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Originally Posted by OtinG
Before the development of writing, each generation had to pass down their learned knowledge verbally to the next generation. If they didn't, then technology and advancements would be lost, and sometimes that indeed happened. There was a lot of relearning things their ancestors learned centuries before but failed to pass along. Now to be clear, I'm talking about the "real" world, not some fantasy book world. Without literacy there is little capacity to archive knowledge, little capacity to administrate civilization, little capacity to track business transactions, et cetera. Basically speaking, without literacy humanity would likely return to hunter-gatherer mentality after several generations once they lost the knowledge of their ancestors, forgot how to succeed in agriculture and animal husbandry. Once they reached the point of no longer being able to read the literature of their ancestors, they would eventually reach the point of having to relearn long forgotten knowledge. The good news is, they would also lose the ability to make war on large scales, ad their ability to destroy the planet for all creatures would be decimated. So score that as a victory for Mother Earth.
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Not aware of any evidence of large scale reversion to hunter-gatherer societies, but there are a number of examples of reversion to cropping and animal husbandry - e.g.
Great Zimbabwe
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Not much is known about the people and the culture of Great Zimbabwe. This is due to the fact that they had no written language and the oral traditions have not survived.
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But the Romans had a written language, it's one of the foundations of the one I'm using now. Yet they failed to write down how they made concrete. It's only be rediscovered in the past couple of decades; the secrete [sic] ingredient -- 'fly ash', which they sourced from Mt Vesuvius. Which we could source from coal-fired power stations - oops
BR