cubefox comments on Ten Thousand Years of Solitude

[cubefox]

For those who wondered about relative population size:

When the Europeans arrived, the aboriginal population of Australia was at least 300,000 and perhaps as large as one million, while that of Tasmania was only about 5,000. More people tends to mean more potential inventors and hence more inventions. In addition, Australia had hundreds of tribes, Tasmania only about nine. This is significant because whether a useful new invention actually becomes adopted varies from group to group, depending on factors such as each group’s culture and receptivity to new ideas. So the chances of a new invention’s becoming adopted anywhere and being preserved were much higher in Australia than in Tasmania.