A Rough Cut on Human Population Counts from 4000 BCE to 1 BCE

Conversation Side Conversation
1

I went to one of the more comprehensive sites for estimating ancient population sizes.


.
.
And:
https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201634#Sec7

image
image1038×720 162 KB

I don’t think having an exact headcount is all that meaningful, but it is helpful to have a general idea of the orders of magnitude of global population numbers during the time of Sumerian civilization, through the collapse of the Bronze Era and finally to a time when the Roman Empire was heading into some of its most prosperous years.

Add on comments, themes and ideas are welcome on this thread!

2 Likes
2

Using data from other sources, I have made some rough interpolations between eons, have added estimates on number of urban centers, with estimates of percent of population in urban centers:

https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata201634

[CLICK ON IMAGE TO SEE YEARS UP TO 1 BCE.]

image
image624×1573 80.4 KB

.
.
.
.

This is the same data, but in a copy/paste format.

TIME Est.Pop. % Est.Urban Ctrs Est.Urb.Pop

BC_3700 . 32,527k NA 10 6,000
BC_3500 . 36,527k 12% 34,000
BC_3300 . 40,527k 11% 70,000
BC_3000 . 45,000k 11% 100,000
BC_2800 . 48,500k 8% 24 308,000
BC_2500 . 52,000k 7% 32 510,000
BC_2400 . 56,000k 8% 34 510,000
BC_2300 . 60,000k 7% 34 540,000
BC_2200 . 64,000k 7% 27 370,000
BC_2100 . 68,000k 6% 27 415,000
BC_2000 . 72,000k 6% 29 380,000
BC_1900 . 76,000k 6% 25 266,000
BC_1800 . 80,000k 5% 32 407,000
BC_1700 . 84,000k 5% 22 231,000
BC_1600 . 88,000k 5% 22 279,000
BC_1500 . 92,000k 5% 17 170,000
BC_1400 . 96,000k 4% 22 292,000
BC_1300 100,000k 4% 26 570,000
BC_1200 104,000k 4% 29 965,000
BC_1100 110,000k 6% 17 437,000
BC_1000 115,000k 5% 18 407,000
BC_.900 119,000k 3% 16 600,000
BC_.800 123,000k 3% 16 650,000
BC_.700 127,000k 3% 18 840,000
BC_.600 134,000k 6% 17 900,000
BC_.500 144,000k 7% 26 1,900,000
BC_.400 154,000k 7% 30 2,600,000
BC_.300 162,000k 5% 33 4,150,000
BC_.200 170,000k 5% 26 2,910,000
BC_.100 178,000k 5% 27 3,675,000
. BCE_1 188,000k 6% 30 4,440,000

1 Like
3

Lots of Genealogical Adams.

1 Like
4

@patrick

Lots of Universal Common Ancestral Pairings…
Only ONE Adam and Eve.