Title: Guns Germs and Steel The Fates of Human Societies
1Guns Germs and SteelThe Fates of Human Societies
Text extracted from Chapters 1-10
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2After the Ice Age
- Human societies began to change 13,000 years ago
- when the last ice age melted
3After the Ice Age
- Different societies resulted
- Some literate, industrial
- Some illiterate, agricultural
- Some hunter gatherers retaining stone tools
4Inequality and Extermination
- Those historical inequalities have cast long
shadows on the modern world, because the literate
societies with metal tools have conquered or
exterminated the other societies."
5Yalis Question
- Yali, a New Guinea politician 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?"
6Distribution of Wealth
- To rephrase,
- "why did wealth and power become distributed as
they now are, - rather than in some other way?
Distribution of Wealth in the World
7Common explanations
- Racial or genetic superiority?
- No objective evidence for this theory
8Common explanations
- Cold climate stimulates inventiveness?
- But Europeans inherited from warm climate peoples
- agriculture,
- wheels,
- writing, and
- metallurgy
9Conquest of the New World
- "The biggest population shift of modern times
- has been the colonization of the new World by
Europeans, - and the resulting
- conquest,
- numerical reduction ,
- or complete disappearance
- of most groups of Native Americans".
10Pizarro
- The Incas were conquered by the Spaniard
Francisco Pizarro.
11Pizarros Forces
- Pizarro had 168 soldiers.
- They were in unfamiliar territory,
- ignorant of the local inhabitants,
- were 1000 miles away from reinforcements,
- and were and surrounded by the Incan empire
- with 80,000 soldiers led by Atahuallpa.
12Guns, Germs and Steel
- Pizarro had
- steel armor
- swords
- horse mounted cavalry
- guns
- a minor factor
13Treachery
- Pizarro
- ambushed and captured Atahuallpa
- used religion to justify it.
- collected a huge ransom in gold and silver,
- killed him anyway.
Inca Gold
14Conquistadors
- In addition to horses and steel, conquistadors
had - Superior ocean going ships
- Superior political organization of the European
states - Carried infectious diseases that wiped out 95 of
Native Americans - smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus, bubonic
plague - Superior knowledge of human behavior
- from thousands of years of written history.
-
15Why not the other way?
- Still, why was it that the Europeans had all of
the advantages instead of the Incas? - Why didn't the Incas
- invent guns and steel swords,
- have horses,
- or bear deadly diseases?
Inca
Inca Warrior
16Advantages of Agricultural Societies
- More food, more people.
- Domestic animals
- Meat
- Pull plows, carts
- Transportation, war
- Furs, fiber
- Fertilizer
- Deadly germs
17Advantages of Agricultural Societies
- Sedentary Existence
- Short birth intervals
- higher population densities
- Grain Storage
- Support specialists
- Kings
- bureaucrats
- soldiers
- priests
- artisans.
18Unequal Conflicts
- "Much of human history has consisted of unequal
conflicts - between the haves and the have-nots
- between peoples with farmer power and those
without it, - or between those who acquired it at different
times."
19Independent Crop Domestication
- Middle East (8,000 BC)
- Wheat, pea, olive
- China
- Rice, millet
- Mexico (3,000 BC)
- Maize, squash, beans
- Andes mountains
- Potato
- USA
- Sunflower
Other people adopted these crops (and
domesticated animals) later as a cultural package
20Adoption by Hunter-Gatherers
- Sometimes domesticated plants and animals were
adopted by hunters/gatherers - Native Americans in U.S.
- Sometimes hunters/gatherers were displaced by
agriculturalists - European expansion in Australia, Tasmania
http//www.tasmanianaboriginal.com.au/images/hist/
Trugannie.jpg
Trugannini, last Remaining Tasmanian Aboriginal,
1868
21Head Start
- "The peoples of areas with a head start on food
production - thereby gained a head start on the path leading
to guns, germs and steel. - The result was a long series of collisions
between the haves and have-nots of history."
