DIORAMA

MINIATURIZATION is a natural enough choice, because if you make the animals & things as big as they are in real life, then they're just as bad as real life. The BOX, on the other hand, is not so obvious. It tends to develop later in a culture, requiring a series of insights and technological advances. Still, the idea of the box isn't outright counterintuitive. No, once you've got some kind of material PLANE-OBJECT going for you (say, a piece of paper), you're only a short step away from discovering the fourth of the Seventeen Simple Machines: the BAG. And, after all, the box is just a stiff bag, so all you need, there, is some kind of STIFFENING AGENT, or the discovery of substances that are already stiff, as with the material contained in trees. Still, sometimes, the miniaturization concept doesn't 'take', it doesn't 'catch on' – say, for example, if a culture puts a premium on the idea of mass. A people like that, they might become very conservative, they might think it's an insult to the bear to make a little doll out of it. So, if they want to make a bear, they simply have to get together enough moist sand, or rubber, or lint, or what have you, to make a bear-size bear. Now, the problem there is that you've got to make a really big box. So big, in fact, that the idea of the HOUSE might take shape, right there, just from that. The artificer ends up making excuses to stay and attend to his fake animals and fake mountains – say, if it's raining outside, or hailing. Give it a generation or two, and some guy will hit on the idea of CLOSING UP THE FRONT, so that the neighbors won't be able to observe, and interrupt, his private interactions. Another generation, and everybody will have their fake bears equipped with internal MILK DRUMS, so that the fake bear cubs can nurse. Which brings in a whole new set of problems.