruits from rain forests. Hence, this represented the true and very, very long gathering phase of higher mammals. About 200 million years ago, the continents of today broke off from a larger mass centered from the South Pole extending somewhat northward more into the Indian Ocean (to Southern America, Southern Africa, Southern India and Southern Australia today). The continents started to move northward to eventually form our seemingly more stable continents of today. These tectonic plate movements caused Africa to float around in the Southern Indian Ocean until 15 million years ago when it bumped into the Mid-East and stuck to the larger Eurasian continent. Africa with its more nurturing tropical climate as well as the strong challenge of its wet and dry seasons caused it to become the optimum environment for the emergence of all types of higher life, and the likely birthplace for primates which ultimately migrated around the world.
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Then the first critical event occurred that spawned the mere beginnings of ape to human evolution. The world started cooling for the first time in 260 million years between about 8 million and 7 million years ago. When the world starts cooling, polar ice caps grow and lock up more water, which in turn causes lower rainfall and expanding shorelines from lower water levels. The earth has gone through many shorter-term ice age or cooling periods since then, many of which we will cover. But this was the beginning of a very long cooling period that we are still in despite short-term warming trends. We may or may not be slowly coming out of it, but the longerterm trend is clearly likely to be cooling, not warming. Cooling and drying conditions lead to the contraction of forest areas, and the expansion of plains (or grass areas), and also to the expansion of deserts from former plain areas. This contracts the water and food supply increasing competition among living plants and animals to survive. Around 7 million years ago we saw the beginning of the biggest Darwinian challenge in the history of apes, mammals and ultimately humans. Climatic shifts, sudden events like meteorite strikes, and more importantly, the sudden emergence of new dominant, more fit-to-survive species to follow have caused five documented mass extinctions throughout earths history. And as much as many environmentalists may not like it, this emergence of new, better species is how we make progress through history. This time around most species are threatened and even apes have nearly gone extinct due to the
population explosion of humans since the last ice age. The previous major extinction occurred around 65 million years ago when a large meteorite hit the earth and caused major short-term climactic changes (a 2-year nuclear winter) where vegetation shrank killing off the dinosaurs and many other species. In such a brief, colder period the smaller, more nocturnal warm-blooded mammals that had been emerging suddenly had the advantage. In this case it wasnt that the dinosaurs over expanded, destroyed their environment or wiped out each other in massive wars. It was that a major external shock wiped them out and suddenly made way for mammals to grow and expand where they couldnt before due to the dominance of the dinosaurs. Obviously warmer-blooded animals would be better able to survive in a short-term colder climate. Before that there was the Permian Period around 250 million years ago when the sudden emergence of reptiles in a warm era following the last mega ice age caused mass extinctions of amphibians and other species.
chart 2
Climatic shifts towards cooling favor new species both in shorter and longer-term cycles. Longer-term cycles of cooling and warming seem to be caused by massive continental and tectonic plate shifts that in turn cause major volcanic activity. Shorter-term cycles are caused by changes in the earths tilt and orbit around the sun. In periods of cooling, the strongest gene pools and cultures/technologies of adaptation tend to survive in the warmest, most accommodating areas, like Southeast Asia during the last ice age. But the bare beginnings of human evolution occurred as apes, the most intelligent species at that time, started to adapt to the first long-term cooling period in almost 300 million years. How Apes Evolved into Humans Chart 2 summarizes the key landmarks in the evolution of apes to humans to modern civilization that serves as the best outline and overview for this report. It shows how we developed larger brains and key new
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tools and technologies to get to our very high standard of living today. As this chapter progresses we will look at each of these key milestones and how our history was shaped by them. The apes, which were the most highly evolved of mammals in brain size (mammals began to emerge 200 million years ago and primitive monkeys 50 million years ago), had to start moving out of the rain forests into the plains of Africa to survive around 6 - 8 million years ago. Hunting for grasses, seeds and eventually animals in the plains required higher mobility and skills than gathering leaves, fruits or insects from the forest. At first the apes would have ventured briefly out into the plains and then back home to the forests. This created the beginnings of a broader and more challenging gathering era for vegetation that followed for millions of years with a likely minor emergence of scavenging for meat from dead carcasses. That challenge and new behavior saw a reduction in many ape species between 6 and 8 million years ago and two branches of more intelligent apes to emerge around 6 million years ago: chimpanzees and early hominids. (Chimpanzees are our closest long-term cousin we did not emerge from them we and they emerged from intelligent apes/gorillas). Hominids and chimpanzees both had brain sizes closer to the size of chimpanzees today and greater relative to size than any other animals. So, 6 million years or so ago the first step in ape evolution towards humans, larger brains, occurred due to cooling temperatures and the challenge of the receding of forests in Africa. The next major step occurred two million years later when hominids clearly started walking on two legs, around 4 million years ago. These were more human-like apes like the famous Lucy (Australopithicus afarensis) excavated in Africa recently and dating back to 3 million to 4 million years, although the first clear walking hominid was Australopithicus anamensis dated just over 4 million years ago (there is recent archaeological finds that suggest potential bi-pedal chimpanzees and other hominids as far back as 6 million years ago). A new behavior was encouraging this radical shift and it likely came for two reasons. The first was to use hands and arms to carry grains or scavenged meat from the plains back to the troop and mates in the forest. The second was the necessity to wave sticks and throw stones both to scare off predators coming into the forests off of the shrinking plains and to scare off scavengers from their kills when venturing out into the plains for meat and food. Most scientists tend to credit such radical shifts simply to random mutations that catch on when conditions are favorable, but a broader view of genetics and psychology strongly suggests that the new behaviors emerge first and then are supported by mutations and better genetic combinations. (Obviously today we can teach many four-legged animals to walk on two legs for short periods of time with no new mutations or genetic changes). Walking on two legs ultimately allowed greater long-distance vision from a higher stance for going out into the plains, but most importantly, freed up the hands for eventually creating and using primitive stone and stick tools, as did opposing thumbs for grasping and shaping such tools. We are more used to rapid changes in technology and learning today, but it took almost 2 million years for clear archaeological signs that larger-brained hominids were using basic stone tools for butchering and perhaps killing animals, as well as cutting and grinding seeds and grains. Hence, the first big bang, the early Stone Age began around 2 to 2.5 million years ago. That was a monumental step and the major development there was that the size of the brain in two narrow species of even more intelligent hominids, Homo and Paranthropus, suddenly expanded rapidly to near present-day size, especially between 2.5 million and 1.5 million years ago. This most clearly occurred due to increased strategic thinking for scavenging and hunting, but it also likely occurred due to the very early stages of the development of very crude uttering and signaling that would create a level of social cooperation for hunting and to survive in increasingly colder climates and scarce vegetation. This is when hominids first became more human than ape- or chimpanzee-like. In fact, the size of todays human brain is slightly smaller than it ultimately became 500,000 years ago with later incremental expansions, as the calories and amino acids to sustain such larger brains in an era of scarce food supplies may have proved unfavorable to larger brain evolution after a point. In fact, humans are on the very
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extreme of brain size to body mass ratios. Hence, most of the expansion of what is today the human brain occurred in a brief time in history around 2 million years ago (between 2.5 million and 1.5 million years ago). The new behaviors that would have most likely encouraged such rapid brain development would have been scavenging, hunting and very crude speech and signaling (earlier than most scientists have presumed in the past). And that brain expansion, among random mutations that must have occurred, would have been supported by an evolution from a diet of fruit and leaves to an increasing protein diet of seeds and meat to survive on the plains. A larger brain requires greater calories and amino acids, and hence, would thrive on more protein. To summarize the rough 2 million-year cycles: Surviving on the plains first meant moving in and out of the forests to collect more vegetation (by 6 million years ago) and encouraged larger brains to survive. Bringing back food and scaring off predators and scavenging by scaring away carnivores from their kills by walking on two legs and wielding sticks and stones would have naturally followed next (by 4 million years ago), but with only minor increases in brain size. Increasingly hominids evolved into scavenging and hunting for animals and the development of primitive stone tools for butchering and killing them (by 2 million years ago) with a more than doubling in brain size (that would then more gradually grow to more than triple) and the beginnings of very crude language and human-like social behavior and cooperation. The human to ape evolution first occurred in approximate 2 million year cycles: The maturation of apes 8 million years ago; higher brained chimpanzees and hominids 6 million years ago; walking hominids 4 million years ago; and very high-brain hominids or archaic humans with stone tools 2 million years ago. Development of stones tools and cooperative scavenging and hunting clearly required a much greater level of social cooperation, and hence, very likely the first vestiges of spoken language beyond babbling into signaling and perhaps two to three word utterances. But it certainly took thinking in more steps ahead strategically which would require more brain capacity and short-term memory (RAM). Chimpanzees even today dont have enough brain capacity and short-term memory to remember past two steps of logic, words, symbols, or thoughts at a time. Hence they never developed human capacities, although they are clearly our closest cousins and the most intelligent mammals today after humans. That was the beginning of The Stone Age the first major advance in intelligence, strategic thinking, human-like tools and likely primitive language. It represented the first great leap in human history following from a series of two million-year cycles and it started just over 2 million years ago only with Homo and Paranthropus. And only Homo (largely Homo erectus) survived by 1 million years ago after fire had emerged, and mastery of fire could have been the key innovation for surviving. Out of eight major lines of Homo that followed, only one survived past 28,000 - 30,000 years ago Homo sapiens. The first line was Homo rudolfensis about 2.5 million years ago with the longest surviving being Homo erectus from about 1.9 million years ago to its Asian migration and offshoot going extinct about 50,000 years ago. Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) and Homo sapiens were offshoots of Homo helmei (about 250,000 years ago) and the Neanderthals were the last line to go fully extinct 30,000 years ago leaving Homo sapiens, the only survivors of the last ice age. Recent DNA evidence now clearly shows that all Homo sapiens emerged only in Africa and migrated out of there to populate the entire world today over the last 80,000 years, and especially since 50,000 years ago when Late Stone Age tools allowed migrations to move and survive inland in much larger numbers rather than just along the limited coasts. How Ice Ages Have Driven the Emergence of New Species and Models of Man The good news about evolution is that life grows more complex, more intelligent and more prosperous at the highest levels. The horrible truth is that it has been very brutal and a constant Darwinian challenge. Most humans (modern and archaic) have not died of old age. They have died of diseases and epidemics, wars and conflicts, starving or freezing to death in that approximate order of magnitude. Before the agricultural revolution that brought large epidemics and diseases from domesticated animals and large scale warfare, cooling periods and ice ages created the greatest challenges to survival. These periods periodically squeeze us to the bone and whittle us down
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(as well as all other plants and animals) to the very most fit to survive, typically killing off the last most dominant large species. Hence, the old adage what doesnt kill you makes you stronger. Then in the warmer periods that follow, the small remaining species with the new behaviors and best random mutations grow and flourish exponentially, until the next cooling period whittles them down again. Recall that it was the first major cooling cycle 7 to 8 million years ago that caused the first more intelligent apes (hominids and chimpanzees) to emerge with brains closer to the size of chimpanzees today by 6 million years ago with many ape species going extinct. The next cooling cycle around 4 million years ago forced the behavior of walking on two legs and the Australopithicus species emerged. In the next cooling period beginning a little over 2 million years ago the Homo lines emerged with pebble stone tools starting with Homo rudolphensis, then Homo habilis and Homo ergaster and finally Homo erectus who invented the hand axe (another major innovation) around 1.4 million years ago. Homo ergaster was the first to migrate out of Africa into Europe and Asia, but Homo erectus became the Model T that dominated the world for a long period. Around 1.2 million years ago, the next minor cooling set in (encouraging the discovery and increasing use of fire by 1 million years ago) and Homo erectus started to decline and increasingly lost its dominance to Homo rhodensius and then Homo heidelbergensis in Europe, while Asian Homo erecchart 3
tus survived in smaller numbers in the more benign climates of Southeast Asia. These rising offshoots may have better mastered fire to survive this colder period in Europe. Then the most severe ice age hit around 600,000 years ago that put an end to Homo rhodensius, leaving Homo heidelbergensis to best master and refine fire by 500,000 years ago. Chart 3 shows climate data that have been collected from ice cores in Greenland. Before we get to the impacts on evolution, there is an interesting insight here from the temperature vs. methane and CO2 statistics. It is argued today that human beings with modern industrial technologies and fuels are uniquely causing global warming. The first insight here is that we have had very similar cycles of warming (and cooling) in the past when we had only very primitive tools and our population was insignificant. The second insight is that methane and CO2 grow in the same approximate proportion to rising temperatures, again even without modern technologies and with tiny human populations. The third insight is that we actually saw a warmer and wetter period
about 6,000 to 9,000 years ago and that temperatures and humidity have already retrenched a bit from there, despite the fact that they are rising again over the last century. How much of this warming is just natural cycles vs. human technology? The real point is that we are likely entering a long-term trend towards cooling, not warming and that we may have already seen a peak in temperatures thousands of years ago. However, glaciers continue to melt due to continued higher than average temperatures. Very short-term warming trends in the last 100 years are at least partly due to rising greenhouse gases and fuel emissions from the rapid rise in human living standards. This short-term warming could paradoxically help cause a more rapid, shortterm shift towards cooling in parts of the world by slowing processes like the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic that recycles warmer tropical waters northward and cooler glacial waters southward. Warming temperatures over the last century tend to cause greater glacial melting which tends to slow the Gulf Stream currents. This could
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cause Europe and Northern America to get substantially colder in a relatively short period of time and this has occurred in the past. But what this graph really says is that warming comes in cycles without human instigation and that it is warming and the growth of life that stems from it that cause rising methane, CO2 and greenhouse gases. Pollution and environmental limitations on growth are a major reason that exponential growth of life always reaches limits and then declines. Whether it is mass numbers of humans or mammals or reptiles or ants, when the world gets warmer life expands and life throws off waste products. If it werent human waste or fuels, it would be ant farts or something! When the world cools, life contracts and waste declines. This is not an argument for allowing rampant pollution. Pollution is toxic and failing to recycle wastes properly is shortsighted and has always eventually led to minor or major disasters for human civilizations. And environmental challenges will be a huge threat and issue with the peak stages of the human population bubble still ahead and with such rapid growth in countries like China and India for decades to come. It is also a clear trend in history that we dont worry enough about environmental degradation until it sets in and is difficult to reverse. Hence, we are likely to recognize and pay the price of our lack of environmental responsibility in the decades and centuries to follow the coming peak in growth and expansion just as we have throughout history. But despite that, the point here is that humans are not a unique or sole driver of global warming or rising emissions, although our growth and wastes are part of the cycle just as for other large and dominant species in the past. Past species prior to humans would not have had the brain capacity to even anticipate environmental limits. Slowing population (which is clearly emerging) and cooling (which is more likely as we move farther out in time) will have the biggest impact on reducing pollution levels in the future. And every new set of technologies has been cleaner than the past. Automobiles and oil were far less polluting than horse manure and wood/coal burning. Information technologies and new potential fuels like Hydrogen and new technologies ranging from solar to fuel cells to nanotechnologies (among many others) will allow us to make products far more efficiently with less waste and to reduce pollution levels relative to production levels. As we briefly covered in Chapter 8 of The Next Great Bubble Boom, the produce-to-order, lean-production systems and bottoms-up organizational networks will also greatly reduce waste in business and production, and hence, pollution levels relative to consumption. This is already happening and will to greater degrees in the coming decades. But the population and industrial explosion in Asia will more than offset the environmental progress we will make in the more developed countries, at least in the coming decades. And history also shows that as our standard of living rises with each new technology revolution, that we consume vast increases in new products and services and hence, still end up with more pollution over time. The Last Four Major Ice Ages Now back to the measurable history of our climate and its impacts. There have been four major ice ages in the last 500,000 years that have narrowed evolution towards modern humans. The first was an ice age that peaked around 440,000 years ago. Then the next hit 350,000 years ago. Those two ice ages progressively killed off Homo heidelbergensis, despite the mastery of fire. Out of that last one emerged Homo helmei, the innovator of the first significant arrowhead-like Middle Stone Age tools that represented the next great leap in technology. Homo neanderthalensis first split off into Europe and then Homo sapiens emerged in Africa 150,000 to 200,000 years ago. The third ice age came between 170,000 and 140,000 years ago and wiped out Homo helmei and most of the population of the few surviving Homo lines, leaving largely the Neanderthals in Europe and Homo sapiens in Southeast Africa. The African Homo sapiens discovered a new beachcombing diet adding shellfish which ended up being critical to their survival ahead. The last ice age hit between 22,000 and 14,000 years ago, peaking around 18,000 years ago and the rapid warming period that followed would set the stage for the Agricultural Revolution, the greatest leap in human history. The last of the Neanderthals went extinct between 28,000 and 30,000 years ago just before that last ice age as Homo sapiens increasingly moved into Europe starting around 50,000 years ago and seemed to crowd out their hunting grounds.