22Food Production
- Food production often led to
- poorer health
- shorter lifespan
- harder labor for the majority of people.
23Early Plant Domestication
- Humans unknowingly selected for traits
- seed size, fiber length
- lack of bitterness
- early germination
- selfing
- dispersal mutations
- wheat that does not shatter
- seeds that stay in pods
http//www.union.ku.edu/traditions/desktops/wheat.
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24Sowing by Broadcast
- Grains in Eurasia were sown by broadcast,
- later in animal plowed fields to give
monoculture.
25Digging Sticks
- In the new world,
- planting done by digging stick
- no domesticated plow animals
- Result mixed gardens.
2680 of Worlds Production
- Wheat
- Maize
- Rice
- Barley
- Sorghum
- Soybean
- Potato
- Cassava
- Sweet potato
- Sugar cane
- Sugar beet
- Banana
27Major Domesticated Crops
- No new plants domesticated in modern times
- All of these domesticated thousands of years
ago. - Need a suite of domesticated plants to make
agriculture work - Thus new plants domesticated where agriculture
already successful
28Fertile Crescent
29Fertile Crescent Attributes
- Mediterranean climate.
- Wild stands of wheat
- Hunter/gatherers settled down here before
agriculture, living off grain - High percentage of self pollinating plants --
easiest to domesticate. - Of large seeded grass species of the world, 32 of
56 grow here. - Big animals for domestication goat, sheep, pig,
cow
30Meso America
- In Meso America, the only animals domesticated
were turkey and dog - Maize was slow to domesticate.
- Occurred 5,000 years after domestication of wheat
31Big 5 Domesticated Animals
- Horse
- Cow
- Pig
- Sheep
- Goat
- All from Eurasia
32Large Animals
- Of 148 large herbivorous or omnivorous species in
the world - Eurasia had 72
- Africa 51
- Americas 24
- Australia 1
- Most cannot be domesticated
33Why have 134 out of 148 big species not been
domesticated?
- Diet too finicky
- koala
- Growth rate too slow
- elephants, gorillas
- Wont breed in captivity
- cheetah, vicuna
- Nasty Disposition.
- grizzly bear, African buffalo, onager, zebra,
hippo, elk
34Why have 134 out of 148 big species not been
domesticated?
- Hard to herd (no dominance structure)
- deer, antelope
- Tendency to panic.
- deer, antelope, gazelles
- Solitary
- only cats and ferrets domesticated
- Territorial
- rhino
35Easier to spread East-West
- It was easier for domestic plants and animals
- later, technology like wheels, writing)
- to spread East-West in Eurasia
- than North- South in Americas.
36Evidence
- Some crops domesticated independently in both S.
America and Meso America - due to slow spread
- lima beans
- common beans
- chili peppers
37Evidence
- Most crops in Eurasia domesticated only once.
- Rapid spread preempted same or similar
domestication. - Fertile Crescent crops spread to Egypt, N.
Africa, Europe, India and eventually to China.
38Africa
- East-West spread of plants, animals easier
- due to same day-length, similar seasonal
variations. - Temperate N. Africa crops did not reach S. Africa
until colonists brought them - Sahara
- Tropics
- Tropical crops spread West to East in Africa with
Bantu culture, - did not cross to S. Africa due to climate.
39Americas
- Distance between cool highlands of Mexico and
Andes was only 1,200 miles but separated by low
hot tropical region. - Thus, no exchange of crops, animals, writing,
wheel. - Only maize spread.
-
40Americas
- It took 2,000 years for maize to cross 700 miles
of desert to reach U.S.A. - It took another 1000 years for maize to adapt to
U.S.A. climate to be productive
41Not a Cultural Issue
- Some species like cows, dogs, pigs independently
domesticated in different parts of the world. - These animals were well suited for
domestication. - Modern attempts to domesticate
- eland, elk, moose, musk ox, zebra, American Bison
- are only marginally successful.