Social Stratification

Guns, Germs, and Steel: Part 2

What is a Typology?

AxesNote: Why this map?

Eurasia

AfricaThe Americas

Development DiagramUltimate Factors

Proximate Factors

East/West Axis

Ease of species

spreading

Many suitable

wild species

Many domesticated plant and animal

species

Food surpluses, food storage

Large, dense, sedentary, stratified

societies

technology

Epidemic disease

Political organizat

ion, writing

Ocean-going ships

Guns, steel

swordshorses

What’s our typology?What are the possible trajectories?Can we create a typology out of those

trajectories?Examples?Countries:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries#A

Farmer PowerHunting-gathering as an economic system is

nearly extinct and probably will be in the next few decades

We are all switching to advanced agriculture…What is the benefit of agriculture? Why switch

from hunting/gathering to agriculture?Transforms the percentage of edible biomass from

0.1% per acre to up to 90% per acre Agriculture can feed 10 to 100 times more people

than hunting/gatheringWhat about herding and domestication of animals?

Meat, milk, fertilizer, and plowsWarmth? Companionship? Clothing?War?Is vegetarianism ideal?

Farmer PowerWhat does the “sedentary” lifestyle of

agriculturists have to do with child production? Does it increase or decrease reproduction?Hunter/gatherers have to take the kids with them

(2 vs. 4 year intervals)What about food surplus? How does staying in

one place facilitate this? Why is this a “good” thing?

What else does food surplus do for development?Specialization (Is this important?)(and, ultimately, inequality)

Farmer PowerWhy did agriculture develop where it did?Why did agriculture develop when it did?

Centers of origin of food production

West Africa?Ethiopia?

Sahel?

Fertile Crescent

China

New Guinea?

Eastern U.S.

Mesoamerica

Andes

Amazonia?

Why did food production not evolve in large, geographically suitable areas of the globe?

Species DomesticatedArea Plants Animals Date

Southwest Asia Wheat, pea, olive Sheep, goat 8,500 BCE

China Rice, millet Pig, silkworm By 7,500 BCE

Mesoamerica Corn, beans, squash

Turkey By 3,500 BCE

Andes and Amazonia

Potato, manioc Llama, guinea, pig

By 3,500 BCE

Eastern U.S. Sunflower, goosefoot

None 2,500 BCE

? Sahel Sorghum, African rice

Guinea fowl By 5,000 BCE

? Tropical West Africa

African yams, oil palm

None By 3,000 BCE

? Ethiopia Coffee, teff None ?

? New Guinea Sugar cane, banana

None By 7,000 BCE

To Farm or Not to FarmHow did food production come about?

You can’t really make a choice between farming and hunting/gathering if you only know hunting/gathering, right?

Isn’t a hard and fast distinction – many hunter/gatherers intensively manage the land they roam (burning, clearing, etc.)

To Farm or Not to Farm“Most peasant farmers and herders… aren’t

necessarily better off than hunter-gatherers. Time budget studies show that they may spend more rather than fewer hours per day at work than hunter-gatherers do.” (p. 105)

So, why switch?“All other things being equal, people seek to

maximize their return of calories, protein, or other specific food categories by foraging in a way that yields the most return with the greatest certainty in the least time for the least effort.” (p. 108; anyone recognize the sociological/economic theory here?)

To Farm or Not to FarmHunting/gathering and food production are

alternative strategies: What were the factors that tipped the competitive advantage away from the former and toward the latter?Decline in the availability of wild foodsIncreased availability of domesticable wild plants

made plant domestication more rewardingCumulative development of technologies on which

food production would become dependent – collection, processing, storage

Two-way link between the rise in human population density and the rise in food productionChicken and egg dilemma – What’s the answer?

This also explains the dates – started around 8,500 BCE because of these four.

How to Make an AlmondPlant domestication is growing a plant and thereby

consciously or unconsciously causing it to change genetically from its wild ancestor in ways making it more useful to human consumers.

How did certain wild plants get turned into crops?One logical explanation – humans (or other animals)

eat the plant, defecate the seed, and it germinates in our feces; we also gather and spit, etc.But how does this change the genetics of the plant?