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But before the last ice age, Homo sapiens or modern humans, began to flourish in the next warming period following the 150,000 year-ago ice age on this new shellfish diet, eventually bringing another major advance in stone blade technology in the Late Stone Age starting around 50,000 years ago. A small tribe of Homo sapiens first migrated out of Africa around 80,000 years ago along the coasts of the Indian Ocean, and then later with their evolving new blade technology made an exponential migration and population advance off the beaches inland starting around 50,000 years ago to all of the continents. We became the assembly line of human trends creating the greatest bubble in population since. We were the only Homo or human line to make it to the fourth ice age which peaked around 18,000 years ago and entered a rapid warming era by 13,000 years ago. In the next warming period, especially from 10,000 to 5,000 years ago, the first agricultural and urban civilizations emerged. In fact, by time the next two million year cycle (from Chart 2) is very roughly due we find ourselves today in the recent period of modern technologies that has emerged into a great human population bubble with very high civilization and the beginnings of a global economy for the first time in history. Only the last 50,000 years has seen signs of exponential growth in human population (due to greater advancements in late Stone Age tools, art and social cooperation). Only the last 5,000 to 10,000 years has seen the real rise of modern urban culture (with the Agricultural Revolution), after millions of years of very slow development through the Stone Age and the very long hunting and gathering era of the last two million years that some remote and isolated cultures today still exhibit. The Early Stone Age 2 Million Years Ago to 250,000 Years Ago Now we lets go back and take a closer look into the Stone Age starting just over 2 million years ago, when many Homo lines emerged clearly as scavengers first using sticks and stones to scare away other carnivores from their kills, just as they likely initially used sticks and stones to scare off predators encroaching into the forests. Then Homo erectus (and offshoot lines) increasingly became hunters. The first to migrate almost 2 million years ago into Europe and Asia Out of Africa was again Homo ergaster (the cousin of Homo erectus) who eventually branched or combined into the Asian Homo erectus, but didnt survive as long in the harsher climates of Europe and Central Asia. Homo ergaster was soon followed by larger waves of Homo erectus who most dominated Europe and Central Asia into a major ice age a little over a million years ago. They could migrate successfully as they had developed primitive shaped and flaked pebble tools for scavenging and hunting. Homo erectus and other lines were hence, able to follow herds of animals and migrate to new grounds as competition grew locally and as climate allowed or forced. And these stone tools advanced only to minor degrees with sharper points, hand axes (first around 1.4 million years ago), and bones used as hammers and anvils for a long period of time until the Middle Stone Age beginning between 300,000 to 250,000 years ago when Homo helmei brought arrowhead-like flaked tools (shaped and pointed on both sides). Soon after, Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) first emerged, and then modern humans or Homo sapiens, both branching off of Homo helmei. Homo sapiens first emerged as a species as early as 200,000 years ago. The Neanderthals were hence our closest cousin, but not an ancestor or descendant. So two million years ago stone tools started to emerge, and around that time the first documented migration out of Africa began followed by larger ones. That lead to minor evolutions in primitive tools that had already been developed in Africa as these migrating tribes moved into different and more challenging and colder environments. But those migrations eventually failed and Homo erectus started to yield to Homo rhodensius, and eventually both came to a dead end like most archaic human species. The last clear traces of Asian Homo erectus in warmer Java were found dating back to 40,000 to 50,000 years ago, but recent excavations have uncovered a pygmy-like offshoot perhaps of Asian Homo erectus, but more likely an earlier line due to much smaller brains, that could have survived up until 13,000 years ago (the end of the last ice age). The last evidence of Neanderthal, was around 28,000 to 30,000 years ago in Southern France and Spain. The Emergence of Modern Man and The Middle Stone Age During the build-up to the ice age previous to the last one, between around 200,000 to 150,000 years ago, modern man
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(Homo sapiens) first clearly emerged in Southeast Africa with likely roots extending into Southwestern Africa. We will show later that DNA from maternal lines traces modern man back to Africa about 190,000 years ago (with a 150,000 to 200,000 range), and possibly earlier. And just ahead we will show that the most complex and earliest languages in the world date back to around 150,000 years ago in South Africa. So, this clearly appears to be the most likely period that Homo sapiens or modern humans emerged. That next to last ice age peaked around 150,000 years back, but lasted from around 170,000 to 140,000 years ago. It whittled the human population in Africa down to estimates of 2,000 to 20,000, more likely around 10,000 people, and down to totally or near totally Homo sapiens in Africa, with small vestiges of Neanderthals in Europe, and more substantial populations of Asian Homo erectus in Southeast Asia. Then following from 130,000 years into 120,000 years ago the world entered a brief very warm and wet period (more so than today) when the few early modern humans that survived that ice age would have flourished and expanded mostly up the coasts of East Africa eating shellfish and in the fertile Great Rift Valley in inland East Africa. But then again from 120,000 years to 70,000 years ago the world started to gradually cool, and then more progressively from 45,000 years into 18,000 years ago into the next ice age with another brief warm/wet period around 51,000 to 45,000 years ago. This long period of mostly increasing cooling and its challenges lead to the emergence of the dominance of Homo sapiens or modern humans in the world. Beyond the recent DNA research that we will cover, longer-term research in languages has developed the capacity to approximately date regional cultures by the complexity of their language. The greater the variety of words and regional dialects within a language, the older that culture and language tend to be given that they would have longer to develop such complexity. The greatest trace in linguistic research for modern man has come from the San bush tribes (now in Southwestern Africa) who have the most complex language and clicking sounds of any modern human dialect. Chart 4 shows that their language dates back to about 150,000 years ago right at the peak of that severe ice age, and much older than Southeast Asian and other languages. Africans are clearly the oldest modern cultures and Polynesians the newest (we will refer back to this graph and the emergence of other cultures as we go on). These most ancient modern Africans likely first emerged well before the previous
chart 4
ice age 150,000 years ago, and became the prime survivors near the equator in East Africa. In fact, their early command of language at that point was likely to have been the decisive factor to their being the very few to survive that ice age through greater social cooperation in hunting and migrating. The First Successful Modern Migration Out of Africa 80,000 Years Ago So the real seed or spark of modern human evolution (invention) likely started around 200,000 to 150,000 years ago. But then the next significant event occurred (innovation), the first modern-day successful migration out of Africa between 95,000 and 70,000 years ago (most likely about 80,000 according to genetic dating) as a small tribe of humans, naively but courageously out of survival needs, crossed the Red Sea from Eritrea north of Ethiopia at the small isthmus there into the Southern Arabian coasts and hills into Yemen as their food supply started to vanish with cooling temperatures, and the seas were falling enough
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to cross from receding water levels. These first modern migrants still only had Middle Stone Age tools (although more refined), but more important, rudimentary modern language and a critical new twist on the Middle Stone Age diet: shellfish. At the peak of the major ice age 150,000 years ago, it appears that for the first time many of the surviving humans were forced out of the shrinking plains onto the East coastlines of Africa where modern humans made the great discovery that you could collect shellfish off of reefs when the tides receded (a lot easier than hunting animals). The beaches were also easier to migrate and travel up and down, encouraging greater communication and trade in tools and innovations. A new beachcombing culture emerged where humans could use the same Middle Stone Age tools to scavenge and hunt animals while also gathering shellfish. Then progressively over time they learned how to spear fish with stone barbs, and fish with nets and hooks. In fact, signs of Middle Stone Age tools, butchered animal and shellfish remains were found in reef fossils near Eritrea dating back to at least 125,000 years ago right near the peak of that brief, warm and expansive period. So this beachcombing diet of surf and turf likely extended farther back and became a new growth trend, around 150,000 years ago as the world was cooling extremely. Then in the warming period that followed, population growth would have naturally expanded and more groups would have migrated northward along the coasts (and inland) towards the Red Sea in Northeast Africa where there was one very fertile area of grassland inland between the plateau of South Ethiopia and the Great Rift Valley north of Mt. Kenya. But above there was only desert. Hence, the greatest population expansion and the greatest food sources were between Kenya and Ethiopia (inland and along the coasts) after that extreme ice age where modern humans likely concentrated. Then the coldest period (mini-ice age) between that extreme ice age and the last one 18,000 years ago, occurred between 80,000 and 60,000 years back peaking around 70,000 years ago. This was very likely the reason that the first small tribe that populated the rest of the world finally migrated out of Africa across the Red Sea. Stephen Oppenheimer in his remarkable book, The Real Eve (Carol and Graf, 2003) brings the greatest and most thorough evidence for this first great migration that within 5 - 10,000 years took modern man all the way to Australia and Southeast Asia beachcombing along the coasts of the Indian Ocean. Oppenheimer, among others we will note, brings very recent and revealing DNA research that can more accurately date and time migrations of humans, especially where archaeological evidence has been erased by rising sea levels and glaciers, or hasnt yet emerged. Let us give due credit here before we move on. This book has been our greatest single source for the millions of years of ape to human development we have covered thus far and for the human migration trends we will cover ahead. There are many skilled scientists and researchers that have tracked ape and human history, but Oppenheimer seems to bring the greatest confluence of climatic, geological, geographical, archaeological, anthropological and linguistic research we have seen. We regard The Real Eve as truly a breakthrough book and one that anyone should be sure to read if you are more interested in the topics of genetics, human evolution and migration. There was also a Discovery Channel documentary called The Real Eve that featured his work, among others. We also studied in depth two other great books that provided many insights: The Journey of Man, by Spencer Wells (Princeton University Press, 2002), and Mapping Human History, by Steve Olson (Houghton Mifflin, 2002). Why did the first Northeast Africans wait 40,000 years after the warm period 120,000 years ago to migrate out of Africa? Oppenheimer shows evidence that the Red Sea had been losing salinization (salt levels) and plankton. The combination of these two factors due to increasing cooling would have caused the beachcombing there to get scarcer just as the beaches to the south had gotten crowded all the way up the coasts of East Africa. And moving north was not an option due to the Saharan Desert. Around 80,000 years ago, that one tribe finally made the jump walking, and perhaps using crude rafts, across an isthmus that would have only been about 10 miles wide at that time due to falling sea levels. They were also likely hesitant before as there would have likely been previous Homo erectus or Neanderthal lines living on the other side. But scouts likely finally confirmed that these
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people had left or died out due to the cooling and dry period (and not having beachcombing skills). This first tribe would have most likely settled first on the coasts and the grassy hills of Yemen on the east side of the South Arabian Peninsula. And they would have had to settle there for a substantial period of time to drift down to just one original female and male line of genes that ultimately survived outside of Africa. They would have had no motivation to move until they saturated that area and other potential migrant tribes from East Africa would be hesitant to move there with an existing and expanding tribe already inhabiting. But as this tribe grew and expanded over time, they would eventually have to move further east along the coasts, first crossing the Arabian Sea in rafts towards Southern Pakistan and India. Many other migration theories have proposed that modern man came through Northeast Africa into the Middle East. But Oppenheimer shows that would have been nearly impossible as there was nothing but desert North of Ethiopia and all throughout the Middle East increasingly after that warm period 120,000 years until about 50,000 years ago. There are only two migration gates (without modern sailing) out of Africa, the North Gate into Sinai from Northeast Egypt, and the South Gate from Ethiopia across the isthmus of the Red Sea. The North gate did open in the very warm period 120,000 years ago and the first modern migration did occur but archaeological signs show clearly that it got trapped and died out by 90,000 years ago as the deserts reemerged. Only the South gate was open 51,000 to 80,000 years ago. Not only that, the only habitable places to migrate at that time would have been along the coasts of the Indian Ocean, not inland into the MidEast or into Pakistan or India given the great extent of the deserts at that time. To Southeast Asia/Malaysia/Australia by 68,000 74,000 Years Ago To corroborate this Southern exodus and first migration along the coasts of the Indian Ocean, the DNA evidence today shows the oldest and closest correlation to African genetic lines are found in the native Aboriginal cultures of Australia and in Negrito tribes in areas like Indonesia, the Andaman Islands and Papua New Guinea. The oldest archaeological evidence of modern humans has been found in a Southeast China site dating around 67,000 to 68,000 years ago and in Australia tracing back 62,000 years or possibly longer by different estimates. More telling, about 65,000 years ago a number of large Australian animals started to become extinct, which would only suggest the arrival of modern man before that time (Asian Homo erectus never made it to Australia by any archaeological evidence, only as far as Indonesia). In addition, the sea levels would have been low enough to feasibly make a sailing trip across to North Australia from East Timor (tip of Indonesia) only around 70,000 years ago, making this the most likely time for entry of modern man into Australia. This means that the first major migration of modern humans had to be from East Africa into Southern Arabia along the coasts towards India, Southeast Asia and Australia. And such migrations would have had to occur at least 75,000 years to 80,000 years ago to get there by then given the great distance. Oppenheimer also points to the massive Toba volcanic explosion that occurred approximately 74,000 years ago and is easier to date accurately. This was the largest volcanic eruption in the last 2 million years. More advanced pebble tools that were not unlike the Asian Homo erectus tools, but more similar to the Middle Stone Age that came from Homo sapiens before 50,000 years ago, were found in the ash near Sumatra where Toba occurred. This would also suggest that modern humans had made it into at least Malaysia before Toba, and that in turn would argue for an exodus out of Africa closer to 80,000 years ago. But heres the big insight from Toba. It created a huge gap between the first modern humans east and west of India, isolating the first smaller groups to make it to Indonesia, New Guinea and Australia for at least thousands of years, and possibly tens of thousands of years. The blast was massive and caused a regional nuclear winter, resulting in colder temperatures short-term. That blast moved northwestward and covered almost all of India in 3 to 10 feet of ash causing a total extinction of people along the coasts of India on both sides (and animal and plant life throughout India) and would have made life very difficult and horrifying for even broader areas in all directions. Dont you think that would have been enough to make modern humans think that the Gods were angry and that the world was coming to an end? That
