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The histories of Australia and New Guinea

Chapter 15 uses the development of Australia and New Guinea as an experiment in human evolution.  Historical evidence suggests that during the Pleistocene times, connected New Guinea and Australia were both populated by people from Asia, thus making the peoples of the two islands closely related.  Australia and New Guinea were then isolated from Asia, and probably from each other.

So why did New Guinea develop, while Australia did not?  New Guinea domesticated certain foods independently.  This food production allowed them to develop slightly, while the diverse and segmented climate of the mountainous region kept technology from spreading.  Meanwhile, the dry and domesticable-less Australia was unable to develop food production and remained hunter-gatherers, unable to develop tools and technology.  Australia remained isolated from Asia by water and New Guinea by the flow of information over many islands.

Finally, Europeans were able to make Australia so productive because they removed the isolation.  Australia was unable to adopt goods from the surrounding landmasses because Australia’s climate is drastically different from New Guinea’s and Indonesia’s.  Europeans brought goods from all over the world to Australia’s fertile regions.  It was not that the Australians were resistance to new technology; they simply did not have the environment or resources to develop.

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Anyone who has ever read Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs and Steel knows the most important contributory element that guarantees the rise and spread of domesticables enabling food production is writing.  Writing stems from the ultimate factor of the east/west axis where location plays a key role. ( Diamond 87) The east/west axis of society allows it to incorporate and domesticate a large number of plants and animals that survive und3er the same conditions.  With this incorporation of food, there comes a need for food production, but with this food comes germs and epidemics because of the lack of immunity to these wild species.  “…the diseases evolved from germs of the domesticated animals…” (87)

What does this have to do with writing?

When disease are developed and seen, they can be documented and therefore prevented and/or treated.  Writing allows societies to write down details about these diseases (most commonly the symptoms) and prevent people from dieing off from these new diseases.  Writing also allows for small groups or villages to develop their societies from bands and tribes to chiefdoms, or states. (268-269) “As population densities rose, food production became increasingly favored because it provided the increased food outputs needed to feed all those people.” (111) With this food input and output, it became extremely necessary for food storage.

Stemming from the chart on pg. 87 of Mr. Diamond’s novel, he infers that food storage virtually lead right into the necessity for writing. (87) He infers that calories = creation and therefore creation means writing.  Writing allowed for so many things to happen for a society.  It gave them the chance to document history, store their food and know their inventory, begin on the path to political organization and law, etc. “Continental differences in axis orientation affected the diffusion not only of food production but also of other technologies and inventions.” (190) Although this is true, writing allowed for the differences in axis orientation to be compromised through its many assets. 

Latitude of location is the most important element contributing to the rise and spread of food production. According to Jared Diamond, the author of Guns, Germs, and Steel, favorable latitude provided significant advantages for a society. For instance, Eurasia is the first land mass to gain a starter package of domesticated agriculture and then proceed to spread it extensively throughout the continent. However, Eurasia did not become the dominating agricultural force because of skilled farmers. The enormous east-wet axis and the particular latitude of Eurasia gave it an overwhelming advantage in the agriculture race (191). As Diamond states, “Localities distributed east and west of each other at the same latitude share exactly the same day length and seasonal variations.” Similar latitudes also share local disease, climate, and habitats (183). By allowing for a similar environment at different locations, latitude made the spread of agriculture inevitable.

Crops are biologically inclined to grow at certain climates. The similarity of climate along the same latitude allows domesticated crops to develop at a number of locations that could be thousands of miles apart. The ease of replanting along the same line of latitude encouraged the spread of agriculture in Eurasia, where there is a long east-west axis. However, the axis of the American continents is largely North-South, which allows little if any spread of domesticated crops (177). North American crops cannot spread throughout the North-South axis, because of the differences in temperature, rainfall, and overall climate. Diamond claims “… the failure of both farming and herding to reach Native American California from the U.S. Southwest” is the difficulty of farming in an area with a difficult North-South axis (178). The East-West axis gave Eurasia the advantage of crop replanted, but the North-South axis in the Americas created hardship for replanting farmers.

The greater ease of crop diffusion in Eurasia permitted faster development of sedentary, stratified societies. As Diamond stated, “Continental differences in axis orientation affected the diffusion not only of food production but also of other technologies and inventions.” The spread of agriculture and farming was followed by the spread of world-altering inventions such as the wheel and the alphabet (190). The low spread of agriculture in the Americas; caused by the North-South axis, lead to low spread of inventions. Consequently, the Americas experienced no growth or spread of technology, while Eurasia enjoyed the benefits of agricultural and technological growth. The latitude and general orientation of the axes dictated the fate of that region (191). With a favorable East-West axis, a region would have an advantage in gaining and spreading technology. In the Americas, the failure to domesticate and spread crops is the fault of the latitude, not the people. Latitude is the most important factor for discovering the successful rise and spread of agriculture.

