Average Lifespan of an Ancient Civilization? 336 Years

I saw an interesting article from the BBC where the author had attempted to calculate the average lifespan of an ancient civilization.

The article is here: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-the-lifespans-of-ancient-civili...

A more detailed discussion is here: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20190218-are-we-on-the-road-to-civilisat.... It includes a discussion of Toynbee, Tainter, and EROEI.

If I understand the author's definition correctly, the United States' clock apparently would have started in 1789, with both military dominance and a continuous political structure under the Constitution.

Blueberry's picture

About the same time that humans started to have a nice big carbon foot print. The use of coal in the UK an America was starting to heat things up then oil. Gails latest post say we hit peak coal and oil in Oct Nov 2018. Enjoy what is soon to end, time to really work on being a Green Wizard.