What would you do if you dont have wood in your island?

[AlonsoBR]

that is the question..
no ship, no way to cook meat , no spear, so how a city can "grow up " in technology ?
please show ideas how to start a place from 0.

[Elros]

Stone Buildings

Cook Food with Dung

Bone Weapons to start out with, then anything else that doesn't require wood

Soon, I am sure, I trader will com through with wood, or you can ask him to bring some back.

[Solutions Maximus]

Well, it would really depend on the other resources available. You could kill animals and use dung as a fuel source. Stone could be used to build the fire-pits and some other cooking mechanisms. Bone or stone could be used for weapons, etc.

You learn to adapt with what you have.

(EDIT: Ah... Elros beat me to it. )

[SCUBA]

One of the three small original swedish islands does nor have wood. It tock looong time before it came there, but now it is no problem anymore. Also the closest "frontier" island to swedish islands is without wood. Here the problem looks bigger, but as maps are good and the problem is known, i guess that the sand also missing will be a bigger problem. Atleast if the island will ever flurish.

[sanchez]

No, he's right. Many tools, such as hammers, require wood. It's like the islands with no animals, or no string.. very hard to advance.

[the_antisocial_hermit]

Can't make stone buildings without wood. You'd have to have mud or something of that sort. I would have thought wood would be on every island (except maybe very small ones close to larger islands with wood) as it is such a base necessity, even if it was in the darkest, wildest reaches of the island.

[Solutions Maximus]

A small fire pit does not require any tools. A primitive smelting furnace could be made also. Mud huts, grass huts, etc., etc. There are numerous things you could still make.

[sanchez]

You can't crush hematite with your hands....

[Solutions Maximus]

You can't crush hematite with your hands....

Speak for yourself...

*chuckles* I know you can't, but eventually someone would come by with some wood. And, anyways, you really wouldn't need it. Bone weapons could do the job well enough as far as fighting goes. All you would really need is a way to get food and maybe some shelter. Leave the rest to RP.

[sanchez]

Bone spear needs wood... really, without it there's not much chance above subsistence. Digging food by hand is not much of a life. Every island should have some source of wood, or we should invent sea transport that does not require it.

[Solutions Maximus]

Agreed. I was merely just suggesting what could be done.

[CantrFreak]

I would love to be on an island without a vital resource. It'd be very interesting. Although, it'd be littered with lesser alternative resources for what would be considered primitive tech for other people. And maybe an elusive resource or two...

[sanchez]

Those exist. It is interesting to have steel and not string. It is not interesting to only be able to hunt with a bone club with no hope of leaving your island.

[mcclone]

You wait for pirates to invade, then, you steal their boat.

[Arlequin]

Or develop an isolated primitive society with a really twisted culture...