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Today I was sitting in the cafeteria, eating my $2.20 lunch, and thinking for all that money, there isn’t enough food. Jared Diamond feels my pain, hence he dedicated six chapters of his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, to discovering the causes of the rise and spread of food production. As he stated, “The question continues to be debated by archaeologists and anthropologists…five main contributing factors can still be identified; the controversies revolve mainly around their relative importance” (110). Diamond is suggesting that there are five main factors contributing to the rise and spread of food production. He goes onto explain that these factors include a decrease in wild foods, an increase in domesticable plants, the development of new technology, an increase in population density, and the spread of food production from areas where it already existed. “All these considerations make it clear that we should not suppose that the decision to adopt farming was made in a vacuum, as if the people had previously no means to feed themselves” (109). In saying this, Diamond is suggesting that we cannot assume food production was created all at once, because people had access to a sufficient amount of food in all years prior to the development of food production. Instead, there had to be other causes, or proximate factors, such as those listed above, that resulted in food production. Still, knowing these factors, the controversy remains over which factor has the greatest importance.

So back to the cafeteria. I was in lunch, and I was thinking about how I had finished eating, yet was still hungry, because I like to eat a lot, and our school lunches really don’t provide enough food. Yet I still needed to buy a drink, and couldn’t stand the thought of paying more than $2.95 for food I didn’t really like. What I am getting at is that like myself, hunter-gatherers did not have a sufficient amount of available food. My alternative to this problem was to buy only a drink and eat some leftover food from the kids at my table. In the same sense, the alternative of hunter-gatherers was the development of food production. “One factor is the decline in the availability of wild foods. The lifestyle of hunter-gatherers has become less increasingly less rewarding over the past 13,000 years, as resources on which they depended (especially animal resources) have become less abundant or even disappeared”(110). With this statement, Diamond is supporting the idea that a lack of available food resulted of in food production. He also says that, “Only after the first Polynesian settlers had exterminated moas and decimated seal populations on New Zealand…did they intensify their food production” (110). Here Diamond is giving specific examples that prove how the decline in available food led to food production.

The decline in availability of food did not happen all at once. As stated by Diamond, “As population densities rose, food production became increasingly favored because it provided the increased food outputs needed to feed all those people”(111). The overall population on our planet began to increase, in some areas faster than others, therefore less wild food was available to feed the greater numbers. “A gradual rise in population densities impelled people to obtain more food…once people began to produce food and become sedentary, they could shorten the birth spacing and produce still more people, requiring still more food” (111). Diamond takes his thoughts a step farther to explain. A greater population density is one of the factors that led to the decrease of wild foods. It too is a proximate cause. The decrease in available foods made the quest for a different source of food necessary. As Diamond state, it “impelled people to obtain more food,” and this is how food production came to be. Overall, I think that the decrease in wild foods has the greatest impact of the proximate causes. It is the main event that stimulated people to find another food source. The development of food production may not have been a conscious decision, but it was created as a result of a need, the need for food. So the same way I decided to find an alternate supply of food during lunch, the hunter-gatherers found another source of food when they were hungry. People get hungry and like to eat; they also need food to survive. When there’s a will, there’s a way, and the absence of food gave people a strong enough will to develop food production.

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After reading Jared Diamonds book Guns, Germs, and Steel I could find a large amount of factors that causes food production. For example; access to domesticable plants and animals, proper soil, the need for more food with population growth, and growing seasons are all different factors that exist, but they all fall under the main category of location.(191) “…some regions proved much more suitable than others for the origins of food production, the ease of its spread was also varied greatly around the world.” (177).Without proper location you could not possibly have all of these things. Location is the one most important attribute that will guarantee the rise and spread of domesticables that therefore enables food production. Different locations allow for different chances at enabling food production. The Fertile Crescent and China both had useful and domesticable plant and animal species. These two locations were the first and most successful in food production.

Only certain things can live in certain locations. It would be impossible for a cow to survive in the tundra, what I’m getting at is the success of the farming and herding tribe depends on the location. Supported by Diamond, “Each plant population becomes genetically programmed, through natural selection, to respond appropriately to signals of the season regime under which it evolved…Animals too are adapted to latitude-related features of climate.” (184). The Eurasia had fourteen herbivorous domesticable animals roaming around and had successfully domesticated thirteen. Sub-Saharan Africa had plenty of domesticable animals, fifty one to be exact and they killed them because they were hunter gatherers. (162) Eurasia was just luckier location wise; they had the means of food production right in front of them. To get from domestication of plants and animals to food production you have to think of results. The result of domesticating plants is growing more than what naturally grows, therefore supporting more people, therefore having a population growth, therefore becoming more significant, and developing writing and language. The result of domesticating animals is breeding more, using them to develop technology or tools, eating more and having more left over and then it follows the same pattern that the plant domestication results had.

