In chapter 10 of Guns, Germs, and Steel, author Jared Diamond discusses the reasons for the rise of civilizations in different parts of the world. He argues that the development of agriculture, the presence of domesticable animals, and the availability of suitable plants and animals for domestication were key factors in the rise of civilizations.
One of the main points Diamond makes in this chapter is that the rise of agriculture was a crucial factor in the development of civilizations. Agriculture allowed people to produce a surplus of food, which led to the development of cities and civilizations. The availability of suitable crops and domesticable animals also played a role in the rise of agriculture, as these resources allowed people to produce food more efficiently and in greater quantities.
Another factor that contributed to the rise of civilizations was the presence of domesticable animals. These animals could be used for transportation, food production, and as a source of power for farming and other tasks. The availability of these animals also allowed people to expand their territory and trade with other groups.
Diamond also discusses the role of geography in the rise of civilizations. He argues that certain areas of the world, such as the Fertile Crescent and the Andes, were more conducive to the development of civilizations due to their climate and the availability of suitable plants and animals for domestication. In contrast, other areas, such as Australia and the Arctic, had fewer suitable domesticable species and were less suitable for the development of agriculture and civilizations.
Overall, Diamond's main argument in chapter 10 of Guns, Germs, and Steel is that the rise of civilizations was influenced by a combination of factors, including the development of agriculture, the presence of domesticable animals, and the availability of suitable plants and animals for domestication. These factors, combined with the influence of geography, shaped the course of human history and led to the development of civilizations in different parts of the world.
Guns, Germs and Steel Chapter #10 Study Guide: Flashcards
It's estimated that agriculture spread east and west far quicker than it spread north and south. Black Africans and Pygmies speak primarily Niger-Congo languages, although Pygmies speak these languages with sound and vocabulary differences that suggest that their ancestors may have spoken another family of languages long ago. But in the parts of the world that first developed agriculture, game and fruit were becoming scarcer, motivating experimentation with new forms of food production. Thus when the Europeans arrived bringing diseases such as smallpox, measles, whooping cough, etc. Innovations such as written language and wheels spread similarity quickly as well. Also, notice that the Clovis may have wiped out most of the large mammals in the Americas—echoing the possible exterminations of large animals in New Guinea.
Calloway, from New Worlds for All: Indians, Europeans, and the Remaking of Early America The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997 , supports the theory that disease was the key factor in the depopulation of the Americas. In the first, he demonstrates that the New Guineans developed agriculture, sophisticated technology, and political centralization while the neighboring aborigines of Australia did not, due to geographic distances and factors like the ones sketched out in Part Two. In the New World, agriculture arose in certain regions, but did not diffuse to neighboring regions due to the presence of geographic barriers like deserts and mountains. Chapter Summaries Chart Chapter Summary Prologue The prologue begins with the central question of the book. Also, there were no large mammals available for domestication to help with the farming as there were in Mesopotamia.
First, he shows that agricultural societies developed immunities to deadly diseases like smallpox. Hermaphroditic crops are considerably easier to plant because they can pollinate with all other plants of the same species. With the New world not having these advantages, it slowed diffusion. Latest answer posted August 29, 2014, 4:24 am UTC 1 educator answer Eurasians had the largest continent and the second largest genetic diversity of all the continents. In the Americas, no draft animal was ever domesticated, so people had to do all the plowing themselves.
By and large, Diamond argues, it is easier for ideas, goods, and foods to spread from east to west than it is for them to spread north and south—this is because the Earth spins east-west, meaning that areas with the same latitude share a similar climate and environment. Evidence shows that these populations suffered from such diseases as syphilis, tuberculosis, a few intestinal parasites, and some types of flu, but not the diseases that had been infecting the Old World for centuries. He writes many chapters filled with intriguing reasons to prove his thesis. Archaeological data indicates that agricultural innovations diffused east and west far sooner than they diffused north and south. Some hunter-gatherer staples, however, were never domesticated. For example, crop dispersion along the hub among Southeast and Southwest America advanced gradually because of the aridity of the interceding territory.
Diamond holds that all ancient peoples had essentially similar abilities—the same talent for recognizing useful crops, for example. Echoing the themes of the previous passage, human history is presented as a record of how human beings have shaped their environments and used certain resources to make useful tools. Evidence of Clovis settlements have been found in the western United States, and farther south, but there is also evidence of earlier settlements from other peoples. But people in Australia had already developed sophisticated boats and other technologies, beyond what people in Africa had built. Part 2, Chapter 4 Chapter 4 begins with an anecdote about Diamond's time as a teenager working on a midwestern farm. When it came time for them to fight they were to weak so it allowed the Spanish to conquer them and their land. However, the number of plants domesticated is low in comparison to the number of plants existing all over the world.
Guns, Germs, and Steel Chapter 1: Up to the Starting Line Summary & Analysis
Furthermore, east-west diffusion patterns ensured that, once one society developed language, it diffused, along with agriculture itself, to surrounding areas, particularly those with similar latitude. Diamond believes that this is yet another r advantage for Eurasia. They also learned that the seeds of crops would…. No single one of these explanations, at least as offered in this section, is entirely convincing. Thus, Eurasians also had the advantage of first being exposed to these diseases, to which they could develop immunity. The speedy spread of this bundle seized some other potential endeavors to train a similar wild predecessors; when the harvest was made accessible; there was never again any need to accumulate it from nature. We begin with the raw data: the rate at which agriculture has spread around the world, both to the east and west, and then to the north and the south.
But in either case, the Great Leap was crucial to human history. One of the most important advantages that Mesopotamia had as a site for agriculture was its wide range of hermaphroditic crops. The last date is today's date — the date you are citing the material. . Part 2, Chapter 10 Diamond begins Chapter 10 by comparing the major axes of the continents. Mesopotamian agriculturalists spread their techniques and their literal crops, diffusing spreading wheat and barley to Europe. Axis orientations affected the rate of spread of crops and livestock.
Agricultural societies then gained tremendous advantages over non-agricultural societies, because the increase in leisure time enabled people to develop technologies and centralized political structures, and the proximity to animals gave people immunities to deadly diseases. Diamond also includes a defense of historical studies in his conclusion; he points out that history is often disparaged for being less rigorous than the hard sciences, but argues that, through natural experimentation and prediction, it can achieve some of the same methodologies and levels of rigor as fields like physics do. Diamond will offer a theory for why there's a measurable difference between the rates of diffusion of agriculture for the two different sets of directions. In the New World, agriculture arose in certain regions, but did not diffuse to neighboring regions due to the presence of geographic barriers like deserts and mountains. Also in Africa after the ice age, the lands became grasslands where people settled and domesticated cattle. As societies became larger and denser, they tended to develop centralized structures of power—in other words, a central leadership that commanded a set of subordinate leaders, who in turn commanded local groups of people. When people selected the plants they liked and unconsciously helped these seeds grow, the plants in their environments naturally evolved qualities that made them bigger, better, or easier to harvest.
With the New world not having these advantages, it slowed diffusion. This rapid pace of expansion was because of Eurasia's east-west continent axis. . In Part Four, Diamond looks at a series of case studies that support his theory. After these origins, agriculture developed in different ways depending on the other available plants and animals in the area.