“It may come as a surprise to learn that plant seeds can resist digestion by your gut and nonetheless germinate out of your feces. But any adventurous readers who are not too squeamish can make the test and prove it for themselves.” (p. 116)

5 bonus points if you do this successfully and document it with photos

How to Make an AlmondOther inadvertent ways we change crops:

Mechanism for dispersal of seeds (popping pea pods)Changed hard coat so all the seeds germinate immediatelyChanged form of reproduction (seedless fruits – e.g.,

bananas)Why are some plants easier to domesticate than others?

First domesticates: Wild versions are already edible and have high yields More easily grown Grow quickly and can be harvested easily Easily stored Self-pollinating Very little genetic change to become domesticated

Next wave: Take longer to produce (e.g., fruit trees), but that is okay with

sedentary farmersLast wave:

Required new technologies (e.g., grafting)

Major Crop DomesticatesArea Cereals,

other grassesPulses Fiber Roots,

tubersMelons

Fertile Crescent

Emmer wheat, einkorn wheat, barley

Pea, lentil, chickpea

Flax - Muskmelon

China Foxtail millet, broomcorn millet

Soybean, adzuki bean, mung bean

Hemp - [muskmelon]

Mesoamerica Corn Common bean, tepary bean, scarlet

Cotton, yucca, agave

Jicama Squashes

Andes, Amazonia

Quinoa, [corn] Lima bean, common bean, peanut

Cotton Manioc, sweet potato, potato, oca

Squashes

West Africa and Sahel

Sorghum, pearl millet, African rice

Cowpea, groundnut

Cotton African yams Watermelon, bottle gourd

India [wheat, barley, rice, sorghum, millets]

Hyacinth bean, black gram, green gram

Cotton - Cucumber

Ethiopia Teff, finger millet

[pea, lentil] [flax] - -

Eastern U.S. Maygrass, little barley, knotweed, goosefoot

- - Jerusalem artichoke

Squash

New Guinea Sugar cane - - Yams, taro -

All of these were domesticated

basically by the time of the Roman

empire.

Apples or IndiansWhy did agriculture never arise independently in

some fertile and highly suitable areas, such as California, Europe, temperate Australia, and subequatorial Africa?

Why did it arise in some areas earlier than others?Is this a people problem or a plant problem?

Over 200,000 species of flowering plantsBut a dozen account for over 80% of the modern

production:Wheat, corn, rice, barley, sorghum, soybean, potato,

manioc, sweet potato, sugarcane, sugar beet, banana.What did you eat today?

Have we really not domesticated any new plants in recent times?We’ve modified the ones we have, but we haven’t

domesticated any new ones.

Apples or IndiansIs the flora and environment really that

different between the areas where crops developed and where they did not?

What advantages did the Fertile Crescent have?Climate: Mediterranean –

mild, wet winters, long, hot, drysummers

Rapid plant growth when therain returns; very little woodybody and large seeds (that we can eat)

Lots of candidates for domesticationLittle modification required…

Teosinte vs. Corn (Americas)

From this To this.

Spelt vs. Common Wheat

From this

To this.

Mediterranean Climates

South Africa

Fertile Crescent

Southwest Australia

California

Chile

Five Advantages of Fertile CrescentLargest zone of Mediterranean climate

Means greater diversityGreatest climatic variation from season to

seasonFavors evolution (why?)

Wide range of altitudes and topographiesGreater diversity

Greater biological diversity of mammals as wellNot much competition from hunter-gatherer

lifestyle not many coastal areas

Limitations of New GuineaNot much biodiversity:

No cereal crops – no large-seeded wild grasses are native

No domesticable large mammalsLow protein foods

Pot-bellies of high-bulk, protein-deficient diets (cannibalism)

Apples or IndiansDo you know the local plants? Do you

know which are edible and which are not?Do hunter-gatherers know local plants?

Our ancestors consistently picked those best suited for our consumption

So, why did some regions not domesticate plants (or did so really late) and others did?