The east-west axis plays a huge role in the food production process. When a continent has a large east-west axis that means about everyone has about the same climate and growing seasons. When a continent has a large north south axis that means there is a huge range of different climates, growing seasons and even environments. (185) As said by Diamond, “Localities distributed east and west of each other at the same latitude share exactly the same day length and its seasonal variations.” (183).The similarities in the environment allow crops to spread, and be grown in more than one area at a time. It helps tribes become sedentary after observing farmers and herders. It allows them to replicate exactly and develop food production of their own. This proceeds to spread across the entire continent because of its east-west axis and the relevance of good location.

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Anyone who has read Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, and Steel, would be able to clearly see that the most immediate casue of spread of food production would have to be location. he sees mankind’s developmental trajectory in any region of the Earth as determined by the number and kind of domesticable plants and animals the region contained, and its barriers to travel. In particular, the unique advantages in all three respects of the famed “Fertile Crescent” after the last Ice Age 13,000 years ago was the decisive accident of history.To take farming first, the area of Southwest Asia around the Tigris-Euphrates valley, was reportedly rich in the right wild varieties of wheat and barley. One trait that especially suits a grass species for domestication is the heaviness of its seed—the part that contains the nutrients—and 32 of the world’s 56 heaviest-seeded grass plants are native to Southwest Asia. Only four of these grasses are found in Sub-Saharan Africa and eleven in all of the Americas.The shift from hunting-gathering to farming, Prof. Diamond argues (surely correctly), was not the inspiration of a lone genius, but was incremental and largely unplanned. Hunter-gatherers first took note of especially desirable plants, then began to return to the most vigorous stands of those plants, then settled permanently near those stands, then began consciously to tend them, and then consciously to sow future crops.More efficient than hunting or gathering, farming yielded food surpluses that allowed sharp increases in population density, which in turn supported specialized non-farming classes of scribes, intellectuals, soldiers, and, eventually, government bureaucrats. Farm-supported societies tended toward greater complexity, the production of new ideas and inventions, and military domination of their neighbors. Diamond argues specifically that all this happened in the Fertile Crescent long before it happened elsewhere in great part because of the accident mentioned before—the presence of so many domesticable plants. This, rather than any inherent superiority of its inhabitants, led to its becoming the “cradle of civilization.” Other parts of the world never had a chance. Either they had no suitable plants at all, or had so few, and began farming so late, that they were overwhelmed by the descendants of those southwest Asians who had begun to urbanize by 8,500 B.C.
According to Diamond’s reckoning, there are only 148 species of large, wild creatures that can be tamed (and of these only 14 species have made it to the farm). In the plant realm, only several hundred of 200,000 species can yield good protein. The ancestors of these mammals and plants — which include pigs, barley, and rice — just happened to be in the Fertile Crescent and China. Moreover, only the Eurasian continent has an east-west axis allowing diffusion of plants, animals, and people across similar, somewhat Mediterranean-style climate and terrain. The north-south axis of Africa and America inhibited diffusion due to severe changes in climate. For example, the tropical jungle of central America effectively stopped the southward migration of domestic corn from Mexico and the northward migration of the domestic llama from Peru. Five thousand years after llamas had been domesticated in the Andes, the Maya, Aztecs, and all the other native societies of Mexico remained without pack animals. Similarly, the Saharan desert and tropical rainforests of Africa impeded the southward spread of technology from the Fertile Crescent of the Middle-East.
Thus, agriculturally wealthy Eurasians had a long head start in developing a surplus population with a division of labor that enabled the tools of civilization to arise. Agricultural settlements led small bands of nomadic hunter-gatherers to coalesce into village-based tribes. These grew into chiefdoms comprising thousands of people from many villages. Chiefdoms led conflict-mediating laws to be codified. Ruling classes and elites emerged to mobilize citizens and their resources to wage war, build public works, and increase political power. Finally, the state arose and with it the large populations and technological developments including political organizations that produced fleets of soldiers engaging in transoceanic conquest. This then brings me back to my opening statement of the importance of location because witthout the propper location, nations were not able to evolve.Before agriculture it seems that the impetus for evolution was external or environmental. Agriculture itself undoubtedly arose in some connection with global environmental changes. But since agriculture it seemed that humans have created evolution themselves, their actions destroying species and causing adaptations. Perhaps most importantly the civilizations that have arisen due to the advent of agriculture are now altering the global climate. Maybe we have come full circle and since we have taken evolution into our own hands, we will be our own destroyers.

