Reasons of the Human Population Being Sparse During the Paleolithic Age
During the Paleolithic Age, the human population was small for several reasons. In the Stone Age, people hunted wild animals and gathered plant foods, fuel, and materials for building, making clothes, and tools (Gignoux et al. 6045). Therefore, the low population density was primarily due to limited food availability. In those times, people were hunter-gatherers, dependent on the resources available in the environment. They fed on wild plants and animals, which were insufficient to sustain a large human population.
Moreover, low environmental density, high child mortality rates, harsh working conditions for women, and widespread migration are among the factors contributing to low population density. (Gignoux et al. 6046) Compared to modern humans, women in the Paleolithic had fewer children. Most people’s lives in those days were devoted to securing food and survival, and they lacked the resources and stability to support large families (Gignoux et al. 6046). The lack of technological development and the dangers of life in the wild led to a small and fragmented human population during the Paleolithic era.
Causes of the Human Population Explosion During the Neolithic Revolution
The first demographic revolution occurred during the Neolithic Era. It resulted from a tremendous leap in the development of productive forces, marked by the emergence of cattle breeding and agriculture. This historical revolution in production put the lives of people who had previously known only gathering, hunting, and fishing on an entirely new economic footing (Gignoux et al. 6047). Mastering relatively high-yield food production methods, improving housing, and expanding global knowledge have significantly reduced human dependence on nature. They reduced the formerly very high probability of death by starvation and allowed the first steps to be taken in the fight against death (Gignoux et al. 6048).
The transition to exogamy, which excluded consanguineous marriages, may also have contributed to reduced mortality, thereby increasing offspring viability. At the same time, it increased the average number of children a woman would have during her lifetime (Gignoux et al.). The decrease in mortality and, possibly, an increase in fertility during the period of the tribal system were a significant moment in the demographic history of humankind.
Work Cited
Gignoux, Christopher R., Brenna M. Henn, and Joanna L. Mountain. “Rapid, Global Demographic Expansions after the Origins of Agriculture.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 108, no.15, 2011, pp. 6044-6049.