There is a body of research that concludes that innovation increases as populations grow. Research has also found that innovation can be lost when populations decline. This occurred when ancient sea levels isolated Tasmania from the Australian mainland. Archaeological evidence shows that this smaller population experienced a significant cultural devolution not seen in their more advanced Australian counterparts. A devolution that included the loss of fishing skills and the making of cold weather clothing.1, 2, 3
The number of domestic and foreign patents granted by the U.S. Patent Office in 2020 is more than triple the number of patents granted in 1990 (before the coming of the Internet).4 The Internet is creating a global village of 8 billion people.
If I have seen further, it is by standing upon the shoulders of giants.5
Sir Isaac Newton 1675
All people living today share a common ancestor who lived no less than 320,000 years ago.6 For an unimaginable quarter of a million years our ancestors lived in small hunter-gatherer groups in Africa and progress was muted. There was, however, a dramatic population expansion in Southern and Eastern Africa broadly dated between 80,000 and 60,000 years ago.7,8 The bow was invented over 77,000 years ago in Southern Africa.9 According to one very renowned researcher:
..it is reasonable to assume that the introduction of more effective hunting weapons would have substantially increased the efficiency and productivity of hunting activities and, therefore, the overall productivity of the food resources available to the human groups.10
Sir. Paul Mellars, Cambridge University, 2006
The initial awakening of the Upper Paleolithic culture came thousands of years after the Migration left Africa. We have it backwards. The Upper Paleolithic, in all of its glory, was not the engine that drove world-wide success. It was, instead, its beneficiary. A benefit derived from a larger population whose distant roots were in Southern and Eastern Africa.
The Upper Paleolithic had more shoulders to stand upon.