Papua New Guinea

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.

It has to deal a lot with geographic luck. The chance of your climate or soils being more fertile is completely based on chance. To have larger animals like horses, cows, and camels, you need to have food that the animals can sustain themselves on. A lot of plants in New Guinea do not have a lot of protein in them, so it is very hard to keep the larger animals alive long enough for you to build farms, or use them as vehicles. Because there is only so few foods with protein in New Guinea, all their effort is put into finding more food, so there aren’t any metal workers or anything of the sort. That’s why I think It has to be geographic luck.

Its geography. Geography controls climate and climate controls what foods people can grow. What foods people can grow impacts a civilization a lot, some can’t even have food for a week. They can be a civilization like the Fertile Crescent with wheat and they harvest it easy to do other things. Or be like Papua New Guinea constantly working for food and can’t do much else than that. The Fertile Crescent is in the Middle East and there they live in a semiarid area which means it's dry but still get seasonal rain. And so their main food source is wheat. Wheat is a great food, it can be stored for several years and it’s high in protein. So when people go to harvest it it won’t take a long time. With the extra time they have, they can have specialists to experiment with things like steel. Over the years they learned to farm so they have more than enough food and even more time. But Papua New Guinea can’t do that. They live in the tropics so they can’t grow the same thing as the Fertile Crescent. One of their main food sources is Sago. Sago is a tree that takes a few days to harvest. First cut it down with stone tools, hollow it out, take the pulp of the inside of the tree and make it into a paste that has hardly any protein. It can’t be stored for a long time and the process of getting the tree cut down uses more calories than the food provides. So the people of Papua New Guinea are constantly working for food and they are a hunter gather civilization so they are on the move following their food.. Wheat and Sago are two completely two different foods. One takes a couple of minutes, the other takes a couple of days. So with Wheat the people of the Fertile Crescent have plenty of time to invent more or new tools. Papua New Guinea can’t invent stuff, plus they are on the move a lot of the time. Their a hunter and gatherer civilization. This leads to inequality in the world. Some

Diamond believes that the main reason why people were able to create such a great civilization in Middle East is because they had over produced food so people were able to specialize in labor and produce military, leaders, architects, art and such. But why New Guineans were not able to do the same?

Eurasia has a predominately East-West axis. This means that much of the landmass shares similar climates, hours of sun, diseases, and crops. This is important for many reasons. It was easy for people of East Eurasia to migrate to West Eurasia and vice-versa. Technology could diffuse faster, crops were basically universal across the mega-continent, and livestock could be moved far because of similar climates. This was very beneficial towards the advancement of the Eurasian people.

The argument begins with a brief summarization of Diamond’s theory. The main point being that the distribution of wealth or success to countries or continents is decided geographically. And within the geographic category is the importance of farming and domestication of animals. Diamond says Eurasia’s advancement happened because of their

Civilizations were able to control their food supplies more easily, and domesticated animals also provided more food. Because food was easier to come by, more a massive increase in the population occurred. The only downfall of this is depletion of soil and overpopulation.

The establishment of food production proved to be more fulfilling than hunting and gathering since it reduced the risk of starvation. Despite being provided with some of the advantages that came with transitioning to agriculture, many regions remained as hunter-gatherers. While some areas, such as the Fertile Crescent and Eurasia, had many advantageous plants and animals that could be domesticated, other areas, New Guinea, Eastern United States, and Mesoamerica, possessed limited availability. Some areas are simply not suited to agriculture of any kind, while others may support some crops that are suitable for domestication but not others. Likewise, while there were big animals living in several regions, those species were not suitable for domestication since they did not follow the six requirements, which involved being sufficiently obedient, humble to humans, cheap to feed, able to breed well in captivity, immune to diseases, able to grow rapidly (Diamond 1999, 169). On the other hand, in some areas, food production developed independently. However, only a few places developed food production without any outside influence, which included the Fertile Crescent in western Eurasia, China, the eastern United States, Mesoamerica, and New Guinea. In the Andes and Amazonians, and three areas of Africa, food production was also probably an independent development, but there are

In both Australia and New Guinea, the chief geographical factor in retarding the development of the region was the isolation from other societies. This isolation created a lack of new technologies being spread to this region while Europe was more easily able to innovate and trade with other areas. Another factor that Diamond cites is that “Australia is by far the driest, smallest, flattest, most infertile, climatically most unpredictable… continent.”