Societies in the beginning of human history mainly practiced a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Dictionary.com provides the definition of a hunter-gatherer as “a member of a group of people who subsist by hunting, fishing, or foraging in the wild.” Eventually, many of these nomadic hunter-gatherer bands made a shift to a sedentary farmer-herder type lifestyle. Although a farmer-herder lifestyle obviously seems more beneficial, looking at it now, many times farmer-herders had a tougher time surviving than hunter-gatherers. In other words, the advantages were not always obvious. So, what caused humans to shift from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to this farmer-herder lifestyle? Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, And Steel, answers this question with multiple reasons. As Diamond states, “the first farmers on each continent could not have chosen farming consciously, because there were no other nearby farmers for them to observe.” (108) Diamond’s reasons for this sub-conscious shift are comprised of several proximate factors. These factors include the availability of wild foods, the increase of domesticable wild foods, development of technologies, and an increase in human population (110-111). Of these four proximate factors, the single most important aspect in the development of food production is the availability of domesticable wild foods.

In order to survive, humans need enough food so that the body can sustain itself and reproduce. Possessing the right domesticable wild foods allowed societies to be able to support themselves nutritiously. Diamond lists 8 founder crops that were essential to supporting newly emerged farmer-herders. These 8 crops include emmer wheat, barley, lentil pea, chickpea, bitter vetch, and flax (126-127). These crops are also extremely prevalant and valuable today. As Diamond states, “As a result, cereals today account for over half of all calories consumed by humans and include five of the modern world’s 12 leading crops” (125).  These crops were extremely important because of their high nutritious value which allowed societies to be well-nourished and supported. Furthermore, these crops were all domesticable in the right places, making them easy and plentiful for societies. Possessing these crops made it easier for hunter-gatherers to become more sedentary because it provided enough nutrition in plentiful amounts; therefore, the hunter-gatherers could do less roaming.

Hunter-gatherers did not consciously choose to become farmer-herders. Instead, the availability to grow domesticable wild plants made this choice for them. These domesticable crops only began to be farmed when it was realized that they could grow easily. This observation was made only through natural causes and not conscious ones. Diamond uses the example of a strawberry. Strawberries went through a natural evolution to be able to reproduce and spread, and strawberries are now a crop that can be planted and harvested( 116-117). This example gives some insight into how hunter-gatherers observed that plants could be farmed. Diamond states that “those principles of crop development by artificial selection still serve as our most understandable model of the origin of species by natural selection(130). For example, hunter-gatherers could eat many strawberries, and eventually pass out the seeds through in latrines. After returning to these latrines after time has past, the hunter-gatherer may notice that strawberries have grown in these places. It is this natural process that leads to the beginnings of the farmer-herder lifestyle. As long as hunter-gatherers were in possession of crops like these, as well as some of the 8 founder crops, they could support the switch to the farmer-herder lifestyle. Without these domesticable wild foods, hunter-gatherers could obviously never have cultivated any crops that could sustain a sedentary lifestyle.

If you’ve ever read Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond, you know that the most immediate cause of food production was proper location.  Although Diamond presents the readers with a few different causes, I believe location was the most important.  He says, “…around 8500 B.C. in Mediterranean habitats of the Fertile Crescent…, only 3,000 years later in the climatically and structurally similar Mediterranean habitats South Europe…”(104) about the different times in which different locations thrived. To me, this means that certain countries were faster with food production because of where they were located.  The countries that were quickest with the transition from hunter-gatherers to farmer-herders were located so they had the East-West axis as an advantage.  Diamond tells us that, even though E-W axis was important, food production wasn’t necessarily a discovery or invention, but fate(105).  Food production just happened, which leads me to believe that it was location, and not a seemingly less natural cause, like domestication.  I also believe that many of the secondary reasons would be nothing without the benefit of location.  If a country was in a cold, barren land, would domestication be so easy?  Would Food production be so easy?  The answer is no.  I think it is safe to say that location played the biggest part in the rise of food production, though other secondary factors quickened the pace. 

The East-West axis was an interesting, but important factor in food production.  The axis created an indifference in climate between each area on it.  Two countries that shared the axis had virtually the same climate, and therefore the same animals and plants.  This way, trade was easier, and food production was made quicker.  Each E-W axis country could conceivably trade with each other to receive new crops that would work in either climate.  Location was also important for crops.  In some areas, edible plants and fruits were abundant, whereas other places had little plants that could be eaten.  It was all about the luck of the draw.  If a tribe was lucky, they either moved to, or originated in a great location that was easy to domesticate.  Jared Diamond also notes that, with a steady climate, edible plants had a longer growing season(Diamond, 138).  With the axis, hunter gatherers were more likely to settle down, because the land allowed them to have comfortable living situations, with plenty of plants and animals.  “By harvesting those individual wild plants possessing these desirable qualities to an exceptional degree, ancient peoples unconsciously dispersed the plants and set them on the road to domestication”(Diamond, 119).  With this quote, Diamond shows that, for the countries that had the plants due to location, that food production was almost an accident, but it required the hunter gatherers to change into farmer herders. 

