End of Prehistory

In this final chapter, I provide a brief macro overview of evidence of the relationship between the transition to agriculture and the emergence of states among all contemporary countries in the world, including countries and regions that never independently made a transition to either farming or states. I then recapitulate the major features and predictions of the Climate Pulse Model, provide additional hypotheses from the model that have not yet been tested, discuss criteria for corroborating and falsifying the predictions of the model, and offer potential areas for future research. Finally, I consider potential lessons of the CPM and the account in this book of the paleoeconomics of the last three million years, for the coming centuries and millennia of the Anthropocene. A general conclusion is that human resilience and adaptability to changing conditions are exceptional and that this capacity should be key for understanding adjustments to climate change in the centuries ahead.