Professor Diamond was trying to answer Yali’s question and Yali’s question was, “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?” This question was asked to professor diamond on a bird watching trip at Papua New Guinea. Diamond was walking on the beaches of New Guinea when a New Guinean, Yali, asked him his question. Professor Diamond concluded in historical development that where you live determines your resources. Diamond went all the way to pre-history to prove his answer; he started at New Guinea. In New Guinea, the women were the gatherers; they gathered wild saga. The problem with that was that it took a lot of hard work to get to the center of the saga tree, …show more content…
In places like America, americans grew wheat, and barley; both wheat and barley had lots of calories. Wheat led a course of modern civilization. The first granary protected wheat and barley. People started to grow their own food and for the first time they’re bringing their resources back to where they live and they grow them next to their homes, they eventually became to what we know as farmers. People were starting to control nature, domesticating plants and animals. China started to grow rice, and America farmed corn; farming equals civilization. New Guinea also had taro, but like sago, taro was also hard work, they had to be planted 1 by 1. They also had low store life, and had low protein. New Guineans are giant spiders to supplement their diets. Most productive crops are the most productive farmers, geographic luck. America grew more plants that are more nutritious Papua New Guinea. People started to domesticate animals; the first domesticated animals were goats and sheep. People could drink their milk for protein and their fur for clothes. Other animals were domesticated like horses and oxen, they were used to pull
Jared Diamond, author of the Pulitzer Prize Winning, National Best Selling book Guns, Germs and Steel, summarizes his book by saying the following: "History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples' environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves." Guns, Germs and Steel is historical literature that documents Jared Diamond's views on how the world as we know it developed. However, is his thesis that environmental factors contribute so greatly to the development of society and culture valid? Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History is the textbook used for this class and it poses several different accounts of how society and culture developed that differ from Diamond's claims. However, neither Diamond nor Traditions are incorrect. Each poses varying, yet true, accounts of the same historical events. Each text chose to analyze history in a different manner. Not without flaws, Jared Diamond makes many claims throughout his work, and provides numerous examples and evidence to support his theories. In this essay, I will summarize Jared Diamond's accounts of world history and evolution of culture, and compare and contrast it with what I have learned using the textbook for this class.
The reason Jared Diamond wrote this book was to answer the question of his political friend Yali, why did some societies like Eurasia were able to develop Guns, Germs, and Steel that were able to dominate major parts of the world, and why New Guinea was not capable of doing this? This question is certainly not a small picture kind of question because it covers a broad realm. Diamond is a book that has tried his best to cover a whole pattern of history, starting from before the Ice Age to the modern period. But Diamond's all-time famous and award-winning book was really successful in explaining the broad question. Such a type of question is critical to gain a stronger understanding of Diamond’s argument and its effect on the field of history.
“The development of agriculture was a radical change in humans’ way of life.” (Stearns, 2) It set the basis for faster change in human societies. Metalworking allowed farmers to work more efficiently. The development of languages increased the chances of civilizations because people were able to communicate with each other. Record keeping and innovated technology also brought people together because they began discovering new things about the society.
The book tells the history of human civilization through the development of our food production and culture. A highly relevant book to present although food is a special type of natural resource or products hereof and history is a wider subject than conflict. The gradual transition towards hierarchical social order is described. Especially the significance of irrigation is compelling.
Diamond wrote this book to answer the question of a New Guinean politician, Yali. He asked “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own.” Diamond set out to find the answer to this question, to find out why history unfolded like it did. Diamond credits the inequalities in history to differences in environments not biological differences as so many people like to say. Most of the advantages the Europeans had were a direct result of geography. The main points that Diamond attributes to European dominance are early plant and animal domestication and as a result of close contact to animals the deadliest germs were given to the Europeans. As result of its East-West axis the diffusion of food production, technologies, humans and ideas were easily spread throughout Europe. The axis mean that there were similar climatic, geographic, and disease conditions to migrants and no barriers. So anything that could be grown in one area was sure to quickly spread and thrive in the neighboring locations. Moreover, political administration, economic exchanges, incentive for exploration and conquest, and making information available to every individual were facilitated after the development of writing.
First farming is a key aspect and so is domesticating plants and animals the line "hunter gatherers of the Chatham (only 5 people per square mile) and of New Zealand's South Island, and the farmers of the rest of New Zealand (28 people per square mile). In contrast, many islands with intensive agriculture attained population densities exceeding 120 per square mile Page 61" This line shows how farming can increase the density of people due to a surplus of food that was acquired by farming and nearly impossible by hunting and gathering. That surplus allows for many more things to occur such as advance in technology and political advances. This is seen in the line "In general, the larger the size and the higher the density, the more complex and specialized were the technology and Political organization page 62" In this line "In addition, the largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows and thereby making it possible for people to till land that had previously been uneconomical for farming." it shows how animals that are domesticated are used not only for food and materials but also for plowing the field and allowing to expand the farms. But these animals bring along nasty germs. This lines helps explain it "The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that
Farming also became a steady source of food for the early civilization. With established dwellings, communities were able to create crude irrigation systems to support their crops in the very dry dessert like climate. Domestication of animals also became a possibility as well with the more permanent living situation the early civilization h...