Besides the East-West axis, other areas were fertile and easy to inhabit permanently, like the Fertile Crescent, hence the name.  “A third advantage of the Fertile Crescent’s Mediterranean zone is that it provides a wide range of altitudes and topographies within a short distance”(Diamond, 139-140).  This means that the Fertile Crescent had the right location- and by location I mean it is located in a place that allows for good crop growth and animal domestication- to have quick food production.  The diversity that was inside of the Fertile Crescent helped it to have more plants and animals, which allowed for more domestication, along with Eurasia, which was also a location- benefited area.  The location of Eurasia gave it many domesticable animals, which in turn allowed for easier food production.  Once hunter gatherers were able to have domestic animals and plants, they could settle down and become farmer gatherers.  Diamond states that the hunter gatherers learned that some animals were best kept alive, which gave them even more reason to settle down(Diamond, 88).  The location of many areas helped plant and animal domestication, which then helped speed along food production. 

After reading Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, I can now conclude that the contributory element that guaranteed the rise and spread of domesticables enabling food production was location.  One key point is that there was only a minimal amount of edible plants for the humans there.  Even the plants that were there and that were edible the humans later found out that a good part of the edible plants were useless. The plants were low in nutritional value and were not able to be digested.  Only with a large variety of food are people able to settle in villages.  This later allows food production to become an option, Diamond states, “ It should come as no surprise that food production never arose in large areas of the globe, for ecological reasons that still make it difficult or impossible there today (93).  This quote makes the point that is makes no sense to start food production if there was no nutritional value, or if it was hard to make or consume.  Thus, the availability of consumable food was needed to being food production.

“In all parts of the world there is evidence that archeologists found, that give evidence of the rising in densities along with the start of food production (Diamond, 111).  The location determines how suitable the conditions for growing crops are.  An example of this is, the climate in a more northern region is colder and the growing periods are shorter.  This results in a lesser range of agriculture.  However, in a more southern region it is warmer, more sunshine; therefore, there is more diversity in the plants that are grown.  Where there is a larger variety in plants there is food production.  The proper location makes a larger impact on the agriculture and food production available.  Diamond proves this in his quote that location is based on suitable growing conditions. 

Diamond proves that location had a large impact on whether or not food production came available.  Location also determined the amount of animals; that in turn established domesticable animals.  Domesticated animals allowed the farmers of the time and still today to consume a healthy amount of animal protein. This allowed the society to stay put instead of moving to another food source.  Another way that domesticables helped the farmers was that certain animals provided more that just meet.  For instance, chickens laid eggs, and milk came from cows.  Thus, the location means everything in the means of domesticables and most importantly food production. 

As I read Guns, Germs, and Steel, I discovered that the most important contributory element that guarantees the rise and spread of domesticates enabling food production are animals. Animals provide fertilizer, food, and protection for animals, plants and humans alike. Fertilizer helps plants grow and flourish so they are able to eat by animals and humans. Food is provided by animals, such as meat and milk. Hides from animals provide people with warmth. Both hunter-gatherers and farmer-herders seem to be somewhat successful, but farmer-herder came out on top. Although “in a one-on-one fight, a naked farmer would have no advantage over a naked hunter-gatherer” (195). In the chapter Lethal Gift of Livestock, it suggests only the strong survive (195).  What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

People do need germs to live. Although some may hurt or even kill you, germs are needed to live. http://http://www.kidspoint.org/columns2.asp?column_id=849&column_type=homework.” title="good and bad">Germs. They provide immunity, antibodies, antigens, and resistance. Even though we want to kill all germs out in the world, we have to research them and comprehend what they are all about before killing them (198). Germs are also good for animals for all the same reasons as they are for humans. The animal’s natural fertilizer is a wonderful source for plants to grow. By having plants thrive off of it, it makes life a little easier for farmers. Fertilizer. “Domesticated animals differ in various ways from their wild ancestors. These differences result from two processes: human selection of those individual animals more useful to humans than other individuals of the same species, and automatic evolutionary responses of animals to the altered forces of natural selection…” (159).

