WI the last Ice Age never ended?

NapoleonXIV

Banned
Would we still be wearing bearskins and hunting mammoths? Or would we have resort cities on the glaciers by now?
 
During the last Ice Age the equatorial regions enjoyed nice temperate climates. I would expect that region to be the cradle of civilization.

Actually I believe it's highly probable that there were well developed human settlements in those regions in OTL. It's just that the melting ice and rising sea levels destroyed what's left. What's today's South China Sea for example would have been dry land then. Even if they built on higher altitudes, if their architecture was made from wood nothing would be left after 10,000+ years.
 
Smaller inhabitable area means fewer people. And that means fewer ideas. I'd expect broze age, maybe iron age civilization around the fertile rivers of Sahara. Southern India and Indonesia would be the runners-up.

Tribal barbarian peoples to the north trading fur, fish and ivory to the empires. A few easiliy fertile and farmable places in the southern heimisphere, but probably smaller than the northern ones.
 
I believe this is the premise for Tony Jones' WolfWorld - basically, spaient wolves co-exist with humanity. Though "co-exist" might be a bit of a stretch...
 
During the last Ice Age the equatorial regions enjoyed nice temperate climates. I would expect that region to be the cradle of civilization.

That's actually not quite correct. The equator did have more of a savannah climate, with only pockets of small rainforests surviving. The overall climate was dryer than today, due to the bulk of water being locked up in glaciers. OTOH, many areas which are today desert areas (the Sahara, much of Australia, also the American Southwest) were drastically much more humid than they are today. And then of course, large swathes of land (Scandinavia, Canada, the Alps, and the very south of Argentina) were all covered in glaciers.

Actually I believe it's highly probable that there were well developed human settlements in those regions in OTL. It's just that the melting ice and rising sea levels destroyed what's left. What's today's South China Sea for example would have been dry land then. Even if they built on higher altitudes, if their architecture was made from wood nothing would be left after 10,000+ years.

There were settlements on the floor of the Black Sea, which were destroyed when the Black Sea was reconnected with the Mediterranean around circa 5600 BC (that event, as you may know, may have been one of the bases for the many Deluge stories - however, similar events occured at the Strait of Hormouz, and in the Gulf of Carpentaria).
 
Would we still be wearing bearskins and hunting mammoths? Or would we have resort cities on the glaciers by now?
Most of us had already moved on away from bearskins and hunting by the time the ice age ended 10~12, 000 years ago.
Whe were pastoral/Nomadic Herds-keepers, Guiding/following our herds from Pasture to Pasture .
Weaving the Hair, whe gathered from the Herds into cloth, And turning the Milk from the herds into Cheese.
Whe were also gathering Grains, occasionally sowing some of the seeds into better locations around the pastures.

It was the Changing climate that allowed Us to move north into the fertile Valleys of mesopotamia, the Nile and the Yellow and Yanzee rivers.
The improving climate allowed more grain to grow, our journeys got smaller and smaller, till whe settled down.

No change in the Climate, whe remain those nomadic Herds-keepers.

Unless you believe the Ideas put forth in the Book -The Sixth Winter -
If you do
Then whe are Super Eskimos, finding our way across the Glaciers by our ESP, and communicating by telepathy.
 
That's actually not quite correct. The equator did have more of a savannah climate, with only pockets of small rainforests surviving. The overall climate was dryer than today, due to the bulk of water being locked up in glaciers. OTOH, many areas which are today desert areas (the Sahara, much of Australia, also the American Southwest) were drastically much more humid than they are today. And then of course, large swathes of land (Scandinavia, Canada, the Alps, and the very south of Argentina) were all covered in glaciers.

There's one report I read which says the Amazon rain forrest was 5-6 degrees cooler but just as moist and densely forrested.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/274/5284/35

What is now the South China Sea was also forrested. Most likely the planet was drier, but there were areas where it was temperate, even wet. Rainforrests still existed, though there were less of it.

http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/nerc.html
 
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