Blog Response #2 - Guns, Germs, & Steel Excerpts 4-6
Blog Response Part A
Part A: What has impacted the development of civilizations?
In excerpts 4-6, Diamond explains how geography, agriculture, animals, and germs impacted and sometimes even determined the success of early civilizations.
Based on Diamond’s research, which theory do you think had the greatest impact? Why?
You must have at least one piece of evidence from the text to support your opinion.
Blog Response Part B
Part B: Identifying Emerging Topics
Review your list of Emerging Topics for Excerpts 4-6. Which one are you most interested in pursuing at this time?
1. Identify the topic and which excerpt it came from (this should include a quote).
2. Explain why this topic is "speaking to you."REPLIES - DAY 2: Read through the posted blog comments. Reply to TWO: one you agree with and one that you disagree with and/or can followup with a clarifying question. Clearly explain why you agree or disagree with the author of the blog comment AND/OR explain your question in detail.
I believe animals had the biggest impact because animals saved us a lot of time with farming, they gave us resources like meat and milk and they reproduced meaning we could more get more resource's out of the animals after the original one's. They also helped out with farming, they were able to pull the plow which dug up the dirt so they could farm. “livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows". This shows that animals are more than just pets.
ReplyDeleteThe emerging topic that interested me most was Microbes. “Microbes have evolved diverse ways of spreading from one person to another, and from animals to people. The germ that spreads better, leaves more babies and ends up favored by natural selection”. This interested me because it talks about why it helps the natural selection process because it filters out the animals and people that are weak and it helps build a stronger community.
I agree with you that animals were a big impact on people. Yes, they may help us with food like meat and cheese but, the meat they have or if they are sick could affect anyone eating off that animal in seconds
DeleteI also agree with you because animals were big back then and even now for food and clothes but i feel they also needed the farms because what happened if they run out of meat and cant move
DeleteI agree that animals was the biggest impact because domesticating animals was the man's strongest power to do hard labor such as moving heavy objects that can't be moved by man power, mounting the animals for transport, and etc.
DeleteAlthough I believe that agriculture had the greatest impact, I can see how animals played a huge role in developing civilizations. I think that animals and agriculture go hand in hand as well since they were a source of food themselves and they helped with farming crops.
DeleteYa I agree that was one of the biggest impacts.
DeleteI also agree that animals impacted the development of societies as well. Another example from excerpt 5 states, “crop yields can be greatly increased by manure applied as fertilizer.” This quote adds another reason to your list because animals also gave us manure and that helped to produce even more crops to harvest.
DeleteI think animals did have a great impact on civilization. Not only did they help with food and clothes, they also helped make transportation a lot easier and faster.
DeleteI agree that animals had a big impact on developing civilizations because of all of the resources they provided for people. We needed the animals to farm and help the population grow.
DeleteOn your topic of microbes, I understand that the Idea of natural selection is important. Although, I don't think that the spread of these disease causing microorganisms necessarily built a stronger community by “filtering out the weak”. I believe that the spread of germs was damaging to the communities it affected, killing many innocent and valuable people.
DeleteI agree with you but we could not have the livestock if we did not have agriculture because how would you be able to feed them if you have them. Are you just going to let them starve? I feel that would not work out but you need unity between the two to be able to have one you need the other.
DeleteI agree that animals had a big impact on this because if it wasn't for them we wouldn't get half the work done in a day.
DeleteThe part I believe had the biggest impact was in excerpt 4 when they talked about the cannibalism of the Morior along with enslaving the other half. "Over the course of the next few days, they killed hundreds of Moriori, cooked and ate many of the bodies, and enslaved all the others, killing most of them too over the next few years as it suited their whim. A Moriori survivor recalled, "[The Maori] commenced to kill us like sheep.. . . [We] were terrified, fled to the bush, concealed ourselves in holes underground, and in any place to escape our enemies." (pg 1 excerpt 4) I feel this was big because this showed how an entire civilization went missing.
ReplyDeleteThe one i find most interesting however is how they were able to train people to farm but couldnt hunt and it confused me as to why. "It is easy to trace how the differing environments of the Chatham Islands and of New Zealand molded the Moriori and the Maori differently. While those ancestral Maori who first colonized the Chathams may have been farmers, Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers.( pg 2 excerpt 4). I feel if we knew more about why people were scared to go out into the world and hunt we could understand a little better as to why there wasn't alot of food.
I agree, in excerpt 4 when almost all of the civilization banished and hid they feared their lives and felt as if they had no chance.
DeleteI disagree with you because the Maori was more dominant, for having more people which is why they tried to expand their tribe by invading other islands. The Maori were grown into having war experiences which made them more violent, compared to the Moriori group where they lived peacefully and maintained population.
DeleteI agree with you that excerpt 4 had the greatest impact, but I think why the Maori conquered the Moriori in the first place was more important. The Moriori had greater access to more meat based food; “ Since as hunter-gatherers they did not produce crop surpluses available for redistribution or storage, they could not support and feed non hunting craft specialists, armies, bureaucrats, and chiefs. Their prey were seals, shellfish, nesting seabirds, and fish that could be captured by hand or with clubs and required no more elaborate technology.” Since the Moriori had greater access to meat based foods, the Maori wanted it. Meat based products are going to give more energy for farming and if they have a higher demand, the Maori are going to be able to ship it to other places and sell it for more money because it is in high demand. The biggest part is since the Maori are using the Moriori as slaves, they don’t have to do anything and are making a profit from it.
DeleteI disagree with cannibalism being their biggest problem. They had animal sickness that impacted them even more and could've probably harmed more people than Morior killings.
DeleteI disagree with you because we had many more problems going on and although cannibalism was indeed a problem it wasn't quite as big. There are other things going on, such as, life defying diseases caused by the animals they were eating. You see when they ate from an animal that was sick, the sickness would spread, next thing we know there is a full blown plague underway. They were getting sick off their food and natural resources. something they ate to survive, so cannibalism was just them switching up there diet. No matter how disgusting it was.
DeleteI agree that cannibalism was a major impact to the people and their culture because it shows that human destruction cause problems throughout all cultures and environments.
DeleteI disagree also because I believe agriculture had a way bigger impact because of the fact that it said in excerpt 6 "Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter gatherers”" this being said the Maori had to depend on a different lifestyle to continue to survive and I am pretty sure were much more worried about them being able to crop and get actual food then eating each other.
DeleteI disagree with that cannibalism was the main reason for this. I think it may have dealt more with the impact of animals getting sick and not being able to get rid of the dieseases before others would eat them or kill them and harvest them for their own use. It is something we don't think too much about now a days when we are actually basically manufacturing chickens and what not.
