It's of little to no use to fantasy world building.  A book based on what makes a medieval world town successful and the rules and laws governing the people there is useful.  You need a source of fresh water, salt, iron, coal or charcoal, stone for walls to protect the town and arable land all near each other OR on a navigable river where it can be traded for.  From there luxury goods can come into play.  Roads makes poor trade routes even though we pretend they are with merchants in wagons etc, it would be a large pack mule of buffalo trains for a lot of caravans in medieval Europe.  What are the male towns requirements of behavior and female towns requirements for behavior.  How are law breakers treated?  What causes shunning?  How are disease outbreaks treated?  How did taxes get collected?  How did free cities operate when surrounded by feudal lords eyeing them?

Quote from: BadApple on October 11, 2023, 02:07:38 PM
If you're doing a fantastic fantasy setting, particularly where magic is a thing, then GG&S isn't going to be very useful on laying out how the culture is going to develop.  Maybe as a cursory question of "why is this group in a different place than that group?" but not for actual world building.

The only place where GG&S would be useful is if your world building is "just like real earth but with different land mass shapes."

I think the examples of how different environments affected real-world development is useful if one wants to speculatively project what history would be like with magic or other fantasy influences.

I think a standard D&D world has way too many magical and divine influences to do this, but it could be interesting to ask "How would history develop if there were dragons?" or "How would history develop if there were psychic powers?"

I think I had recently read GG&S when I wrote my old essay "Magic and Society in RPGs", and it shows similar thinking:

https://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/magicandsociety.html

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 11, 2023, 01:36:02 PM
... our ancestors in the old world had to domesticate bison and cattle ...

North America has the best navigable water ways in the world with ample access to salt and iron, the natives never built upon it.

They used the waterways for extensive trade networks, just like early Europeans. "The natives never built upon it" is pretty unclear.

And Europeans didn't domesticate the bison, they domesticated the aurochs; European bison survived in captivity when the wild ones were exterminated, and have since been reintroduced into the wild, but being captive in a zoo is not the same thing as domestication.

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 12, 2023, 08:36:53 AM


They used the waterways for extensive trade networks, just like early Europeans. "The natives never built upon it" is pretty unclear.

It's crystal clear.  The people that were in North America before Europeans DID NOT CAPITALIZE OF THE WATERWAYS TO SET UP TRADING ECONOMY.

Are you illiterate? 

Quote from: Scooter on October 12, 2023, 08:46:41 AM

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 12, 2023, 08:36:53 AM


They used the waterways for extensive trade networks, just like early Europeans. "The natives never built upon it" is pretty unclear.

It's crystal clear.  The people that were in North America before Europeans DID NOT CAPITALIZE OF THE WATERWAYS TO SET UP TRADING ECONOMY.

Are you illiterate?

Are you?

He said, and is correct, that the native tribes DID use the waterways for extensive trade, they just never used it to transport mass food stuffs or the like since the tribes were self-sufficient.

You don't need a barge to ship 20 tons of grain when you're only trading a comparative handful of pelts for some turquoise or sea shells and visa versa.

They had trade, the degree to which it was "built up" is rather questionable.

One thing I don't see discussed in terms of factors for developing civilization is that when the basic needs of survival are readily available, there's no pressure for technological progress or to clump together into large communities to facilitate sharing resources.

I've seen some anthropological studies suggesting that civilization most often flourishes in regions where the surroundings are slightly less than ideal and therefore work and cooperation are required and labor saving advances are valued.

Generally these are places that are slightly cooler and/or drier than what unclothed humans would find comfortable (but not so cold or dry that reasonable effort can't grow food).

Egypt, for example, is a narrow stretch of fertile land where populations previously able to survive in the fertile Sahara plains* clumped up in search of food/water and effort and technology (learning to use the seasonal floods, irrigation, etc.) was needed to feed everyone.

It was similar along the Fertile Crescent, India and China. Civilization advanced more quickly when the environment required effort to get food from it, because anything that could reduce the labor cost improved your lot and could be the difference between starving or survival.

Conversely, many places where we see peoples who didn't advance, it usually wasn't because they couldn't, it was because they didn't need to. If you can get all the food you and your tribe needs to survive with just 20 hours a week of effort, why bother with all the "progress" that means longer days of work and not that much more to show for it?

Struggle breeds technological advancements and social cohesion. An easy life breeds stagnation and social dissolution into various bands each pursuing their own interests.

* The Sahara it didn't start becoming a desert until c. 3000 BC... roughly the same time Egypt began its climb to become one of the dominant bronze-age Mediterranean powers)

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 12, 2023, 09:13:13 AM

He said, and is correct, that the native tribes DID use the waterways for extensive trade, they just never used it to transport mass food stuffs or the like since the tribes were self-sufficient.

