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I thought I read somewhere (maybe even on this board) that in the known history of mankind, what we've been "doing" is mostly warring with each other. I think the statistic was, out of the know history of mankind, we've only had 46 years of peace. It's amazing our species is still alive even.
Oddly enough, I believe there is a domino effect: once people started interacting more and competing for resources, technology advanced more rapidly. Combined with the shift from hunter-gatherer to agrarian economies also allowed for "advancement" - surplus food stocks allow specialization and sustenance of larger populations. War then, was a great catalyst for human achievement (in terms of science and technology).
Lastly, I believe the rise and spread of Christianity altered the landscape of mankind for good (in terms of its inluence on politics, war, language, art, music, economy, social, migration etc).
So, like you said, the first 100,000 or so years would look like a real gentle graded slope on a graph with the steep spikes occuring at the places I indicated above (ice-age recedes, migration - shift from hunter-gatherer to agrarian economies; Ancient civilizations or antiquities; then rise and spread of Chritianity, then Industrial Revolution). I think the last 2000 years probably can be considered explosive in growth and achievement as well as war etc.
I'm curious as to the next 1000 years, or even 10,000 ( I can't even begin to fathom that, wow!).
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