DeleteOut of all the theories that Diamond discusses, the access from animal to agriculture makes most sense to me. If you have a large access to farming land. You will attract more people to your land, due to social hierarchy you will have people working on your land. In turn it will give you more time to think and come up with new ideas to make farming more efficient, that in turn makes more efficient farming with even less work. That then gives more people more time to come up with better housing and better protection. Where you then are even more attractive looking to cause more people to join. Until you are a civilized group with rules and customs in place. I also think that's why it can seem like civilizations just disappear off the face of the earth. If a civilization tries to expand too fast it in turn actually makes something like large scale farming less efficient. You need land for shelter you also need land for farming, if you look at an area the the fertile crescent there is only so much space you can work with, and if you don't expand out you end up making the soil unusable causing all the people that depended on that land to up and leave to try again with new ideas. People with the information of this lifestyle will make it more efficient. That's why places like the Americas never had the innovation of the inventors and thinkers of booming civilizations, they were completely disconnected with completely different ways of thinking with completely different tools and resources. In turn could have supported a completely different way of living today.
ReplyDeleteOut of all the topics I still want to look at how people were living in the Americas in comparison to the rest of the world.
I disagree, how does new ideas and other people working on your land help give more people more time to come up with better housing and better protection? Wouldn't the less the plantation is the better the people have a chance of building homes?
DeleteI agree with your theory on agriculture and development. When stockpiling resources comes into play, it would make sense that there will be more time to come up with new ideas. Not just always having to worry about your next meal.
DeleteI agree with your theory also because the better weather and not having to hunt for your own food may have possibly attracted more people. I also believe that agriculture was the most important because like you said it made people try new ways on cropping them for there survival. One more thing I agree in your theory was that they had more time to come up with better ideas which they did because they wern't forced to fight in the beginning as the other communities were causing them to advance in agriculture and getting better food for their community.
DeleteThe part I believe had the greatest impact was in excerpt 6 when they talked about the major killers of humanity throughout our history. “smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals, even though most of the microbes responsible for our own epidemic illnesses are paradoxically now almost confined to humans.” (pg. 1 excerpt 6) I feel this is the greatest impact because diseases have been the biggest killers of people.
ReplyDeleteThe one I find most interesting is the Moriori people. “Before the Moriori could deliver that offer, the Maori attacked en masse. Over the course of the next few days, they killed hundreds of Moriori, cooked and ate many of the bodies, and enslaved all the others, killing most of them too over the next few years as it suited their whim.” (pg. 1 Excerpt 4) This part of the excerpt interests me because I feel why most people were terrified and fled to hide.
I agree with you, they didn't have medicine to heal the sick and they didn't have enough materials to heal the sick. There was no cure for the different bacteria's and viruses so they had no choice but to watch them die basically because they couldn't stop it.
DeleteI also agree because Matthew is right they didn't have the medication but we also didn't have strong enough immune systems like we do now and they had no way to fight it or at least hold off until a cure was found
DeleteI agree that the greatest impact were the germs of this time, although agriculture did help with the success of many civilizations it also started "the Dark ages" a time of disease and plague strike the land.
DeleteI think the theories involving animals and germs helping evolve civilization had the greatest impact because Diamond states in Excerpt 5: “within the next decade the few remaining bands of hunter-gatherers will abandon their ways, disintegrate, or die out, thereby ending our millions of years of commitment to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.” and “The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases. When such partly immune people came into contact with others who had had no previous exposure to the germs, epidemics resulted in which up to 99 percent of the previously unexposed population was killed.” Domesticating animals not only leads to an upgrade to civilization health-wise, but makes them somewhat immune to the diseases that livestock may carry.
ReplyDeleteA topic that “spoke to me” is how microbes or germs cause anarchy. “Some microbes don't wait for the old host to die and get eaten, but instead hitchhike in the saliva of an insect that bites the old host and flies off to find a new host. The free ride may be provided by mosquitoes, fleas, lice, or tsetse flies that spread malaria, plague, typhus, or sleeping sickness, respectively.” (Excerpt 6). This topic speaks to me because if microbes always cause harm, why does it only kill or select few compared to the millions who could die from a disease? Is it because certain people maybe more susceptible to getting sick or have these people developed to where they are more likely to get sick compared to the next guy?
I agree that animals have the greatest impact on society. People that had a steady place to live and were farming with animals were doing a lot better than people who move around hunting a gathering. It is a much more stable lifestyle. I like your topic on germs causing anarchy, that is a very interesting topic!
DeleteI also agree but I find that animals need nutrients and food to survive so we would need agriculture to satiate their hunger or we would not be able to use them at all. They would be useless because all they are is a ticking clock just waiting till the very end.
DeleteI agree that Animals have a large impact on society for the same reason of that they are carriers for disease and can lower population levels through disease if the host were to pass from being sick.. This can greatly affect a society considering there are a very large amount of insects that can carry disease.
DeleteI believe that agriculture had the greatest impact on developing civilizations because as a civilization stepped into agriculture and food production, they were able to sustain their population much better than the hunter-gatherer way of life. Also, as they were able to sustain themselves better, they could also produce more food to support a growing population. In excerpt 5, Diamond states, “That higher birth rate of food producers, together with their ability to feed more people per acre, lets them achieve much higher population densities than hunter-gatherers.” Therefore, the production of food and agriculture all together supports increased populations which is one of the keys for a developing civilization.
ReplyDeleteThe topic I am most interested in is how certain environments affect human societies. I found this topic in excerpt 4, “...thousands of islands differing greatly in area, isolation, elevation, climate, productivity, and geological and biological resources. For most of human history those islands lay far beyond the reach of watercraft. Around 1200 B.C. a group of farming, fishing, seafaring people…” I think this topic would be interesting because there are so many different types of environments in the world and it would also be interesting to see how societies differ from each other based on the environments they are in.
I disagree, Animals had the biggest impact because with agriculture, there is only a very limited amount of time where you can grow crops but with Animals, they can give us materials at any time, and that's why animals were used for pulling the plows.
DeleteAlthough I do not agree with your thought on agriculture and food production being the biggest impact, I thought your topic on environments affecting human societies was interesting. The idea that environments affecting how people can live and how advanced civilizations are is very interesting and could be fun to research.
DeleteI agree that agriculture had the greatest impact on developing civilizations because of their ability to keep people fed. For example, the Moriori luckily settled in a warmer climate allowing them to use their tropical farming techniques. Unfortunately, the Maori were not as lucky and settled in a colder climate as we see in excerpt 6“Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers”(Excerpt6). Not being able to produce a sustainable amount led to one tribe gaining too much power. This power, rooted in the food production, allowed an army which would later wipe out an entire society.
DeleteI really agree with your point, agriculture is a major impact because like in excerpt 4, we know that the hunter gatherers couldn't carry on life confidently because they had limited supply when only relying on animals for their sources for everything and I also find your topic interesting as well because environment is a huge thing for everything, like growing crops, having materials to build things, and feeling good/comfortable in the place your in to create more life.