Wrong.  As they produced little that wasn't internally consumed there was no extensive trade.  Stone age production levels doesn't allow for it.

Now, rent an education

Quote from: jhkim on October 11, 2023, 03:23:27 PM
I think I had recently read GG&S when I wrote my old essay "Magic and Society in RPGs", and it shows similar thinking:

https://www.darkshire.net/jhkim/rpg/magic/magicandsociety.html

Neat, will have to check that out.  I just started a new fantasy campaign for Fabula Ultima and that may be a timely read.

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 12, 2023, 08:36:53 AM

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 11, 2023, 01:36:02 PM
... our ancestors in the old world had to domesticate bison and cattle ...

North America has the best navigable water ways in the world with ample access to salt and iron, the natives never built upon it.

They used the waterways for extensive trade networks, just like early Europeans. "The natives never built upon it" is pretty unclear.

And Europeans didn't domesticate the bison, they domesticated the aurochs; European bison survived in captivity when the wild ones were exterminated, and have since been reintroduced into the wild, but being captive in a zoo is not the same thing as domestication.

Its clear, Native Americans had extremely good opportunities by natural resources, animals and land and were not able to take advantage of them the same way the old world continents were able to exploit.  North America has the best position in the world from natural defense (oceans both sides), arable land with access to fresh water, navigable rivers for trade and moving agriculture and the same goes for bison.  Bison are mean, but any creature with selective breeding can be domesticated with time and willpower taking centuries.

The Aztecs, Mayans and Incans did develop fairly advanced technologies but again, didn't match Asia or the Middle East.  The food crops in the old world were incredibly caloric dense, potatoes being a wonder crop that saved many peasants in the old wold from starvation and famine.  A lot of Guns, Germs and Steel are post modern apologies for cultures that lacked innovation.  A better way of putting it was there was a larger population in the old world and they spent more time communicating advances which led to the rise of various cultures, not simply land resources.  Land resources counted for a lot, but so did the ability to share knowledge.   And it goes beyond communicating, it comes down to people willing to spend the time preparing for future generations with no benefit for themselves directly.

Quote from: Scooter on October 12, 2023, 09:16:50 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 12, 2023, 09:13:13 AM

He said, and is correct, that the native tribes DID use the waterways for extensive trade, they just never used it to transport mass food stuffs or the like since the tribes were self-sufficient.

Wrong.  As they produced little that wasn't internally consumed there was no extensive trade.  Stone age production levels doesn't allow for it.

Now, rent an education

You seem to be assuming "extensive == bulk", when what we mean is "extensive == long-distance, high-value, many-nodes"

extensive
/ɪkˈstɛnsɪv,ɛkˈstɛnsɪv/
adjective
1.
covering or affecting a large area.

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_era - the people near St. Louis had trade relationships from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, along the river.

Lest we get lost on a rabbit-hole of semantics: you seem to be claiming the argument in GGS doesn't hold water, the Americas had every resource they needed to invent far more advanced technology, they just didn't have the ideas. (Implicitly, weren't smart enough, individually or culturally.) Jared Diamond is a lot more convincing and better-supported than anything you've written in the thread so far.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid
Bison are mean, but any creature with selective breeding can be domesticated with time and willpower taking centuries.

Citation needed.

I suppose I could go all Popperian, ala Scooter himself, and point out that this isn't falsifiable. But there are plenty of creatures who are widely considered "not domesticatable".

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 12, 2023, 10:58:24 AM

Quote from: Scooter on October 12, 2023, 09:16:50 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 12, 2023, 09:13:13 AM

He said, and is correct, that the native tribes DID use the waterways for extensive trade, they just never used it to transport mass food stuffs or the like since the tribes were self-sufficient.

Wrong.  As they produced little that wasn't internally consumed there was no extensive trade.  Stone age production levels doesn't allow for it.

Now, rent an education

You seem to be assuming "extensive == bulk", when what we mean is "extensive == long-distance, high-value, many-nodes"

extensive
/ɪkˈstɛnsɪv,ɛkˈstɛnsɪv/
adjective
1.
covering or affecting a large area.

e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_era - the people near St. Louis had trade relationships from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, along the river.

Lest we get lost on a rabbit-hole of semantics: you seem to be claiming the argument in GGS doesn't hold water, the Americas had every resource they needed to invent far more advanced technology, they just didn't have the ideas. (Implicitly, weren't smart enough, individually or culturally.) Jared Diamond is a lot more convincing and better-supported than anything you've written in the thread so far.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid
Bison are mean, but any creature with selective breeding can be domesticated with time and willpower taking centuries.

Citation needed.

I suppose I could go all Popperian, ala Scooter himself, and point out that this isn't falsifiable. But there are plenty of creatures who are widely considered "not domesticatable".

