If a fit young man and woman were placed on a fertile island with no tools or structures?

Question

Do you think they would be able to start civilisation again from the beginning. Assuming they were educated and resourcefull, how do you think they would go about it?

Answer 1

If a fit young man and fit young women.  She too would  need to be fit to sustain the fertile island and of course the fit young man!  Oh yes!  Back to the question.  Fit young man fertile women... Oh excuse me! I mean fertile island with no tools or structure.  Hmmm... the Blue Lagoon.  For those of you to young to remember the 1980's teen throb romantic movie Blue lagoon,  with Brook Shields and Christopher Atkins,  I recommend getting your hands on it and curling up with some popcorn. but to make romantic movie short I envision the birth of squalling tyke about nine to eighteen months later,that is if hurricane,  tsunami,  unfamiliar island diseases,  natives,  wild animals,  or just plain lack of wilderness survival skills, do not find our fit young man and his ladie non existent!

Answer 2

No, there would never be a large enough population, no metals: they would be like the Pacific or Easter Islanders; strictly stone age, they would have no need for writing, although they may have a culture, it could not be described as civilisation, as we understand the term.

Answer 3

If they built a boat and were able to sail to a continent, then their chances of re-populating the earth would be better.

I mean, the cities would still be there...

Answer 4

The bigger question is, would they have any reason to? It's just the two of them, and their children. Where's the need for complex social superstructures dictating law and order? I don't think there is one, at least not until the kids start inbreeding and you eventually get a whole mess of people.

Answer 5

The answer is yes, the couple is healthy and intelligent - they would make the tools and structures needed. The island has water and food sources (fish, fruits and animals), wood and vines (for rope).

They would need to build and maintain fire for boiling water and cooking food. A strong secure housing would be built. medicinal plants and herbs would be found to treat ailments. A garden would be planted. Tools made would include fishing equiptment, animal traps, spears, bows and arrows, wheels and wagons built etc. There would be hunting, fishing, farming, and raising livestock.

This couple being smart would organize and follow a successful survival routine THEN produce children. They would raise the children and impart the knowledge that they need to survive. These intelligent (home-schooled) children would be able to carry on the species.

Focused, resourceful, energetic and persistent people will create ways to get things done - nature likes to favorably help these sorts of people out in many ways (maybe circumventing the gene pool situation).

P.S. I volunteer for the assignment, check back in a 100 years and you'll find a thriving community of people doing well enough.

Answer 6

Yes because the root of civilization is the societys "structure"...which is in turn determined by a set of values and knowledge which is passed on with language and writing.



Hopefully this young couple would "forget" to include the words:

Hate

War

Racism

and more

when teaching their children.

Answer 7

If incest was committed to perpetuate the species then after a few generations deletarious alles would surface and soon kill off all the progeny.  Just a single male and female on the island would not be viable to continue the human species.

Answer 8

Well, assuming they could reproduce, it would be a very limited gene pool and interbreeding of the same family would obviously be necessary.  This makes one wonder what complications this would cause and how soon and would the effect have a negative impact on any developing culture or "civilization".  I think so, but I am no expert.

They would originally insure the basics of food, shelter, etc. and then, if that was successful, they would add luxuries, develop art, some magical belief system, probably to control, but also for comfort, particular to their environment and background.  You say educated so I assume you mean from an advanced culture and that they could already read and write some language; if so, they would educate their young when they reproduced.  Of course, if they were from some advanced culture they would probably replicate a lot of that, so they wouldn't really be "starting" a civilization, but continuing one.

Setting aside the Adam and Eve myth, and others like it,  it seems obvious that most cultures and/or civilizations developed from a broad and expanding gene pool; so my answer is that they could develop something, as humans always seem to, but I don't think it would be lasting.

Answer 9

This sounds weird, but the first thing I thought of when trying to explain my answer to this question in the Asiatic Lion.  See, not too long ago, the species dwindled down to only a few mating couples.  Now their number is on the rise, nearly 300 or so.  The problem with the Asiatic Lion is that since all of the members of the species that are now alive are descendant from such a small selection of mating couples, that now if you were to analyze their DNA, they would all appear to be twins.  This results in a lot of inbreeding.  The main problem with inbreeding is that it results in sperm mutation.  These lions are not able to save their species, even with the help of modern science.

Therefore, my conclusion is that a large population could not stem from one single mating pair of a species.

I could have said more, but eh.  Vote for me!!!!

Answer 10

The belief that inbreeding leads to resurfacing recessive

genetic alleles that kill or deform all of the offspring after

a certain number of generations is a myth that was created

by theocrats.

Not just any island will be sufficient to rebuild civilization.

There must be sufficient natural resources, such as food

plants and/or food animals, flint (for making primitive cutting

tools), clay (for making pottery), trees with good wood

(for making versatile wood products), and metal ore.