DeleteYour topic that you are interested in researching is a good topic. Societies want what they can’t have. Since the Moriori had something that was really beneficial the Maori wanted it. With the climate in New Zealand being warmer it limited what the Maori could farm; “They developed locally dense populations chronically engaged in ferocious wars with neighboring populations. With the crop surpluses that they could grow and store, they fed craft specialists, chiefs, and part-time soldiers. They needed and developed varied tools for growing their crops, fighting, and making art. They erected elaborate ceremonial buildings and prodigious numbers of forts.”(excerpt 4) Instead of doing the work themselves, Maori decided they were just going to take what they didn’t have. The Maori not only took over Moriori’s area, they also took over neighboring populations to take their resources and anything else they wanted.
DeleteI agree with you that agriculture was important for developing civilizations because it kept people fed and let the population continue to grow. I like your topic about environments affecting societies. It's interesting to think about how the environment you are in can impact how advanced a society is.
DeleteI disagree with you, the reason I disagree with you is because I believe that animals had the largest impact on this, because without the domestication of animals these people would have to do all this work by hand which would cause it to take longer and less work done throughout time.
DeleteWithin Diamond’s research, the theory that I believe had the greatest impact was his theory about animals. Animals are a huge part of society now. Farming, although much more modernized, is still a very vital part of our society. The types of animals a region or area has, or can get to, can change how much a society can develop. Diamond discusses how regions with horses or cattle were able to farm much more efficiently than those without. He states, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” Later on he discusses how regions without animals like these were never able to develop their farming methods, which is a big step towards development. I think it’s interesting how much animals can change how humans develop and how much of a drastic change in our society is because of them, according to Diamond’s research.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting topic within these articles that I would like to research is Black Death. This can be found in excerpt 6. Black Death, which is also known as the bubonic plague, was a very deadly plague. I think it would be very interesting to find out more about this. Like where did it start, how many people did it hurt or kill, when was it around, etc. When Diamond is talking about the plague, he states, “We'll examine why many of our most familiar infectious diseases run in epidemics, such as our current AIDS epidemic and the Black Death (bubonic plague) epidemics of the Middle Ages. We'll then consider how the ancestors of microbes now confined to us transferred themselves from their original animal hosts.” I think it would be interesting to learn if the plague came from animals, such as many of the diseases around today, and learn more about it. Especially with all the talk still today about dangerous illnesses that spread like wildfire.
I can agree on the information that you bring onto the table supporting the theory of how animals having the biggest splash in human history and creation of society. But it's itching me to tell you that the plague (if we are talking about the Bubonic Plague) that you were wondering how it started is through the fleas that that were living off of mice that decided to get attached to humans. But the reason why I want to disagree is because humans have farmed crops for a longer period of time than herding animals.
DeleteI totally agree that animals had the biggest impact on the development of civilization. For example animals provided meat, milk, helped with plowing fields for crops, and even provided transportation. A quote from excerpt 5 states, “ availability of more consumable calories means more people.” I liked this quote because it shows how animals impacted the development of civilizations the most because they provided more than just meat. They helped with farming which multiplied their food sources and supply.
DeleteMegan I would have to kind of disagree on this. I agree animals had an impact, but what about the germs and humans who brought all that here?
DeleteBased on the extensive research Diamond has done, the theory that has sparked an interest within me is that the theory about agriculture being the reason why early civilizations were able to be successful and prosper. Especially, the idea of better food quality and the bigger quantity will produce stronger and smarter people. Agriculture is how society began to become more prosperous and it created a social system and the amount of land and food production you have means you have more control over the people, food and the land. Allowing people to produce a lot of crops it let’s early civilizations become technologically advanced than the people who do the hunter/gatherer lifestyle.
ReplyDeleteIt states on excerpt four, paragraph three, page three that kings and or bureaucrats can control the food supply and hold taxes on food. In the next paragraph it states because of the taxation a surplus of food was stored which was used to feed other than the kings and bureaucrats. Like the professionally trained soldiers who are always warring with other kingdoms. Also, food storage can feed priests, and steel works. To conclude this blog, I would like to mention that this is my two cents on a theory that has more than one possible and correct answers. I personally believe that agriculture is the biggest motive to the rise of the most successful civilizations because of the reasons I’ve discussed.
The theory that had the greatest impact on early civilizations is agriculture. The location of where civilizations are settled determined their environment adaption and the types of plants and animals they encounter. With the use of farming, it has helped provide more than enough food for groups of people and domesticating specific animals such as goats, cows, and etc. The use of these domesticated animals can produce milk, clothing materials, and plow the land using their strength. A piece of text to show this is, “By selecting and growing those few species of plants and animals that we can eat, so that they constitute 90 percent rather than 0.1 percent of the biomass on an acre of land, we obtain far more edible calories per acre. As a result, one acre can feed many more herders and farmers— typically, 10 to 100 times more—than hunter-gatherers” (Excerpt 5, Page 2). To this day, there are only a few groups of hunter-gatherers that still live the life of a hunter-gatherer.
ReplyDeleteThe one I am most interested in pursuing is livestock. The use of livestock in the life of farmers has helped them drastically, especially with the larger domestic animals such as the horse, cow, etc. to help with plowing the land to grow crops. These livestock can also produce meat, milk, and fertilizer. A quote to show this is, “ First and most directly, domestic animals became the societies' major source of animal protein, replacing wild game. Today, for instance, Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, with game such as venison just a rare delicacy. In addition, some big domestic mammals served as sources of milk and of milk products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt. Milked mammals include the cow, sheep, goat, horse, reindeer, water buffalo, yak, and Arabian and Bactrian camels” (Excerpt 5, Page 2). In addition, the domestic animals provided enough calories than just killing them for the meat. I believe that farming and taming domestic animals was a great choice for civilization as it provided more calories.
I agree that agriculture is of great importance! Without the ability to grow crops or herd animals, it is very hard to advance. On page one of excerpt five, it says "around 7 million years ago, all humans on Earth fed themselves exclusively by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants, as the Blackfeet still did in the 19th century" which helps strengthen your point that some hunter-gatherers are probably still around today.
DeleteBased on Diamond’s research I believe animals have the biggest impact. For example animals can have a positive or negative impact on growing or decreasing populations. For example animals can help with healthy foods and population growth or useless/unhealthy animals can have a negative impact. An example that supports this is when Diamond says “As we’ll see, food production was indirectly a preqrequistinge for the development of guns, germs, and steel.” This means that animals have started everything and could have a negative or positive impact.
ReplyDeleteThe emerging topic that interests me the most is farming power. This is due to the fact that every little thing needs to eat in order to survive. For example, humans need to farm, import, and export different animals in order to grow the population. This interests me because there are also many animals that you can eat and can’t eat. There are also types of animals where you can only eat certain parts. If there were no animals humans would not be alive.
Animals did have a big effect especially for the Moriori's because they realized on animals for food. Along with them hunting animals accounting to except 4 it stated how they were able to come up with more weapons for hunting.
DeleteAlthough I agree with your statement, I believe there is a deeper meaning when talking about the negatives animals bring. Many battles had been won due to the diseases of the animals that were spreading amongst the enemies of the Europians.