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volcanic eruption made Mount St. Helens look like a mole hill! For thousands of years humans were very likely scared to move anywhere into this haunted dead zone and the story of this tragic and prophetic event was probably told for thousands of years to follow, like biblical stories today. Hence, the surviving people to the west around the Arabian Sea between Yemen and Pakistan still beachcombers likely stayed put or were motivated to venture somewhat inland up river valleys and the Arabian coasts where possible as the population grew back slowly at first after the blast. DNA evidence we will cover later clearly shows a major gap between genetic lines in East and West India that would also suggest a migration into Southeast Asia before Toba and isolation between populations for a long time. In fact, there is no archaeological evidence of late Stone Age tools (that first emerged at least 50,000 years ago) or of Homo sapiens in areas like India until about 30,000 years ago, but that would also be due to the fact that such tools and skeletal remains would largely or totally now be submerged underwater along coastal areas on which these migrations developed by rising seas since the last ice age. Hence, there is no fully conclusive way as of yet to determine whether the first migrants reached Australia before or after Toba as archaeological research only confirms out of Africa modern humans and tools back to about 62,000 to 65,000 years ago. But the weight of evidence clearly favors Oppenheimers theory of a singular migration more like 80,000 years ago. But even if it occurred just after Toba, more like 70,000 years ago at the latest, the consequences would not be that much different for human history and evolution. There werent signs of exponential growth in the modern human population until around 50,000 years ago when later, more critical migrations began outside of Africa that lead to the full population of the world on all continents. The oldest Homo sapien archaeological and Late Stone Age remains in the East after Australia have been found in Papa New Guinea (40,000 years plus) and then in areas like Thailand (37,000 years plus), and as far west as Sri Lanka (31,000 years ago). But again remember that the settlements along the coastlines earlier would have been flooded over by rising seas since so most evidence would not be accessible. This split in time periods between East and West would strongly suggest that there were later, larger migrations eastward, well after the Toba disaster and Toba did create a split between East and West for a prolonged time period. But the genetic evidence clearly shows that this and later migrations stemmed from the same original tribe that first moved out of Africa, and not from further migrations out of Africa (until much more recent times). DNA evidence from the female and male lines clearly suggests one and only one migration of modern day humans Out of Africa that then progressively populated the rest of the globe with modern humans. Hence, all nonAfricans descend from this one African tribe and all Homo sapiens descend originally from Africans. Why DNA Research Represents a Breakthrough in Tracking Human Evolution and Migrations Where do all of these very new insights about human migration and evolution come from? There has been a recent discovery in genetic research that has developed enough over recent years to tell us more than archaeological findings about where and how modern humans emerged and migrated over the last 200,000 years. In the female genetic lines there is one small part called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA that is not reshuffled (called non-recombining) in the reproductive process, and hence is passed down unchanged from mother to daughter and so on. There are mutations that occur randomly, but at a predictable statistical rate over time of about one per thousand, even on this non-recombining part. These two facts allow geneticists to trace individuals today back to common ancestors with reasonably predictable time frames through the various mutation markers that are present which emerged at different time periods. Through mtDNA analysis of many women around the world, Oppenheimer has been able to firmly establish that all people today descended from one great grandmother Eve between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago more likely around 190,000 years ago that only traces back to Africa. Many later mutations or daughter lines show up in Africa, but then the first showed up in people outside of Africa between 70,000 and 95,000 years ago hence, showing that there had to be the first exodus out of Africa in that time frame.
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History and genetics clearly shows that despite all of the great migrations that have occurred, most people clearly prefer to stay put once they reach their destination (especially women) and have only moved (typically in smaller numbers) when they were forced to for new food sources or from wars. Thats why genetic tracing works so well over time. But there are two other principles in DNA that Oppenheimer used to argue that there was only one small successful migration out of Africa when many archaeologists and geneticists having argued that there were several over time. The first is the founder effect. When a small group splits off from a larger group, only a smaller portion of the more varied gene pool of the larger group will go with them, reducing the size and variety of their new gene pool. The second is genetic drift. In a smaller, isolated population over time different female (and male) lines will die out or fail to reproduce, narrowing down to a more homogenous gene pool (as occurs today in small towns, isolated regions and islands). Oppenheimer concluded that since there was only one initial maternal line that has survived today outside of Africa, that a small tribe (founder effect) must have migrated across the Red Sea into Yemen and stayed there for at least hundreds of years until the gene pool narrowed down to that one line (genetic drift). Only after then did new daughter mutations (two at first between Yemen and West India found only outside of Africa) increasingly emerge as that one tribe migrated, expanded and populated the world over the last 80,000 years. And thats how he tracks and times the migration patterns, through the many emerging daughter mutation markers over time. The odds of different tribes migrating out at different times ending up with only one maternal line is too extreme to make multiple migrations out of Africa a credible theory. But there is another story from genetic research that is clearly parallel, but quite a bit different over time and that comes through the male lineages. The Y chromosome has a part that does not recombine called NRY that can be tracked similarly. There are two differences in the male tracking and genetic history. Male lines tend to go extinct faster than female because throughout history a smaller percentage of the men have fathered more of the children as women can only bear so many children and the strongest males get favored sexually (by choice/attraction or force/rape). Men also have tended to migrate, hunt, and come and go, while women have remained in place with their children. This means that there are more male mutation markers and more detailed tracking of regional migration patterns. The only problem is that the Y chromosome research is more recent and the timing techniques are not nearly as reliable as on the mtDNA for females. Hence, there is a tendency for many YRA researchers to underestimate the timeframes especially for the earlier migrations. The Y Chromosome or Adam story is similar. All modern males descend from one great grandfather traced back to Africa, not anywhere else (likely between 150,000 and 100,000 years ago). Adam came later as male gene and mutation lines go extinct faster and have more markers. Later male son mutation lines from Adam later that emerged outside of Africa are only found outside of Africa. Hence, Oppenheimer relies more on the female migration lines for dating and more persistent migration routes, and the male more for confirmation and insights into more specific migration routes of ethnic clans. To demonstrate both the fierceness and efficiency of genetics and natural selection: Out of many Homo lines over more than 2 million years, only Homo sapiens survived down to numbers of around 10,000 at first to become modern man. Out of many female and male lines in Africa over the last 150,000 to 200,000 years, only one line on each side survived to migrate out of Africa and populate the entire world. We were clearly specially selected over a long period of time through endless challenges and deaths to become the dominant species today. How many new ventures does it take to create a Microsoft? And like all other dominant species, nations or companies, we will not last forever but fortunately, there are no candidates yet in view to replace us. And computers are not organisms or species, just very advanced tools created by our dominant species like stone tools or agriculture or factories. Computers dont have a soul, or desire or will. They simply do what we program them to do and only in narrow left-brain logic at this point. So we dont see a rise of the machines as the next stage of evolution.
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(Note here, that we are not DNA or archaeological or anthropological experts. We respect and depend upon the research of these and many other scientists, and suggest that you consider reading these books and many others to form your own opinion if you have such interests. We constantly look for the bigger picture from many fields of research and strive to draw the most conclusive and summary insights from them to give you a greater overview of history and evolution from all possible angles. The minor differences that such experts may have over certain changes in certain time periods are often not that relevant to our bigger picture, but can be relevant to issues in those fields. Even where we draw our own conclusions, we respect their very detailed research and expertise and dont want to represent our research as superior or as detailed in these fields. But our greater overview of history and models for change often give us some different insights than experts in these fields). The Second Great Migration: 50,000 to 40,000 Years Ago Chart 5 summarizes the series of migrations that occurred in populating the world all stemming out of that first tribe that migrated from East Africa into Yemen. Each successive migration got bigger and brought new innovations and skills. Although the first migration (labeled 1) out of Africa around to Australia was a major breakthrough event in human history, it was small at first and a natural continuation of the trend back to the severe ice age 150,000 years ago of adding shellfish to the diet and moving up the coasts of East Africa to survive. This cre-
chart 5
ated a new coastal highway vs. the previous routes of expansion through the grass plains. This coastal route became the new path of least resistance and likely continued all the way around to the tip of South America (by as early as 30,000 years ago), until the climate suddenly changed about 50,000 years ago. Inland areas in South Asia were mostly desert up until that time and going north or inland was too difficult. Yet only so many people could thrive in these narrow coastal areas and that first great migration lasted from about 80,000 years ago to around 30,000 years ago. Again, the first part of the beachcomber migration likely reached Indonesia and Malaysia before Toba 74,000 years ago, and then Australia and Southeast China around 68,000 to 70,000 years ago, and was isolated for thousands of years or longer at first. But it would have continued to expand up the coasts of China into Korea and Japan and so on. After Toba, new beachcombing migrations began to occur (from new daughter and son lines) along
the beaches re-populating India moving east from Pakistan, and moving back west from Indonesia. And then the migration continued along the beaches northward into China, Korea, Japan, Siberia and ultimately into North America long before most archaeologists have previously suspected. The nearextinct Tehuelche people of Tierra del Fuego near the southernmost tip of South America have robust features most similar to the early beachcombers of Australia (Aborigines) and the New Guinean highlanders. These people could have arrived down the Pacific coasts as early as 30,000 years ago. The oldest languages in South America date back to approximately 30,000 years. But around 50,000 years ago, a more critical second migration (labeled 2) began inland along the Eastern coast of the East Arabian Sea into the Middle East, ultimately bringing modern humans into Southern Europe. This migration occurred because of a brief very warm and wet period that hit between about 51,000 and 45,000 years
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ago, opening up grasslands and river valleys into the Middle East for the first time since the very warm and wet period 120,000 to 130,000 years ago. But this migration from clear genetic markers did not come from the North Gate of Africa. It came from around West Pakistan or Southern Iran, likely from small groups that first moved inland a bit to flee the Toba disaster. This first inland migration spawned a later third wave that ultimately populated all continents. The successive waves of inland migration between 50,000 and 30,000 years ago were the ones that would most populate the world. They first moved up the East Arabian Sea coast into Iran and Iraq, and then into Turkey. They then moved in two directions: south into Syria, Israel and Northeast Africa; and east into the Balkans, and then into the North Mediterranean towards Southern France and Spain. Hence, this migration first settled the Middle East and Southern Europe between 45,000 and 50,000 years ago. This first modern European migration is generally called the Auregnacians after an archaeological site discovered in Southern France showing the first modern humans dating back to 46,000 to 47,000 years ago. This migration formed the first ethnic bases for Mid-eastern and Southern European groups who generally lived closer to the Mediterranean Sea and still maintained a partially beachcomber lifestyle. The important developments here were the following: 1) The next major advance or big bang in Late Stone Age tools for hunting clearly emerged here with a great variety of smaller and sharper blades to adapt to a more challenging inland environment with more varied terrain and game. 2) Compared to the limited land area along coastlines, this opened up vast new terrains for the expansion of hunting and gathering, and hence, spawned the beginnings of exponential population growth in modern humans. 3) The emergence of increasingly specialized hunting, sewing for clothing and greater social cooperation added to the previous hunting and shellfish gathering skills for dealing with harsher climates and more varied terrain. 4) A new generation of humans that was more comfortable inland, than on the beaches emerged and they would generally continue such inland migration on a much larger scale, while the beachcombers would largely continue coastal migration until forced inland into warmer river valleys later. The Third and Greatest Migration: 35,000 to 22,000 Years Ago Even though the weather got cooler again and more challenging about 45,000 years ago, this new generation of modern humans now had enough tools and skills to adapt and continue to expand throughout Southern Europe and Eastern Europe to some degree at first. Then the big bang of migrations hit. There was another major wave of migrations that went in multiple directions inland, more northward (around the west end of the Black Sea) and more eastward and northward into Central Asia between 35,000 and 22,000 years ago. These migrations originated out of areas today between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Southern Iran. These Central Asian migrators became the most fierce and specialized big game hunters and branched both westward into Northern Europe (called the Gravettians after an archaeological site in France) and eastward into Siberia by 30,000 years ago and very likely across the Bering Straights of Alaska into America well before the last ice age set in (22,000 to 24,000 years ago). Hence, this is the migration wave that most settled the larger world inland rather than just along the warmer coasts of Asia and the Mediterranean. These groups had to deal with much greater challenges, especially in colder climates with greatly alternating forests, grasslands and tundra. Hence, their tools and survival skills had to develop to greater degrees and that made them the most fit to survive long-term. Increasing archaeological, linguistic and DNA evidence is now strongly suggesting that America was first populated before the last ice age began rather than after, as was previously thought. If you refer back to Chart 4, it shows that North Eurasian languages date back to about 45,000 years ago (in line with the second great migration) and that South American languages date back to around 30,000 years ago. Newer finds now date archaeological sites to 16,000 to 19,000 years ago in Pennsylvania (and perhaps earlier) instead of 13,000 with the first major site in Clovis, New Mexico.