Domesticable MammalsCandidates for domestication:

Terrestrial herbivore weighing on the average over 100 pounds

Eurasia Sub-Saharan Africa

The Americas

Australia

Candidates 72 51 24 1

Domesticated

13 0 1 0

14 Domestic MammalsAnimal Wild ancestor Date

(BCE)location

Sheep Asiatic mouflon sheep

8000 West and Central Asia

Goat Bezoar goat 8000 West Asia

Cow Aurochs 6000 Eurasia and North Africa

Pig Wild boar 8000 Eurasia and North Africa

Horse Wild horses 4000 Southern Russia

(minor 9)

Arabian camel (1-hump)

Wild camel 2500 Arabia

Bactrian camel (2-hump)

Wild camel 2500 Central Asia

Llama and Alpaca Guanaco 3500 Andes

Donkey African wild ass 4000 North Africa

Reindeer Wild reindeer Northern Eurasia

Water buffalo Wild water buffalo

4000 Southeast Asia

Yak Wild yak Himalayas and Tibet

Bali cattle Banteng Southeast Asia

Mithan Gaur India and Burma

Eurasian?

The Anna Karenina Principle“Happy families are all alike; every unhappy

family is unhappy in its own way.” (p. 157)Success actually requires avoiding many

separate possible causes of failure; 6 areas:Diet - 10% conversion ratio

(10,000 lbs of corn to grow a 1,000 pound cow)Which animals are ruled out?What does this say about vegetarianism?

Growth rate – the faster they growth, the betterWhich animals are ruled out?

Problems of captive breedingWhich animals are rules out?

The Anna Karenina Principle6 areas continued:

Nasty disposition – if they can kill a human and do…Which animals are ruled out?

Tendency to panic – problem in pens and around humansWhich animals are ruled out?

Social Structure – 3 characteristicsLive in herdsWell-developed dominance hierarchyOverlapping home rangesWhy?Which animals are ruled out?

Axes

Eurasia

AfricaThe Americas

Spacious Skies and Tilted AxesWhy did food production spread more

rapidly in Eurasia than in Africa or The Americas?

Same latitude share:Day lengthSeasonal variationSimilar diseasesRegimes of temperature and rainfallHabitats or biomes

Most Eurasian crops came from a single forerunner – they spread rapidly (p. 188)

QuestionsIf you were a hunter-gatherer what would your

reasons be of not becoming a farmer?Which groups do you think had the most chance of

surviving: the hunter-gathers, the farmers, or the group of people that combined the hunter/gatherer’s life style with certain components of the farmer’s lifestyle and why?

Do you think there is a way to eventually solve the “chicken-and-egg” problem: Did rising population cause food production, or did food production cause population to increase?

Why did Australia have no domesticated species? Because of it’s isolation, geography, or both?

QuestionsI find it weird that people believe the large animals,

“picked the 23rd to expire in concert, in the presence of all those supposedly harmless humans.” Clearly they had something to do with the disappearance of these animals. What might the world have been like had they not been killed?

What were the most important advantages of the Fertile Crescent?

On page 88 it was said that "most biomass on land is in the form of wood and leaves" but if there was more biomass available for humans would it change human societies that much?

Gasp... what if there were no horses?? (did we answer this last week?)

What were those pictures of/about or their significance (other than the captions listed under them)?

QuestionsDid the hunter-gatherers in 11,000 BCE have a lot of

children? Is there any way for us to know what the average fertility rate was?

Have there been experiments done with the New Guineans in America? For example, have they been shown pictures of cities or have they seen movies? Do they have the desire to use our weapons and tools or do they not know that it is an option?

Why can reindeer be domesticated while all other deer cannot?

Would other areas such as Africa or the Americas become dominant if Eurasia hadn't become so first?

What were some of the early farming practices that allowed agriculture to develop? Also, what were the key inventions and advancements that contributed to farming?

QuestionsDiamond (pp. 111-112) identifies the emergence from

the Ice Age nearly 13,000 years ago as a factor increasing human population densities, a factor that operated both independently of and as a causal factor for the rise of food production. If this is true, did the geographical effects of the end of the Ice Age provide the same impetus for population growth all over the world, or was Mesopotamia favored once more by geography in this case?

Diamond (pp. 105-107) explains some nuances regarding the differences between food production and hunting/gathering. Neither a sedentary society nor “active managers of land” seems to correspond absolutely with a “food producing” society. What, then, is the key difference between hunting/gathering and food production? Does it have to do with genetic modification of crops/animals versus simply collecting them?