In both Australia and New Guinea, the chief geographical factor in retarding the development of the region was the isolation from other societies. This isolation created a lack of new technologies being spread to this region while Europe was more easily able to innovate and trade with other areas. Another factor that Diamond cites is that “Australia is by far the driest, smallest, flattest, most infertile, climatically most unpredictable… continent.”

This meant that pastoral nomads and transhumant herders adjusted more quickly started warfare and movement of war chariots into East Asia. Many nomadic people began to search for pastures for livestock or even just water to drink. This then continued to more densely populated river valleys and start competition between the already established farming communities for the lands resources and space. This started the expansion of territorial states that started the centralization of Afro-Eurasia at this time so that nomadic people and settled people could be at terms. Even though states were into place in certain areas there was still trade routes that you needed to look out for. There was rule that was set into place but invaders or nomadic people didn’t always follow them. Merchants also needed the favor of local rulers for their protection. These invaders would be successful in Southwest Asia attacking Egypt and taking over their kingdom and later on setting a stronger foundation. In total, the times of nomadic and normal settled people in Afro-Eurasia started many problems that continued with warfare and hardships. These times ultimately started the emergence of future micro-societies for our world that was based on the expansion of populations and the increasing

Having domesticated animals is a huge advantage for a civilization. Geographic location affects what animals are available in that location. If a civilization has animals that can be domesticated, they can be used as a tool, and that can speed up the development of a civilization. To domesticate animals civilizations need animals that are herbivores, large mammals with a quick growth rate, live in herds, have a good social structure, breed well, and a nice disposition. There are 148 species of animals, but only 14 have been domesticated because they don't meet the specifications. Eurasia had plenty of domesticated animals, far more than Papa New Guinea. Domesticated animals provide transportation, protein, and warmth from their hair. They can work and help with crops. When domesticated animals do work, people don't need to. When people don't have to work, they can become specialists so the civilization can develop and expand. Specialists are people that focus on other things than farming, like becoming a doctor or an inventor. The more specialists a civilization has the more jobs created. The more people that become specialists, the faster a civilization will develop. If a civilization has a surplus of food and a handful of domesticated animals, they don’t have to focus on finding food and farm work, they could experiment with their recourses and develop new inventions. The people of Papa New Guinea couldn't do that, so there became a bigger gap between them and Eurasia, it created more

Climate can control what a human can grow. The people of the fertile crescent are able to grow wheat and good crops as well as feed and tame and domesticate animals. While people of Papua New Guinea have the sago tree and not able to grow crops. You can feed Animals as well as make bread with wheat and are able to store

Readers also learn that the spread of plants and animals play a significant role in the development and growth of societies.

The beneficial continental circumstances enjoyed by Eurasians first appears in vegetation. The Fertile Crescent was endowed with diverse, abundant, and highly productive cereals and pulses such as wheat, barley, and pea that yielded both starch and protein. These food staples were domesticated very quickly and with little effort by Eurasians, whose newfound farms gave rise to specialization and division of labor. Conversely, in the Americas, the sole cereal crop of corn took many more thousands of years of domesticated refinement to prove useful to humans. Mr. Diamond also places great emphasis on the geographic East-West orientation of Eurasia. A plant growing at a given latitude can grow at that latitude the world over. Thus, Eurasia's East-West orientation was highly conducive to the rapid spread (by trade) of productive domesticated grains across the continent. Conversely, the Americas, Africa, and Australia were impaired by their North-South orientation, which dictated that domesticated plants from people of one latitude were of little use to their neighbors to the North and South. Compounding the effect, the trade of agricultural technology in Eurasia ultimately led to trade in other things, such as technological advances, including writing and language