dohboi wrote:That sounds about right, but it would be nice to see a supporting link, if you have have one available.
Can not find the one I was looking at earlier but here is a different one that supports the point. IIRC some of the earliest projections were based on simple population dynamics. IOW if X number of hunter gatherers lived under conditions W, Y, & Z and (different climate biomes desert/prairie/woodland) then the world total could support between 1 and 10 million before the development of pastorlism and fixed crop agriculture. This is also how they calculate the barely agricultural North American First People numbered between 2 and 3 million when DeSotto's expedition in the 1500's brought a plague of many diseases to the Mississippian Culture and caused them to undergo a collapse between that expedition and the arrival of the English and French colonists at the end of the 16th Century along the east coast.
Also keep in mind that while the Homo Sapiens population went through a severe bottleneck at 70,000 ybp the neanderthal and denisovan hominids were not affected and served as a base to build on when the spreading Homo Sapiens encountered and interbred with their populations. Current DNA studies show that modern Europeans have from 1 to 3 percent Neanderthal DNA while East Asian populations have from 3 to 10 percent Denisovan DNA in their population structure. Odds are relatively good that pale skin tone is inherited in part from the Neanderthal component because those hominids had lived in the far north for 450,000 years adapting to the cold climate and limited sunlight.
World population at the end of the last Ice Age
Researchers say that the total world population at the end of the last Ice Age stood at between one and ten million people, after two million years of development. In the previous Ice Age, the human population collapsed to near extinction. This severe collapse indicates to some degree the severity of the climate conditions on earth, during an Ice Age.
If we fail, we will fall back to the 1-10 million population that the natural world can support. That's what is at stake, and our heart and soul tells us that we should not lay ourselves down to die and commit our children to death. Out heart tells us to love to live.
LINK