Can one innovator really show that it works better? Especially back before agriculture got started, and hence before we started breeding plants that were well adapted to human needs. E.g., a lot of agriculture now is based on wheat, but wheat was a much less effective food plant before human intervention.
Almost by definition, “more complicated culture and a structured society” isn’t a thing one person can try out on their own and demonstrate the superiority of. Probably some individual interventions along the path are, but I don’t think we know that “pre-colonial indigenous people” didn’t try any of them. (Do we?) And even those individual interventions—if one of them produces (say) more fruit but at the cost of catching fewer deer, would it have been obvious whether it was a win?
One person to show that it is possible to co-operate with animals, and train them to follow you around for food; and the rest of people to not murder him for his tasty friends.
Once you have some agriculture; you can have more—spread out into other species of animal and plant—then you settle down. Once you have monoculture you need some kind of trading system between farming groups. When someone gets wise about bartering or inventing a representative currency you start to get civilisation… Or when someone “offers” to pick up a sword so others can keep farming...
Can one innovator really show that it works better? Especially back before agriculture got started, and hence before we started breeding plants that were well adapted to human needs. E.g., a lot of agriculture now is based on wheat, but wheat was a much less effective food plant before human intervention.
Almost by definition, “more complicated culture and a structured society” isn’t a thing one person can try out on their own and demonstrate the superiority of. Probably some individual interventions along the path are, but I don’t think we know that “pre-colonial indigenous people” didn’t try any of them. (Do we?) And even those individual interventions—if one of them produces (say) more fruit but at the cost of catching fewer deer, would it have been obvious whether it was a win?
One person to show that it is possible to co-operate with animals, and train them to follow you around for food; and the rest of people to not murder him for his tasty friends.
Once you have some agriculture; you can have more—spread out into other species of animal and plant—then you settle down. Once you have monoculture you need some kind of trading system between farming groups. When someone gets wise about bartering or inventing a representative currency you start to get civilisation… Or when someone “offers” to pick up a sword so others can keep farming...