The Fates of Human Societies

“Geographic Luck”Why are some countries rich and others poor?

Jared Diamond’s basic theory is that some countries developed more rapidly than others and were able to expand and conquer much of the world because of geographic luck.

Natural resources, native species, and climate led to agriculture.

Agrarian lifestyles led to less reliance on hunting & gathering and more free time.

Free time allowed some people to become “specialists” in technologies that made the civilization more profitable, stronger, and more powerful than others.

Diamond asserts that those living in temperate climates with indigenous animals that could be domesticated were more likely to develop advanced civilizations.

Important Early Plants: Wheat

Today’s wheat is almost unrecognizable from its ancestor

Subconscious selection, favoring, and replanting created a new species

Thrived in temperate climates

Exported from Europe to North America, South America, South Africa, and Australia.

Modern wheat symbolizes the success of the European (colonization) model

Important Early Plants:

Rice

Domesticated 10,000 years ago in China

Irrigation needs may have been the unifying factor in Chinese society

Corn

Also very genetically altered from its early state

Originated in the Americas, then Europeans brought it back home where it thrived, and exported it to Africa

It’s the most important crop in the U.S., which produces half its tonnage

Important Early Plants:

Sorghum

Also known as millet, grows wild in Tropical Africa

Has natural resistance to drought and heat, making it valuable to desert civilizations

Not as nutritionally valuable as the other early crops, and people suffered from this

Originally domesticated in Ethiopia, it was adopted by the Niger-Congo and the Sahel regions

Largely responsible for the agricultural revolutions in Africa

How to Domesticate an Animal

Only 14 animals on earth have been domesticated

They are the only ones to fulfill all four criteria for domestication

#1 Size: They need to be large to be useful. They must either produce a lot of meat and/or be able to carry humans.

#2 Temperament: Herd-mentality animals are the nicest to people—they’re used to groups and tend to be calmer.

#3 Growth Rate: Domesticable animals grow quickly and reach full potential in a few years.

#4 Diet: Domesticable animals are herbivores—it’s not cost effective to raise carnivores—you’d have to raise animals just to feed your animals.

The BIG 5

cows goats sheep pigs horsesThese five are the only animals that have been widely domesticated on earth.

The cow is our champion: they provide meat and dairy, while reproducing themselves and eating only grass.

The Not So Big 3Llamas are the only animals to be domesticated in the Americas. They can carry light loads, be used for meat, and produce great wool, but they don’t produce milk. When llamas get aggravated (over-burdened or annoyed) they hiss, spit, kick, and lie down in protest. Even if the Inca had invented the wheel, the llama could never have pulled a cart.

Horses were domesticated in Asia first and were instrumental in the development of Eurasian civilization. Horses made long distance trade easier (exploration as a result), revolutionized the art of war, from horse-drawn chariots of the Hittites to the escapades of Attila the Hun, and of course, the conquest of the Americas by Spain.

Zebras…

Zebras and the Mystery of African Animals

Why were no large animals ever domesticated in tropical Africa, the place so many rich people visit for safaris to see large animals?

Why not domesticate the rhino? The hippo? The elephant? Or most mysteriously, why not the ancestor of the horse, the zebra?

Zebras are hard to catch: superior early-warning mechanisms, they don’t let go when they bite, and become cranky with old age. More zookeepers are injured by zebras than any other animal.

Other large African mammals have developed similar survival techniques to win in a very harsh environment. They are too powerful for human control.

The “Gift” of Domesticated Animals: Germs

Smallpox: wiped out 95% of American civilization within a few years of European arrival.

Europeans were relatively immune to smallpox compared to the Native Americans they encountered

The disease originated with Eurasians who lived in close proximity to farm animals. Other diseases like it are influenza and measles.

Why did Europeans get these germs first? Farming communities produced denser societies where people spread disease quickly. The disease either died out because it killed all its victims or because the people became immune.

African Germs: Malaria

Mosquito-born malaria attacks the liver and explodes into the blood stream. It causes anemia and organ malfunction through iron and oxygen deprivation.

Malaria was the most serious obstacle to European colonization of Africa. While African animals had gained resistance to the disease, Europeans and their animals died quickly upon arrival.

Africans made homes in high, dry places, and kept their communities small—remember big groups of people living close to each other spread disease fastest.

The disease is holding Africa back today—European dominance forced them to live closer and change ancient lifestyles.

STEEL: Secret Weapon #1

A uniquely European invention: by geographic luck.

Climates that were too wet (Papua New Guinea for example) couldn’t keep an open furnace ablaze for several days to make the steel—locked in a perpetual Stone Age.

Resources were necessary: fast moving water, carbon rich forests, and lots of iron ore: Europe had them all.

Physical separation within Europe predisposed the communities to be competitive, vying for power and prestige, and most likely to invent big weapons

Why not Africa or the Americas? Interruption and no ore.

WRITING: Secret Weapon #2

First developed in the Fertile Crescent in Sumer around 3000 B.C.E. It was called cuneiform and was used for accounting purposes.

Mayans had a written language, but it did not become widespread and died out. Why? The north-south axis effect, no pack animals for trade, and impassible lands.

The next step in the process was the invention of printing, developed in Eurasia, allowing for multiple copies of texts and spurring social changes, notably, literacy.

Writing gave Europeans another edge in conquest—literacy allowed for access to historical, cultural, and military knowledge from the past.

North-South, East-West

Eurasia’s east-west axis allowed for quick spread of ideas, inventions, plants, and animals. Not much latitude change means similar climates, and growing seasons. No major physical barriers inhibited this distribution.

The Americas’ north-south axis prohibited the spread of plants because of climate changes, major land barriers like the isthmus of Panama stopped trade and travel on animals.