What if magic was real in prehistory? 

What do you think? Would the agricultural revolution happen if people have magic?

I keep the development of people a lot more consistent with how it is in our world by having my magic progress slowly. All early humans know is that certain materials can do weird things, but stone age humans did not figure out how to replicate these processes. This wouldn't happen until earlier civilizations formed and certain members of these societies took on roles similar to ancient Greek alchemists; they ran experiments, invented spells, etc which all lead to the development of refined magic systems. Since magic isn't used by everyone, there is also some need still for scientific innovations.

In the Elemental scenario they would cultivate the resources they need to consume for magic. Farming would just be different. You would cultivate the four elements to your greatest extent.

I like these ideas, they're well thought. My spelling was off, my apologies. It's a good argument for two distinct forms of magic, one reminds me of summoning from JRPGs, the other is mage-drug which is pretty uncommon but not unheard of, but you went further than that and extended outward to justify why certain things might be smaller, might be larger, might be faster or slower in development and might be missed entirely; which I quite enjoy. Thanks for your thoughts, longform.

Thinking about it this way opens up some truly unsettling and frightening implications... what if early cultures started out with all the same magical practices, but they actually *worked*...

Oh yes! Even as a child I was quite sure that Spirits inhabited everything, everywhere. Not sure why, just always have! You are quite an interesting person! I really enjoy your talks!!

Really glad I found this channel, this info/ideas you present here are all things I had banging around in my head that I wanted to solve for my prehistoric setting. Video is very info/idea dense but still very easy to parse.

Regarding agricultural revolution and population explosion. What if balance was a central tenet of belief? The spirits made it clear that the world (or the spirit world) enforces a balance, providing for need but not greed? What if the mesolithic peoples know from experience that if they let their numbers get too high, death will take the surplus and possibly more besides -- either from disease and starvation, or perhaps just bad luck, animal attacks, etc?). The people would discover some kind of birth control right quick. Perhaps divination will show an auspicious time to have a child, and children not born under spiritual blessings are considered unlucky?

What aspects were magic could definitely affect history one man can change the course of the war

Even with magic, guns would be usable. They are the Great Equalizer. In the real world, they allowed peasants to become soldiers with just a few weeks training, while the sword or bow required several months or even years of training. Magic would either need a lot of experience to efficiently wield as a weapon or be a tightly guarded secret onyl the powerful and holy have access to. Guns would re-balance the battlefield. My culture has achieved the digital age a lot faster thanks to magic, without ever going through the steam, diesel and atomic age. Virtual Reality is only possible because the spirit/astral realm is real, with deep dive VR technology being just technologically enhanced meditation. The primary magic form in my world is Qi/Internal Energy based, with some minor assist from spirits. Spirits don't really have much power in the physical realm. The people were hunter/gatherers for an extended time since their Qi magic made them better hunters through physical enhancement (more stamina, more strength, more speed). Agricultural and pastural settlements really only became a thing due to direct divine meddling (The gods didn't intend for agriculture or pasturals, they just messed up and couldn't be bothered to undo their mistakes).

Ok, unos cuántos pensamientos: I. Sé que oyes mis pensamientos: Miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau, miau. II. Creo que con un sistema mágico de sacrificios podría dar cómo resultado, en un futuro, que se creen bebes en úteros artificiales para tener sacrificios infinitos o, también, podría hacerse un único sacrificio para exigir que ya no sean necesarios los sacrificios. III. Creo que el hecho de tener agua y comida gratis en cantidades industriales podría favorecer a todos, digo, solo tendríamos que cubrir cada centímetro de suelo tierra adentro con árboles frutales y hacer rituales para que llueva. IV. Coincido en que habría avances que llegarían antes en un mundo mágico, pero creo que los avances sociales llegarían a la misma velocidad, es decir, que, si bien, tendríamos bronce (cómo los helenos) todavía seríamos una sociedad que solo realiza actividades que necesita y poco más, en vez de sentarse a crear historias y experimentar. V. Veo difícil que lleguemos a un siglo XXI D.C cómo lo conocemos (lo digo por experiencia propia, demasiados papeles llenos de líneas de tiempo alternativas), por lo que sugiero que la historia, y sus secuelas, deben centrarse en cómo es el mundo y cómo este va cambiando, mas nunca avanza en la misma dirección que el nuestro. VI. Creo que la magia en una historia no solo debe estar integrada en el mundo, sino que también debe ser algo a lo cuál se le pueda contrarrestar con las armas de la época (algo así cómo para "Avatar: La leyenda de Aang" el sistema de verdaderas artes marciales para controlar los elementos calza bien en un mundo medieval, pero no necesariamente europeo), de esa forma nadie está over powered y todos tienen oportunidad de brillar (en lugar de que solo brille uno y que el resto sean unos inútiles que solo repiten "estoy ayudando" cómo si fuesen loros) creo que algo cómo la fuerza de un gorila o ser tan rápido cómo un guepardo podría ser útil, aunque un sistema de magia que te permita controlar animales también serviría (algo así cómo pokémon, pero sin que estos besen el suelo que pisas y pudiendo hacer cosas por su cuenta, además de solo valerse de su fuerza o su velocidad, en vez de poderes sobrenaturales).

