Population Expansion?

Question

So lets say you have a man and woman who are the first of their kind, with no others around and they are hunter-gatherers.
They have 12 children.
The children are then divided into 4 groups, 1 male with 2 females, and are separated so 1 group lives to the northwest, 1 to the north east, 1 to the south, and 1 in the center.
Assuming each of these women have 14 kids they each, each set of kids needs a 5x5km area.

This is where my problem is... Because the children on the 3 not in the center can expand, but the 1 in the center can't.

These are all close family by our standards so I don't think they'd attack. My question is, would they attack and push the families further out, just travel out past them and claim land further out, or what?

Also, how many generations before family bonds break? I think once you get past the closest ancestor is the grandparents that people will start fighting, but I dunno.

I don't think any generation of children needs exactly a 5x5km area. In other words, I doubt that their parents set up a 5km square fence around the birthing chamber, forbidding "non-family" from treading on their land. More likely, all of the ancestry chains cohabitate and spread out in all directions simultaneously, hopefully mixing whatever genetic diversity they possess along the way. — Henry Taylor, Jul 30 '16 at 18:23
Are these the only people in the world? There's a lot of genetic problems with a group this small. — Erin Thursby, Jul 30 '16 at 18:24
Why do 14 kids need 25 square kilometres? The answers to this question suggest you can feed 25,000 people from that much land: http://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/9582/how-many-people-can-you-feed-per-square-kilometer-of-farmland — Mike Scott, Jul 30 '16 at 18:25
@ErinThursby I think that's clearly outside the scope of this question. — Ranger, Jul 30 '16 at 18:25
I fail to see any problem. People are not a cellular automata. The can just move. Politically, socially massive population expansion can be a problem (see Ireland prior to the famine) — James K, Jul 30 '16 at 18:26
@ErinThursby Only if the "god" that made Adam and Eve did so with flaws in their genome. — MichaelK, Jul 30 '16 at 18:26
@MikeScott using various farming techniques yes. I'm talking hunter-gatherers under the best conditions possible and this is the correct number.. slightly over, as it's 24, but 5x5 is easier to work with. — Durakken, Jul 30 '16 at 18:30
@Durakken If it's an Adam and Eve scenario then one of the kids (Cain) is an arable farmer. — Mike Scott, Jul 30 '16 at 18:32
@MikeScott v.v No... Adam and Eve just means they are the first of their kind and there are no others. Not that they will produce the same offspring or have the exact same conditions, like magical fruit. — Durakken, Jul 30 '16 at 18:35
5km isn't that far. Average human walking speed is 5km/h, so they can just walk through their neighbours' land in an hour. Unless they steal something as they are passing through, why would the neighbours care? — DrBob, Jul 30 '16 at 18:58

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 30 '16 at 20:34

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They won't break into groups like you describe. They will stick together, and only break when the population is quite bigger than that. This is how it works.

answered Jul 30 '16 at 20:34

Luís Henrique

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I read the article, Do you know of one that talks about tribals splits? When do tribes split? – Durakken Jul 30 '16 at 21:23
I am not going to be able to point to an article at this moment. As far as I remember from college, they normally don't split until the population is at least 50, though they usually split before it reaches 80. A group less than 25 seems to be not viable. This would be for the typical hunter-gatherer group; if they live in areas where food is plenty, they may stick together up to greater populations. – Luís Henrique Jul 30 '16 at 21:34
Do have any comment about this "Another excellent source is Tending The Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. California’s lushest landscape was able to support up to 1.5 people per square mile on the rich coast of the Santa Barbara channel, and 1 person per 12.5 sq. miles in the desert regions." quoted from this article http://www.thesurvivalistblog.net/how-much-land-does-it-take-to-be-self-reliant/ which contradicts yours? – Durakken Jul 30 '16 at 22:05
It seems to be more about how modern people would be able to live with no contact with main civilisation than about how people who had genuinely no access to such modernities like ceramics, agriculture, or metallurgy. But they could be right, of course. Anyway, the article I linked to mentions no geographical location, and I don't know if Santa Barbara channel is typical for its ability to sustain a hunter-gatherer population, or if is lush only when compared to the arid and semi-arid rest of California. I suppose it is still poor compared to the jungles in Central and South America. – Luís Henrique Jul 30 '16 at 22:33
The problem is that your article quotes 5 square km for a pop of 10 and that article says 24 square km for 14 under best conditions and 6+ times that under average native american conditions. My thinking is that something is wrong here because the larger number is assuming best conditions pretty much. Maybe it's my interpretation, maybe it's the data one is pulling from? I don't know. – Durakken Jul 30 '16 at 23:06
@Durakken Yes, I see what the problem is, and I don't know which article is correct. But anyway, the important thing in the persquaremile article is that there is a strong incentive not to split: bigger bands need proportionally smaller areas (roughly, if your population grows by a factor of four, the are you need just doubles). So we need an explanation of why those bands split, and when. – Luís Henrique Jul 31 '16 at 10:35
One interesting hypothesis I read somewhere is that the growth of the band is limited by a linguistic factor, names for kinship relations. The group stays together as long as they know what to call each others (mother, son, brother, cousin, sister-in-law, grandson, etc). When the labels are no longer enough, they split. (I don't believe this, of course; we invent new words for new things, we don't change things for the lack of words. But it makes good material for fiction.) – Luís Henrique Jul 31 '16 at 10:40
From what I've read, groups are between 50 and 500 in size and 155 seem to be when humans start looking at people as "groups" rather than individuals according to a wiki article on the subject. I've also read that 300 is the split point which points to 150 too. – Durakken Jul 31 '16 at 11:10
There is also the problem of what are the "units" in a given system. Hunter-gatherers live in bands of 50 people... but a dozen of these bands treat each others as close relatives, intermarriage is the rule, and they don't mind walking into each others' "territory". We live in cities with millions of inhabitants, but our intimate group is a nuclear family of 4 or 5 that jealously hides behind walls and thinks of neighbours as non-entities or as potential enemies. – Luís Henrique Jul 31 '16 at 13:07
Any idea on why 50? It might be one of those things I might need to tweak, because these people live 3 times longer than humans do and since that is the case 50 is achieved in 1 generation. which causes problems when we're talking about these divides. – Durakken Jul 31 '16 at 15:47
I think I know what the issue is now... The link you gave presumes 1person can live on 1 square km in a hunter-gatherer civ. Do you know if this is supported anywhere? Cuz I don't see anywhere. – Durakken Jul 31 '16 at 18:17