Animals provide people with food such as milk and meat.  From those products people are allowed to make different sorts of food.  Therefore giving the food industry tons of business, because people need to food to survive.  If you would like to raise a 1,000 pound cow, you would need to feed it 10,000 pounds of corn (169).  A farmer would need to grow more corn than he/she might think. animal health.  Over times the meat we eat has been changing over the years, “breeds of dogs were developed and raised for food in Aztec Mexico, Polynesia, and ancient China” (169).  Animals also provide protection.  They provide protection for humans.  Animal’s fur and skin provide humans with protection from the weather by making clothing and shoes out of it.  Domesticated animals enable food production.  domesticated animals

Out of the several proximate causes ultimately responsible for the rise and spread of food production, the single most important is the domestication of wild plants and animals. Society relied on animals for food such as meat and milk for survival. If the population is fed, the population can grow (calories=creation, no calories=malnutrition). Not only did some animals provide nourishment, but they also offered easier, faster travel and labor. Their natural fertilizer was extremely crucial for the domestication of wild plants. The ways of the hunter-gatherers died out after a period of time, and the lifestyle of farmer-herders took over. Diamond suggests that hunter-gatherers relied on hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants whereas farmer-herders relied on domesticating wild animals and plants and eating the resulting livestock and crops (86). By comparing the two, the lifestyle of farmer-herders proves to be a more successful and reliable existence. Diamond says, “Today most people on Earth consume food that they produced themselves or that someone else produced for them” (86).

Among the many species of wild plants and animals, a small minority is edible or worth obtaining; most species are useless to society for many reasons--they are “indigestible, poisonous, low in nutritional value, tedious to prepare, difficult to gather, or dangerous to hunt” (Diamond, 88). Once the farmer-herders established domesticating certain animals and plants useful to humans, it ensured them a sedentary, yet reliable existence. Unlike farmer-herders, hunter-gatherers live day by day, eating what they can find in the wilderness. Their nomadic ways disintegrated and proved to be extremely unreliable. Diamond argues, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows” (88). These four ways benefited farmer-herders more than hunter-gatherers. Today, farmers have technological equipment in order to improve their work, but they have to avoid many negative setbacks such as water pollution, soil erosion, pesticide residues, etc. 

Overall, the domestication of wild plants and animals directly increased population rates and life expectancy considering the simple concept, calories=creation. More and more farmer-herders settlements were established over time. Americans today tend to get most of their protein, an essential nutrient for human growth and development, from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens. Domestic milked mammals such as the cow, sheep, goat, horse, etc, provide milk products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt (Diamond, 88). The fact that hunter-gatherers are constantly traveling poses a major disadvantage. A hunter-gatherer mother can only carry one child and few possessions; they space their children about four years apart. This restriction hindered their ability to obtain a densely populated society. Due to farmer-herders sedentary lifestyle, they were able to establish this type of society. Diamond says, “Sedentary people, unconstrained by problems of carrying young children on treks, can bear and raise as many children as they can feed” (89). As the farmer-herders continued to grow in population, their ways of food production was spread throughout the world.

Location is the most important contributory element that guarantees the rise and spread of domesticables enabling food production.  Only a certain amount of edible plants grow in certain locations.  This then limits the society’s amount of available consumable calories.  Most locations have edible plants that are few and far between which makes it virtually impossible to become a stratified society.  Diamond explains, “Among wild plant and animal species, only a small minority are edible to humans or worth hunting or gathering.  Most biomass (living biological matter) on land is in the form of wood and leaves, most of which we cannot digest.” (88) This then means that a location with a suitable amount of edible plants is important to evolve from hunter gather to farmer herder.  Let’s take the Fertile Crescent for instance.  This area appears to have been the first sight of well, civilization, but why?  One advantage they had was that it lies within a zone of Mediterranean climate.  A Mediterranean climate has mild, wet winters and long hot dry summers.  This environment is great for annuals a small plant that lives during the rains, dries up and dies in the dry season and comes back annually.  The Fertile Crescent also happens to have many annual cereals and pulses which are edible to humans (Diamond, 136).  These edible plants then raise the amount of consumable calories a society is exposed to, which then leads to a denser population.  Location is a major factor in not only consumable calories it also plays a large role in demesticable animals.

Location had a huge impact on domesticated animals.  Let’s begin with the definition of a candidate for domestication.  Diamond defines it as “a species of terrestrial, herbivorous or omnivorous, wild mammal on the average over 100 pounds.” (162) Eurasia happens to have most candidates with 72 species while sub-Saharan Africa comes in second with 51.  This seems to be common sense though because Eurasia is the world’s largest landmass after all and has many diverse habitats.  Sub-Saharan Africa being a smaller landmass with fewer habitats obviously will have fewer species of candidates.  The interesting information comes when we look at percentages of candidates domesticated.  Eurasia domesticated 13 (18%) species while Sub-Saharan Africa domesticated none (0%).  Not only did Eurasia domesticate 13 species they domesticated thirteen of “The Ancient Fourteen Species of Big Herbivorous Domestic Mammals” (160-163).  So why did Eurasia domesticate so many species, were they just lucky?  Luck may have played a small factor but I believe it was because their location allowed them to inhabit diverse places that had many suitable species with all the right characteristics.  Location determines things like crops and domesticables but its nothing without and east/ west axis. 

