What is Diamond’s general argument?

History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences in people’s environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves

What is Yali’s question?

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?

Part 1: From Eden to Cajamarca

Chapter 1: Up to the Starting Line

Starting in Africa 7 million years ago--African Apes broke into several populations

4 million years ago--Upright posture2.5 million years ago--increased body size and relative brain size

StagesAustralopithecus africanus Homo habilis1.7 years ago—Homo erectu

Between 1 million and 1.8 million years ago, Homo erectus moves out of Africa.

500,000 years ago—Homo erectus characterized by enlarged, rounder, less angular skeletons, classified as Homo sapians130,000 years ago—Homo neanderthalensis (Neanderthals) Larger brains, buried their dead, still used crude tools

Great leap forward 50,000 years ago--Stone tools and jewelry in East Africa40,000 years ago—Cro-Magnons (modern humans)1. In Near East and South East Europe2. Used diverse and multi-piece tools3. Artworks (i.e.,cave paintings, musical instruments)Arguments for Great leap

1. Developed voice box2. Change in Brain organization

37,000 years ago—Neanderthals become extinct

  Between 40,000 and 30,000 years ago: Major extension of human geographic

range in Australia and New Guinea

Proof of water crafts development

Extinction of large Australian animals (i.e.,giant kangaroos, rhinos, 400 pound ostrich-like birds) around 35,000 years ago may have been the first extermination of large animal species by man.

Subsequent occupations

20,000 years ago—Siberia occupied.14,000 to 35,000 years ago---Americas occupiedRemains found in Alaska dating back to 12,000 BCClovis sites of US and Mexico shows occupation as early 30,000 years ago and as late as 11,000 BCBetween 17,000 and 12,000 years ago--extinction of large animals in Americas

Modern Settlement A.     Between 8500 and 4000 BC--Mediterranean IslandsB.     Between 1200 BC and AD 1000—Polynesian and Micronesian islandsC.     Between AD 300 and 800—Madagascar Iceland

Chapter 2: A Natural Experiment of HistoryPolynesians to Pacific as Model

Ancestral Polynesians spread into the Pacific around 3,200 years agoA.     encountered islands differing greatly in environmentB.     after about 2000 years Polynesian society had spawned on those diverse islands C.     In 1835 Maori invaders (from New Zealand’s North Island) attacked the Moriori on the Chatham islands (500 miles east of New Zealand)

Main difference in Moriori and Maori Societies:

Subsistence A.     New Zealand had large birds, retained domesticated animals (i.e., pigs, chickens, dogs)B. Used agricultureC.     Isolated islands lacked domestic animalsD.     Those who moved to Islands in sub-arctic latitudes were forced to abandon farming and become hunter-gatherers

Subsistence differences led to other differences

in:

A.     Population density1.      Lower extreme: Chathams had 5 people per square mile. Tonga, Samoa, and the Societies also low in pop. density2.      Upper extreme: Anuta with 1,800 people per square mile

  Political Units1. Small isolated islands—politically unified2. Larger islands—not politically unifiedEconomies1. Simple, non specialized in low pop. density islands (i.e., Chathams)Densely populated islands could support more specialized crafts

Social complexity/Political organization

1.      In Chathams, decisions rested on community2.      In Larger islands decisions rested on appointed chiefs and bureaucratsMaterial Culture (tools, crafts)1.      Henderson Island is devoid of stone, reduced to giant clamshells as tools. Chatham Islands had clubs, small simple tools2.      Maori had access to wide range of materials, plus their dense population supported craft specialists

Environmental Variables in Societal Development

ClimateGeological TypeMarine resourcesAreaTerrain fragmentationIsolationTHESE HAVE IMPACT ON HUMAN DENSITY AND TYPE OF SUBSISTENCE AS WELL

Chapter 3: Collision at Cajamarca

Why did Pizarro Capture Atahuallpa?A. Spanish military advantages: steel swords, steel armor, guns, horsesB. Atahuallpa’s military: no animals to ride; only stone, bronze, or wooden clubs, maces, hand axes, sling shots, quilted armor

Misconceptions about Spanish victory

A.     That Spanish had native allies (they had only a few)B.     That Incas mistook Spaniards as their returning god Viracocha (popular misconception)

How did Atahuallpa come to be at Cajamarca?

A.     Civil war battle left Incas divided and vulnerableB.     Diseases transmitted to peoples lacking immunity by invading peoples with immunity (i.e., small pox, measles, influenza, typhus, bubonic plague)1.      Smallpox outbreak killed former Inca emperor Huayna Capac2.      Smallpox epidemic devastated Aztecs after the failure of the first Spanish attack in 1520 and killed the Aztec emperor

How did Pizarro come to be at Cajamarca?

Why didn’t Atahuallpa instead try to conquer Spain?A.     European maritime technologyB.     Centralized political organization in Spain that enabled them to finance shipsC.     Spanish possessed writing skills which, unlike word-of-mouth, enabled information to spread widely D. Large Animal Energy Society in Eurasia

Why did Atahuallpa walk into the trap?