Firstly, the Neolithic Revolution is a great place to start in History because that is when the first major shift of among people’s way of life throughout the whole world occurs. It occurred approximately 10,000 years ago. Many hunter-gatherers turned into farmers because they saw it was a good opportunity to have a larger quantity of food readily available. This change in living caused a massive landslide of other changes to occur with it, such as growth in populations, cities were built and a rise of cities occurred, quantity of food over quality of food, sometimes crops were destroyed by nature, and disease spread because of larger populations living together. Although some negative effects from early farming occurred, the good effects eventually got better and overshadowed the negative. The main advantage to this change, is that people learned and continue to learn how to better develop farming, city building, and health techniques over time, even to this day in the year 2014!
In places like Papua New Guinea, where the climate is very wet and tropical, they can get crops like Sago. Sago is found in the center of Sago trees, the pulp of the tree. When a village is hungry, they chop down the tree, dig to the pulp, harvest for 2-4 days, then eat. Sago is low in calories and protein, and doesn’t last long, maybe 3-5 days at the most. In places like the Fertile Crescent, where the climate is very dry, they are able to grow crops, like wheat. The Fertile Crescent, they basically won the “Geographically lottery” by having the perfect weather for growing wheat. Wheat was high in calories and protein, easy to harvest, and could be kept for up to a year. By having an easy food to maintain, the Fertile Crescent were able to have more time on their hands, and that helped the civilization develop into using domesticated animals. While, Papua New Guinea were still in the hunter-gather
In summary, Davidson successful traces Africa’s earliest origins and demonstrates that this is a civilization far from having no arts, technology, sophistication and unique culture. Culture and civilization as we know it today can be traced back to Africa, and modern science has verified the early perceptions of Europeans to be wrong. He provides more than adequate evidence of Africa having a history complete with vast and rich civilization, including archaeological finds and specialized interviews with distinguished scholars and philosophers. Despite the fact that society possesses a more positive attitude towards African civilization today in terms of recognition, equality, and acceptance than in the past, negative stereotypes are still acknowledged and modern day racism unfortunately exists. I believe that the existence of Davidson’s work and videos such as Different but Equal are crucial to challenging these stereotypes and discrimination in order to create a more accurate image of Africa and its history. Overall, Davidson proves that the continent of Africa is home to a history that is just as meaningful, comprehensive, and progressive as that of any other civilization in the
the story in the Phillip Whitten and David E. K. Hunter anthropology book of No
The blessing and curse of the Agricultural Revolution is advocated with its augmentation and dissemination. Taking the stipulative definition of “blessing” and “curse” from the original premise, one can only superimpose the layman’s terms of “negative” and “positive”. Upon examination of the two classifications within the Neolithic Period and ancient Mesopotamian civilization one can confirm the premise. Therefore, the agriculture revolution was a blessing and a curse for humanity. Human society began to emerge in the Neolithic Period or the New Stone Age. This new age began around 9,000 B.C.E. by the development of agriculture in the region surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers and what is commonly referred to as “The Fertile Crescent” located in West Asia.1 The very development of agriculture had benefited humans by no longer having to move about in search of wild game and plants. Unencumbered by nomadic life humans found little need to limit family size and possessions and settled in a single location for many years. One negative aspect of this settling is that the population increased so much so that wild food sources were no longer sufficient to support large groups. Forced to survive by any means necessary they discovered using seeds of the most productive plants and clearing weeds enhanced their yield.2 This also lead humans to develop a wider array of tools far superior to the tools previously used in the Paleolithic Period or Old Stone Age. The spread of the Agricultural Revolution in the Neolithic Period also cultivated positive aspects by creating connections with other cultures and societies. Through these connections they exchanged knowledge, goods, and ideas on herding and farming.3 Another major positive aspec...
The new stone, or Neolithic Age, marked the beginnings of established society for modern man. Although only a few Paleolithic societies adapted to agriculture from hunting/gathering, this shift led the way for advancement with society, economy, and technology. Man began to raise small herds of sheep and goats and food crops such as wheat and barley were able to be domesticated in mountain foothills. As more of the nomadic bands began to settle as farmers instead of hunter/gatherers, an economic system emerged. Although most of the nomadic societies were still self-sufficient, trading was established from items like stones and shells.
Plato once quoted, “Necessity is the mother of invention”. During the Prehistoric era, early humans needed to survive in the environment around them, thus creating close-knit nomadic hunter-gathers. With the rise of the Agricultural Revolution, early humans adapted new ways of finding food creating food surpluses that started a population boom. From farming villages to major cities, it created civilizations that once rose and fell. These civilizations created a large impact that affects today.
The struggle for enough food has gone on for centuries. Back in primitive days, the first task human beings undertook was the search for food. Primitive people were collectors, they would find what they could to eat and hope that it would be enough. When this failed to meet the population's needs, humans became hunters and trapped their food. Finally, some years later, humans began to farm the land. Because of the growing demand for food, those who could produce the most crops were considered the most powerful.