The cost of abusing magic might even produce a kind of early exhaustion of the *people* who are able to share their knowledge about magic, or to actually participate in the magical rituals and responsibilities. Nomadic life isn't as taxing as we tend to imagine it, but humans have a tendency to ride right up against their means, living to the full extent of the capacity of their resources. it takes generations and eons to learn, culturally, the necessity of preservative traditions and restorative stewardship of the land, and the technology of industry can completely disrupt and eclipse those conventions very easily. i am rambling though

How does your elemental consumption system lead to earlier fire control though? You need to inhale smoke from a specific type of wood, for which you need fire to begin with. Then you have to to discover that when you build your campfire with a certain kind of wood it has that effect, which I imagine would take a while (and only happens at all if you live in an area where that tree grows at all). Overall a very interesting video, this is a topic I have thought a lot about, I'm building a fantasy world from the stone age while taking my own magic systems into account.

An important consideration I think you might’ve missed is… what if the animals have magic too? Think that could be a good followup.

These are some cool ideas. Thanks for sharing them.

So an interesting effect of your elemental magic consumption (or really any elemental magic system) is that it would radically change the progression of your technological path. For instance why would you develop pottery as a technology when you can simply shape stone in all of the same forms, even assuming you can't turn iron ore into iron and steel via earth magic fire magic would let you make a simple campfire hot enough to smelt the far more abundant and more readily available sources of iron without mucking about will all of the trouble of mining and engaging in trade routes for tin and skip that whole bronze step in metallurgy entirely. But more importantly you wouldn't need anywhere near the infrastructure to preform industrial processes, so a group of hunter-gatherers could produce goods in a temporary camp that should require a permanent settlement to mine ore make charcoal smelt iron and produce all of the tools necessary to do all of these tools to do so before finally making finished iron or steel goods. So instead of a huge amount of industry and the attached merchant class to make all of this happen you need one earth mage and one fire mage or one earth/fire mage to simply extract and purify the ore and then to smelt that ore and then to finally shape that ore (which presumably that first earth mage could do).

I care about more about the first cavemen that killed a fire-breathing dragon with only wooden sticks and rocks. There is no way a caveman could live in anime fantasy filled with monsters. Unless monsters came after the first human army was built. Of course, humans are stronger in anime. Fast healing, strength of a hundred earthling, high IQ, and so on. Just imagine the first holy weapon was a sliver rock on a stick and a caveman clubbing the Demonlord to death with it.

So, we just worldbuilt Avatar: the Last Airbender?

Whatever the what if scenario, there will never be Humanity without war, and all it’s evil’s, because it’s inherent to our nature.

Considering the fact that we still have hunter-gather societies today (despite capitalism's best efforts), I think the two magic systems you developed here would make the agricultural revolution even more drawn out than it was historically, in so far as even fewer places would find agriculture useful until populations became much larger. A good reference book on prehistory (written by an archeologist and an anthropologist) is "The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity". They deal with topics such as the barter myth, how the agricultural revolution didn't happen everywhere because it wasn't useful in all environments, and how hunter-gatherers had much more complex economics and governments than we often give them credit for. Another good book (though poorly written) is "The Civilization of Perpetual Motion", which talks about how nomadism and statelessness are still in existence today because they are still the best ways to use some environments for optimal productivity. Another thing to keep in mind is that our ancestors were highly cooperative before they were even human, and that the first tools that facilitated even more cooperation were likely sticks and stones, not fire. Archaeologists often glorify stone tool use because it shows up easier in the fossil record and it shows off humans as hunters, but diet studies have shown that just as important was the digging stick, which allowed us to harvest hidden roots, tubers, animal nests, and club to death smaller animals. Fire was important, but our first tool revolution were sticks and stones. And this brings me to my last point of interest: What is the criteria that allows for the discovery and use of magic? Since our Australopithecine ancestors were probably using sticks and stones and our oldest hominin ancestor (Homo habilis) was definitely using sticks and stones as tools, and Homo erectus is generally accepted to be the first human species to control fire, at what point does magic become controllable for a species? Is it a high degree of cooperation, and if so, are there other animal species that meet the "criteria of cooperation" to have discovered magic (like other primate species (chimps, bonobos), elephants, whales, corvids, and parrots? What about ants, bees, and termites?)? Is it the ability to use tools to modify one's environment, a sort "criteria of tool use" (In which case almost all birds who must learn how to build nests or use tools to find food, tool using dolphins, beavers, prairie dogs, several primate species (including all the great apes), etc. may need to be considered as potential magic users (Also, several species of of so-called "fire-hawks" in Australia!).)? Or is the intentional ingestion of non-food edible materials (like purgatives or hallucinogens) mean that most animals have a chance at wielding magic, but they must also cultivate some sort of "criteria of intent" in order to use it (In which case, I look forward to element-using crows in a city near me!)? As someone trained in animal cognition and behavior, I love playing with ideas of other animals as magic users and how that would affect ecologies and human-animal interactions!

In 11:45. The first case, where you have spirits helping, will lead to growing population (you have all food you need, no cultural reason_ like contemporary feminist ideology and urban lifestyle contingencies_ to not have children: so, baby boom). Eventually spirits will not find you preys, because there is just no more animals to hunt. Unless the spirits can produce an infinite supply of animals, perhaps open the doors to infinite parallel Universes. Or unless the spirits keep human population from growing, somehow. In the second case, the dietetic one, my impression is that you just have magical agriculture. Is not that you didn't had Agricultural Revolution. You made your Agricultural Revolution faster, and better, using magic. For all practical purposes that is a Agricultural Society.

I would love to play rpg with you