From the time that our ancestors first decided to leave all they had ever known in their homes in Africa and venture into the great unknown, we humans have advanced massively over the years. Regardless of whether you gauge progress economically, technologically, or culturally, by all of these measures mankind has made incredible advances. However, man's incredible progress was not wholly due to human inventions and innovations. Physical geography influenced many of the choices previous generations made, and it still affects several of our choices today. The development, dispersion, and alteration of cultures was also impacted by physical geography, as it hindered diffusion of some cultures and promoted others. Most importantly, the emergence …show more content…
Physical geography forces certain groups of people living within the same region to speak, dress, or even think and view the world in a distinct way compared with other groups of people in different regions and geographical situations. For example, the Inuit people of the Arctic region of the world have no less than one hundred eighty different words that refer to snow. On the other side of the spectrum, there is the Native American nation of the Sioux people. How many words do they have for snow? Not a single one. Due to their snow covered region, the Inuits were exposed to many different scenarios that involved snow, and had to evolve words that described each individual situation. On the other hand, the geographic location of the Sioux was nowhere near any location in which snow fell; therefore, they had no need to develop a word to describe something they would never see. Along with location, physical boundaries can also affect cultures, as they can slow or even halt a culture’s dispersion into an area. The great Carthaginian general Hannibal especially knows how much physical geography can affect humans. He planned an attack against his bitter rivals, the Romans in which he would assault their capital city. However, in the path of his journey were the Appalachian Mountains, and scores of his soldiers died in the freezing temperatures they encountered in mountains. Hannibal’s army lost over half of its …show more content…
With agriculture, a group of people that formerly spent all of its time, energy, and able bodies hunting animals and gathering resources could now grow food with less manpower. Since it was unnecessary for all in the group to farm crops, idle members of the group could focus on other activities, such as metalworking, basketry, weaving, tapestry, and a plethora of other pursuits. Some innovations and inventions from these new specialists could improve the technique of farming. For example, metalworkers could discover a way in which iron could be extracted from ore. Farmers could then utilize this discovery to craft more durable and stronger tools made of iron. Additionally, basket weavers could develop baskets that were hardier and larger, allowing farmers to transport more seeds and crops at a time. Consequently, the time and effort needed to farm would be reduced, liberating more people from farming duties. Then, the now-idle people could turn to other specializations. This cycle would repeat again and again until we reach today’s time. Today, software engineers design computerized farm machines, truck drivers transport tons of goods around the nation with ease, and pilots fly crops internationally. These three professions, along with virtually any other job in the world, was a result of one simple event. As simple as it seems, physical
Wendell Berry writes in his book, “What are people for?” a thesis that modern culture is destroying the agricultural culture. He feels that technology is seen and used as the easy way to produce food faster and more efficiently. With this modern way of farming comes the idea that we need to work smarter not harder which is not always true. The goal is comfort and leisure and Berry feels that this is the reason for the down fall of the agricultural culture. He believes that hard work and pride in workmanship is more important than material goods and money. This was by no means a perfect society. The people had often been violent wand wasteful in the use of land of each other. Its present ills have already taken root in it. Even with these faults, this society appreciated the hard work of farming compared to the easy way of living today.
Historical developments are connected across time and culture by recurring historical themes. Reoccurring themes are interactions between human and the environment, development of culture, expansion of hierarchy, and creation of economical and social structures. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, by Jared Diamond he researches why and how people in different regions were more fortunate than people in other regions of the world. Diamond credits the inequalities of the people to the differences in the environment not biological reasons. Most of the advantages the Europeans had were a direct result of geography. Although the growth and development of human society have greatly shaped and advanced civilization, ecological and geographic factors are where
New technologies not only allowed farming to become more efficient, but made the process of shipping crops west much easier. The most important innovation in farming itself was the horse-drawn combine, which required many horses to operate, but allowed wheat, a popular crop to grow in the west, to be harvested en masse. (Document D) However, railroads were also incredibly important for farmers, as they allowed Wheat, cotton, and corn to be transported across the country
... as farmers became more conscious of prices rising to transport their goods, they were forced to find other means of transportation to distribute their goods.
Farming is the main supply for a country back then. The crops that farmers produce basically was the only food supply. That makes famers a very important part of society. Farmers back t...