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The complexity of dialects in South American languages suggests that those cultures date back to approximately 30,000 years ago and likely came from earlier beachcombers who kept moving up the East Asian coasts and then down North and South American coasts. Similarities in bone structures to Australian Aborigines found in the most Southern parts of South America add credibility to that theory. It is possible that these peoples came from earlier migrations from Siberia, but it is less likely they would have migrated all the way down to South America through inland routes by then and there should have been earlier traces in North America if they did. But the beachcombers migrating around the West coasts of North America and South America would have left little or no traces due to rising sea levels since those times. Either way, the ice caps would have closed off the migration route from Siberia into Alaska between about 22,000 and 14,000 years ago and cultures with languages dating back to as far as 30,000 years ago would have had to enter before then. Previous theories were that the first Northeast Asians migrated into America just after the glacial routes opened back up 13,000 to 14,000 years or so ago. But it is increasingly clear that this occurred before at least 22,000 years ago and probably closer to 30,000 years ago. Russian scientists just discovered a 30,000 year-old site in Arctic Siberia that proves that modern humans did survive in the coldest climates by then and could have easily made it across to America (through a land bridge between Siberia and Alaska during lower sea levels) well before the last ice age set in. Genetic tracing shows at least five founding female lines and multiple migrations into America over time. And again, the linguistic estimates back to Chart 3 show Central American cultures dating back to around 20,000 years ago and North American to around 13,000. The best theory would be that the beachcombers made it to South America around 30,000 years ago down the Pacific coast driven by colder climates, and that the first inland hunters from East Siberia crossed into North America just before the last ice age around 22,000 to 24,000 years ago and were quickly pushed down into Central America during the last ice age by around 20,000 years ago (who clearly evolved into the Aztecs and Mayans and likely into the Incas). The archaeological sites in Pennsylvania could have represented their path on the way. Then later and larger migrations from Siberia would have occurred after the last ice age when the polar caps started to recede around 13,000 to 14,000 years ago into North America (who evolved into Native Americans). That migration could be classified as a fourth migration from 14,000 years ago onward. And these three cultures (Aztecs, Incas and Native American Indians) stayed largely separate and isolated from each other in a vast new territory for a long time. The significance of this third and largest migration was that by 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, modern humans had reached Northern Europe, Northeast Asia, North and South America populating all major continents with now very adaptive modern humans armed with Late Stone Age tools. Hence, the Late Stone Age period occurred from about 50,000 years ago into the last ice age and saw the first exponential population growth and expansion of modern humans around the world. That population expansion would have peaked by around 20,000 to 22,000 years ago with the next ice age building, and then would have declined into 13,000 to 14,000 years ago when that ice age started to recede. The next population explosion after the ice age seems to be peaking in this century from slowing births due to widespread affluence, and environmental constraints which are now the new limits to growth replacing climate as the great constraint (at least for now). There have been three clear, extended and progressively larger bubbles in modern human population growth and migrations, with declines in between (shaped by major climatic events): The beachcombers in Africa from around 150,000 years ago, extending around the Indian Ocean into Australia until the last mini-ice age set in between 70,000 and 80,000 years ago. The inland hunters from 50,000 (initial warm period) to 20,000 years ago when the last ice age fully began. The agricultural/urban explosion from after the last ice age around 13,000 years ago projected to peak in this century.
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Chart 6 shows a very rough estimate of human population growth on a logarithmic scale back to when Homo sapiens or modern man emerged in small numbers out of the ice age around 150,000 years ago. It has been estimated that there were around 10,000 that survived that ice age. It has also been estimated that the human population was around 4 million in 10,000 B.C. (12,000 years ago). Chart 8 ahead gives more accurate estimates from 1,000 B.C. forward to 6.2 billion today with estimates of around 9 billion in the next century before population is projected to peak with slowing birth rates. Before 10,000 B.C. we are making very rough estimates. What we do generally know is when humans were expanding and migrating and when ice ages caused substantial declines in population. Hence, we can draw a reasonable picture of the waves of growth that have occurred. Three surges of growth on an Elliott Wave pattern would strongly suggest that we are peaking as Homo sapiens in the decades or century ahead, or at least for a very long time before we grow again in numbers and that either we grow from productivity and environmental management from here out or our economic progress will actually decline. Again, it does not mean that we will blow ourselves up or become extinct although that is a possibility. Given the very long emergence of the Homo and the surviving Homo sapiens species, we could have a much longer time period to evolve. Ever since the atom bomb was invented in the 1940s there have been dire theories of our extinction, and since the 1970s the theories have been from environmental destruction. But the truth has thus far been the longest peacetime expansion in modern history and, more recently, we are making greater environmental progress in the developed countries due to new technologies emerging as has been the case throughout history. In fact, Elliott Wave theory (see chapter 2, figure 2.7 and pages 52 - 53 of The Next Great Bubble Boom) would suggest that we would see a decline in population for the first time since the last ice age in the coming centuries, and then see a resurgence, back towards our peak levels or higher (a B Wave later) before declining if that is our fate. But on the other hand, this first expansion since 140,000 to 150,000 years ago (where our oldest modern languages and genetic lines date) could see further and larger waves up after many decades, or more likely, centuries of consolidation. The best evidence to us is that there is no obvious species to replace us, and if there were (at least in retrospect) it would take a much longer time for such a new species to emerge. Mammals had already been around as long as 200 million years ago well before the dinosaurs went extinct. Large-brained Homos emerged over 2 million years before smaller brain apes are approaching extinction today (saved thus far only through human efforts from people like Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall). We think human evolution has a long way to go. We seem too young as a species to die out yet. But demographic trends and long-term cycles strongly suggest that we have a very clear slowing, and likely a decline in population and economic growth coming in the decades and centuries ahead starting with Europe and spreading around the world over this century. Again, this demographic decline is clearly occurring today in Europe and Japan, and is following in the U.S. and then even China by about 2030. Southeast Asia and India are the next areas for potential strong growth and could eventually slow after around 2065. And then the
chart 6
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trends could be flat to declining for a long period of time and history clearly shows that slowing, flattening and declining demographic trends bring very difficult times of transition and deflation. The First Counter-Migration and Clash of Ethnic Cultures in the Last Ice Age But lets get back to the major migration trends that continued after the great inland expansion from 35,000 to around 20,000 years ago. The next migration was not expansive, but contractive. It was precipitated by the last great ice age from around 22,000 to 14,000 years ago (peaking around 18,000). Rapidly cooling temperatures forced the North European hunters down into Southern Europe, the Central and Northeast Asian hunters down into India, China and Southeast Asia, and the South American beachcombers towards Northern South America and North American hunters newly arrived rapidly into Central America. Everyone had to migrate more towards the warmer regions to survive, as most northerly areas became ice caps or deserts. And the most benign large region was Southeast Asia to Southern India. The significance of this period was that it brought: 1) A clash between northerly tribes migrating downward and established southerly tribes in those areas. 2) The increasing dominance of the northern more fit cultures out of this clash due to their stronger tools and survival skills. 3) The first slowing or decline in population since exponential growth set in around 50,000 years ago. 4) A narrowing into southerly areas leading to greater population density there and shrinking hunting and gathering grounds leading to more intensive management of those areas (the prelude to the Agricultural Revolution). 5) Sharing and learning amongst clashing cultures and tools leading to greater innovation to deal with shrinking territories. 6) The population dominance today of Southeast Asia and India as they expanded exponentially after the last ice age from a larger base of population that survived in that most benign, larger area. The male genetic lines show that the third migration or third son of Adam outside of Africa, Seth, accounts for 90% of males today. These males descended from the inland hunters that spearheaded the larger migrations between 35,000 and 22,000 years ago. Not only did they have larger areas to expand into and grow, but also again, when these inland hunters started moving south during the last ice age they tended to have stronger fighting skills (from big game hunting) and survival skills (from harsher climates). So an inevitable clash of northern and southern cultures occurred in Europe/Mid-East, the Americas, South Asia (India/Pakistan) and Southeast Asia. Where there were turf battles the northerners tended to win out and either rape or take some southerly wives. Hence, there was more a dominance that emerged out of the northerly male cultures from Europe to India to Southeast Asia and Central America, and a greater mixing of female, more stationary lines. Of the two initial daughter lines from Eve (outside of Africa), the inland and more westward line now represents 60% of females vs. the more eastern and southerly (beachcomber) line at 40%. Hence, this was the first significant clash and convergence of ethnic cultures in human history (we are facing the second great clash with globalization in modern times). Up until that point, hunter/gatherer tribes largely avoided contact and conflict and existed in much smaller numbers in an area. It was easier to move to new beaches or new hunting grounds and fight animals, rather than other intelligent humans with stone tools. There are no genetic signs that earlier human lines like Neanderthal or Asian Homo erectus mixed at all with Homo sapiens (or to minor degrees that died out if at all) even though they occupied similar areas at times. They simply competed for hunting grounds, and the strongest survived. This convergence not only brought higher population density in narrower southerly areas, but it would bring new learning of tools and skills from other ethnic clans, and hence, innovation. This is similar to what occurred after Columbus when ships first sailed around the world, and what is happening today with jet travel, TV, the Internet and globalization. This was also the first mixing that began to make us more alike rather than more different, especially on the female side.
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The Really Great Leap The Agricultural Age and Writing Progress and population growth naturally began to accelerate exponentially after the warming period that began significantly around 13,000 years ago which lead to further migrations back mostly into areas already previously inhabited. Northerly areas and hunting grounds opened back up and migrations went back north again until population started to saturate hunting grounds in more areas. The southerly areas from the MidEast/Southern Europe to India/Southeast Asia to Central America were already saturated from the great move downward in the ice age. Hence, local tribes had to first learn to hunt and gather more intensively in local areas, as they could no longer just migrate from area to area, following animals and vegetation in an open landscape. So, it was just a matter of time before the next great innovation came along learning to plant and grow seeds instead of gathering, and to breed and domesticate rather than hunt animals. Hence, the Agricultural Era emerged slowly at first somewhere after 13,000 years ago and clearly dawned by archaeological evidence by 10,000 years ago. In addition, the weather got very wet and warm (more than today) between 9,000 and 6,000 years ago creating a very favorable environment for the early incubation stage of stationary farming. Even the extreme Saharan deserts in North Africa became grasslands briefly as stone drawings of roaming animals there 8,000 years ago show. But the Agricultural Revolution did not occur there at first, it occurred in the Fertile Crescent area of the Middle-East where there was greater population density and more varied vegetation and game that were suitable for domestication. We finally started to settle down in small numbers at first, and become farmers and then herders. This began first in The Fertile Crescent in areas like modern day Iraq, Southern Turkey, Syria and Israel by 10,000 years ago, and emerged about 7,500 years ago in the inland river valleys of southern China, and then 3,500 years ago in pockets of Central America (Aztecs and Mayans) and Northwest South America (Incas). Why did this occur first in the Mid-East when the weather was actually more favorable in Southeast Asia? The first reason simply seems to be the natural variety of grasses, seeds and animals that were prone to domestication in the Mid-East, vs. mainly rice in China. But also more varied seasons and terrain that promoted more innovation and forward thinking to survive from year to year and more hearty vegetation to survive, like the more northerly climates did for hunting where agriculture could not have first emerged due to adverse climate. The great majority of natural grains today already grew in the Mid-East. Cattle, sheep, goats and pigs all existed there, and not largely in Southeast Asia or the Americas. In another exceptional book, Guns, Germs and Steel, Jared Diamond shows that it wasnt the superior innovation or genetic skills of Mid-Eastern and European cultures that generated the Agricultural Revolution there (and remember that DNA research shows that all modern humans outside of Africa emerged from one very homogenous gene pool). It was the fact that The Fertile Crescent had the greatest number of plant and animal species, and more important, it had by far the highest percentage of species that proved over time to be domesticated. No large animals in Sub Saharan Africa have ever been successfully domesticated and very few in North and South America. Only rice largely emerged in Southeast Asia and corn in South and Central America, compared with wheat, bulghar, oats, rye and others in the Middle East. In addition Diamond shows that Eurasia is not only the largest continent for the broad spread of agriculture, but that its expanse runs on an East-West axis that allows successful genetic species of domesticated plants and animals to spread easily to similar latitudes and climates where they would prosper easily. Both Africa and the Americas run on a North-South axis making it very hard to spread different species easily. The same peas are unlikely to grow 500 to 1,000 miles south or north in a very different climate. Since it was agriculture that allowed rapid population growth and density, and centralized governments, specialized technologies and armies the areas that first developed agriculture (out of luck of geography and climate) ended up becoming the major powers in the world, developing guns and steel and industry to follow, then conquering the less agricultural and industrial regions over recent centuries.
