guns germs and steel the fates of human societies by jared diamond 1997 text extracted from chapters...
TRANSCRIPT
Guns Germs and SteelThe Fates of Human Societies
By Jared Diamond
1997
Text extracted from Chapters 1-10
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After the Ice Age
• Different societies resulted:– Some literate,
industrial
– Some illiterate, agricultural
– Some hunter gatherers retaining stone tools
Inequality 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."
Yali’s 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?"
Distribution 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
Common explanations
• Cold climate stimulates inventiveness?
• But Europeans inherited from warm climate peoples– agriculture, – wheels, – writing, and – metallurgy
• Japan inherited– Agriculture, metallurgy, writing– Industrial Revolution
Cro Magnons
• Cro-Magnons moved into Europe 40,000 years ago.
• Technologies:– Tools, needles, fishhooks,
harpoons, bows and arrows, sewn clothing, houses, carefully buried skeletons, art, hunting big prey.
• Displaced or killed off Neandertals
Spreading Out
• 40,000-30,000 years ago • Technology: water craft
to cross from Asia to Indonesia to Australia and New Guinea.
• Time period correlates to – massive extinction of large
game in those places.
Large Game in Eurasia
• Diamond's theory:– large game survived in
Eurasia because
– humans took a million years • to develop tools
• become lethal predators of large game
– Gave Eurasian game time to adapt.
Spreading to the Americas
• 20,000 years ago• Technology: clothing and
shelter to survive Siberia– led to migration to Americas by
12,000 BC. – It took 1,000 years for humans
to get to S. America.
• Time period correlates to – massive extinction of large
game in Americas: • Horses, lions, elephants,
cheetahs, camels, and giant ground sloths.
Chatham Islands• 1835
– Chatham Islands discovered by British Seal Hunting ship
– 500 miles off coast of New Zealand
– News told to native New Zealanders
• Chatham Islands:– Abundance of fish, food– Inhabitants numerous
• Don’t know how to fight• No weapons
Maori of New Zealand• Nine hundred of the native
Maori people of New Zealand, – armed with guns,
– arrived in the Chatham Islands
– announced that the Chatham Islands people (the Moriori)
– were now their slaves,
– and killed those who objected.
Moriori Slaughter• An eyewitness account said
– "The Maori commenced to kill us like sheep...
– We were terrified, fled to the bush,
– concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies.
– It was of no avail; we were discovered and killed
– -- men, women, and children indiscriminately".
Maori
Maori Explanation• A Maori conqueror explained:
– "We took possession...in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people.
– Not one escaped.
– Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed -- but what of that?
– It was in accordance with our custom".
Natural History Experiment
• This is a natural history experiment.
• Both the Maori and Moriori – descended from the
same Polynesian farmers who settled New Zealand.
Moriori
• When the the Moriori moved to the Chatham islands – hundreds of years earlier
– could not farm due to the cold climate, and
– became hunter/gatherers.
• They learned to live peacefully because their resources were so limited.
Maori• The New Zealand Maori
– continued farming
– dense populations
– more complex technology and political organization
– ferocious wars:
• The difference was geography.
• Competing agricultural societies are prone to warfare
Conquest 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".
Pizarro’s 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.
Guns, Germs and Steel
• Pizarro had – steel armor– swords – horse mounted cavalry – guns
• a minor factor
Treachery
• Pizarro – ambushed and captured
Atahuallpa
– used religion to justify it.
– collected a huge ransom in gold and silver,
– killed him anyway.
Inca Gold
Conquistadors• 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.
Why 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
Advantages of Agricultural Societies
• More food, more people.• Domestic animals
– Meat
– Pull plows, carts
– Transportation, war
– Furs, fiber
– Fertilizer
– Deadly germs
Advantages of Agricultural Societies
• Sedentary Existence– Short birth intervals
– higher population densities
• Grain Storage– Support specialists:
• Kings
• bureaucrats
• soldiers
• priests
• artisans.
Unequal 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."
Independent 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
Adoption 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
Trugannini, last Remaining Tasmanian Aboriginal, 1868
http://www.tasmanianaboriginal.com.au/images/hist/Trugannie.jpg
Head 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."
Food Production
• Food production often led to – poorer health
– shorter lifespan
– harder labor for the majority of people.
Early 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.JPG
Sowing by Broadcast
• Grains in Eurasia were sown by broadcast,
• later in animal plowed fields to give monoculture.
Digging Sticks
• In the new world,– planting done by
digging stick
– no domesticated plow animals
• Result: mixed gardens.
80% of World’s Production:
• Wheat• Maize• Rice• Barley• Sorghum• Soybean• Potato• Cassava• Sweet potato• Sugar cane• Sugar beet• Banana
Major 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
Fertile 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
Meso 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
Large Animals
• Of 148 large herbivorous or omnivorous species in the world– Eurasia had 72
– Africa 51
– Americas 24
– Australia 1
• Most cannot be domesticated
Why have 134 out of 148 big species not been domesticated?
• Diet too finicky – koala
• Growth rate too slow – elephants, gorillas
• Won’t breed in captivity– cheetah, vicuna
• Nasty Disposition. – grizzly bear, African
buffalo, onager, zebra, hippo, elk
Why 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
Easier 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.
Evidence
• Some crops domesticated independently in both S. America and Meso America – due to slow spread
• lima beans
• common beans
• chili peppers
Evidence• 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.
Africa• 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.
Americas• 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.
Americas
• 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