DeleteI agree that animals had the biggest impact of growth. On one hand they brought disease, but they also allowed for easier agriculture.
DeleteThe way that early civilizations were determined by many factors make us look like such an amazing species. Early civilizations were basically reliant on how successful their agriculture was. Early people who settled down found out ways to grow crops on a major scale. Places like in Egypt, early Afghanistan, and China had amazing agricultural advancements allowing them to succeed. I believe that that greatest impact on early civilization was if they had successful agriculture. When Diamond says “But, as we'll see, food production was indirectly a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel. Hence geographic variation in whether, or when, the peoples of different continents became farmers and herders explains to a large extent their subsequent contrasting fates.” This shows that early civilizations fate was based heavily on how well they mastered agriculture. If they mastered it sooner than they would advance further ahead of others.
ReplyDeleteA topic that I am interested in pursuing further is, How did ancient civilizations develop farming? I got this topic from when diamond wrote, “Of those who did, some (for example, the ancient Chinese) developed it independently by themselves, while others (including ancient Egyptians) acquired it from neighbors.” This is speaking to me because I'm interested in how different cultures developed relativity the same idea of mass agriculture.
I concur with you that early civilizations relied heavily on agriculture to succeed. Without excess to an abundance of crops, early civilizations couldn't advance as fast or at all.
DeleteI agree that if you were able to master the agricultural techniques, the civilization would be able to advance much faster than a hunter-gatherer tribe. Jared Diamond said “But, as we'll see, food production was indirectly a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel”(excerpt4). The ability to grow your own food gave a massive head start because they were never forced to follow the food source. A major advantage to moving very little is a growing population and the communication of knowledge. Having a bigger population means things like buildings or irrigation systems could advance and be built faster.
DeleteI think the theory that had the greatest impact is cultural conquering because as people began to conquer other places they seemed to destroy the native peoples culture and try to make them follow the culture of those who conquered. Evidence for this would be "We took possession.. . in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed—but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom" from except 4.
ReplyDelete"We took possession.. . in accordance with our customs and we caught all the people. Not one escaped. Some ran away from us, these we killed, and others we killed—but what of that? It was in accordance with our custom" from except 4. This topic speaks to me because it shows humans destructive nature and this would also explain why many hunter and gatherer tribes started to disappear more and more over the year and why many culture were destroyed over time.
I agree somewhat that the reason would be cultural conquering, depending on if people had better land then others more people would want to rob them of this land for their own gain. either for profit, agriculture or land. there is a common theme of everything being in one place would be the best outcome.
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ReplyDeleteThe theory I think had the greatest impact on the success of early civilizations is germs. This early on, I can imagine that people relied on other people a lot and they probably didn't understand much about how germs spread. Aswell as this, people did not have the technology to treat diseases or prevent outbreaks back then, so they spread wickedly fast killing millions. One example of this that Diamond wrote in Excerpt six is, “ All those military histories glorifying great generals oversimplify the ego-deflating truth: the winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies”. Amongst many other examples in the text, this shows that germs were the most dangerous and deadly because they spread as easily as a cough in the air and they took people out like wildfire.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting topic I found was diverging groups of people. Upon reading excerpt 4, I learned that a group of Polonesian people separated and one ended up dominating and killing off the other after crossing paths again; “The tragedy of the Moriori resembles many other such tragedies in both the modern and the ancient world, pitting numerous well-equipped people against few ill-equipped opponents. What makes the Maori-Moriori collision grimly illuminating is that both groups had diverged from a common origin less than a millennium earlier. Both were Polynesian peoples.” This sparked my interest because these two groups advanced so differently, why? Some other things I wondered are why did the Maori wipe out the Moriori, and not just let them be? Where did each group diverge to? Are the different materials from the different lands they were on the reason there was a hierarchy in weaponry?
I agree with your theory because you mentioned germs were the most deadly weapon and it could speared like wildfire. I don’t really know why I choose this but I did. I found this interesting because when she said like wildfire, this made me think of one of the germs that we had a major issue with and if I recall that germ was called ebola.
DeleteI think that agriculture had the greatest impact on the success of early civilizations because they allowed people to grow a surplus of food. With more food people were then able to focus on other things that could help them develop and succeed as a civilization instead of spending all their time trying to find enough food to survive. In excerpt 5 Diamond said, “But, as we'll see, food production was indirectly a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel.” Diamond is saying here that having a surplus of food was required in order for people to be able to have the time in order to invent new things.
ReplyDeleteA topic I'm interested in is how food production was required for guns, germs, and steel. In excerpt 5 Diamond said, “But, as we'll see, food production was indirectly a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel.” This is interesting to me because I want to know what about food production made it possible early civilizations that they could now invent guns, germs, steel.
I totally agree! I said that agriculture had the greatest impact too because of the fact they were able to supply more food making it do able for a bigger population. Along with that though, they did need more tools for growing their crops. It stated in except 4 that " Maori's were low on access to weapons and tools".
DeleteI agree with you that agriculture had the biggest impact on early civilizations. I feel that people also go where the food is making cities grow. This would allow for ideas to spread and technology to advance further and faster than before.
DeleteI agree . I liked that you touched on the fact that with food surpluses, civilizations were able to focus more on improving themselves. That's something I didn't originally think about and it makes a lot of sense. As well as turning away from hunter-gathering, new technologies came from agriculture to make farming easier and more efficient.
DeleteI disagree that agriculture had the biggest impact. I think animals had the biggest impact on growth. Animals assisted in making modern agriculture what it is today.
DeleteTo be honest I don't know which one had a bigger impact. And again none of them speak to me. I don't know why. I guess I am just not interested in this.
ReplyDeleteWhat impacted the development of civilization the most is agriculture. I say this because of the examples of the Maori's on how they were able to grow crops because they were in a warm climate rather then how the Moriori's had to hunt and were limited supply because of being in a colder climate. Due to agriculture the growing of the crops were able to make a bigger population because they were able to feed everyone, they had enough supply. Along with growing crops, this made them come up with new tools used for their crops. Being crops were able to be grown to feed everyone, in fact make a bigger population I believe agriculture had the biggest impact. Going off of Excerpt 4, it stated that "With warm climate, framers were able to surouis their crops".
ReplyDeleteExcerpt 4 is what I am most interested in. it speaks to me because of how different food was for some people depending on the climate. How it talks about the Moriori's not being able to... "Were unable to produce crops" as it stated because of the cold climates. This just speaks to me because of the fact that it's so interesting on how some were able to grow crops and were set and others had to hunt and had limited supply.
