>
>In literature about the hunter/gatherer population in Europe  an area of 10
>square km of good woodlands was computed to be necessary.
>Assuming the most productive land and optimal hunting, fishing and
gathering
>techniques and a long term sustainable exploitation.
>In my book is a computation for S/W Germany, a space where some 20 million
>people live today.
>Maximum 5000 mesolithic hunters/gatherers could have live there.


The 2 life styles are not comparable , because one proved itself to be able
to sustain peoples in a very long term
while the other one is unsustainable if we look at the loss of topsoil , the
degenerative diseases, the disparitions of species ( impoverishment in
biodiversity) and the extension of deserts ...

We made that life style last for a little while  just because of the
constant increase in the ability to exploite the natural resources in a more
and more efficient way.  At one point the limitations  of this process will
show themselves!
)How many of those 20 million peoples will be able to maintain their life
style and for how long?

You also forget something essential in your comparaison. It is , that the
energy necessary to maintain those 20 million peoples is not coming from the
space where they live but is,  for the most part , stolen from somewhere
else .
how much food is produced by south west germany ? where do the fertilisers,
necessary to compensate the lost of fertility caused by agriculture ,come
from ? How many species  of animals and plants or hunter -gatherers  had  to
disappear to allow this overpopulation of civilised human  and domesticated
animals and plants?  How many whole ecosystems  had to disappear to be able
to sustain their "need"   for consumerism, ( like the temperate and tropical
rain  forests  to produce paper wood and new agricultural land to feed the
domestic animals of Europe ) ?
South west germany is not sustaining thoses 20 millions peoples , it is
sheltering them from seeing the rest of the world,

jean-claude
.