World System (-20000BC - 0BC) Temperature and Malthusian Controllers

 

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From the 0-2000 AD Data (below), we might predict that data from the BC period would (1) show little growth, (2) show no technological change, and (3) be controller by Malthusian dynamics. The problem is testing these hypotheses.

I have developed a WBC Model (see below) for the variables Population (N), Production (Q) and Global Temperature (T) using available data and a number of assumptions.

Notes

• World Population the total number of humans currently alive. It was estimated by the United Nations to have exceeded 8 billion (8,000,000,000) on November 15, 2022. It took around 300,000 years of human prehistory and history for the human population to reach a billion and only 218 more years from there to reach 8 billion. As of 2026, the world population is approximately 8.3 billion. However, this figure is only a very rough approximation
• World Production also known as gross world income (GWI), is the combined gross national income (previously, the "gross national product") of all the countries in the world. Because imports and exports balance exactly when considering the whole world, this also equals the total global gross domestic product (GDP).
• Global Temperature  the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. 
• AMOC Atlantic meridional overturning circulation is the main ocean current system in the Atlantic Ocean...Because the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) is dependent on a series of interactions between layers of ocean water of varying temperature and salinity, it is not static but experiences small, cyclical changes and larger, long-term shifts in response to external forcings. Many of those shifts occurred during the Late Pleistocene (126,000 to 11,700 years ago), which was the final geological epoch before the current Holocene. It also includes the Last Glacial Period, which is colloquially known as the "last ice age".
• Agricultural Civilizations The development of agriculture about 12,000 years ago changed the way humans lived. They switched from nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyles to permanent settlements and farming.
• Roman Warm Period or Roman Climatic Optimum, was a period of unusually-warm weather in Europe and the North Atlantic that ran from approximately 250 BC to AD 400.
• Roman Empire a state that dominated the Mediterranean and much of Europe, Western Asia, and North Africa during the classical period. 27 BC – AD 395 (unified), AD 395 – 476/480 (Western), AD 395–1453 (Eastern).
• Dark Ages a term, now deprecated by most historians, for the Early Middle Ages (c. 5th–10th centuries), or occasionally the entire Middle Ages (c. 5th–15th centuries), in Western Europe after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, which characterizes it as marked by economic, intellectual, and cultural decline.
• Middle Ages  (c. 5th–15th centuries) comparable with the post-classical period of global history. The medieval period is the middle epoch of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.
• Feudalism also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, religious, and political institutions and customs that flourished in medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of structuring society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.
• Capitalism  an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and its use for the purpose of obtaining profit. This socioeconomic system has developed historically in several stages and is defined by a number of constituent elements: private property, profit motive, capital accumulation, competitive markets, commodification, wage labor, and an emphasis on innovation and economic growth.
• Mesopotamia a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. It corresponds roughly to the territory of modern Iraq. Just beyond it lies southwestern Iran, where the region transitions into the Persian plateau, marking the shift from the Arab world to Iran.
• Grecian Empire Under the reign of Philip II (359–336 BC), the Argead kingdom of Macedonia, initially at the periphery of classical Greek affairs, came to dominate Ancient Greece in the span of less than 25 years, largely thanks to the character and policies of its king.

AD Data

From the graph of GDP above (W_Q) for the World System, it can be seen that economic growth from the year 0-1500 was basically flat. The period of British Capitalism (after 1500) had a small plateau of growth. Takeoff does not happen until the Nineteenth Century.

WBC Model Measurement Matrix

The WBC Model has three component state variables that explain 100% of the variation in the indicators: W1 =  (Growth), W2 = (Growth - Global TEMP) and W3 = (Q - N), that is (1) AN Overall Growth component, (2) a Global Temperature-Growth Controller and (3) a Malthusian Controller.

WBC AIC Statistics

WBC Global Temperature Input

WBC Global Temperature

WBC Model W3-TECH Input

WBC Model W3-TECH Shock Input

The first column of the graphic above is a Malthusian Shock (Q-T) and the second column is a TECH shock. A Malthusian shock initially decreases growth but eventually produces a recovery and decreases the TEMP Controller. A TECH shock increases growth but does not recover for an extended period of time.  A Malthusian shock decreases the TEMP Controller and a TECH Shock increases the Malthusian c\Controller.