Watkins, Jeffery. Regents Prep: Global History: Change & Turning Points:, "Neolithic Revolution." Last modified 2003. Accessed March 23, 2012. http://regentsprep.org/Regents/global/themes/change/neo.cfm
The question that I will be answering for my coursework is which is best at protecting the Northumberland coastline – groynes or beach nourishment. I will be going to Blyth beach also I will be visiting Newbiggen beach I am investigating the Northumberland coastline as part of my geography coursework also because I live in the UK and I want to see how safe the people of the UK are with the safety of the coastline and its defences against coastal erosion. We will be visiting the Northumberland coastline on Thursday the 15th of May 2014.
The main ideas presented in “Why Geography Matters…More Than Ever!” revolve around what exactly geography is, and the implications of the subject. Geography is the study of the physical world and human actions, it also covers the affects of human actions. Geography influences a plethora of topics and geographers do research on numerous subjects. “Geographers do research on glaciations and coastlines, on desert dunes and limestone caves, on weather and climate, even on plants and animals”(7). The author stresses how underrated geography is the present times, and how the introduction of social studies have doomed the subject of geography for future generations. In a section detailing the teaching of geography
The Five Themes of Geography are: Location – Absolute points on a map or grid or Relative to where something may be; Place – The physical and/or human characteristics of a locations; Human/Environment Interactions – How humans have impacted the landscape or environment; Relationship between places Movement – How humans interact on the earth (i.e. how they communicate over distance (short or long)) and Regions – a unit of space that has commonalities defined by physical, human and environmental geography. The Explorers of the New World may have not known what the Five Themes of Geography were but they quickly learned. Of the five themes the ones that they all took advantage of was the physical Location and Place as they learned to navigate to and from as well as through their new environments. Over Time the explorers began to discover the relationships within their environments and original occupants of the lands as well as the regions in which they now occupied.
...made farming more profitable and easier to run as a business. “The tractor was modern compared to the horse. The farmer did not have to pay as many hired men. There was more leisure time. But the tractor changed the social structure of rural life. The key position that farming held in American life vanished” (Carlson).
climates,the formation of landforms, and plant and animal distribution. Working in closely related areas, the research of physical geographers and geologists often overlaps. Religion, languages, and cities are a few of the specialties of cultural (also known as human) geographers. Their research into the intricacies of human existence is fundamental to our understanding of cultures. Cultural geographers want to know why various groups practice certain rituals, speak in different dialects, or organize their cities in a particular way.
Geographical concepts have been traced back to ancient days, geography is defining as the scientific study of the location of people and activity across earth and reasons for their distribution. It asks where and why things are where they are. Geographers organizes materials by the places they are located, thus being they have concluded that what happens in one place affects what happens in another place and can further affect conditions in the near future. Like any other subject geography has its own language and knowledge for better understanding of its concepts. Thinking geographically means learning the language, we need both geographical vocabulary and grammar in order to do this. Geography has concepts that enables us to have geographical
Humans, like all other species, exploit their surroundings for the resources they need to survive. Our current exploitation of the world, however, is greater than those of most species. There are many reasons for this exploitation but we will focus on one and that is our technology, which is used for various purposes. Like a few other species, we use tools, but the hand-held tools that we originally used could only adjust extremely local conditions. Today we are able to shape entire regions and our technology has progressed to the point where we can level mountains and control the flow of rivers, something that was simply impossible a relatively short while ago. We can now modify our world relatively easily and quickly.
...as greatly advanced in the past 200 years thanks to mechanical tools replacing manual labor. It is the most important industry and will forever remain the base of our economy. Humans have constantly been trying to make it easier and quicker to produce crops, from wooden ploughs to pesticides. Agriculture is easily one of the most important and obvious signs of humanity and its adaptation and evolvement over thousands of years.
Farming has been an occupation since 8,500 B.C. On that year in the Fertile Crescent farming first began when people grew plants instead of picking them in the wild. Then nearly 5,000 years later oxen, horses, pigs, and dogs were domesticated. During the middle ages, the nobles divide their land into three fields. The reasoning for this was to plant two and leave one to recover. This was the start of crop rotation which is a big part of farming today. Burning down forest and then moving to another area is a farming technique used by the Mayans called Slash and burn. Mayan farmers also were able to drain swampy areas to farm them buy building canals. In 1701 Jethro Tull invented the seed drill and a horse drawn how that tilled the land. In Denmark they would plant turnips in the previously unplanted field. The turnips help restore the nutrients in the ground thus crop rotation is born. In England people began moving there fields closer to each other for a more efficient way of planting. Later in the 18th century selective breeding was introduce which made bigger, stronger, and more milk producing livestock. In the mid 1800’s a steam plough was invented. By the 1950 tractors, milking machines, and combines were used by almost farmers. The latest f...