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Why Apes and Humans First Emerged in Areas like Africa then Developed to the Greatest Degree In Southeast Asia This reasoning is similar to why mammals, apes and humans first emerged in Africa rather than Southeast Asia. This occurred, not only because of a somewhat rare, benign equatorial climate available for them to emerge (like Southeast Asia), but also the varied terrain and more dramatic change of seasons from wet to dry, and forests to plains. More challenging environments create more adaptable and dominant species. Asia has long been too benign for new or higher development at first due to the lack of challenge in the environment its too good most of the time. In fact, when the apes first migrated out of Africa 15 million years ago (when Africa first collided and connected with Asia), they developed largely into orangutan and ribbon species in Southeast Asia. They expanded incredibly, but never got as intelligent as chimpanzees, hominids and humans in Africa. They stayed more ape-like, as the vaster forests in Southeast Asia were too accommodative to stimulate major new behaviors and brain growth. They never or rarely had to move out into the plains and learn new skills and behaviors. But Southeast Asia has conversely been the most benign environment for the expansion and maturation of new species once they develop on a larger scale. Southeast Asia was the greatest area that humans migrated to during the severe conditions of the last ice age. It clearly holds the highest populations of humans today and the most potential for human
chart 7
growth in the future because of its benign environment and its larger populations that are just now adopting modern technologies and western lifestyles. Most recently that growth is accelerating at the highest levels ever seen due to the advent of air conditioning first and then industrial/information technologies since the 1950s as we can see in Chart 7 that shows GDP per capita in Western Europe vs. China since 400 A.D. China did not see the fall in standard of living that West Europe did during the Dark Ages but also saw no real progress. But after the Crusades, Western Europe accelerated while China lagged behind in growth and then declined from the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s as they shunned new technologies and outside influences. Since then we have seen perhaps the fastest catchup in productivity and standard of living in history. Chinas standard of living is very likely to equal Western Europes and at least rival the U.S. in the next few decades. And such growth is rapidly spreading to Southeast Asia and India. This region will
see even larger relative gains vs. the West during the demographic spending downturn from 2010 to 2022. Southeast Asia and India are clearly the growth areas of this century. But again, the demographic trends even there are beginning to slow and should peak by 2065, and earlier by 2030 in China. Millions of years of evolution have shown that higher species first develop in somewhat benign, but more challenging and varied areas of geography and climate like Africa, and then ultimately expand into the largest, most benign climatic areas like India and Southeast Asia. Apes, archaic humans and modern humans all first emerged in the mother ground of Africa and then migrated foremost into the Mid-East, Europe and Central Asia, but always ultimately into India and Southeast Asia where there are the largest land masses with the best climates. Southern North America and Northern South America have the next largest areas with favorable climates.
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The last major line of Homo erectus peaked in Europe and Central Asia and then survived the longest in Southeast Asia. Homo sapiens peaked and survived most in Southeast Asia after the last ice age. Hence, it is only natural that the maturity of the modern human bubble in population today would ultimately peak in Southeast Asia and India, as we will project more clearly ahead. But the human lines that most populated those regions today, first migrated and evolved through the challenges of Northern Eurasia before migrating and expanding there bringing greater innovations. And these older cultures in Southeast Asia are less likely to bring as radical a level of innovations as the U.S. and Western Europe brought before them. More incremental change and slower demographic growth (and eventually flattening or declining) in these regions is likely to create the future of economic and human evolution for decades and perhaps centuries to come. Human, and all growth, emerges from the dualistic combination of nurturing (female) and challenge (male). Nurturing comes first through the mother, and then challenge through the father, then hopefully if all goes right a balance between the two in alternating cycles of childhood, adolescence, adulthood and retirement. But especially in the early processes of development, too much nurturing leads to a lack of challenge for innovation and growth (like many rich kids), and too much challenge ends up in self-destructive behavior from stress and overstriving (like Michael Jackson). It is the greatest balance of these two qualities in the right order that creates the greatest qualities for long-term survival and success. Africa seems to have had that best balance for early incubation between warm, equatorial environments towards the center, with challenging seasons and dramatic shifts between forests and plains and deserts. The greatest reason for the survival and dominance of apes, hominids and then humans was that we were more intelligent, but also more flexible and adaptable. We developed the most varied and expanding diets, we were the first to become bi-pedal and then developed the most flexible hands, thumbs and feet for shaping and using tools. Other great vegetarians and carnivores from dinosaurs to mammoths to lions and tigers were more physical in size, strength and focus, and more specialized in diet and skills. We were the most openarchitecture new organic species, like personal computers and software today in technology. When the environment changed these specialists died out, as they only knew how to do one thing very well. We are also more wired in the brain (as a result of such varied adaptation) for mischief, creativity, innovation and change, like chimpanzees but much more so. We also have a high intelligence to mass/body ratio much like rodents, ants and flies that have also survived so well and so broadly everywhere. The Mid-East as the Birthplace for Agriculture and Urbanization It seems that the more cultural invention and evolutionary necessity of agriculture first emerged in the Mid-East, like Africa for stone tools, hunting and human incubation, due to the combination of nurturing and challenge. The Middle East has a somewhat benign, but very shifting climate between seasons and between grasslands and deserts. It therefore developed a great variety of surviving grains and animals over time that evolved to adapt. Evidence of the first farming communities have been excavated in Jericho dating back to almost 10,000 years ago with similar findings in nearby areas. Rice farming in China only emerged around 2,500 to 3,000 years later, between 7,500 and 7,000 years ago. Africa, like any mature culture, had so developed in hunting and gathering for so long that agriculture was not as great a necessity at first. And it did not see much or any of the great migration southward during the last ice age that created greater population density, competition, learning and innovation due to its isolation. All of the migration around the world, with its new challenges and new technologies occurred mostly outside of Africa. But the greatest reason for lack of an agricultural explosion was that there were no species of large animals in Africa that were suitable for domestication. Zebras may look like horses, and hippos a bit like pigs, and water buffalo like cattle, but zebras nor hippos nor water buffalo have ever been domesticated successfully even in modern times. If they had, we wouldnt have to worry about them becoming extinct. Sorghum was the only substantial grain to develop in Africa.
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Agriculture and urban culture has its roots, not in Africa, but in the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East. In fact, Africa has been the least agricultural and urbanized area of the world precisely due to its lack of domesticated plants and animal species; its long, established culture in hunting and gathering; and its isolation externally and internally from the rest of the worlds subsequent technological developments. Africa is not only the most isolated major continent along with South America and Australia, but it has a lack of major harbors for shipping and trade (since Columbus and long-range sailing) and many faults/waterfalls, jungles, deserts and geographical blocks to inland travel and trade. Outside of the Nile, there are no rivers that cross largely from north to south or east to west, like the Mississippi in the U.S. And where that was the case somewhat for the Nile, agriculture and urbanization first developed there. Africa was the great incubator for new human species due to these challenges, but it is not the greatest growth environment and settling place for urbanization. Today it is the poorest continent in the world, and the slowest to adopt modern technologies and living standards. The lack of industrialization has caused continued high population growth. But poverty and disease has caused high death rates and the lowest rates of economic progress keeping it mostly in a perpetual third world country status. Hence, the future of Africa remains bleak at this time in history, despite being the mother ground of our human civilization. It is unfortunately a maturing and dying culture unless something radically changes there to favor it again or as may just be emerging a movement of developed countries to invest and create the infrastructures and technologies for growth there. It also seems clear in history that the greatest urban and most advanced technological cultures have emerged in the Northern hemisphere in the more temperate, most challenging climates, with the greatest land masses for expansion (and later to a degree in the Southerly or more temperate areas of the Southern Hemisphere). This disfavored Africa, South America and Australia until after the sailing revolution in the late 1400s. But remember that Africa holds the oldest cultures in the world, Australia in East Asia, and South America in the Americas. That creates the paradox that the more southerly continents below the equator have been the greatest incubators, while the more northerly landmasses have been the greatest expanders of population and urbanization. That seems destined to continue as Latin America is slowing in population growth despite its largely benign climate and broad landmass, as is Australia (even with recent massive western settlement). These areas are already more urbanized and have less expansion compared with areas like China and Southeast Asia from that perspective. And Africa for now seems on a path of warfare, corruption and disease towards potential destruction. History and Evolution unfortunately dictates that the oldest and most generative cultures are the least prosperous over time and the first to decline as a general rule. Hence, we see a long period of peaking and decline starting with Africa, moving to the Mid-East and Central Asia to Europe to America and then to Southeast Asia and India. The Emergence of Towns, Cities, Specialization of Labor and Writing The Agricultural Revolution that did clearly incubate in the MidEast led to the first small towns and urbanization trends and the first excess in production of foods. This freed up more people for increasing specialization in new tasks and professions like merchants, pottery, construction trades, record-keeping and hence the first major social stratifications beyond cooperative, more egalitarian hunting tribes. Jericho, around 8,000 B.C. (10,000 years ago), was the first recognizable small town. By 3,500 B.C. the first large temple and city was found in Uruk in Iraq. It was a religious and food distribution center. Writing first appeared as simple tabulations/symbols for sales and emerged in Sumeria with temples, marketplaces, god-like rulers, and etc. by 3,000 B.C. (5,000 years ago). Hieroglyphics, the first more complex written language emerged first in Egypt around 3,000 B.C. just after the first Pharaoh emerged around 3,150 B.C. in Southern Egypt with irrigation practices along the Nile. The first even more sophisticated wedge-shaped symbols of cuneiform writing emerged by
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2,000 B.C. leading to poetry, hymns to the gods and historical depictions of wars. From 3,500 B.C. thereon with stone tablets and writing we truly entered documented history, as we can since record more accurately the developments that have occurred from a human interpretation not just from archaeological, anthropological and DNA evidence and with more accurate dating and records. But more important, we now had a new form of communication for learning and sharing in an increasingly urbanized world that launched the next great revolution in urbanization, technology and knowledge. The greatest long-term trends from the Agricultural Revolution were: population density and explosion; urbanization into towns, cities and regional empires; specialization of labor and rising productivity; writing and more permanent communication; governments and organized religion; increasing warfare, and ultimately, science and advanced technology. Urbanization: Towns to Cities to Regional Empires to Globalization The emergence of agriculture and urban civilization was a huge step in history. With it came more exponential population growth and density; specialization in skills, crafts and trade; record keeping and bureaucracy; land ownership and aristocracy; social hierarchies and classes; technological development and science; organized government and dictators/god-like rulers; warfare and armies; organized religion; ethnic factionalism and tensions; and finally, greater local environmental constraints to growth. This was the first massive leap in specialization that freed up more people from hunting and survival tasks. But it also led to an increasing spiral of the clash and convergence of ethnic, tribal and family/clans that first began in the consolidation in equatorial areas during the ice age. Cities from Sumeria to Rome had to bring many clans and tribes into cooperation for common goals under one city/state and leader. That was not easy and created the increasingly complex political art and science of motivating people to a common cause beyond their individual, local and ethnic inclinations. And this created the need for armies and military enforcement of laws and decrees, which along with new technologies and demographic growth, has very much shaped modern history since. Religion emerged to unify different clans and ethnic groups under the divinity of leaders which were sanctioned by priests. Moral laws were necessary to keep people from fighting each other and to learn to live more peaceably together. The first small towns emerged around the time of Jericho. After the emergence of the first cities like Sumeria, we saw the natural progression to larger cities and regional empires with trade and commerce built around those centers. This caused greater exploration outward into other cultures and caused many more ethnic groups to be incorporated into larger common systems of trade and rule. First came the Persian empires and larger centers like Babylon. But as the Persians after the peak of their first great empires finally set out to move eastward and conquer Greece they came across new technologies in ships and warfare they hadnt encountered before. They were decimated by small forces a mere fraction of their size at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. which began the rise of Greece, and to follow, Western Culture. The rise of Greece lead to the next great modern innovations in philosophy and rational thought that would create the next major revolution after writing abstract thinking, mathematics, science and philosophy. The true beginning of science and the mere beginnings of the concept of democracy occurred in Greece between around 600 B.C. and 200 B.C. (from Socrates to Aristotle to Archimedes). In fact, the greatest thinkers of this time also communicated some of the most advanced esoteric spiritual doctrines that have stood until todays times. The Greeks first spread this new knowledge through a short-lived empire back through Persia with Alexander the Great into the 300s B.C. This represented the next major step in human evolution and laid the foundations for growth and productivity trends into modern times. Western or scientific and technology-driven civilization emerged out of Greece (and to a lesser degree out of China). In fact, there were no major revolutions in science and philosophy after Greece until the 1500s into the 1700s in Western Europe (The Enlightenment Period). From 200 B.C. on the Romans took over with their prowess in military power and building infrastructures for expansion. If the Greeks were the innovators,
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the Romans were the initial marketers and expanders of Western culture and science into the mainstream throughout Europe and the Middle East. The Romans sacked Greece as their empire was declining from 200 B.C. to 146 B.C. The Greeks hit their peak in scientific evolution by 200 B.C. and the Romans then absorbed and spread Greek technology (adding more basic innovations like aqueducts and improved roads) through military might around its growing Mediterranean and European empire for hundreds of years. They built the greatest regional empire of trade and commerce up until that time, and the first broad and sustained commercial vs. feudal economy in history. The Roman Empire peaked by 100 A.D. with an unstable plateau into around 450 A.D. that lead into the Dark Ages for around 500 years into around the late 900s A.D. The Dark Ages saw a regression back first into subsistence agriculture in more rural areas and then into new local feudal empires controlled by knights and landlords with superior horse and stirrup-based fighting technologies. The Crusades from 1,000 forward brought us back into the growth of small towns and cities across the Mid-East and Europe. Then the Renaissance into the 1300s and 1400s brought European culture back to the achievements of the Roman Empire. From then on we achieved new heights of culture again. It was the printing press, gunpowder and the Great Exploration starting with Columbus and tall sailing ships in the late 1400s that discovered and started to re-ignite communication and trade throughout the world and colonized much of the world in North and South America and the Pacific that had been isolated. That great exploration incubated the modern and increasingly global era of capitalism, followed by the increasing spread of democracy and Industrialization to follow. In the next long-term boom that ensued we have seen mega-cities and a global economy emerge today with the U.S. increasingly looking like the modern day Rome of this global era with expansion continuing into the highly populated and benign regions of Southeast Asia and India as such maturation trends have occurred in past history. The Exponential Trend in Population Growth Since 1000 B.C. We cant as accurately measure the population growth back to 50,000 years ago, although it has been very roughly estimated back to 10,000 B.C. Chart 8 (repeated from Chart 1 earlier) shows increasingly accurate estimates of world population since about 1,000 B.C. or 3,000 years of history. In the last 3,000 years the world population has grown from 50 million to 6.2 billion, or 124 times! Rough estimates for 10,000 B.C., 12,000 years ago, were around 4 million. Hence, the population grew 12.5 times in 9,000 years from 10,000 B.C. to 1,000 B.C. This is clearly an exponential trend over time that is growing into a clear bubble in recent history. There are two lines on this graph. The lower one shows a normal plot of linear growth and here we see an incredible bubble forming for thousands of years and especially in the last 200 500 years. That line looks just like a chart on compounding interest where you take $1 today and show what it would grow to in 40 years if you reinvest the interest every year but over a much greater expanse of time. You get phenomenal results the farther you go out, but the growth starts very slowly at first and then compounds exponentially in mass only in the later stages as we see here with population growth. Again, the truth about growth is that it occurs exponentially until it begins to hit limits. And birth rates are
chart 8
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slowing around the world and projections are for a peak in population around 9 billion by the end of this century. The second line is a logarithmic plot, which takes an exponential trend and smoothes it more into straight-line like trends (so that humans can adapt their narrow straight-line thinking to the reality of exponential growth over of time). But even here we see waves of increasing exponential trends building as time has progressed. From Greek times into the peaking of the Roman Empire we saw a faster acceleration at first. Then we saw a slowing around 100 B.C. and then a flattening between 300 and 600 A.D. and a slow expansion at first into 900. In this time period we saw Rome first peak, then fall followed by the Dark Ages not a pretty picture. Then we saw the next acceleration from around 900 into the Great Plague of the early to mid-1300s, and then the most dynamic surge after the Printing Press around 1,500, accelerating even more so after the Industrial Revolution around 1,800. This is clearly a bubble building even when adjusted for logarithmic or exponential trends. One of the classic signs of the end of a bubble is that it doubles in the last short period. Like the Nasdaq from late 1998 into early 2000, the population of the world is projected to double between the mid1800s and mid this century a very short 200-year period of time given the more exponential increase over the last 1,000 years or so, building upon the general exponential increase since the last ice age around 13,000 years ago. This simply cant continue for long
chart 9
and the beginning signs of slowing are already clearly evident. Most interesting is how population growth has differed between the East and West. Chart 9 shows population growth in Japan, China and Western Europe back 2,000 years. China started at a higher base than Western Europe in 0 A.D. (and back to 13,000 years ago) due to higher numbers surviving in the more benign climate in Southeast Asia during the last ice age. Population growth has been particularly higher there
since 1700. Japan has seen the least progressive population growth although it has accelerated since the late 1800s up until the 1950s.
