Post on 11-Dec-2015
transcript
Guns Germs and SteelThe Fates of Human Societies
By Jared Diamond
1997
Text extracted from Chapters 1-10
http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/0393317552.03.LZZZZZZZ.jpg
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