Type 1 Societies

Type-1 societies are marked by the use of tools and/or language, albeit usually in a limited form. Other than this, they remain indistinguishable from animals.

A wild dolphin carrying a sponge to use for foraging. (photograph by Ewa Krzyszczyk)

Footprint: Undetectable (may be territorial or migratory).

Sustainable Population: Clusters usually measured in single digits.

Government: Alpha.

Bureaucracy: None.

Language: Extremely limited; simple concrete concepts only.

Literacy: None.

Network: Vocalizations, pheromone traces, visual display.

Religion: Minimal, no distinction between memory and myth.

Science: None.

Medicine: None organized, though nurturing behaviour will be present.

Education: Parent-to-child.

Energy: All controllable energy will stem from an individual's own muscles.

Industry: None (tools are found objects).

Military: None.

Economy: None (individual trade --little sense of relative value).

Food: Individual foraging.

Travel: Self-powered.

Spaceflight: None.

Alien contact: None (aliens will be readily accepted as just another animal). This society is undetectable except by direct observation (it leaves no archaeological evidence, and does not alter its environment in any appreciable way).

A Night Fury using a tool to draw. (How to Train Your Dragon, DreamWorks, 2010)

Examples (reality): dolphins, octopodes, gorillas, ants, bees.
Examples (fiction): Night Furies, velociraptors, Kwi, snarfs (2011), kaiju, inhabitants of the Pride Lands, rabbits of Watership Down.