In this chapter, Diamond examines if humans on one continent had an advantage over others by examining the evolution and spread of humans to other continents. Diamond first examines human origin around 7 million years ago when a population of African apes evolved into some of the earliest humans. This evolutionary process occurred and remained in Africa until around 1.5 million years ago when Homo erectus spread beyond Africa. By about .5 million years ago, human populations had differentiated with Neanderthals in Europe, relatively modern structured humans in Africa, and humans different from both in East Asia. It wasn’t until 50,000 years ago when biologically and behaviorally modern humans ,the Cro-Magnons , appeared did humans advanced from crude stone tools to multipiece tools, sewn clothing, arts, and boats. …show more content…
Consequently, the Great Leap also allowed for the colonization of Australia and nearby islands with watercrafts causing many megafaunas to be hunted to extinction. While the megafauna could have gone extinct due to a severe drought, Diamond finds it unlikely for creatures that survived previous droughts to die ,soon after the arrival of humans , in all
Diamond describes the early parts of human history in a broad scope towards the beginning of the book. He focuses on both the evolution and spread of human beings, arguing that some civilizations had a head start over other ones because of when the period of human evolution took place. He explains how different environments shaped human history through an a example of how populations which inhabited the Polynesian islands developed differently due to the different environments and then by telling the stories about what happened as populations with better geographical advantages encountered more disadvantaged populations in the Americas. Diamond explains the many factors that influenced the historical progression of different societies. Diamond argues how food production was very much a primary factor in the advancement of each society. Societies
Yali met Jared Diamond on a beach over 30 years ago in New Guinea and Yali’s question was “Why you white man have so much cargo and we New Guineans have so
“Guns, germs, and steel” refers to the geographical advantages and disadvantages that were present in early civilizations. Although Europeans some may see them as a genetically superior race, their large amounts of success is due to geographical advantages (Source 1)( Diamond, year). It is shown throughout Diamond’s discoveries that because these three continents lay of the same vertical latitude, they are able to keep up with each other when it comes to livestock (Source 1). Geography has played a major key in shaping the current day cultures of Eurasia, South America, and Africa. Jared Diamond stated in episode one of Guns, Germs, and Steel that Europeans were put on this pedestal over the other continents spoken about in the video.
Jared Diamond's bestseller Guns, Germs, and Steel (GG&S) is an attempt to explain why some parts of the world are currently powerful and prosperous while others are poor. Diamond is both a physiologist and a linguist who spends a good deal of his time living with hunter gathers in Papua New Guinea. As a researcher and as a human being, he is convinced that all people have the same potential. Hunter gatherers are just as intelligent, resourceful, and diligent as anybody else. Yet material "success" isn't equally distributed across the globe. Civilization sprung up in relatively few places and spread in a defined pattern. I should emphasize that Diamond doesn't equate material
In Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond he attempts to explain why different societies have developed at different rates. In the prologue of his book he explains what began to arouse his curiosity on the matter. On one of his trips to Papua New Guinea he had met a local politician Yali. He asked him “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?” Where Cargo refers to the technology brought by the their colonizers. Jared wonders why is it that the Europeans who colonized the world, why was it the native Americans who lost their Land to the English. Why did it not end up the other way around. Even though Diamond believes there can never be a definite
In the video “Guns, Germs and Steel: Episode 3.” The overall summary of the episode is how Europe dominated Africa, how they fought through diseases and land wars with local tribes. During this adventure major diseases spread across Africa, affecting Europeans and Africans, causing thousands to die. The main two diseases were smallpox and Malaria, for example in the video it stated that, “It was believed Smallpox originated in the tropical region of Africa, Africans were certainly similar with the disease, they had even developed methods of immunity for life.” This was the advantage they had over the europeans, they were able to protect themselves from Smallpox; avoiding such a dramatic incline their population. Not only did they develop immunization to Smallpox, they tried to fight off Malaria. For example in the video it says, “Native Africans had also developed antibodies against one of the most virulent diseases on the earth, Malaria.” This was because they settled and live in high or dry locations, away from wet and humid areas, which is where mosquitos are generally found, hence why thousands of Europeans died to this disease due to living by rivers and swamps. However, Malaria isn’t the most common disease in Africa now, the most common disease is “Pneumonia and Other Lower Respiratory Tract Infections….Pneumonia alone is responsible for 90% of all lower respiratory tract infections and is one of the most deadly diseases in
Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies, by Jared Diamond, attempts to explain why history progressed differently for people from various geographical regions. Diamond introduces his book by pointing out that history followed different courses for different people because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves. Through his convincing explanation for how civilizations were created and evolved throughout the course of history, he argues that environmental factors gave some societies advantages over others, allowing them to conquer the disadvantaged societies. While I agree with Diamond’s argument that the orientation of continental axis, availability of potential
In the book Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond who is a biophysics scientist and a psychologist, set out on a journey to find out the reason behind great achievements and conquest of the Europeans. What is the secret of success of Europeans? His hypothesis was very original and at first looked very simple, it was guns, germs and steel. The journey of Diamond took over 30 years and helped him answer the main questions of human history and what is it that separates humans today from "rich and poor" and from "haves and have not’s." To do this he had to go back when everyone was equal.
