Earliest plausible Industrial Revolution?

[tom]

What is the earliest plausible Industrial Revolution starting from the appearance of Homo sapiens sapiens? First, when was that? The Toba Eruption bottleneck, perhaps? That would give us a history of about 75000 years. Or was it at the time of "Eve" c.200000 BC? Do we need an interglacial to start agriculture, or could the Cro-Magnon people have begun the process in the last Ice Age? If we need an interglacial, why did we not have agriculture in the previous one 125000 years ago? If we had to wait for the Holocene, how quickly could we have gone from first agriculture to steam engines (and then electronics, etc.)?

[Count Dearborn]

How about the "Old Kingdom" period of Egypt? There are those pictures on the tombs that look like the workers where using floresent lights?

Or you could have Leonardo da Vinci usher in the Industrial Revolution?

[Farnham]

I just finished reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. He claimed China was on the verge of an Industrial Revolution in the 13th or 14th century, but apparently cultural conservatism or something stopped this. He didn't go into detail.

[Psychomeltdown]

I just finished reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel. He claimed China was on the verge of an Industrial Revolution in the 13th or 14th century, but apparently cultural conservatism or something stopped this. He didn't go into detail.

Yes. I was reading that same thing. They were making cast iron and using almost the same processes that ushered in the industrial revolution for Europe way back then.

[DuQuense]

There is Evidence that the Minoans Had hand powered Factories. Some kind of a POD replacing the Hand power with Wind or Water.

[tom]

So you pretty much feel that agriculture had to wait till the Holocene, and Industry until historically recent times? Is that the consensus...it could not have happened 50000 BC?

[Hendryk]

Originally Posted by Psychomeltdown

Yes. I was reading that same thing. They were making cast iron and using almost the same processes that ushered in the industrial revolution for Europe way back then.

Indeed. The Song Dynasty (960-1279) was a period of technological breakthroughs in China, with such inventions as gunpowder, the printing press and the blast furnace coming in fast succession. By the 11th century, China's steel output was as high as Britain's in 1850. Add to that a thriving economy with high levels of agricultural surplus, a dynamic merchant class, widespread literacy (around 30% of the Chinese could read and write) and a stable political environment, and almost all the conditions were met for an early industrial revolution. So why didn't it happen? The short answer is: the dominant class at the time was the bureaucracy, which had no interest in change; and all the potential of Song China was destroyed by the invading Mongols.
One possible way to make technological innovation translate into industrialization might be to have the Empire become divided into several kingdoms, the way it had been under the late Zhou and after the fall of the Han. Political competition may have created a vested interest for innovation.

[Faeelin]

Umm.

Song China was part of a divided China.