The theory that I believed had the greatest impact would be excerpt 4 relating to geography. Excerpt 4 was about the Maori conquering Moriori's home. The Maori took Moriori’s freedom, and Moriori became slaves to the Maori’s. In excerpt 4 the Maori and Moriori people developed from the same ancestral society, but lost awareness of each other because the Maori lived in New Zealand and Moriori lived on the Chatham islands. They would have never learned of each other if it wouldn't have been for an Australian seal-hunting ship; “Finally, an Australian seal-hunting ship visiting the Chatham's en route to New Zealand brought the news to New Zealand of islands where "there is an abundance of sea and shellfish; the lakes swarm with eels; and it is a land of the karaka berry.. . . The inhabitants are very numerous, but they do not understand how to fight, and have no weapons.” This information was enough to send 900 Maori to sail to the Chatham's armed with guns, clubs,and axes to take their land and make the Moriori their slaves.
ReplyDeleteA topic that is speaking to me to research is why certain places get better weapons than others? Why did the Maori have more advanced weapons than Moriori did? This idea can be answered in excerpt 4 when diamond is talking about how the Chatham's islands are relatively small and remote islands. Diamond elaborated on why the Moriori had much simpler weapons; “With no other accessible islands to colonize, the Moriori had to remain in the Chatham's, and to learn how to get along with each other. They did so by renouncing war, and they reduced potential conflicts from overpopulation by castrating some male infants. The result was a small, unwarlike population with simple technology and weapons, and without strong leadership or organization.” The Maori had strong leadership and knew exactly what they wanted and had the weapons to do it and that is why it was so easy for them to conquer the Chatham islands.
Based on Jared Diamond's research, I think agriculture had the greatest impact on the success of early civilizations. This becomes evident after the Moriori decimated the Maori. The Maori were forced into a hunter-gatherer lifestyle because of the agricultural capabilities of the Chatham Islands. Their prior knowledge on tropical farming was not compatible with the new environment. Jared Diamond said “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers”(Excerpt6). On the other side of the island, the Moriori were able to grow crops and produce a suitable amount of food for their aggressively growing population. Because of the agricultural differences between the north and south parts of the island , the Moriori were able to feed a large population and organize a strong military. This ability to keep a population and military well fed led to the mass genocide of the Maori.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic I find interesting is the impact microbes had on a population. This topic presented itself in excerpt 6 when Jared Diamond said “Some microbes don't wait for the old host to die and get eaten, but instead hitchhike in the saliva of an insect that bites the old host and flies off to find a new host”(excerpt6). I find this topic interesting because of the microbes ability to travel and multiply itself in a new host rather quickly. I would like to find out more about how fast certain diseases like, smallpox, were able to infect societies.
Between excerpts 4-6 I think "lethal livestock" had arguably the greatest impact on early civilizations since diseases were able to wipe out whole populations and even implied in the excerpts were more dangerous than war. For example it was stated that disease was responsible for 95 percent of native american deaths during the Europeans conquest, but how does this affect early success of civilizations ? well it's pretty simple if a majority of a populations is too sick too even get out of bed that leaves a civilizations working population much smaller than a different civilization that is healthy and what that means is that there would be far less productivity which leads too far less advancements in a civilizations setting them further behind. Another reason why this problem of disease is so great is that the worst most devastating diseases came from people's food supply as stated in “lethal livestock” as the title suggest things like “smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera” were just some of the diseases that evolved from animals that could become deadly. This hinders early success in civilizations because in early civilizations there were not many things you could do beyond cooking or fermenting foods to keep them fresh in order to protect yourself from diseases since there was not the knowledge we have now then. What makes that so bad is that people NEED food in order to survive but if the food supply is potentially tainted then bad food in turn will translate to bad work since food is directly responsible for how much energy we have once again setting them back on progressing.
ReplyDeleteOut of the different theories that Diamond has, I believe that animals had the largest impact on the success and development of early civilizations. I believe this because Diamond discusses the different ways animals helped people gain more food. In excerpt 5 he states, “Availability of more consumable calories means more people.” This quote shows that the more animals there were, the more food they had. As a result of more food they could feed more people and because of that larger populations lead to bigger and stronger armies. Diamond also states, “mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows.” This quote shows how people had to create new tools to help them farm and can also lead to the invention of different tools such as swords and guns as well. Overall animals had the largest impact because they provided so many things that helped civilizations grow, such as, milk, tools, leather, manure for crops, meat, tools e.t.c.
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic that I am interested in researching is the idea of how germs impacted past battles and wars. I found this interesting because excerpt 6 states, “The winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies.” I want to learn more about this because it makes me rethink how past conflicts were won. Also because we typically only learn of the cause, death count, and end result of a battle but we have never really gotten to dig deep down as to how germs played a role in any of this and if they were significant enough to really impact them.
While I see where you are coming from I have to disagree with you that animals had the biggest impact on early civilization. I believe anywhere humans could have gone, they would have found a way to make technological advancements that would have advanced society, but not need to involve animals. Animals also brought disease making them at times hold back civilization.
DeleteI agree with you. Animals had the biggest impact. Animals served a great purpose for us in the fact that they helped in gaining more food and resources that we need. Animals are the reason why we are not starving to death, the reason we as a society are thriving, why we are surviving. They helped us grow as an economy. An economy we can be proud of civilization wise.
DeleteI think agriculture had a huge impact on the success of early civilizations because as people learned agriculture, they were able to farm and sustain themselves more with the large amounts of produce which supported growing population. This helped with the growing ideas of how to make tools to gather crops, make food, and process it, also as time went on people learned how to also tame animals and use them for gathering crops and then further learn how to herd them like today’s farmers. I believe this rules out that animals have the greatest impact because if you think about the hunter gatherers, they couldn’t sustain a large population because they had a limited supply of food when it came to having just animals. In excerpt 5, Diamond says, “That higher birth rate of food producers, together with their ability to feed more people per acre, lets them achieve much higher population densities than hunter gatherers.” This backs up the idea of agriculture having the greatest impact because without farming there would be no growing population to keep life going at a good/fast rate.
ReplyDeleteThe topic i’m most interested in, is how the environments we live in heavily affect us on how we grow as an economy because we all grow at very different rates even though some had more before others, or some countries have way better resources but no knowledge/way on how to use them, Diamond says in excerpt 4, “...thousands of islands differing greatly in area, isolation, elevation, climate, productivity, and geological and biological resources.” I think that learning our environment and the other environments around the world could show us why, how we could be alike in some ways but so so different in growth.
I believe animals had the biggest impact on the development of early civilization. Including domestication, zoonotic diseases, and by a means of transportation. Out of the three reasons, I believe using domesticated animals to farm was the most important. The strength of large mammals gave the ability to plow large plots of land at one time.. Fertilizer from the animals also gave the upper hand in the production of crops. You can tell how great of an impact it was when Diamond says, "As a result, one acre can feed many more herders and farmers— typically, 10 to 100 times more—than hunter-gatherers." In my eyes that is a huge improvement and must have had an impact on early civilization.
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting topic i found was the idea that farmers were able to stockpile food, which allowed them to enage more in their community or to futher the development in civilization. This came to my attention in excerpt 5; "In contrast, once food can be stockpiled, a political elite can gain control of food produced by others, assert the right of taxation, escape the need to feed itself, and engage full-time in political activities" I find this the most interesting, because I wonder if free time was all that hunter-gathers needed to develop into a civilization.
