"before" What? Before humans? Life feeds on life. Everything that lives
does "damage" just to occupy space on the planet. Each species lives in
a symbiotic/competitive balance with all other species/individuals in
it's ecosystem. The point I was making is that these societies managed
to suport large populations SUSTAINABLY. This means that they could
live the same comfortable, enjoyable, and stable lifestyle, in the same
place, for thousands of generations, without destroying the
biodiversity of the ecosystem they depend on. Humans have lived all
over the world in thousands of sustainable (tribal)cultural
adaptations, for the past three million+ years. It is only one culture
of unsustainable totalitarian agriculture that has spred across the
world in the last ten thousand years, that is destroying all cultural
and bio-diversity.