Hello Big Gav,

Thxs for responding.  Never been to Africa, just googling whatever info I can.  Everybody will be affected by Peakoil to some degree.  True, many Africans use none to very little detritus, but eventually they won't even be able to afford metal for hoes, shovels, or machetes.  The inevitable decline of complexity will reach every societal level.

Bob Shaw in Phx,AZ  Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

"True, many Africans use none to very little detritus, but eventually they won't even be able to afford metal for hoes, shovels, or machetes. "

Some of the people I'm thinking of are already at that level.

At the risk of boring everyone with my anecdotes this reminds me of a rafting trip I did down the Zambezi once. The river guides took along a small packet of fish hooks with them, which I vaguely assumed they intended to fish with.

It turns out they were actually for a trading - as you got out into the Zambian boondocks the locals never saw anything metallic - and a fishhook was considered a valuable item - so they'd trade quite a lot of their agricultural produce for a single hook (presumably they also traded for fishing line), which made some of the rafters very happy.