>The Tasmanians were descended from Australian aborigines, and yet their
>technology level went down after they were isolated by rising seas.
>Their stone tools were far more primitive than those of their Australian
>ancestors. They ate shellfish, but didn't eat fish (they forgot how to
>do it). And yet they weren't brain damaged; they lost the knowledge of
>how to make better stone tools, and how to catch fish.
There are interesting things in Jared Diamond's latest book, Collapse, on this kind of thing, in particular the Greenland Norse, who retained boats, but didn't use them for fishing!
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