A.     Atahuallpa’s lack of information about Spaniards—He would not have understood their tactics (i.e., that they had never planned on releasing him)B.     Because of lack of information, Atahuallpa was not warned about other invasions in the AmericasPizarro, on the other hand, had some knowledge of civilizations remote from Europe

Part 2: Rise and Spread of Food Production

Different peoples acquired food production at different times in

prehistory A.     Some never acquired it (i.e.,Aboriginal Austrialians)B.     Some developed it independently (i.e.,ancient Chinese)C.     Others acquired it from neighbors (i.e., ancient Egyptians)

How did plant and animal domestication lead to

denser human populations?

More calories per acreAnimal manure for fertilizerAnimals pulling plowsShorter birth intervals Storage of food surpluses

Food production led to denser human population,

which in turn: A.     Enabled people to stay in one area and not move about like hunter-gatherersB.     Permitted the storage of food surplusFood storage, in turn, allowed taxation, and thus supported specialists, kings, bureaucrats, etc.

Domestication of horses led to successful conquest

Chapter 5: Histories Haves and Have-nots

How does food production vary around the globe?Three extremes (see table on page 100)

Regions where food production rose independently with domestication of many indigenous crops

A.     South Asia (Fertal Cresent)—8500 BCB.     China—by 7500 BCC.     Mesoamerica (central and southern Mexico and adjacent areas of Central America)—by 3500 BCD.     Andes and Amazonia—by 3500 BCE.      Eastern United States—2500 BCF.      Possible others: Sahel—by 5000 BC; Tropical West Africa—by 3000 BC; Ethiopia--?; New Guinea—by 7000 BC

Regions that imported domesticates:

where food production depended on the arrival of founder crops from elsewhereA.     Western Europe—between 6000 and 3500 BCB.     Indus Valley region of Indian subcontinent—7000 BCC.     Egypt—6000 BC

D. Ethiopia

Regions where food production began with abrupt arrival of

foreign people (conquest, etc.). Places formally occupied by hunter-gatherersA.     CaliforniaB.     Pacific Northwest of North AmericaC.     Argentine PampasD.     AustraliaE.      Siberia

Chapter 6: To Farm or Not Farm

Why did some shift from hunting-gathering toward food production in some areas, but not others?

Food production vs. hunter-gathering (clearing up

misconceptions A.     Food production was not a discovery or an invention

Rather: Food production evolved as a by product of decisions made without awareness of the consequences

B.     There is not necessarily a sharp divide between hunter-gathers and sedentary food producers

1.      Some hunter-gatherers became sedentary (i.e., those in North America’s Pacific Northwest coast)

2.      Conversely, some groups of food producers are mobile (i.e., modern nomads of New Guinea’s Lakes Plains make clearings in the jungle, plant bananas and papayas, then leave for a few months to become hunter-gatherers)

A.     Food producers are not always active managers of their land and hunter-gatherers are not merely collectors of the land’s wild produce (i.e., New Guinea peoples never domesticated, but still increased production of wild edible plants by clearing away encroaching trees)

Factors that tipped the competitive advantage away from hunting gathering and

toward food production A.     Decline in availability of wild foods (i.e., extinction of certain animals)B.     Increased availability of domesticated wild plantsC.     The cumulative development of technologies in which food production would eventually depend (i.e., collecting, processing, storing, etc.)D.     The two-way link between the rise in human population density and rise in food production

E. Denser population of food producers enabled them

to displace or kill hunter- gatherers

Chapter 7 How to Make an

AlmondThe Unconscious Development of Ancient Crops

How did certain wild plants get turned into crops?

Like all animal species (including humans), plants must spread their offspring to areas where they can thrive and pass on their parents’ genes.

Plant “hitchhikers” attract animals, who carry the seeds from one place to the other.

Because animals are attracted to only the “good” plants (ie: red ripe strawberries as opposed to green small strawberries) those are the ones that travel and are accidentally domesticated.

What is the criteria for choosing the plant which looks most

promising?

Size—hunter gatherers picked the largest peas and as a result, cultivated peas evolved through human selection to be 10 times heavier than wild peas.

Bitterness—plants whose fruits are tasty get their seeds dispersed by animals. Natural selection of non-bitter almonds may have been caused by sampling of these almonds by curious or hungry children of early farmers.

Fleshy or seedless fruits, oily seeds, and long fibers

Major types of change that did not involve berry pickers making

visible choices

Many plants have specialized mechanisms that scatter seeds (and thereby prevent humans form gathering them efficiently.Many annual plants have evolved to survive bouts of bad weather by means of germination inhibitors, which make seeds initially dormant and spread out their germination over several years.Plant reproduction—some mutant hermaphrodites lost their self-incompatibility and became able to fertilize themselves.

What accounts for the great differences

among plants in ease of domestication?

Case: Southwest Asia’s Fertile Crescent