Civilization And Domesticate Animals

Jared Diamond discusses the reasons why geographical and environmental factors lead to a more rapid progression of certain civilizations throughout history. The book Guns, Germs and Steel portrays an argument that due to some societies’ access to an area witch contains sufficient amounts of wildlife and climates that are easily inhabitable, these societies developed into more advanced ways of living much easier and also earlier than societies who lacked these geographical attributes. These beneficial geographical attributes promoted the growth of technological improvements in weapons, religion, and farming.

One of things that was brought to Mexico during the Colombian Exchange, although unintentonally, was disease. The Spanish brought diseases such as smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, and mumps. These were diseases that the natives had not been exposed to, so they had no immunity to them. Even though the Spanish did have much more advanced weaponry than the natives, it was the diseases that wiped out most of the native population. It is believed that within a century of the arrival of the Spanish, the population of the Aztecs decreased by 80-95%, going from 12.5M to roughly about 1.5M in population (History of Disease). The Spanish shared the same fate, but not as severe, many died from syphillis. A disease that was much more dangerous during that time than it is today. (Columbian Exchange)

The problem of epidemics like smallpox, measles, and other European, Asian, and African diseases negatively affected the abilities of Native Americans to resist the invasions by Europeans. These sicknesses made native peoples too weak to resist. This pattern was no different in North, South, and Central America. As Europeans entered the lands, so did the diseases and they spread, causing the natives to become weak enough for the Europeans to easily invade.

5) Native Americans protected themselves from the germs that cause diseases such as smallpox and malaria by developing ways of vaccinations against certain diseases. They also lived in dry locations to avoid mosquitos, which spread the deadly disease, malaria.

Moreover, the immune system of the indigenous people also played a role. Simply put, a person’s immune system’s defensive tools are MHC types, most people have several different varieties of MHC types to protect against many different mutations of one pathogen but the indigenous people of America had homogenous MHC types.

The diseases that the European explorers brought over, and the effect they had on the Native Americans, were by far the worst parts of the Columbian Exchange. While some people may believe that war and mistreatment of the Natives were what caused 80-95% of them to perish, the actual cause was diseases like measles and small pox. According to Dinesh D’Souza, before the Europeans arrived, there was between 15 and 20 million Indians, but 150 years later, there was only a small amount left. In “The Crimes of Christopher Columbus”, D’Souza adds that since the Indians hadn’t seen those types of diseases before, they had not yet developed any resistance or immunity to them. The purpose of that statement is to explain why so many Indians were affected

The domestication of animals by humans is an early example of eugenics. Animals were used for hunting, warning system against predators, and overall companionship. (History of Eugenics) Humans at the time wanted a powerful animal, that was able to protect their owner, and help be able to produce food and clothing Obviously a strong animal does not come from handicapped ancestry, rather it comes from a far more adaptive origin. Early day humans exchanged this idea that the fittest animal comes from the fittest parents. This idea of superior origin was used in animal husbandry (History of Eugenics). For instance, a cattle that could produce twice as much milk and supply a strong hide, would obviously out weigh its less useful

The Native Americans did not have immunity built up to fight these types of diseases. As a result of the viruses many colonists carried, thousands of American Indians died. However, over time the Native Americans learned how to fight these contagious

The Spanish had yet another advantage that led to their ultimate rule, and that was that they had disease. They could spread diseases that were new to the Aztecs, who had no immunity to these diseases. These diseases included mumps, smallpox and measles. http://blogs.plos.org/publichealth/2013/07/30/guest-post-what-killed-the-aztecs/ Sun 9 Aug. 15

Many major epidemics originated from diseases of domesticated animals: measles, influenza, typhus, and bubonic plague (Diamond, 1997). Centuries of living near livestock had basically inoculated European settlers against these diseases. Only those Europeans who could survive a plague outbreak were able to pass on their genes, leading to successive generations being less susceptible to the illnesses. According to Diamond, smallpox was a major player in the European invasion of the New World. Native Americans, however, did not have cattle, only llamas. They had never been exposed to smallpox. It decimated their populations. Historians estimate perhaps 95% of pre-Columbus Native Americans were killed by European diseases (Diamond, 1997). Because these epidemics spread in advance of the Europeans themselves, it made it that much easier for the European invaders to defeat the dwindling survivors.

As Geoffrey Cowley said, “the native population fell from roughly 30 million in 1519 to 3 million in 1568.” (Doc. 6) This appalling number of lives lost, are because an indifference between the Spaniards and Natives. When the Spaniards arrived, they brought many disease which the Natives have never encountered. Not only was it the 15th Century, but the Natives were already set back from the rest of the world and did not have the technology or medicine to aid them with the disease they contracted from the Spaniards. Geoffrey Cowley states, “When the newcomers arrived carrying mumps, measles, whooping cough, smallpox, cholera, gonorrhea and yellow fever, the indians were immunologically defenseless.” (Doc. 6) The lack of resources the Natives had caused them to be helpless against all of these diseases

The author, Jared Diamond, is asked a question by a local politician,Yali, while studying birds in New Guinea. His question is, "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 leads Diamond to write a book attempting to answer why some humans in certain environments developed faster than others. Food production, writing and government had already started to develop by 11,000 B.C. in many areas around the world such as the Americas, sub-Saharan Africa and Eurasia. Many Native Americans and Africans were still using wood and stone tools while Europeans had steel by A.D. 1500. Many people and historians believe that Europeans are biologically

Thousands years prior to crossing paths with the Europeans, the Native Americans had invented creative cultures. They found ways to use plants for multiple purposes including medications, food and dyes. They established a way to domesticate animals to suit their needs. They built cities, produced monuments and even developed a working political order. Native Americans were able to not only adapt to the changing environmental conditions, but they did it in a way that worked in their favor every time. They only began struggling to preserve their cultures when the Europeans became a factor in it. The Europeans brought along deadly illnesses such as Measles, mumps, whooping cough. The Native Americans became very susceptible to these illnesses

The Spanish have been exposed to various diseases within Europe and thus buit an immunity to it, but the Amerindians were never exposed to these diseases causing millions of the Amerindians to die while the Spaniards were fine.

Long ago, us humans were using stone tools. This “Long ago” was the 1960s, in Papua New Guinea. Why was it the people of Papua New Guinea were still using stone tools, but places like Europe were developing planes, cars, and other technologically advanced machines? The big factor to inequality was geography. Europeans were given certain very important geological advantages, being flourishing crops with bountiful harvests, hardy animals rich with protein, an invisible weapon the Europeans didn’t know they had in germs, and strong, flexible steel, they abused the power of all of these gifts to dominate the world, and take the resources of places they dominated.