chart 10
But this rapid population growth is slowing even in places like China. By looking at the population forecasts for the World in Chart 10, the U.N. projects that there will be a slowdown in population growth between 2000 and 2050 and that World population could peak around 9 billion by 2100. In The Next Great Bubble Boom, figure E.3, page 293, We show a
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again we think that is overly optimistic given that we are projecting that immigration will decline very substantially after 2010 when North America enters a prolonged downturn and comes under more serious terrorist and world threats. We would be surprised not to see a peak at significantly lower levels in North America between 2040 and 2065. Asia holds the largest population at 3.8 billion today and has by far the greatest potential for growth as is shown in Chart 13. It is projected to peak around 5.2 billion in 2065, and China is already slowing dramatically today as it urbanizes and industrializes with low birth policies from the government for decades past. Chinas population is projected to peak by 2030 at around 1.45 billion rising from just over 1.3 billion today. China is already slowing rapidly, but it is the one large country that is still urbanizing rapidly and that should provide strong economic growth into 2020 (when its baby boom Spending Wave will peak) to 2030 when its total population is projected to peak. As we showed back in Chart 7, China is likely to see the most rapid and dramatic economic growth and progress of any major country in history, but then quickly shift to slowing or decline due to its peaking population by 2030. Eighty years or two generations from Third World to First World status! India should rise to almost 1.6 billion from just over 1.3 billion today by 2050 and is projected to continue to rise more slowly into 2065. Yet India is already more urbanized and its broader culture has not historically been as growth or materially-oriented as China. Hence the economic
chart 11
chart 12
five year forecast through 2100 that shows the actual peak to be in 2065. We think their estimates for Africa are likely too optimistic due to rising disease and unrest, and North America likewise given the downturn we see coming that will adversely affect immigration rates. So, if anything, the peak is very likely to come by 2065 when Asia and Latin America are projected to peak. As China and other countries in Asia develop into stronger economies we think the immigration to North America will also slow longer-term, beyond the downturn from 2010 to 2022.
Europe is clearly leading the trends towards slowing births and declining population that other countries are likely to follow down the road. Broader Europe (including East Europe and Russia) in Chart 11 already peaked around 2000 at just over 700 million and is projected to lose almost 200 million people by 2100. North America in Chart 12 is slowing less fast due to slightly higher birth rates than Europe and higher immigration, and the higher birth rates are largely due to immigrants. It is projected to grow to 450 million by 2050 and perhaps 480 million by 2100. But
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declining. Chart 15 shows that population is projected to grow to almost 2.3 billion by 2100 from 800 million today. Again, we think this is overly optimistic given rising disease rates and political unrest. But Africa is truly the wild card in the world economy. If there are greater trends towards urbanization and rising productivity in the future, this area could be the last great growth region in the world following India and could cause demographic growth to extend as late as 2100. But for now we would assume that growth rates in population would be lower than forecasted and peak earlier. We would also assume that economic progress would continue to be minor until we see signs to the contrary. We would expect that world population could peak between 2050 and 2065, but by 2100 at the latest. So this major bubble in human population is very likely coming to an end in this century. And remember, the last time population growth slowed and merely flattened we saw the Dark Ages to follow and a period from 0 A.D. to 1,000 where human progress in standard of living was minimal as we will show in GDP per capita statistics ahead. This scenario could be different now that we have such incredible advances in knowledge and technology that are more transferable and should be more sustainable than those coming into the Dark Ages where most of the gains of thousands of years in knowledge and culture were largely lost for 500 years. There was something important that happened since the printing press in the late 1400s. We can record information and
chart 13
gains there are not likely to be as strong as China. Chinas GDP (in purchasing power parity) is projected to surpass that of the U.S. by 2020, and with our projections for the downturn in the U.S., it may surpass us even earlier. Indias GDP is projected to surpass the U.S. by 2050. Hence, economic and political power will progressively pass to Asia over the next 20 to 50 years. Then there is Southeast Asia with Indonesia as the largest country in population and still growing more rapidly. But there is a lot of political unrest and potential insta-
bility along with growing terrorist camps. Latin America/Caribbean in Chart 14 at just over 500 million today is due to peak around 2065 at 770 million. This region is also largely urbanized and is not showing the same growth in productivity trends recently as China and Asia. Hence, there is growth potential here economically, but again not as great as Asia. Africa has clearly been the laggard in economic growth, urbanization and productivity gains. But it still has the highest birth rates, though they are
chart 14
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graphics drive innovation and growth across the board. The Industrial Revolution continued the trend towards centralization and urbanization, but raised incomes and education costs to the point that most people have desired less and less to have more kids. And the recent Information Revolution only adds to that slowing in births and will allow our population to decentralize into more rural areas again for the first time in 10,000 years. We will grow by moving to more ex-urban areas in the future, first in the developed countries and then in emerging countries. But we are not likely to start having more kids per household any time in the near future, even in emerging countries. Chart 16 shows very clearly that birth rates are declining everywhere in the world, not just in Europe and Japan which have the lowest rates. Especially since 1950 when the Industrial Revolution started spreading worldwide, birth rates have seen a sharp decline everywhere. They have declined the least in Africa, but death rates are higher there to offset somewhat and that could increase with present trends in HIV and rising poverty levels and droughts. Birth rates even in India are declining dramatically and more so than in Africa. Brazil (and South America), China and Japan have seen the most dramatic declines since 1950. The United States is declining at a slower rate only due to high immigration rates that are likely to slow in the coming decades, and then birth rates could slow here faster as well.
chart 15
knowledge and pass it down to many people and to future generations. Writing had this effect but was limited to so few people who had access to written texts before that point. How many people had access to the libraries of Alexandria back at the time of Christ? Hence, it was easy to lose gains in knowledge and science before the 1500s. The computer and Internet have expanded the access to and storage of knowledge and information exponentially beyond printed material. When Rome fell in the 400s, centralized knowledge and access to it almost disappeared into the Dark Ages and our standard of living regressed largely back to the feudal, local level of organization and structure of Sumeria in 3,000 B.C. Most of the gains in civilization and standard of living built into the Roman Empire were lost for hundreds of years until they were slowly rediscovered from the Crusades to the Renaissance. Hence, we dont think it is likely that such a regression in civilization and knowledge will occur in this
slowing era ahead. Productivity may continue to increase, despite slowing demographics unless there is such a rate of terrorism, warfare and isolation of regions that we lose some of these benefits. Yet even if we see greater unrest and fragmentation in the world, it is unlikely we would lose most of our gains in technology and organization. Why is this long-term exponential population finally peaking? The Industrial Revolution has and is continuing to raise middle class incomes around the world to the point that more people are having fewer kids due to the expanding social opportunities in life and the non-necessity of needing kids to work on farms. The Agricultural Revolution was a great boon to births and larger families as life stabilized into homes vs. constant migration. Agriculture greatly stimulated urbanization and population growth. The bubble in population growth is the reason we have seen such dramatic technological, stock market and GDP per capita growth (on a lag), as demo-
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empires of commerce. Hence, these inflationary periods are followed by great booms on a 20- to 30-year lag, in rough proportion to their magnitude. This greatest boom in history was preceded by the largest sustained period of inflation for a long time in the 1970s. Hence, inflation generally comes with the expense of raising new generations and financing their innovations, but pays off in the decades to follow as they become productive citizens and adopt those new innovations and bring them into the mainstream. But the long-term evidence is clear, just like DNA research. Higher levels of inflation, although painful at first in the short-term, correlate very closely with population growth, and subsequent economic expansions and long-term advances in our standard of living. The Great Wave by David Hackett Fischer (Oxford University Press, 1996) documents the correlation between population growth and longterm inflation trends in great academic detail as well as looking at other correlations. I started off my research into long-term economic trends by comprehensively studying over 10,000 pages of a set of history books over the expanse of Greek to modern times. I noted in as much detail as was documented when there were major advances in technology or commerce, when there were major power shifts politically and militarily, when the economy was booming or busting, and most measurably when there were significant changes in prices levels or inflation. Fortunately, most historians regularly note when there are periods of inflation and deflation.
