Guns Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond
part 2 the rise and spread of food
production summary in part 2 diamond
asks what gave the spanish such an
advantage over the Incas Spanish
technology allowed Pizarro to defeat
Atahualpa this technology would have
been impossible without agricultural
advancements that began almost 1,000
years before that event agriculture and
controlled farming were more efficient
than hunting and gathering so there was
time for specialization to develop
farming allowed social stratification to
develop with many peasants working for a
small group that owned land these owners
were then freed up to develop new
technologies and skills because they
didn't have to spend all their time
hunting for food populations grew as
more people could be fed while societies
developed agriculture they also began to
domesticate certain large animals these
societies has the technology energy and
time to go to war against other nations
they were also the first to catch
infectious diseases like smallpox
measles and the flu from these animals
which allowed them to develop resistance
to these diseases basically agriculture
and domestication led to dense
populations and societies that were
settled politically centralized
technologically innovative and
economically complex ironically however
the areas of the world that had the best
climate for agriculture were not the
ones to invent agriculture Mesopotamia
was among the first places where
agriculture could be found even though
it was a dry environment
in north america and australia
agriculture appeared when foreign
invaders came and was probably
introduced through a single plant that
was farmed in this way agriculture
spread from its origins in Mesopotamia
through to most other parts of the world
it is more difficult to explain why food
production did not appear until modern
times in some areas that should have
been very suitable for it such as the
west coast of the United States on the
other hand it did appear in some areas
that seemed infertile only a few areas
of the world were able to develop food
production independently at very
different points in time those people
who had a head start on food production
also had a head start on developing Guns
Germs and Steel this distinction between
areas that developed early food
production and areas where people
remained hunter-gatherers separated the
haves and have-nots all societies began
as hunter-gatherer so the difference
between human societies did not exist
from the beginning being a farmer was
not always better than being a
hunter-gatherer some farmers spend more
hours per day on food production than
hunter-gatherers do in some places
people were exposed to farming but
decided not to adopt it also some people
became sedentary without adopting food
production being sedentary and producing
food were not necessarily linked it is
also important to understand that food
production was not discovered or
invented instead it came to be as a
results of decision
that were made without full knowledge of
their consequences in studying the rise
of food production Dimond considers why
it evolved in some places at certain
times rather than in others
in fact people began by both collecting
and cultivating wild foods they
increased cultivation and decreased
collection only after it became obvious
that they're available crops proved to
be especially good for cultivation the
availability of such crops varied by
region five major factors contributed to
the relative advantage of cultivation in
certain areas declining availability of
wild foods increased availability of
domestic a table wild plants the
development of technologies that made
food production easier rising population
density and the increased military
strength of food producers as compared
to hunter-gatherers hunter-gatherers
were able to resist the pressure to
become food producers only in areas that
were isolated and made the emigration of
food producers or techniques very
difficult in most other areas food
production became the best strategy why
were certain wild plants good for crops
while others weren't part of the reason
is the features of certain plants some
plants were obvious choices for
hunter-gatherers the best ones were
large in size tasty had seedless fruits
and long fibers hunter-gatherers
generally harvested wild plants that had
these desirable qualities they
unconsciously dispersed these favorable
plants more than others these plants
slowly became more common until they
became death
take crops these more useful plants were
also affected by non-human factors seeds
being dispersed more easily some seeds
being saved for later so that a drought
would not kill all plants at one time
and self reproduction that allowed
beneficial mutations to spread more
easily overall both human and natural
selection helped certain plants to
survive and spread more than others
natural selection refers to the process
of species evolving through random
mutations that allow them to survive and
reproduce successfully these better
adapted plants were the ones that later
became crops some of these plants
included barley peas and cereals that
grew in the Fertile Crescent the
production of cereal in particular gave
the Fertile Crescent a huge advantage
because such crops grew fast were high
in carbohydrates and produced a lot of
edible food per area cultivated they
gave people in the Fertile Crescent a
huge advantage by providing them with
more plentiful and efficient food
options areas that grew things like
acorns had a disadvantage acorns for
example are a very inefficient food
source oak trees take an extremely long
time to grow their seeds are spread by
squirrels in a way that makes them
impossible for humans to select and
control and they are much more bitter
than other nuts like almonds
therefore local environments had a huge