We are 50 year+ into the domestication proces of bison now.  They are being farmed.  The breeders are using selective breeding to increase meat production and to cut down on aggresiveness to make it easier to raise them.  You can go to downtown San Francisco and see Bison in the park right now.  Just because you don't like a statement, doesn't invalidate it.  Just search Bison Farm.  The smarter farmers are doing selective breeding with the better males to make their lives easier to deal with them.  That is the domestication process.  Did you never raise animals on a farm as a child?  Its a very easy process.  Dogs are great examples due genetic variability, they are very easy to breed for traits over a decade.  Their common ancestor to the wolf had that genetic variability and it was one of the reaons man kind was able to pick up domestication.  Bisons could have been turned into farm animals over centuries.  And yes, bison are assholes.

Quote from: honeydipperdavid on October 12, 2023, 11:05:27 AM
We are 50 year+ into the domestication proces of bison now.  They are being farmed.  The breeders are using selective breeding to increase meat production and to cut down on aggresiveness to make it easier to raise them.  You can go to downtown San Francisco and see Bison in the park right now.  Just because you don't like a statement, doesn't invalidate it.  Just search Bison Farm.

I posted on this earlier. First of all, the surviving bison in North America are all interbred with Eurasian cattle:

QuoteA new study published in the journal Scientific Reports has revealed the strongest evidence to date that all bison in North America carry multiple small, but clearly identifiable, regions of DNA that originated from domestic cattle.

Source: https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/news/strong-evidence-that-all-bison-in-north-america-originated-from-domestic-cattle-361470

Further, having animals in a paddock isn't the same as domestication. Zoos have wild animals in paddocks all the time. The real question is whether you could use buffalo to live by your house and use it to plow your land. And the answer is no, you can't.

The nature of the base wild animal makes a huge difference in how usefully domesticated it is. Dogs and cats have both been domesticated for thousands of years in Eurasia, but we have never had successfully trained cats for hunting and herding the way that dogs are. Bison are to cattle in much the way that cats are to dogs. Cattle are usefully domesticated to not just be meat, but to be useful in plowing, milking, and other utility. Bison have only been barely domesticated - and that was in part by cross-breeding them with Eurasian cattle.

---

Likewise, the base plants make a huge difference in crops used. Wheat was first domesticated 12,000 years ago from wild emmer in the Middle East. Corn was derived from teosinte - which is a more difficult leap. (Teosinte is so different, scientists couldn't identify it as the root of corn until the 1940s.) It was first domesticated 9,000 years ago. That's already a 3000 year gap.

But corn cultivation was only in Mesoamerica. It had nowhere to spread east-west -- while wheat quickly spread out from the Middle East east-west along Eurasia. Corn cultivation took much much longer to spread north-south, because it is difficult to adapt a crop to different climates.

---

If one looks at the state of the world at 0AD, it is clear that the leading Eurasian civilizations (Romans, Persians, Hindus, Chinese) had a massive lead over the Americas. They had already had millennia of writing, literature, architecture, ironworking, and other advances. Western and Northern Europe were relatively backwards, though, compared to these at the time. They had some advances over the Americas like iron, but those were almost entirely learned from elsewhere.

It seems pretty clear to me that all of the Eurasian civilizations along that east-west line leapfrogged off of each other, starting from the domestication of wheat.

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 12, 2023, 10:58:24 AM

You seem to be assuming "extensive == bulk", when what we mean is "extensive == long-distance, high-value, many-nodes"

Neither did they cover ANY large area.  There was no long distance trade routes.  It was almost all local.  Study the primary docs from those who first recorded what was there when they arrived from Europe.  Or, hadn't you thought of that?

Quote from: Scooter on October 13, 2023, 10:08:17 AM

Quote from: Naburimannu on October 12, 2023, 10:58:24 AM

You seem to be assuming "extensive == bulk", when what we mean is "extensive == long-distance, high-value, many-nodes"

Neither did they cover ANY large area.  There was no long distance trade routes.  It was almost all local.  Study the primary docs from those who first recorded what was there when they arrived from Europe.  Or, hadn't you thought of that?

This took me two minutes to find on the internet...

https://www.historyhaven.com/documents/trade_americas.pdf

You are, as you are so fond of saying, a "smooth brain."

ETA: this took me another few minutes, but still just an Internet search away.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/07/ancient-north-american-trade-networks-reached-farther-than-we-thought/

There were instances of Clovis and pre-Clovis points found around the Great Lakes area using obsidian from the Oregon area.

So, either trade routes were used or people walked a lot more back then than now.

Quote from: LordBP on October 13, 2023, 12:30:56 PM
There were instances of Clovis and pre-Clovis points found around the Great Lakes area using obsidian from the Oregon area.

So, either trade routes were used or people walked a lot more back then than now.

There were no trade routes from the Pacific to the Great Lakes.  There WAS migration from WEST to EAST.  Hence the Oregon area obsidian points.