chart 16
Since the Industrial Revolution in the early 1800s, birth rates have been slowing. But they have been slowing more dramatically since 1950 with the dawn of the Information Revolution. This trend shows no sign of abating at this point. Hence, we are certain to have slower demographic growth for many decades and likely centuries to come. The 3000-Year Western Civilization Cycle If we look at the most refined economic data we have in modern times, we saw a long-term and increasingly bubble boom from at least early Greek times into the peak of the Roman Empire, and we are seeing a second long-term boom from the end of The Dark Ages that is evolving into a bubble since the Industrial Revolution into the current period. Since we didnt have stock markets or regular GDP data back then, Chart 17 just ahead shows this long-term trend in the best way we can accurately display it today, through long-term rises in inflation levels. Contrary to popular
economic opinion which considers inflation a negative factor, inflation or the rise in general price levels over time actually reflects rising productivity and specialization in labor and skills. As new technological innovations over time allow us to specialize more in what we do best, we sub-contract more functions to more middlemen and specialists. Although we pay more for these outside services, we earn even more by focusing on higher-value-added tasks and create a net gain in income and prosperity. This specialization of labor and inflation theory was covered in detailed research in an article in Forbes The Great Hamburger Paradox (September 15, 1977). We also noted in The Roaring 2000s Investor (Simon & Schuster, 1999) and previous books, that inflation is our economys means of initially financing the growth of new technologies and the entry of new young generations into the workforce, as well as major wars which spur major economic transitions to new economies and broader
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that drive these four-stage cycles. That was the insight I first got from a longer expanse and overview of human history. We can see this specialization of labor and inflation trend clearly accelerating in just the last century with the advent of electricity, phones and automobiles. We were mostly jack-of-all-trades farmers, craftsmen, trappers and merchants. Now we have thousands of specialized job classifications in factories and increasingly in offices and professional avocations. This specialization again paradoxically increases the prices we pay for goods and services, as we have to pay more specialists and middlemen for goods and services we used to produce more ourselves. But the paradox is that our higher earning capacities as specialists more than make up for those increasing prices increasing our standard of living. Labor productivity has gone up 10 times since the invention of the phone in the 1870s, and so has inflation. How Western Civilization Emerged in Greece and Expanded Through Rome Now that weve explained the relationship of long-term inflation and prosperity cycles lets look back at Chart 17. The very concept of Democracy started (in only the most elite circles of landholders at first) in Greece. Greek philosophy and science (Socrates, Plato, Pythagoras, Plotinus, Archimedes and many more scholars) emerged between 600 B.C. and 200 B.C. during the declining stages of the Persian Empire (1,0000 500 B.C.) with the Ionian Renaissance that peaked in 546 B.C in Greece. Revolutionary philosophical, mathematical and
chart 17
Chart 17 was the most interesting chart and insight that came out of that research. I wasnt looking for any particular pattern when I charted such rough changes in inflation levels over the last 3000 years. In fact, I would have presumed at the time that rising inflation was a negative factor for economics, not a positive one. What emerged was an alternating long-term boom and bust cycle similar to what we have shown for the four-stage economic and technology cycles covered in The Next Great Bubble Boom ranging from shorter-term S-Curve accelerations to the 80-year new economy cycle. There was a long-term rise in inflation and prosperity from early Greek times into the plateau peak of the Roman Empire from around 100 to 450 A.D., then a huge bust or shake-out period from the late 400s into the late 900s, and then another very long-term boom in prices and economic prosperity from the Crusades into current times. In the very fundamental four-stage model of economic progress we have presented throughout this book,
the Greeks represented the Innovation Stage (with the early stages of science and democracy), the Roman Empire the Growth Boom (through military power and infrastructure/empire building), the Dark Ages the Shakeout Stage, and Western Europe/North America the Maturity Boom over about 3,000 years or a bit longer. Here we see an approximate 3000-year Democracy or Western Civilization Cycle that follows the same four stages or seasons of our 80year new economy model or for any S-Curve cycle for the emergence of new products, technologies or social trends, and for human life cycles as well. The same growth process and life cycle occurs from the shortest-term to the longest-term cycles! This validates the very fundamental nature of this fourstage economic growth model and how it is the basic building block of human and natural processes of growth and evolution. And demographic and population trends are the engine
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scientific thought flowered into 200 B.C. peaking with Archimedes. Major advances or breakthroughs in science and philosophy were not made after that period until around the 1500s into the 1700s (The Enlightenment) in Western Europe. The Golden Age and commercial revolution in Greece started from the defeat of Xerxes by the Spartans at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. (where the Greeks exhibited major advances in sailing and warfare) and continued to 399 B.C. That would have represented the Growth Boom in Greek civilization back then. Then after a pause (or Shakeout period), there was the rise of Alexander the Great and his empire conquering Persia from 336 B.C. forward which lead to an influx of science and commerce into the 200s B.C. in Greece. But that was the relative peak of Greece in European history. From 200 to 146 B.C. Rome conquered Greece. That 400-year period in Greece from about 600 B.C. to 200 B.C. would represent the Innovation stage of Western Civilization from a broader point-of-view. The Romans then acquired Greek philosophy and science and built the Roman Empire starting with the conquest of Hannibal in Carthage from 264 to 202 B.C. Their greatest contributions were basic infrastructures ranging from aqueducts to paved roads and couriers but mostly military might and ambition. The greatest surge of growth came from just before Christ into just after the time of Christ between 60 B.C. and 100 A.D. wherein the Western Empire was built and included the rule of Caesar (58 44 B.C.), Marc Antony (44 30 B.C.) and Augustus (30 B.C. 18 A.D.). This period was called the Golden Age of Rome. Then the Silver Age followed into 96 A.D. that was considered the peak of Roman commerce and industry. Prosperity continued to grow marginally into around 193 A.D. Then there was a difficult period of collapse in the Roman Empire and then consolidation from 193 into 305 A.D. when Diocletian finally restored order by breaking the empire into East and West for greater manageability. Then Constantine ushered in a new era of prosperity using the Christian religion to unify the Empire that marked the first great expansion or Growth Boom for Christianity. In 330 A.D. Constantinople was made the capital of the Empire as growth and prosperity shifted more towards the Eastern Empire. The Western Empire started to deteriorate to the point that barbarians and mercenaries had to be hired to maintain the army as more migrants moved in and took over more functions broadly. Ultimately, these internal and external huns revolted and sacked Rome in the 450s and the Roman Empire fell with only a brief resurgence in Italy, Spain and North Africa in the 500s, but with the Arabs/Persians and Islam resurging in power from 640 on and growth occurring more eastward towards Istanbul. The period from at least 246 B.C. (Carthage conquered and then Greece) or better from Alexander the Greats first empire starting around 336 B.C. to around 450 A.D., would have represented the Growth Boom stage of Western Civilization, or about 650 to 800 years. It ended in a minor bubble in prices and wealth around 450 A.D. that followed the stronger previous bubble into around 100 A.D. (like the twin bubbles in 1919 and 1929 in the last modern technological revolution). The Long Shakeout of the Dark Ages As we all know, that was a major turning point in modern Western history. From the late 400s until the Crusades we saw a five hundred year bear market and a regression to subsistence farming and local feudalistic empires! The longer the cycle the longer the Shakeout stage that occurs. Thats why it is so important to get a longer view of history even in looking at current cycles. Another major event occurred from a religious and political perspective, the rise of Islam during the Dark Ages (from 569 to 1258) that is now the greatest potential reaction and threat to the long expanse of Western and largely Christian-based culture again on a lag. That 500-year period from the late 400s to the late 900s represented the Shakeout stage of Western Civilization. The extended depression and deflationary period that evolved saw the extreme wealth and relative urbanization of the Roman Empire deteriorate into a long period of feudal subsistence back into rural areas throughout Europe with the near disappearance of trade and coined money. But then finally, after centuries of boredom and economic regression, the knights and warring feudal classes decided to re-conquer Europe
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for the glory of Christianity in the late 900s and those travels and pursuits regenerated trade, communication, Christianity and the rise of Western Civilization again. Hence, the Crusades ushered in the beginning of the longer-term Maturity Boom of Western Civilization starting with another great expansion of population and a movement back into towns and cities starting in the early 1,100s particularly in Northern Italy and the Netherlands. A cluster of agricultural innovations dating back to the 900s, including the heavy plough, horseshoes, harnesses, three-field rotation and open field planting, drove innovation and lead to greater specialization in food production throughout Europe. The greater longterm trend is that weve been in a boom for a little over 1,000 years since the Crusades or slightly earlier about the same time period that the boom from early Greek times into the Roman Empire lasted (from around 600 B.C. to 450 A.D.). The Long Maturity Boom in Western Civilization 1000Year Cycle From 1,000 to 1,500 Western Europe grew the fastest in population especially in the North, but the center of wealth and innovation came with the Merchant Revolution in Northern Italy especially when its navy conquered Istanbul and gave it dominance of the Mediterranean shipping routes. Venice was the center for shipbuilding, trade, wealth and GDP per capita growth in that era. But it peaked between the late 1400s and 1500s, as did its population when the Turks started closing off major trading routes to the East again, greatly diminishing Northern Italys dominance of trade. The migration back to towns and cities flourished through the 1200s until growth started to slow. Eventually the environmental problems with sewage from this great expanse lead to The Great Plague (1347 - 1348) and a long crisis period (The 100 Years War 1337 1453) into the mid-1400s for Europe during which the Renaissance period (in Northern Italy) brought renewed interest in the urban culture of the Roman Empire and Greek philosophy and culture. Major innovations started to emerge in Northern Italy in banking, accounting and insurance that sowed the seeds for the Capitalist Revolution to follow in the next era of growth. From 1,000 to 1,500 GDP per capita approximately doubled in Western Europe while only increasing 33% in China (which became increasingly more adverse to trade and global commerce), and GDP per capita regressed in Africa. Growth re-emerged strongly by the early 1500s, with major innovations like the printing press, improvements in tall sailing ships and navigation, and gunpowder in the mid- to late 1400s. Population growth resurged again and rapidly rising inflation and economic progress naturally followed. Portugal and Spain lead the discovery of America (Columbus, 1492) and the Portuguese first took leadership of trade in Africa and the Far East for a century while the Spanish first moved to dominance in the Americas. In 1588 the English defeated the Spanish Armada that marked the peak of Spanish and Portuguese leadership in world trade and colonization. Then it was the rise of the Dutch in wool production, banking and shipping who dominated population growth and GDP per capita advances from around 1600 1820 while the British also started to build an empire of trade and colonization. 1603 saw the East India Company (in the Netherlands) that represented the first more noted stock shares for investors in a company for financing long-term sailing expeditions for trade with Asia in spices and silk (although that first began back in Venice on a smaller scale in the 1300s). From 1500 to 1820 the greatest population growth was in larger cities in Western Europe like Paris, London, Vienna and Amsterdam. But by 1700, population growth peaked in the Netherlands and the tide of innovation and growth shifted more decidedly to Britain and France, with Britain emerging into leadership in innovation, trade and commerce. The Industrial Revolution Lead by Britain The foundations for the Industrial Revolution were laid in the slowing period of population and economic growth between the mid-1600s and the late 1700s. The scientific revolution or The Enlightenment Period brought the first major advances in science since Greek times. This represented the first great phase of complex abstract thinking! We saw breakthroughs in science from Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Kepler, Darwin, Newton, Kant, Locke, and Adam Smith, and many others. Then a commercial revolution followed. Between 1738 and 1793 the next macro set of technology innovations hit
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largely in Britain. Spinning mills saw a series of innovations, especially the Spinning Jenny in 1765, that increased their productivity 16 times and that was followed by Eli Whitneys cotton gin (U.S.) in 1793 that processed raw cotton more cheaply to feed those mills. We saw the zenith of France with Louis XIV from 1643 1715 and the peak of the Dutch trading empire with the bursting of the South Seas Bubble in 1720. This left the lead clearly to Britain who dominated increasingly into the late 1800s. There was a major shift from wool to cotton and from agriculture to industry that greatly favored Britain from the late 1700s on. But the greatest innovation in Britain was of course the steam engine by Watt in 1765, the first stage in powered machinery that brought a new era to economic progress and laid the practical foundations for the factory system and brought the greatest single turning point in the acceleration of our standard of living in history: The Industrial Revolution. GDP per capita has been soaring at unprecedented rates ever since as the stock market has reflected since the late 1700s. The Democracy Revolutions and the Decline of Monarchies Simultaneously, in the political realm came the American and French Revolutions that struck a blow to the rampant rise in monarchies and the narrow land-based control of wealth and power since the late 1400s (and since the Agricultural Revolution 10,000 years ago). Democratic governments and the broader accumulation of economic gains began to emerge. This has continued to be a powerful trend driving modern economies today. 1820 1913 represented the fastest rise in productivity with growth in GDP per capita tripling in that period for Western Europe until 1950 when productivity accelerated even faster from the mass production phase of the Industrial Revolution that followed. GDP per capita advanced another 32% in Western Europe from 1913 to 1950 and then quadrupled from 1950 to 1998. The British Empire was greatly expanded from 1820 into 1913 before it began to collapse. 1812 saw the first steamship and by 1869 the Suez Canal opened much quicker routes to India and the Far East. But perhaps the biggest impact of steamships was the strong surge in immigration from Europe into North America, Latin America and Australia/New Zealand. It was these nations that lead growth in the next era and the U.S. became the world leader in the age of automobiles and mass production. Railroads were also initially innovated in Great Britain in 1825 just after steamships, but ultimately had a much greater impact in the U.S. by uniting such a vast continent of resources and growth potential. Electrification decentralized power access and made location less important in manufacturing which gave an advantage to the U.S. who then led in the innovations of scientific work design and management (Frederick Taylor), the assembly line (Henry Ford), the modern decentralized corporation (Alfred Sloan) and large-scale R&D labs (Thomas Edison) in the early 1900s. The U.S. has clearly lead innovation and productivity growth since the late 1800s. After World War I the British Empire began to fall apart and was largely dismantled by 1948 as the U.S. rose into world leadership not just economically, but politically and militarily following World War II. The Information Revolution emerged with the first computers in 1946 along with Jet engines and the A-bomb. Then came the first microchip in 1971, PCs in 1976, and the first integrated PC software operating systems in 1983. The U.S. is clearly leading this revolution that began to accelerate into the mainstream around 1994 with the Internet, home computers, cellular phones and now broadband. And we have seen major advances in genetics in the last two decades after Watson discovered DNA in 1953. Technological innovation is clearly not slowing and is still centered in the U.S. for now. Radical new innovations have yet to emerge in Asia at this time to suggest new leadership, although there are minor hints of such potential leadership. The trends in recent decades have been for Asian countries from Japan to South Korea to China to India to incrementally improve new technologies and to duplicate new products at lower prices from lower wage rates. To review briefly, the long-term Maturity boom of Western Civilization that emerged out of the Dark Ages around the late 900s A.D. is still expanding today. That boom starting with the Merchant revolution from 1000 1500 lead by Venice and Northern Italy, then expanded to the Capitalist revolution from 1500 1800 lead increasingly by the Netherlands, and then moved into The Industrial
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1400s. That 3rd wave advance occurred from the mid-1300s slowly at first into the early 1700s when the South Seas bubble from peaked in 1720 and lead into a decline into the late 1700s, and then peaked with the early stages of the Industrial Revolution into the early 1800s. From this point-of-view, the Industrial Revolution was more the crescendo of the Capitalist Revolution that emerged after the Printing Press. The 5th and final wave up began in the late 1800s with the beginning of electricity and the mass production revolution in the U.S. into the early 1900s and the Information Revolution (which actually began with the telegraph and telephone in the mid- to late 1800s and was greatly extended by computers and the Internet). This wave has clearly become the most dramatic and exponential following the extreme demographic bubble that is likely beginning to peak with the demographic trends around the world in this century. The first wave of this broader wave occurred into the 1920s and the 3rd wave advance is still in progress after the Great Depression, but should be peaking around 2010 with the deflation trends we are projecting for 2010 - 2022. This chart would suggest that we are likely to see one final wave upward later in this century driven more by the extended boom into Asia that is likely to peak by 2065. But then we could see very flat to even declining prices for centuries with the slowing demographic growth that has already occurred in developed countries and is starting to occur rapidly even in emerging countries as they industrialize.
