@NC-RetiredOkay. Let me try and phrase this in a slightly different way. Could you tell me what qualifications are needed to follow a charcoal line on a piece of wood with a simple saw? Accuracy is not that important as you are not creating a cog for a timepiece.
The Egyptian analogy was probably a bad one to start with as that requires the presence of thousands, where in this scenario you are looking at around twenty or so people (workers) max. A number easily looked over by one learned individual (in this case the time travelling protagonist) after an initial period of a week if more people can be gained, then the work force will grow with the existing workforce mentoring then new comers. Since it is simple manual labour of chopping down tree's and digging holes/collecting rocks, I don't see a need to mentor of more than a day. When technology advances to the level of say, a water powered saw mill, or water powered mill with two stones for the crushing of grain and stone, again, I don't see a mentoring time needed of more than a day.
It was their knowledge and intellect that allowed the construction to proceed at a timely pace. They're the ones that saw some portion could be more efficient if done a slightly different way. And then did it.
I agree full heartedly, in this case the knowledge comes from the time traveller and the 'locals' could well see a more efficient way of doing things in relation to the tech level they are used to and the tools they currently posses. After all, history has proved our very distant ancestors to be very good at improvisation.
Those thousands need to be at least minimally educated
Actually, they weren't. Most were non educated slaves. The only 'craftsmen' were the ones doing the painting and the stone carving.
One protagonist going back can educate a few and in turn they can educate more and in turn those dozens can educate more dozens and in turn the dozens educate many.
Full heartedly agree. One can easily train ten. Those ten can train ten each and on you go exponentially. Since the tasks are simple ones, like this how to fell a tree with a wedge, this is how you work a mill stone, these are all easily taught tasks within a day.
But how many will be injured as they learn the nuances of their tasks? How many uneducated are you willing to sacrifice?
That depends on the quality of the initial training and the dangerousness of the task. The fatality level and the amount the protagonist is willing to lose, is up to the writer and would be a good plot point carrying the story forward.
Ignorance and superstition have to be overcome in more primitive societies. How much of a speed bump will that be?
No idea, that would be up to the writer and how much of a plot point they wish to make it. It also depends on what time point the traveller is sent back to. If you were to use my example, it would be before the rise of Christianity and the Catholic church. I can't remember, but wasn't the church the main antagonist for a Baen series? Safehold or something by David Weber, I think it was. But it's not really an issue with pre Christianity as it was mostly singular shamans that were in control. Simply kill the Shaman and the religious problem basically goes away.
Then... let's not forget religious interference. Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo are just two of the more well known polymaths that were persecuted by religious zealots that could not let go of their dogma.
I touched on that in an earlier post.
Success will build on success. Willing participation will increase when people see the benefits. But that increased participation will not be 'snap the fingers' quick
Agreed, but given the time frame, quality of life was pretty terrible in those days and not much would be needed to attract people to your cause. Literarily regular food and a roof over your head was counted as the height of luxury in those days. Actually, now that I think about it, that state of affairs still exists for many people even in this day and age.
Pouring molten metal and have some catastrophe occur will start the rumors of witchcraft and evil no matter the previous successes.
Also agree. I purposefully never mentioned the dangers of overly moist moulds (made out of mud that's not properly dried) leading to steam explosions and subsequent molten metal everywhere for the sake of brevity. There is a famous saying "History is written by the winners" and it exists for a reason. Also, humans like to be led and are easily led. So there could be problems with 'withcraft'. History has shown that these rumours were normally fuelled by charismatic individuals. It's up to the writer whether the protagonist tries to get that individual onto their side or just kills them. Personally, these individuals are in that position because of the power it gives them (over the naive populace) and my personal preference, were I to be ever in that situation, is to kill them as quickly as possible with the excuse that the 'shaman' offended the god and was punished for it.
Mine cave ins. Coal dust explosions from the exposed flames of the lanterns. A bazillion different scenarios of failure abound.
Agreed, though one expects the protagonist to know that and act accordingly (since they already know about basic metallurgy).
How does our time traveler teach people to identify ore bearing rocks? How far away is the lode? Is there a road or trail? Are carts strong enough to carry away the ore?
No idea. That sounds like a good plot driver to me. Given the time-frame of my example, these would all need to be built. Romans gave the UK the gift of roads and since the time frame of the example is/was before the time of the Romans, the T-traveller would be the one to introduce the natives to the art of road building. Not that it would be too much hardship as they would use the detritus of the quarrying operations. Again the theory of road building is remarkably simple and the principle could be taught over a few days with experience gained 'on the job'. I don't know about now, but the history of the Romans and how they built roads was taught to all Primary school children when I was of that age. I don't what the USA equivalent of the UK primary school is. Elementary school? Basically it was taught to kids under ten years of age.
Yes, progress is possible at an accelerated rate from what we understand of our collective history but it will be at a pace that the locals of that time are able to absorb and deal with
Agreed. I, no doubt like you, have been on many training courses over the years and every course has individuals that just soak up the knowledge like a sponge and ones that are as porous as granite. Alas, I tended to be in the later group :( But as I have frequently mentioned, the level of technology and the learning required is not complicated, it's basically swinging axes and pick axes. I suppose one way to look at it, is WW2. In the UK, we ran out of working age men pretty quickly and had to resort to using unskilled and uneducated women to do many jobs they had previously never attempted from working farm machinery to working in ammunition factories. The change of jobs and the requirement to suddenly learn complex skills was pretty brutal for the time and the dangers of poor training and simple mistakes was also pretty brutal. Especially for the women who worked in the ammunition factories. Many of whom had never done anything so fastidiously technical before in their lives. They didn't have years to learn their new trades of milling and engineering. They had days. They also had a very good impetus in which to learn. This would obviously prove to be an issue when the war was over and many men returned to find their previously 'highly skilled' jobs taken over by cheaper paid women who had never spent the years of apprenticeship that they had.
my experience strongly suggests education and understanding of basic physical principles will speed the entire process, but there is no magic that will make it instantaneous or without physical injury to the many that are actually doing the tasks.
Again, you are looking at it from a position of modern technology and training requirements. Take another leaf out of the book of history. In WW2 if you wanted to fly a fighter plane, you said so and you were given a week or so of theory and stuck in a plane, no previous experience or knowledge required. Several of the UK fighter aces in the Battle of Britain, for instance, could not read nor write, but were still damn good at flying. Nowadays, if you want to fly a plane you have to learn so much and have several hundred hours of flying with an experienced pilot before you are allowed to fly solo. Much of what you have to learn, isn't actually required to fly a plane, but is required to satisfy all the rules and regs that are required these days. In fact, this is why developed countries lose so much industry to third world countries, because we require workers to be familiar with a myriad of rules and regulations that aren't particularly pertinent to the job at hand. It was not that long ago the UK happily sent children down the mines. The job didn't entail anything they couldn't easily grasp. These children were barely educated and not to far apart, education wise, from the average worker of 300AD.
Modern society is remarkably risk adverse and that is having a profound effect on how we do things, and also on the level of skill we think our distant ancestors required to do things.
I shall look at the links you have kindly provided, but I'm basing my opinion on my own life skills and experience of what is actually required to the tasks I have mentioned.