Part of a good location is an east/ west axis.  This is important because once a society has established farming and domesticables it must grow and spread.  To successfully spread your crops and domesticables to other herds and tribes a society must do it in a latitudinal manor (176).  This is because “Day length is constant throughout the year at the equator, but at temperature latitudes it increases as the months advance from the winter solstice to the summer solstice, and it then declines again through the next half of the year.”(184) East/ west axes are also beneficial it will pass through many diverse habitats.  It also promises similar temperatures, day lengths and growing seasons.  Location determines a socities edible plants, domesticable animals, and ability to grow and flourish.  That is why location is most important contributory element that guarantees the rise and spread of domesticables enabling food production.

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Location was most obviously the key factor as to whether or not a society in prehistory was able to obtain food production.  Jared Diamond clearly points this out in his book, Guns, Germs, and Steel.  He analyzes why many societies had to rely on outside sources for their “founder package” and what effect this had on their development.  Why was location important?  Well, unlike the common belief that some humans are simply superior to others, “axis orientations affected the rate of spread of crops and livestock, and possibly also of writing, wheels, and other inventions” (176).  When examined this theory makes much sense.  The axis orientation, or simply put the direction in which most of the continent is laid, changed factors such as climate and typography variations in the continent.  The difference between how fast crops and inventions spread in places with a largely north-south axis and in places with an east-west axis is immense (178).

Diamond divides the continents into four main pieces: the Americas, Eurasia, Africa, and Australia/New Guinea.  In this chapter of his book, however, Australia/New Guinea doesn’t really come into play.  Therefore, we are left with three landmasses, two of which have north-south axes (the Americas and Africa) and one of which has an east-west axis (Eurasia).  The difference in progression of the societies occurs mainly here.  Eurasia was able to acquire the Fertile Crescent’s “founder package”.  This consisted of several domesticated crops and a few domesticated animals.  This package quickly spread through the continent because the climate and growing seasons were similar, as well as diseases.  Because the crops had already adapted to these factors once they had to make only a few small alterations to be able to survive in the slightly different locations throughout Eurasia (185).  In the Americas and Africa, this ease of increased food production was made more difficult and slower because the crops and animals had to change to fit the various climates, which sometimes was impossible, causing societies to need to start over again.  The evidence of “frequent multiple domestications in the Americas, might thus provide more subtle evidence that crops spread more easily out of Southwest Asia than in the Americas” (179).

Because Eurasia had a head start on food production, they gained a head start to becoming “civilized”.  The acquirement of these domesticates allowed Eurasia to develop several sedimentary, stratified societies as opposed to their previous hunter-gatherer lifestyle.  These states, if large enough, would have had a centralized government with laws and organization.  Eventually, the large sedentary societies (states) would become many of the countries initially in place in Europe and Asia.  The larger societies created by domesticated food production helped to create writing as a way of recording what was stored where, law and punishment, and other critical information to a society.  The spread of wheels and other inventions may have been affected because many were devised as ways to make aspects of food production easier (190).  Diamond states the blunt truth and shows that he thinks history may have had a different outcome if the tables were turned by saying, “Around those axes turned the fortunes of history” (191).

Related Links:
http://www.pnas.org/cgi/reprint/101/10/3715.pdf
http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/Blaut/diamond.htm
http://imperium.lenin.ru/~kaledin/tmp/agricltr.txt
http://www.edge.org/discourse/diamond_evolution.html

Until this day, society as a whole enjoys to eat and eat, and then eat again. Our ancestors and predecessors were no different from us. This one factor proves to be the most important proximate cause that led to food production, a lack of food. Jared Diamond relays this fact to us throughout his enticing book, Guns, Germs, and Steel.  “All these considerations make it clear that we should not suppose that the decision to adopt farming was made in a vacuum, as if the people had previously had no means to feed themselves”(109). With this statement, Diamond implies that an underlying cause of food production happens to be a lack of food. Hunter-gatherers could not sustain themselves or their families with the amount of food they were collecting which drove an abundance of them to become farmers. Food production tends to lead to increased population densities because it yields more edible calories per acre than does hunter-gathering cites a perfect in-between the lines example Diamond provides(111). The subject at hand is food production, but when the text is read in-between the lines, Diamond implies the lack of food for a set population drove them into food production.

Diamond believes that there are five proximate causes for the development of food production; they are a decrease in wild foods, an increase in domesticable plants, the introduction of new technology, a rise in population density, and the spread of food production from other areas (109-112). Does something jump out at you? because it hit me in the stomach, no pun intended. People need food in order to survive, and if there wasn’t a lack of food, food production wouldn’t have happened at all because hunter gatherers would have been self sufficient and never thought of living a life as a farmer. “The lifestyle of hunter-gatherers has become increasingly less rewarding over the past 13,000 years, as resources on which they depended have become less abundant or even disappeared”(110). Diamond hits the nail on the coffin with this statement. Hunter-gatherers goes a little in depth about the extent of what kinds of tools they used and how they lived, and when I begin to realize how primitive they were, it puzzles me how even thousands of years ago they weren’t looked at as primitive people. Farming, yet when I look at this, even the most basic farming topples hunter-gathers’ primitive technology.  Just looking at the facts, farming was the way to go, and food production sky rocketed because these people made that profound decision.

