HUMAN COLONY FORMATION 



would stand a better chance of survival. Our ancestors 

 living say 25,000 years ago, however, managed quite 

 well. They had none of the special equipment we 

 would find necessary today, nor were they, in terms of 

 their physical structure, substantially better fitted than 

 contemporary man for life in such an environment. At 

 present, for example, the Polar Eskimos live under ex- 

 ceedingly severe conditions in very small groups; at 

 times an individual even lives alone for a considerable 

 period of time. Individuals of southern Eskimo tribes, 

 physically not different from the northern variety, find 

 doing so far more difficult! 



What is the reason for this situation? Is it merely a 

 question of skills enabling the members of most prim- 

 itive cultures to live in a near wilderness, which be- 

 come lost as a culture advances? Or could it be that this 

 process is inevitable as the social integration of man 

 proceeds? Ability to live in unmodified nature appears 

 to become gradually lost as the degree of mutual inter- 

 dependence increases and as the ability of the colony 

 as a group to cope with the environment becomes 

 greater. This situation is again somewhat analogous to 

 what happens to cells in cell colonies which perish 

 when separated from the colony, while genuine 

 monocellular creatures are quit^ able to live individual 

 lives. The inability of the component members of 

 evolving organisms to get along on their own, conse- 

 quently becomes a causating factor making for the 



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