When reading the title of Jared Diamond’s, “Guns, Germs, and Steels,” the readers must initially think how do these three connect? After starting the first few chapters they will realize that Diamond is referring to the proximate and ultimate factors in that lead to the advancement of society. When Diamond talks about proximate and ultimate factors, he is explaining the cause of European dominance in the world. The proximate factors are the one that directly led to the European dominance and the ultimate factors are the ones that let to proximate factors. I believe that this book is referring to the Homo sapiens revolutionizing through the years, through the Neolithic Revolution through agriculture and industrialization.
Jared Diamond is a professor of Geography at UCLA and a world traveler. He believes that in the past 13,000 years of human history, agriculture has lead humans to conquer, develop and prosper and therefore cause the rise of civilizations. In 1972 he was in New Guinea when he met a local named Yali who asked him a simple question that took years for Diamond to answer. Yali said “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [goods] and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own”. [Work cited 7] Diamond was profoundly puzzled and couldn’t answer right away. In fact it took him many years to come up with what he thinks is the right answer. ‘Yali’s question’ plays a central role in Professor Diamond’s enquiry into ‘a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years’, leading him into a wide-ranging discussion of the history of human evolution and diversity through a study of migration, socio-economic and cultural adaptation to environmental conditions, and technological diffusion. (Diamond, Guns, Germs and Steel, p. 22-23)
Guns, Germs and Steel When analyzing “Guns, Germs, and Steel” by Jared Diamond we see that there are a lot of viewpoints and arguments proposed in this book. The main arguments of this book are trying to answer one question. Why were some societies able to develop technologies such as “guns and steel”, and have quicker human developments to become more powerful and more advanced than other societies? Diamond answers this with some key arguments, but his main point was that geographical factors, not race were the determinants in these societies advancing ahead of others. "The striking differences between the long-term histories of peoples of the different continents have been due not to innate differences in the peoples themselves but to differences in their environments."(Diamond)
Yes, if there is a lot of resources around it can support a large group of people instead of a small group of gatherers
I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel in the Fall 2003 based on a recommendation from a friend. Many chapters of the book are truly fascinating, but I had criticisms of the book back then and hold even more now. Chief among these is the preponderance of analysis devoted to Papua New Guinea, as opposed to, say, an explanation of the greatly disparate levels of wealth and development among Eurasian nations. I will therefore attempt to confine this review on the "meat and potatoes" of his book: the dramatic Spanish conquest of the Incas; the impact of continental geography on food production; and finally, the origins of the Eurasian development of guns, germs, and steel. In terms of structure, I will first summarize the
Humans are the most unique species on Earth. We have gained the ability to things never accomplished before on Earth. We can control our environment, domesticate other species, and more importantly, form complex connections and societies with one another. However, it is widely debated about how we evolved from simple ape-like foragers to the meat-eating, community-building species we are today. In this paper, we will be looking at three authors: Richard Wrangham, Pat Shipman, and Frans de Wall. Each of which approach this question from different directions.
According to physical evidence, and theories, scholars have concluded upon a whole hypothesis. Based on their knowledge and belief, modern humans diverged from Homo sapiens between 200,000 and 150,000 years ago specifically in Africa, that between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago members of Homo sapiens left Africa, and that these