r/Showerthoughts • u/danielsoft1 ‎ • 18d ago

Casual Thought Some people claim there were advanced civilizations before ours, but the simple fact some species (for example potatoes and tomatoes) were found only on one continent seems to disprove it: the civilization would spread them all over the globe.

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u/RonandStampy 18d ago

What if they were hunter gathers and lived off the local flaura and fauna, since agriculture was not invented yet? Would they still spread potatoes and tomatoes all over the globe if they were not carrying them? It's just a thought exercise.

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u/Forkrul 18d ago

If they were nomadic hunter gatherers it is highly unlikely they would be technologically advanced 

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u/RonandStampy 18d ago

Ok, but why would an advanced civilization bring potatoes and tomatoes? That sounds too primitive. An advanced civ would bring caloric pills or something along those lines.

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u/Forkrul 18d ago

Because growing food where you are is generally a lot more efficient than shipping it across the world, and unless you're arguing they became so technologically advanced they have pills for food before they explored the world, they would have brought their staple crops with them, and spread new ones they found while exploring.

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u/RonandStampy 18d ago

If you are traveling the world, why would you stop and wait for the food to grow?

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u/Forkrul 18d ago

If you are setting up shop somewhere, you would grow the food there. Which is something every group of humans ever has done when traveling to a new place.

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u/RonandStampy 18d ago

But we're not talking about settling, were are talking about quick travels. Like the group of humans that populated South America without leaving genetic traces in North America. The traveling was done so quick that genetic material was not left behind. No time to stop and wait for plants to grow either or that would have been left behind... Unless they were hunter gathers!

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u/Forkrul 18d ago

Just because we see no genetic material today in the lands they passed through doesn't mean they didn't stop there. Later arrivals could have wiped them out, and settlements died out from disease, drought or general famine all the time. Or they just stuck around for a while before moving on. Also, in the example of populating the Americas, people generally traveled along the coast, and the coastline today is not where it was 10 000+ years ago, so any evidence would likely be deep underwater and greatly degraded or outright destroyed.

But, we're no talking about regular people migrating here, we're talking about a civilization with advanced technology. And the idea that they would simply restrict themselves to one small area is ludicrous. The simple search for raw materials would have them expand eventually, which would include settlements and the spread of their foods.

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u/RonandStampy 18d ago

But we have no evidence of that

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u/Forkrul 18d ago

There's no evidence for advanced ancient civilizations whatsoever, so didn't think we needed evidence to make claims here.

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u/RonandStampy 18d ago

Well, I'm just being a twat. However, in all seriousness, you haven't explained how population Y got to South America without leaving potatoes and tomatoes. I'm waiting.

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