impact on the rate of the development of
food production areas that had wild
crops that were easier and more
efficient to domesticate were the first
to develop food production
why did agriculture not develop
independently in areas that seemed
fertile and suitable for these kinds of
crops the explanation could be with
local people being incompetent but
Dimond argues that it was a problem with
the locally available wild plants there
are very few major crops in the world
and humans have not domesticated any new
major crops in thousands of years it is
therefore not surprising that many areas
of the world don't have a naturally
occurring major crop and that local
peoples would not be able to domesticate
the less favourable ones they did have
however it is harder to explain why
certain plants were domesticated in one
area and not in another to answer the
question you need to understand the
general environmental context of the
areas where plants failed to be
domesticated it is important to remember
that plant domestication always had to
compete with the hunter-gatherer
lifestyle for convenience
if domestication was not significantly
more efficient then people would not
adopt it in areas that didn't
domesticate major crops there were not
enough other domesticated wild plants to
justify the effort needed to domesticate
the ones that were domesticated in other
areas for example nomadic
hunter-gatherers would not give up their
traditional lifestyle to care for apple
orchards unless there were other plant
and animal options that would make this
sedentary existence more attractive than
the hunter-gathering lifestyle for
agriculture to develop an area had to
have a lot of easily domesticated major
crops and animals
the combination of wild plants
animal species available is important to
keep in mind when determining why a
certain group of people succeeded or
failed to domesticate a particular plant
the Fertile Crescent had five important
advantages compared to other areas first
it had the world's largest Mediterranean
temperate climate zone which meant that
it had a high diversity of wild plant
and animal species and therefore many
different options for domestication
second it had the greatest seasonal
climatic variation which was good for
the evolution of many annual plants and
helped increase the diversity of the
region third it had a wide range of
altitudes in a short distance which
allowed people to have many harvest
seasons after harvesting the first group
of crops in a low area they could move
higher to harvest seeds as they
continued to mature fourth it had many
big wild mammals that could be
domesticated mammals such as sheep goats
and cows could help with the farming of
plants as well fifth it had less
competition from the hunter-gatherer
lifestyle because there were not many
options for fishing or hunting animals
for meat all of these advantages were
included in the natural environment of
the Fertile Crescent and not with the
biology or culture of its people people
in the Fertile Crescent domesticated
local plants much earlier because of
these many environmental advantages they
then domesticated more productive and
valuable species developed a denser
human population more rapidly and
entered the modern world with more
advanced technology complex political
organization and epidemic diseases
that would infect other populations
success also means avoiding many
separate possible causes of failure if
just one necessary factor for success in
domestication is missing then
domestication will fail overall the
availability of potentially domesticated
bull wild animals was also an important
feature of an environment domestication
of animals means changing them into
something more useful to humans not many
species are actually suitable for
domestication and most efforts to
domesticate animals have resulted in
failure there are six factors that
contribute to successful domestication
of a species if it doesn't have a
special diet if it grows quickly if it
breeds well in captivity if it has a
pleasant disposition if it does not tend
to panic under pressure and if it has a
social structure that allows it to
accept humans as new pack leaders this
explains why horses are domesticated but
zebras are not horses travel in herds
and are calmer zebras tend to be
rebellious even when in captivity
domestication of animals is actually
very difficult since the animal must
meet all six conditions Eurasian
people's inhabited an area that
naturally had more wild animals that
were good for domestication this was
because Eurasia had a large area with
ecological diversity that gave in many
species many species did not go extinct
there so there were more surviving
animals suitable for domestication
compared to other continents one of the
most obvious and important environmental
differences across continents is axis
orientation the Americas span a larger
distance
from north-south and east-west but
Eurasia's main axis is east-west this
means that in Eurasia the climate is
relatively similar across all areas of
the continent places with the same
latitude have the same day length
seasonal variation diseases temperatures
and habitats in the Americas on the
other hand climate varies drastically
from the north to the south it was much
easier for crops and livestock to spread
on continents where the climate was
similar overall this is because the food
and livestock first domesticated in the
Fertile Crescent were already well
adapted to the climate in other parts of
Eurasia and could quickly spread across
the continent because food production
contributed to denser populations and
more potential for complex societies and
technologies this had an effect on the
development of writing technology and
Empire as well Eurasia's early advantage
is what helped it to more rapidly
develop literacy metallurgy technology
and Empire