I agree with your topic of animals having an large impact on the development, as these animals were able to reduce an large burden to these civilizations, including these domesticated animals helped with diseases and illnesses that were promptly deadly to humans. Due to these animals and prolonged human contact we were able to create immunity to these diseases. The domestication of animals also improved the way we create and trade with other civilizations, as it allowed heavy objects deemed to difficult for an regular human to move to allowed to be transported.
DeleteI believe agriculture had the largest impact of the options discussed how the success of a civilization is determined. A couple ways to further my idea of agriculture is from excerpt 5: “By selecting & growing those few species of plants and animals that we can eat, so that they constitute 90 percent rather than 0.1 percent of the biomass on an acre of land.” Due to growing in a selective acre(s) of land devoted to agriculture these civilizations wouldn't have to convert to nomadic ways like the Moriori. As it comes more closely related to the cause of Maori & Moriori civilizations, “The Maori invaders came from a dense population of farmers chronically engaged in ferocious wars.” As shown from the result of the two civilizations the Maori although became a target to other civilizations for their farming, it promptly effect the need of defending themselves while attempting to destroy others before they became a threat towards the Maori. It’s also closely related to the amount of people they have from quoted “One acre can feed many more herders & farmers typically 10 to 100 times more than hunter- gatherers.” It showed that one of these acres to a civilization with this technological blessing can feed as quoted “10 to 100 times more than hunter-gatherers” placing the effort of creating a land they may call theirs.
ReplyDeleteI agree that agriculture had the largest impact and it's interesting to me how plants and animals made up so much of the biomass when before agriculture they made up nearly nothing of the biomass.
DeleteI agree that agriculture influenced civilizations more than anything else as well. Considering it were farmers who did most of the invading at the time of the Moriori and Maori conflict.
DeleteI think that animals had the greatest impact on the development of civilizations. In excerpt 5, diamond states, “Before animal domestication, the sole means of transporting goods and people by land was on the backs of humans. Large mammals changed that: for the first time in human history, it became possible to move heavy goods in large quantities, as well as people, rapidly overland for long distances.” Animals helped humans in many ways. One of them being that they helped the people transport things a lot easier and a lot faster to and from their land. Not only did animals help with transportation, but with their meat for food and clothes that came from their fur as well.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that is the most interesting to me is animals impact on civilization. “around 7 million years ago, all humans on Earth fed themselves exclusively by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants, as the Blackfeet still did in the 19th century. It was only within the last 11,000 years that some people turned to what is termed food production: that is, domesticating wild animals and plants and eating the resulting livestock and crops”. Animals had a big impact on how we live now. If it weren’t for animals, we wouldn’t have much of what we do now.
The topic that I think had the biggest impact on developing civilizations is animals and agriculture. Animals and farming supplied many things that people need to survive including food to eat, clothing to keep us warm, and help when farming. An example of this is when Diamond says “plant and animal domestication meant much more food and hence much denser human populations. The resulting food surpluses, and (in some areas) the animal-based means of transporting those surpluses, were a prerequisite for the development of settled, politically centralized, socially stratified, economically complex, technologically innovative societies.”
ReplyDeleteThe emerging topic that I find most interesting is societies separating. I'm interested in this topic because it makes you think about how societies would have been if they developed and evolved together instead of apart. Jared Diamond talks about this in excerpt 5 when he said “The resulting two societies lost awareness even of each other's existence and did not come into contact again for many centuries, perhaps for as long as 500 years.”
I agree that farming had the biggest impact on developing civilizations also because it provided so much to them like you said food, clothing, and more.
DeleteI believe that geography had the greatest impact on the success of early civilization because different living environments call for different styles/means of survival. The New Guineans are a less modern civilization still using hand crafted tools while Westerners are using machined tools and have a more modern style of living. ". . . The inhabitants are very numerous, but they do not understand how to fight, and have no weapons." (Ex. 4)
ReplyDeleteI disagree because everyone can adapt to anything that they're thrown into and anyone can survive anywhere just as long as they learn along the way.
DeleteI agree with your post on geography being important. I think it plays an effect but doesn't do everything to hurt it. Machines are causing things to go bad because we are relying too much on them.
DeleteThe one that had the biggest impact in my opinion is animals. Not only did they supply us with natural necessities. Animals are a part of our everyday lives, so when they are sick with some sort of disease we have a very high chance of catching that disease. If the animals are sick, we are sick. We need animals, they need us. We need each other. “ Some of us adults, and even more of our children, pick up infectious diseases from our pets.” This is found in excerpt 6 on the first page. Animals infect us more than we care to admit. They are apart of our society, which means, in order to protect us, we need to protect them.
ReplyDeleteThe emerging topic that speaks to me the most would have to be germs and microbes. “Some microbes don't wait for the old host to die and get eaten, but instead hitchhike in the saliva of an insect that bites the old host and flies off to find a new host. The free ride may be provided by mosquitoes, fleas, lice, or tsetse flies that spread malaria, plague, typhus, or sleeping sickness, respectively.” This is found on excerpt 6 page 2 and I found it interesting because I honestly didn’t know what microbes actually did and I am interested in finding out more.
I agree with that statement and believe that its one of the bigger ways that dieseases spread around the world. Cockroaches came to here because of ships were not being kept clean as well.
Deletei feel that Agriculture had the biggest impact because not only are we overpopulated and that started happening when we stopped having major outbreaks of war and started farming more. But, it also helps us grow as a people and evolve because that means we can live for ourselves and not worry about dying one day when the animal you are hunting has had enough and ends your life. Like I said, people who grow their own food and livestock will live longer because they have the advantage of making it instead of having to wait for the right time to hunt or accidentally grabbing the wrong thing and getting poisoned "As a result, one acre can feed many more herders and farmers— typically, 10 to 100 times more—than hunter-gatherers. That strength of brute numbers was the first of many military advantages that food-producing tribes gained over hunter-gatherer tribes. " (Excerpt 5, page 2).
ReplyDeleteWhat peaked my interest was why the Moriori people did not fight back even when they had more numbers, "An organized resistance by the Moriori could still then have defeated the Maori, who were outnumbered two to one." (Excerpt 4, page 1). If the Maori were outnumbered why would they attack and why would the Moriori people not defend themselves. It makes no sense why they would not fight back even when there people were being Slaughtered they just sat there and did nothing.
i feel that Agriculture had the biggest impact because not only are we overpopulated and that started happening when we stopped having major outbreaks of war and started farming more. But, it also helps us grow as a people and evolve because that means we can live for ourselves and not worry about dying one day when the animal you are hunting has had enough and ends your life. Like I said, people who grow their own food and livestock will live longer because they have the advantage of making it instead of having to wait for the right time to hunt or accidentally grabbing the wrong thing and getting poisoned "As a result, one acre can feed many more herders and farmers— typically, 10 to 100 times more—than hunter-gatherers. That strength of brute numbers was the first of many military advantages that food-producing tribes gained over hunter-gatherer tribes. " (Excerpt 5, page 2).
