From January 12, 2022: again, pulling something out of an earlier version of this weblog's multi-subject posts so that I will be able to find it again more easily in the future...
2 quibbles - 1- there was a great deal of undeveloped land, so I'm rather doubtful that the pause was quite as slow, simply being able to gather one's own wood was a technological boost. Otherwise, your narrative emulates Adam Smith, (Lectures) who called the regime "Allodial"
2 - much more serious, the Chinese Census stood above 50 million, just before BC, so I think India had some folks, Why couldn't zero been 500 million?
Well, Fernand Braudel always saw Chiina as between 1/4 and 1/5 of humanity.... But basically we are guessing, not counting, keying off of what we think we know about agricultural productivity, settled areas, number and areas of cities, guesses at urban population density, and guesses at urbanization rates...
I used Maddison's numbers fifteen years ago. It's about time for a new estimate. I've looked into it, there is little change in the numbers, though recent estimates are built mostly on birth rates. "Verhulst Equation and the Universal Pattern for the Global Population Growth" Agata Angelika Sojecka and Aleksandra Drozd-Rzoska, have extremely rapid increase in the birth rate from -100 - +500, then a dropoff and speeding up but only reaching the Roman Empire rate in 1500. And, the conventional crashing birth rate after 1965.
2 quibbles - 1- there was a great deal of undeveloped land, so I'm rather doubtful that the pause was quite as slow, simply being able to gather one's own wood was a technological boost. Otherwise, your narrative emulates Adam Smith, (Lectures) who called the regime "Allodial"
2 - much more serious, the Chinese Census stood above 50 million, just before BC, so I think India had some folks, Why couldn't zero been 500 million?
Well, Fernand Braudel always saw Chiina as between 1/4 and 1/5 of humanity.... But basically we are guessing, not counting, keying off of what we think we know about agricultural productivity, settled areas, number and areas of cities, guesses at urban population density, and guesses at urbanization rates...
I used Maddison's numbers fifteen years ago. It's about time for a new estimate. I've looked into it, there is little change in the numbers, though recent estimates are built mostly on birth rates. "Verhulst Equation and the Universal Pattern for the Global Population Growth" Agata Angelika Sojecka and Aleksandra Drozd-Rzoska, have extremely rapid increase in the birth rate from -100 - +500, then a dropoff and speeding up but only reaching the Roman Empire rate in 1500. And, the conventional crashing birth rate after 1965.