With my last words, I plan to exemplify that a lack of wild foods was the one most important proximate cause. People have to be driven to do something that is not in their normal lifestyles. When people cannot survive because they do not have enough to eat, they are forced to produce food. “From those precursors of food production already practiced by hunter-gatherers, it developed stepwise” shows that gathering food was not sufficient enough to begin with, and hence again, lack of food prevailed as a main cause (109). Looking at the other proximate causes, they all scaffold onto the main cause, lack of food. Depletion of wild game fits under lack of food because they are basically stating the same concept but instead involve animals as the lack of food. Development of technology would not even be a factor if the population never evolved into a farming society. Human population density is another cause, but is just a branch of lack of food. Isn’t it obvious that the more people the more food you need? The last proximate cause is the spread of food production, but this seems pointless as a proximate cause because it is just a restatement of what has already happened. How can you use a word to define itself? This leaves a lack of wild foods to be the number one reason of the rise and spread of domesticables. Diamond tells us that the few that remained hunter-gatherers only did so because it was unsuitable for them to farm on the harsh lands they resided on (113). Closing my blog, I firmly believe lack of wild foods was the key proximate factor in the spread and rise of food production.

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The proximate cause that is the most important contributory element to the rise and spread of domesticables is an east-west axis.  According to Jared Diamond’s book, Guns, Germs, & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, an east-west axis is widely responsible for the development of food production among certain peoples and the lack thereof among others.  When faced with a question regarding the rapid spread of crops from the Fertile Crescent, Diamond replied, “The answer depends partly on that east-west axis of Eurasia” (183).  Diamond goes further in explaining this by mentioning that different regions thousands of miles apart, but with the same latitude, are closer in climate to each other than regions a thousand miles north or south (183).  This would naturally enable a domesticable capable of living or growing in a certain climate to be able to thrive in a region thousands of miles away, if the axis of the landmass allowed.  An east-west axis not only affects the rise and spread of domesticables and food production, it affects all other innovations and sophistications and levels that a society can have.  It is the basic building block for having a civilized, stratified society, and it all starts with farmers on an east-west axis.  That is why the most important contributory element to the rise and spread of food production and domesticables is an east-west axis.

Imagine a banana tree growing in Siberia, or lichen in the rainforests of Ecuador.  This idea strikes the mind as ridiculous, as everyone knows bananas are tropical and wouldn’t survive in any drastically different climate, which may be only 300 miles north or south.  However, the same banana tree would grow 5,000 miles east or west of the region on the same latitude.  With this in mind, it makes much more sense that a landmass oriented east and west would offer many more opportunities for domestic growth.  The domesticable wouldn’t need to adapt drastically to the new environment, as it is already familiar with the climate and geography in most instances.  Therefore, it only makes sense that landmasses like Eurasia, which has an east-west axis, got a head start in food production, as domesticables were easily able to spread and grow.  “[Domesticates] were already adapted to the climates of the regions to which they were spreading” (185).  It also only makes sense that residents of North and South America and Africa found it hard to grow and spread domesticables because their major axes are north-south.  The climate change would be too different for a plant to easily survive and adapt.  Here is one such example: at first glance, it may seem like a great idea to a Canadian farmer trying to add variety to his diet to plant corn that he got in Mexico.  When the farmer toils and sows the corn seeds, only to have them thrust up shoots under feet of snow in March, it suddenly seems like a horrendous idea.  All that time and energy lost, only to have a food product that will die, if not from the climate, from lack of resistance to northern diseases (184).

The spread of food production and domesticables relies mainly on an east-west axis.  A region can have a great climate and many domesticables available to it, but if it is not able to spread, the region is limited to what it has.  This region can’t grow as well, and has no other sophisticated neighbors that they con conquer with their guns, germs, and steel that only a society with food production can have.  Even if they spread to these nomadic regions occupied by hunter-gatherers, there is no land immediately suitable for the types of crops they have already firmly established.  Contrast this with the land that has ample room for growth, and its neighbors also do.  The power of this stratified farmer society can grow exponentially, all because it has an east-west axis, instead of a confining, restricting north-south axis with climate barriers.  For instance, farming spread rapidly “from the Philippines east to Polynesia (at 3.2 miles per year)” (178).  Compare this with the growth of food production from Mexico to the United States southwest at an average rate of 0.2 miles per year (178).  Clearly an east-west axis is a huge advantage in the rise and spread of domesticables and food production.

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