ReplyDeleteWhat peaked my interest was why the Moriori people did not fight back even when they had more numbers, "An organized resistance by the Moriori could still then have defeated the Maori, who were outnumbered two to one." (Excerpt 4, page 1). If the Maori were outnumbered why would they attack and why would the Moriori people not defend themselves. It makes no sense why they would not fight back even when there people were being Slaughtered they just sat there and did nothing.
I believe that the greatest impact on people in the world growing up was geography. Humans are indeed creative it helps with the layout of tribes, depending on where everything is in the tribe (medical stations, residential living, ect.) different outcomes could happen to said trib either ending with fire or continuing to thrive and develop new things, if the medical tent wasn't next to a garden or a stream more deaths could be the result, but if the residential living was next to the stream it could result in more deaths or happier living conditions. It's all about location in my eyes that and what people will think, back then it's harder to know how to build a tribe because you're going into it with next to no knowledge of how one thrives
ReplyDeleteTis topic speaks to me because I do believe curtain amounts of people adapt to their environment in different ways so if they were all of a sudden taken out of a tropical environment and put in a straight forest they would panic not knowing how to coop.
I agree with the last part that you said but if they were to be taken out of their original climate do you think that they would figure out a way to re adapt to the climate that they get put into?
DeleteI agree with Dan that the greatest impact on geography can be humans. We can be creative and destroy things in this world to do what we think is best when it may hurt the animals and environment.
DeleteI think that the domestication of animals impacted the world the most. I think this because the domestication of animals helped them with so much such as farming, moving heavy objects, getting food and etc. Diamond even says “It was only within the last 11,000 years that some peoples turned to what is termed food production: that is, domesticating wild animals and plants and eating the resulting livestock and crops” with him saying this it shows that they used these animals for everything around their land.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that had interested me the most was microbes because of how easily tha\ey can evolve and spread. “Microbes have evolved diverse ways of spreading from one person to another, and from animals to people. The germ that spreads better leaves more babies and ends up favored by natural selection. Many of our "symptoms" of disease actually represent ways in which some damned clever microbe modifies our bodies or our behavior such that we become enlisted to spread microbes.” I thought that the way he explained that was really cool and I would like to try and figure out how these diseases evolved so quickly.
In excerpt 5 Diamond explains how food production leads to the success of early civilizations. “The first connection is the most direct one: availability of more consumable calories means more people”. The availability of food has the greatest impact because areas with a lot of food were advanced and growing in numbers allowing an area to grow, and areas with no food or a struggle to get it could not grow or advance. People started domesticating animals which fed many more people than hunters and gathers.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that is speaking to me is how people used their domesticated animals for transportation that gave an advantage to areas without domesticated animals. Traveling far distances with loads of cargo became much simpler when they used their animals to carry weight and travel. Diamond states that, “big domestic mammals further revolutionized human society by becoming our main means of land transport until the development of railroads in the 19th century”. This topic is speaking to me because being pulled by a pack of dogs or a few horses sounds fun because cars are lame. Animals are a great food source, provided clothing, and transported people.
Based on Diamond’s Research the theory I think what had the biggest impact was agriculture. The reason I believe this is because after the Moriori attacked and destroyed the Maori. The Maori were forced to live a different type of lifestyle. This allowed them to hunt and gather more materials because of the available agricultural materials that were available to them. It even says in Excerpt 6 “the Moriori were able to grow crops and produce a suitable amount of food for their aggressively growing population. Because of the agricultural differences between the north and south parts of the island” It was even said in excerpt 6 that the Maori had to revert to being hunting-gathers it says “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers” meaning that because of the agricultural environment between them one had to hunt more and live a different lifestyle than the other.
DeleteThe emerging topic that I find most interesting is the separation of societies. I'm interested in this topic because it's fascinating to watch two different types of communities begin together in different types of lifestyles being in competition to try and survive but ending up forgetting each other, It was said in excerpt 5 “The resulting two societies lost awareness even of each other's existence and did not come into contact again for many centuries, perhaps for as long as 500 years.” and this is sort of insane because of the fact they weren't that far apart from each other.
After reading excerpts 4-6, it is clear and evident that farming/farmers and agriculture had the most significant influences on many different civilizations. Excerpt four is where it first shows the advantages of a civilization deriving from organized farmers regardless of being outnumbered. “The Moriori were a small, isolated population of hunter-gatherers, equipped with only the simplest technology and weapons, entirely inexperienced at war, and lacking strong leadership or organization. The Maori invaders (from New Zealand's North Island) came from a dense population of farmers chronically engaged in ferocious wars, equipped with more-advanced technology and weapons, and operating under strong leadership.” Even though there were way less Maori invaders than there were Moriori natives, the quality of the invaders still beat the quantity of the native Moriori people. After noticing this similar scenario in excerpt five with white farmers, and native americans, “Fred Hirschy's family was proud of him, as a pioneer farmer who had succeeded under difficult conditions. But Levi's tribe of hunters and famous warriors had been robbed of its lands by the immigrant white farmers.” The emerging topic I am interested in pursuing is “How does the quality of a civilization over rule the quantity of others?”
ReplyDeleteBy far the most important and differential making part in societies is geography. Animal domestication, farming, diseases, mining and etc. all come from the geography where a society is. Around the world even in modern times places are so different based off of their surroundings, people become adaptive and customary to what they have in order to make a living. You cant grow corn on sand and you wont find a cow in a dessert, the point I am trying to make is the success in argiculture will vary on your land. As far as the succession of a society, steel is something that made different areas more advanced. Think about it if you have an okay farming strategy to feed people you can then make swords and armor for soldiers and lets be honest its easier to take than make and that's where money comes along if you show dominance people will obey you out of fear, at this point you have plenty of land that you took and lots of food to feed your people. You can have the best farming system in the world but if you don't have any real weapons what would you do if someone came to fight you? Well there is not really anything you can do besides run away, die or give and obey. That is the reality of the world.
ReplyDeletei do agree with what you say and it is true that this is the reality of the world you are pray or you are a predator
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ReplyDeleteExcerpt 8 was the most interesting to me because it explains how much technology advancing has helped developing civilizations. In some places technology advanced faster making civilizations advance faster. A example of this is from excerpt 8 “Unfortunately for this splendid fiction, Watt actually got the idea for his particular steam engine while repairing a model of Thomas Newcomen’s steam engine, which Newcomen had invented 57 years earlier and of which over a hundred had been manufactured in England by the time of Watt’s repair work.”
ReplyDeleteAn emerging topic I'm interested in is the phaistos disk because it was the start of communication and writing. An example of this is “ the Phaistos disk is even more baffling; its estimated date of 1700 B.C. makes it by far the earliest printed document in the world. Instead of being etched by hand, as were all texts of Crete’s later Linear A and Linear B scripts, the disk’s signs were punched into soft clay (subsequently baked hard) by stamps that bore a sign as raised type.”
