For a little over ten years now I have been working on a proposed standard model for human based on technology cycles at its core. I have posted it on my website in the form of a think piece. If you are interested I provide this link if you would care to review it:http://lboeckl.net/modelAny reasoned criticism would be very welcome. Cheers and have a great weekend. Thanks, Leo.

From a Geographer's viewpoint I agree that technology is one of the leading stimuli that predicates drastic changes in human evolution.  I think there is no disputing this, however, as a historian, I must include the intangibles of cultural anomalies such as religion, climate, topography, and social interaction with neighboring peoples either similar or very dissimilar to each other.  Obviously social interaction creates and transfers technology, which in turn affects population development.  Economics (survival) necessitates the use of innovative technologies, but not so much if it weren't for two things: 1) scarcity of resources and 2) competition for said resources.  However, technology does not increase exponentially until scarcity is reduced to at least an easily manageable level.  So technology does not "cycle" it expands as populations can spend more time doing things other than "surviving."