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Aug 01 '16 at 14:22

First of all they will not move so close, if they will move then they will move 1–2 days of travel at least, so they will have good enough spaces between them. They are not villages, they have no reasons to be too close. What they need it good place, good from strategical reason of food gathering. And it can be different places, for winter, for summer, etc.

Second — they are not villages, they are hunter-gatherers. It means they move, from one place to other, they are mobile as system, and problem you mention is one of the reasons to be mobile.

They move for season events, let say spawning of fishes in rivers - it makes sense to go there catch and eat as much as they can or need. Or at leas make expeditions for that food (send some group).

For winter they (groups with common ancestors) could probably gather themselves at some place to form new families etc, blood exchange stuff, new tribes forming, in case they know how to preserve food for winter.

There could be other types of gathering together, makes easier to keep relations, solve problems.

Things are different for fisherman's and for places with indefinite summer.

Problem in general

Yes, this problem exists as a problem. It exists not only for hunter-gatherers, it exists even for galaxy confederation, because of exponential growth rate.

As for question: how many generation needed to forget about common blood — answer is 0. At any moment there can be some objection, strong enough to subjectively justify any actions against any human or group. Which might lead to split of group, and separate one part from another. No matter what was a cause, both sides will have followers.

How often, or which typical (average) values it was, can't say. Great-grandfather branch is far enough to not care too much, but still good enough to remember about common blood.

What is more important, share common rites, style, attributes, language — when they are advanced enough to have them. This helps to have big tribe from smaller groups, and solve problems without attacking, even not knowing or remembering common ancestors. They could solve and plan things on winter camp, and they can exchange information and plans during occasional meetings, where their CEO's will decide their strategy for this season nomadism, for next month's, weeks etc.

So problems are solved not because of relations, they are solved by dux, by his decision, and it might nullify good portion of that common blood stuff feelings, depend how good he is as leader, how good his decision are justified for other members, how good his decisions were before, how much trust he have (it they are capable to remember stuff from previous year as example) — there begins our usual human mess:

- Do you remember how they stole our precious snail shell previous summer?
- Yes Yes ...
- So they will do it again.
Who are we, Who are we!! Snail tribe, powerful, great, chosen by goods ..
....
- Yes Yes, kill them all, wuaaauauaua

In solving such problems, begins our social development, and there are sea's of fun.

Problem with question is there are different approaches which was and are used to solve such problems, and they depend on level of social development of those hunter-gatherers. Less or more bloody they where solved, as we know, it's a fact of our existence. But some didn't solved that puzzle, Homo neanderthalensis.

Any backing for this? "they will move 1-2 days of travel at least" or an average rather than an "at least"? — Durakken, Jul 31 '16 at 20:52
@Durakken not average, for average not enough data, and probably depends on terrain and situation. 1-2 days - number from head - reasons are, I would do that, if some one will come to me I will know they did that intended, James Fenimore Cooper stories, preppers, norms of current density of animals per hectare in forest keeping(something like 0.7-3 fox per 1000hectare), migration Eskimos of Western Chukotka and mongols (for them distances weeks - they have not rich land). So nothing special which I can point easy, and this distance is rather minimum then average, and more my opinion then fact. — MolbOrg, Jul 31 '16 at 21:58

Population Expansion?

2 Answers2

Problem in general