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ReplyDeleteBased on Diamonds research, the theory that had the greatest impact has to be animals because he talks about wild animals and our home pets disease. “Thus, questions of the animal origins of human disease lie behind the broadest pattern of human history, and behind some of the most important issues in human health today. (Think of AIDS, an explosively spreading human disease that appears to have evolved from a virus resident in wild African monkeys.)”
ReplyDeleteThe most interesting emerging topic that spook out was Polynesian agriculture from excerpt 4; which says, “In contrast, the northern (warmer) part of New Zealand, by far the largest island group in Polynesia,was suitable for Polynesian agriculture. Those Maori who remained in New Zealand increased in numbers until there were more than 100,000 of them. They developed locally dense populations chronically engaged in ferocious wars with neighboring populations. With the crop surpluses that they could grow and store, they fed craft specialists, chiefs, and part-time soldiers. They needed and developed varied tools for growing their crops, fighting, and making art. They erected elaborate ceremonial buildings and prodigious numbers of forts”(page 2). Choosing the Polynesian agriculture due to how they created unique ceremonial buildings and extraordinary amount of forts with how their society and lifestyle is; such as: forts, sweet potatoes, taro, chickens, and pigs.
yes the livestock issue is o verrry importent part of the reason why they are not there
DeleteBased on Diamond’s research I believe animals have the biggest impact. Animals can have a positive or negative impact on growing or decreasing populations. For example animals can help with foods and population growth and useless and unhealthy animals can have a negative impact. An example that supports this is when Diamond says “As we’ll see, food production was indirectly a preqrequistinge for the development of guns, germs, and steel.”
ReplyDeleteThe topic that stands out to me the most is how food production was required for guns, germs and steel. In excerpt 5 Diamond said, “. But, as we'll see, food production was indirectly a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel. This is interesting to me because I wanna know what about food production made it work.
the one thing that he says in excerpt 6 is the livestock aspect of it and how it impacts the surrounding area like when you bring in new creatures they can bring in deseses as well as a whole other bunch of dangers like said in this line from excerpt 6" . The major killers
ReplyDeleteof humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals, even though most of the microbes responsible for our own epidemic illnesses are paradoxically now almost confined to humans."
The one thing i will probable look more into is how steel fits in with the animals and the germs tan how it shaped the rest of the civilizations.
The theory that had the greatest impact was diseases were spread through livestock. A great example is in Excerpt 6, when Diamond said, “The grimmest examples of germs' role in history come from the European conquest of the Americas that began with Columbus's voyage of 1492. Numerous as were the Native American victims of the murderous Spanish conquistadores, they were far outnumbered by the victims of murderous Spanish microbes.” This is important as it shows that if it wasn’t for that they would still be outnumbered. They were exposed to disease and killed them off.
ReplyDeleteThe theory that I would agree with most with was this one of diseases spreading through livestock. It speaks to me because it is something that is still happening today. Like other deadly viruses in the world they are moving around the world through sickness and killing people and animals because of it.
Based on Jared Diamond’s research, I believe that the domestication of animals was the main factor in how fast a civilization develops. From plowing fields for agriculture, to being bred for more meat, to being used for milk, animals have played a huge role in the development of civilization. In excerpt five Diamond said, “When horses were yoked to wagons and other vehicles, horse drawn battle chariots proceeded to revolutionize warfare in the near east, the Mediterranean region, and China” so not only were horses used to plow fields, but for war on other civilizations. Having access to domestic animals offered another advantage in terms of war.
ReplyDeleteThe topic that interests me the most is disease. Diamond said, “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history - smallpox, flu, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera - are infectious diseases evolved from diseases of animals” (excerpt 6). If most deadly diseases come from domestic animals, why are the places with many animals experiencing more population growth and technological advances?
The theory that had the biggest impact was agriculture. This had the biggest impact because without agriculture the farmers would not be able to feed the large animals that they had domesticated. They also would not be able to sustain a larger population without the farms because they would not be able to feed all of them. One piece of evidence that supports this is when diamond's says ”By selecting and growing those few species of plants and animals that we can eat, so that they constitute 90 percent rather than 0.1 percent of the biomass on an acre of land, we obtain far more edible calories per acre. As a result, one acre can feed many more herders and farmers— typically, 10 to 100 times more—than hunter-gatherers. That strength of brute numbers was the first of many military advantages that food-producing tribes gained over hunter-gatherer tribes.” This means that they can support a bigger population than hunter-gatherer tribes.
ReplyDeleteThe emerging topic that interested me the most is how much faster did crops grow with large mammals that plow the land and with manure. One piece of evidence is when diamond’s says “Big domestic mammals also interacted with domestic plants in two ways to increase crop production. First, as any modern gardener or farmer still knows by experience, crop yields can be greatly increased by manure applied as fertilizer. Even with the modern availability of synthetic fertilizers produced by chemical factories, the major source of crop fertilizer today in most societies is still animal manure—especially of cows, but also of yaks and sheep. Manure has been valuable, too, as a source of fuel for fires in traditional societies.” Another piece of evidence is when diamond’s says ”In addition, the largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows and thereby making it possible for people to till land that had previously been uneconomical for farming. Those plow animals were the cow, horse, water buffalo, Bali cattle, and yak / cow hybrids.” This means that with the domestication of large mammals it increased the amount of food production. This topic speaks to me because I want to know how much large animals affect food production.
The theory I believe had the greatest impact is animals, because in Excerpt 5 on page 4 it says “Before animal domestication, the sole means of transporting goods and people by land was on the backs of humans. Large mammals changed that: for the first time in human history, it became possible to move heavy goods in large quantities, as well as people, rapidly overland for long distances.” , this is saying without animals being domesticated and being trained to pull the goods, everyone would have to do it by foot and that would cause travels to take longer and more tired people.
ReplyDeleteThe topic I am interested in is Animal domestication and is in excerpt 5.This topic is speaking to me because it is crazy how if the people of the land never tried to train these animals they would have to all these travels and all these tasks by hand and by foot, which would cause them to become more tired and probably die sooner.
The theory I believe had the greatest impact is the animals because Diamond says, "“Thus, questions of the animal origins of human disease lie behind the broadest pattern of human history..." It is important to know that this is important for animals can get sick and die, but if humans get sick we have sometimes give them medicine and that helps us to survive longer. This means that we can survive a longer time than animals, but that animals that are sick probably will die too. This is scary in today's world with the CoronaVirus too.
ReplyDeleteOne of the emerging topics that I am most interested in would be how plants would grow quicker with better equipment and animals to help keep them in place. It allows them to grow better and quicker helping out farmers. Diamond says, "the largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production." This is important because these larger animals can help the domestic plants to grow helping out us humans and increasing the food production.