Yes, especially once agriculture comes into play and people become sedentary they burn through a lot more wood then will naturally grow if not controlled by rules and laws
If you’ve ever had a bonfire imagine how much wood you went through, then imagine having to keep that fire going, at least at a smolder, all day long to heat your home and cook your food.
Te trick to cooking on a bonfire is to let it go out then spread out the hot coals. congrats now you’ve got a cooking fire! Toss your Dutch oven in and it’ll cook great
Maybe they were capable, but until the late middle ages there was no need for that much wood in Europe at least. Then the population was so big that you needed wood for everything. Building, coal and fire. In Europe at that time they almost cut down all forests and mostly replaced it with farmland. Later on they noticed they still need wood and plated back the forests.
The Romans in Egypt did not see that issue, when they built their ships from the trees there until all were gone. Which was also bad because now their very big wheat production was gone too since the climate changed without the trees and the desert took most of it.
Also Iceland was full of trees once but I think the Vikings cut them all down for ships.
When you compare the neolithic era to any of those mentioned you notice that the demand was not there. Why would you cut down a forest if don’t need the wood?
They actually weren’t and that’s also probably why we aren’t heading towards an ice age. Due to solar cycles the earth should’ve started cooling about 7,000 years ago but it didn’t and instead we entered the warmer holocene, perhaps due to mass deforestation and early agriculture releasing tons of CO2 and methane:
Did they have the manpower or industrial uses to even harvest forests non-sustainably?
Yes, especially once agriculture comes into play and people become sedentary they burn through a lot more wood then will naturally grow if not controlled by rules and laws
If you’ve ever had a bonfire imagine how much wood you went through, then imagine having to keep that fire going, at least at a smolder, all day long to heat your home and cook your food.
Te trick to cooking on a bonfire is to let it go out then spread out the hot coals. congrats now you’ve got a cooking fire! Toss your Dutch oven in and it’ll cook great
Maybe they were capable, but until the late middle ages there was no need for that much wood in Europe at least. Then the population was so big that you needed wood for everything. Building, coal and fire. In Europe at that time they almost cut down all forests and mostly replaced it with farmland. Later on they noticed they still need wood and plated back the forests.
The Romans in Egypt did not see that issue, when they built their ships from the trees there until all were gone. Which was also bad because now their very big wheat production was gone too since the climate changed without the trees and the desert took most of it.
Also Iceland was full of trees once but I think the Vikings cut them all down for ships.
When you compare the neolithic era to any of those mentioned you notice that the demand was not there. Why would you cut down a forest if don’t need the wood?
New study finds that Neolithic people were net zero on emissions
They had very few radiological incidents, and not a single nuclear meltdown in over 400, 000 years!
They also had zero microplastics or PFAS which was unprecedented at the time
They actually weren’t and that’s also probably why we aren’t heading towards an ice age. Due to solar cycles the earth should’ve started cooling about 7,000 years ago but it didn’t and instead we entered the warmer holocene, perhaps due to mass deforestation and early agriculture releasing tons of CO2 and methane:
https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf
So we should already be near ice age if it weren’t for them? Dammit, i really like cold…!
You might be familiar with the scale of their earthworks, think pyramids that people still visit in awe today?
people on the easter island had