chart 18
Revolution lead by Great Britain from the late 1700s into World War I. Since then, the U.S. has lead the mass manufacturing phase of the Industrial Revolution from 1914 on (with the assembly line) and leads the Information Revolution currently. And this revolution is far from over but is about to hit its first zenith around 2009/2010 and see the slow passing of increasingly more incremental innovation and economic power to China, Southeast Asia and India in the coming decades and centuries. A Summary of Inflation and Standard of Living Progress in Modern Times Now briefly to get a tangible look at the economic evidence of the unprecedented boom since the Crusades since the late 900s A.D., Chart 18 shows a much more accurate plotting of inflation and economic progress in Great Britain over the past 1000 years (by E. H. Phelps Brown and Sheila V. Hopkins). But note here that this analysis of inflation trends is only in Great Britain. Great Britain was a lag-
gard at first in the Merchant and Commercial Revolutions that re-ignited in Northern Italy first and then spread to Northern Europe. Hence, this chart may be underestimating the trends in progress into the 1400s. Also note that the U.S. has dominated increasingly since the 1900s, and hence, trends may be a bit under-estimated as well there. But this is the best solid economic evidence of the basic inflationary trends and general rise in standard of living back 1,000 years in Western Europe. On this chart we add likely Elliott Wave patterns of growth and progress. The 1st recovery wave out of the Dark Ages was the Commercial or Merchant Revolution and saw a dramatic expansion back into cities from around 1000 to the early 1200s and then that wave saw a plateau peak and then a decline into The Great Plague in the mid-1300s. Then we saw the Renaissance in the late 1300s and 1400s that lead into the Capitalist Revolution following the printing press and tall sailing ships innovated in the late
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had the most dramatic rise, just surpassing Western Europe since the 1980s. In Chart 20 we look at the larger regions that have under-performed the world average. Africa has lagged the most since 1,000 and then Asia (excluding Japan). Latin America has made the most progress, along with Eastern Europe, especially since 1820. In this century ahead, we would expect the greatest rise to come in Asia and for Africa to continue to lag unless there is some dramatic revolution in productivity and political structure there. Despite the slowing in demographics ahead especially for the more developed countries, we would expect GPD per capita to continue to increase from the Information Revolution and a more powerful 500-Year technology cycle. 500-Year Macro-Technology Cycles From Centralization to Decentralization In addition to the 10,000-Year Agricultural Cycle, the 3,000Year Western Civilization Cycle and the 1,000-Year bull market cycle since the Crusades we have covered. There appears to be a very powerful 500-Year cycle in macro technology innovations. In the mid-to late 1400s we saw very powerful innovations that have driven unprecedented progress since: The printing press, long-range sailing ships and gunpowder. The printing press expanded communication and knowledge beyond tiny elite circles for the first time in history. The Protestant Revolution in religion followed in the 1500s, then revolutionary insights from Copernicus and Galileo and the Capitalist Revolution in business. There was a never-ending
chart 19
chart 20
This is what we mean when we say that we seem to be nearing the top of a very long boom a top that is likely to occur as early as 2010 in the most developed countries, and as late as 2065 to 2100 in developing countries from Southeast Asia to India and perhaps Africa. Progress in Standard of Living in the Last 1000 Years In this long boom since the Crusades, there has been great progress in our standard of living, but it has obviously been stronger in regions like Western
Europe and North America. Chart 19 shows the rise in GDP per capita for the regions that have been stronger than the world average back to two thousand years to 0 A.D. There was little progress anywhere in the world from 0 A.D. (near the peak of the Roman Empire) to 1,000 A.D. (through the Dark Ages). But since 1,000 A.D. the greatest progress centered in Western Europe and then even greater after the Industrial Revolution from 1820 on in the Western Offshoots (U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand). Since 1820 Japan has
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expansion of science and business from the 1500s onward due to this massive information revolution. Tall sailing ships and advances in navigation led quickly to the discovery of America by Columbus and later the rest of the world by entrepreneurial sailors like Cook. World trade expanded enormously ever since this innovation. Gunpowder changed power and led to the building of larger nation-states and regional empires for the first time since Rome. As we mentioned earlier, the Industrial Revolution with powered machinery and factory systems was more the pinnacle of the Capitalist Revolution that followed the printing press, sailing ships and gunpowder. The next 500-Year cycle would come with The Information Revolution. The computer was first invented in 1946, along with the jet engine in 1943 and the A-bomb in 1945. The computer came 492 years after the printing press and represented the next major revolution in communication, information and knowledge. The jet engine was the next radical transportation innovation to transform world travel and trade. The A-bomb and nuclear weapons have obviously transformed power relationships in politics around the world between the haves and havenots. But there is a difference in these new technologies. Over time they are clearly proving to be more decentralizing rather than centralizing. Information is increasingly available to anyone anywhere, small companies and large companies, small nations and large nations. Micro-jets are allowing smaller areas and towns in ex-urban areas to grow and all countries to be accessed more easily. Nuclear weapons are becoming smaller and smaller in scale and are increasingly giving power to smaller political and terrorist groups. Many emerging nations, from Iran to North Korea, are close to having nuclear weapons now. If we look back at past 500-year cycles we see innovations like the heavy plough back in the 900s and the stirrup in the 400s. The stirrup was an example of a decentralizing technology in warfare and political power. It doesnt sound like a big deal but it was. It allowed small groups of highly trained knights to have great superiority in battle over foot soldiers. This meant that local feudal lords could have great power over the serfs and peasants in any small region. The stirrup added to the trends from urbanization back to rural subsistence living after the fall of Rome. The decentralizing qualities of this Information Revolution create a paradox. There is much continued potential for rising productivity despite slowing demographics as we are still in the early stages of this powerful 500-year cycle. The biotech revolution is just starting to emerge with nanotechnology to follow. Yet there is also the potential for increasing fragmentation of power in the world with smaller groups and nations having the capability to disrupt trade, leading to a less stable political and trading environment. That would actually work against the trends towards a more integrated global economy. This could cause living standards to fall rather than rise, or for there to be flat to minimal increases in standard of living for most countries much as occurred in the Dark Ages. This is likely to be the greatest issue ahead for our future: whether these decentralizing technologies create more positive effects in personal and corporate productivity vs. more negative effects in destabilizing broader political and economic systems. That is something we cannot fully predict. But the fact that so many long-term cycles are nearing a peak makes us suspect that we will see longerterm declining trends set in somewhere between 2010 and 2065. As we mentioned in the beginning of this chapter, the increasing clash between cultures seems to be the key factor in todays increasingly complex global economy. It may take decades and centuries to sort out the unavoidable differences in culture that have evolved from such uneven economic progress in the past centuries and the clear trends now toward a more global economy. For the first time in history, we have a world economy with major regions existing in three very different levels of economic, cultural and political development: third world/agricultural, second world/industrial, and first world/informational. There are even more very discrete differences at the human level of psychology and development. These differences cause nations and peoples to view the world differently. Hence, aligning these differences into a new global economy will be very challenging and just may not be possible until the rest of the world catches up to the Industrial and Information Revolutions over the rest of this century bringing a more unified world view.
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Again, there was a 69-year bear market in stocks from the burst of the South Seas Bubble in 1720. Since the late 1780s there has been a bull market that will have lasted about 231 years by 2009/2010 if there is a major peak there as we are projecting. That makes a 300-year boom/bust cycle. If there had been a stock market before then, we estimate roughly that there was another approximate 230-year bull market from the late 1400s into the South Seas Bubble peak in 1720. And then there would have been a boom and bubble from the late 900s or early 1,000s into the late 1200s or mid-1300s before the Great Plague. That would mean that this 230year bubble boom cycle projected to peak between 2009 and 2010 would represent the 5th and final major wave up dating back to the Crusades and the beginning of this 1,000-year boom cycle. That would even more strongly suggest that stock prices and economic advances could peak in the more developed countries in North America, Western Europe and Japan for many decades to come. The peaking of the most developed countries in the world is likely to have some impact on the continued progress of the developing countries and would only add to economic and political instability in the world. But the greatest progress is likely to be in Asia from 2010 onward. If this 300-year cycle is peaking in most developed countries around 2010, the B wave of this coming 70-year plus bear market is likely to take the U.S. market back towards the likely highs of 2009/2010 between 2038 and the early 2040s before bottoming around the 2080s or perhaps later.
chart 21
chart 22
Hence, it is likely that it will take many decades or even centuries for the world to make the real transition into a global economy. That likely means an increasingly less stable environment ahead, despite the unprecedented progress from new technologies. The 300-Year Cycles Before and After the Industrial Revolution We are clearly still in the early stages of this 500-year macro technology cycle, much like the early 1500s. But we get a differ-
ent picture if we look at the progression of cycles since the Industrial Revolution that we showed in Chapter 2 of The Next Great Bubble Boom. There has been an approximate 230-year bull market and bubble boom since the late 1700s and the Industrial Revolution that is due to very likely peak in the U.S. and Europe by around 2009/2010 with three major bubbles evolving and all of the key canal to railroad to automotive to information technologies bubbles that have occurred during this cycle. That chart is repeated in Chart 21.
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Where are we on this 300-year boom/bust cycle? We are likely heading into a 5th wave peak for most developed countries with an extended 70-year plus bear market after 2010. The 80-Year New Economy Cycle In Chart 22 we show the 80-year new economy cycle from Chapter 7 of The Next Great Bubble Boom since the late 1970s/early 1980s and how we are transitioning from an assembly-line-driven standardized economy to a network-driven customized economy. This cycle has seen its Innovation Stage from 1968 to 1982, its Growth Boom from 1983 to 2009/2010 to peak ahead, its Shakeout Stage will come from 2010 into 2022, and its Maturity Boom from 2023 into the late 2030s or early 2040s, and possibly later with stronger world trends in the U.S. which is still the leading economic, technology and political/military leader in the world for now. Where are we on this 80-year cycle? Nearing the end of the Growth Boom Stage and about to enter the Shakeout Stage between 2010 and 2022/2023 with a Maturity Boom to follow in the U.S. between 2023 and the late 2030s to early 2040s. In view of the 300-year cycle, that is likely to only be a major bear market rally before another extended decline into the 2060s to 2080s. The Baby Boom Spending Wave Chart 23 shows the Spending Wave of the baby boom generation in the U.S. (and a good
chart 23
average of that trend in the most developed countries from Europe to Japan) that represents the 40-year generation cycle since the early 1980s. The boom in spending and the stock market started in late 1982 and should continue into late 2009/mid-2010, representing the Growth Boom of the 80-year Cycle in Chart 20. This 40-year cycle will see a downturn from around 2010 into 2020/22 or so, representing the Shakeout Stage of the 80-year cycle. Where are we on this 40-year generation boom and bust cycle? In the last bull market just before a 12- to 14-year decline ahead from around 2010 on. And how is this last bull market from late 2002 into 2009/2010 likely to unfold? In three waves of expansion as we can see in Chart 24. The first recovery wave started in late 2002 and peaked in early-to mid-2004. The third wave is likely to peak by mid-to late 2006, and possibly extend into late 2008. The fifth wave should occur from late 2006 at the earliest and possibly as late as late 2008
when we likely see the most extreme short-term bubble in history before peaking between late 2009 and early 2010. If we look at all of our longterm cycles only one is clearly still pointing up the 500year cycle. The 1,000-year boom cycle and the 3,000year Western Civilization cycle are all nearing a peak but the time frames there could obviously extend further out. More ominous, the 230year bull market (300-year cycle), the 80-year Growth Boom cycle and the 40-year Spending Wave cycles all look to clearly peak by 2010 in the U.S. with the crescendo of technological innovations of the massive baby boom generation also by 2009. That would suggest, along with other indicators we have, that we may see a peak in our stock markets that will be the last for the rest of our lifetimes and even most of our kids lifetimes in the U.S., Europe and Japan.
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We as humanity are growing up in a larger sense just as a human being does from birth to death with all of the stages of life in between. How different was your perspective on life when you were a teen-ager vs. a maturing adult with kids? Each stage of life causes us to see the world differently. This is equally true of different cultures as they develop over a broader time horizon throughout history. We are in an auspicious and potentially ominous time in history and the challenges and opportunities to come both at a personal level and at a broader level of human evolution. Knowing how to react to this new environment will be critical to every aspect of your life from family to investments to business to where you live. But understanding more fully the exponential and cyclical nature of life may just motivate you to consider an entirely different approach to your own life and what is most important to you in the future.
chart 24
Hence, this clearly could represent the last great bull market for a long time in the U.S. and the developed world, and Japans bull market very likely peaked for many decades in late 1989. The greatest variable as we mentioned earlier, is how well this new world of very different nations and human stages of evolutionary growth can integrate into a workable global economy or not! In truth we all see our lives and the world from our present stage of evolution not realizing that every stage progresses and leads to a new stage. Hence, we dont live in reality! We dont understand the stages that other groups and nations
are in and we are in denial about the natural cyclical and exponential nature of growth throughout human history and the universe altogether. The best thing we can do to make a smoother transition into a more prosperous win/win global economy is to better understand the realities of the natural life cycles of human development, economic development and organizational, cultural, social, and political development. If we persist only in our individual points-of-view as ethnic groups and nations this inevitable transition to a more global economy will be very difficult and painful and that is the greater likelihood at this point.

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A Brief History of Human Evolution and Economic Progress:

The Greatest Bubble - Human Population - Is Beginning to Peak

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Harry S. Dent, Jr.

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2 A Brief History of Human Evolution and Economic Progress: The Greatest

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