Social Stratification

Guns, Germs, and Steel: Part 4

Yali’s PeopleWhy were New Guineans more “advanced” than

Australians when they are on the smaller landmass?They were farmers and fishers, not hunter/gatherers –

ergo, they get the benefits of those economic systemsThis is particularly interesting given the narrow gap

between New Guinea and Australia (about 10 miles using coastal islands as stepping stones)

Generally, what advantages do larger landmasses give?Are these true with Australia?

But New Guinea was not modernized prior to European arrival… Why?

And why is Australia more advanced than New Guinea today?What happened to the indigenous culture as a result of

this?

How China Became ChineseBasically unified politically by 221 BCEWhy does China seem so monolithic and

unified?How did this come about?

Farming and writing – the groups that developed it basically out-competed those that did not

Speedboat to PolynesiaWhy did Austronesian people, stemming

primarily from China, colonize Indonesia and not the other way around?

Why didn’t Austronesians replace highland New Guineans?

How can we determine the dates of expansion of Austronesians through Polynesia?Language and cultural artifacts

Historical TrajectoriesFertile Crescent

China England Andes Amazonia

Mesoamerica

Eastern U.S.

Plant domestication

8500 BCE By 7500 BCE

3500 BCE By 3000 BCE

3000 BCE By 3000 BCE

2500 BCE

Animal domestication

8000 BCE By 7500 BCE

3500 BCE 3500 BCE ? 500 BCE -

Pottery 7000 BCE By 7500 BCE

3500 BCE 3100-1800 BCE

6000 BCE 1500 BCE 2500 BCE

Villages 9000 BCE By 7500 BCE

3000 BCE 3100-1800 BCE

6000 BCE 1500 BCE 500 BCE

Chiefdoms

5500 BCE 4000 BCE 2500 BCE By 1500 BCE

1 CE 1500 BCE 200 BCE

Widespread metal tools

4000 BCE 2000 BCE 2000 BCE 1000 CE - - -

States 3700 BCE 2000 BCE 500 CE 1 CE - 300 BCE -

Writing 3200 BCE By 1300 BCE

43 CE - - 600 BCE -

Widespread iron tools

900 BCE 500 BCE 650 BCE - - - -

Hemispheres CollidingWhy did Eurasians conquer the Americas instead of vice

versa?Eurasian agriculture yielded on the average more calories

and protein per person-hour of labor than Native American agriculture.We chalk this up to what?

Also the proximate factors deriving from the ultimate factors:Guns, germs, steel (and other technologies, like writing, ship-

building, etc.)Axis and geography results in relatively isolated societies

What about Greenland and Iceland (and Norse settlements in Newfoundland)?Why didn’t they succeed initially?

Every New World nation has an Old World language as its primary language – they are the “conquered” or “settled” (from our typology)

How Africa Became BlackMost diverse continent – 5 of the 6 major

divisions of humanity: blacks, whites, African Pygmies, Khoisan, and Asians (sixth is Australian aborigines)

African Pygmy and white

Khoisan

Asian

Australian Aboriginal

black

Yes, these distinctions are

relatively artificial…

Peoples of Africa (~1400 CE)

whites

blacks

Pygmies

blacks

Khoisan

blacks&

Indonesians

Khoisan and Pygmies originally extended

further north, but were

engulfed by blacks (Bantu)

What advantages led to the spread of

blacks (Bantu) into the lands of the Pygmies and Khoisan?

Bantu Expansion (starting 3000 BCE)

H

Africans vs. EurasiansAfrica has the same mineral resources and

a longer history of human settlementWhy did Eurasians conquer Africa?

Some Interesting Side Notes“Until the proliferation of water mills after about

900 CE, Europe west of or north of the Alps contributed nothing of significance to Old World technology or civilization; it was instead a recipient of developments from the eastern Mediterranean, Fertile Crescent, and China.” (p. 411)

Why did the Fertile Crescent and China lose their enormous leads in development to Europe?Fertile Crescent – climateChina – possibly centralization

Are “great men” really not that important? (p. 420)

Some Interesting Side Notes“The histories of the Fertile Crescent and China

also hold a salutary lesson for the modern world: circumstances change, and past primacy is no guarantee of future primacy. One might even wonder whether the geographical reasoning employed throughout this book has at last become wholly irrelevant in the modern world, now that ideas diffuse everywhere instantly on the Internet and cargo is routinely airfreighted overnight between continents. It might seem that entirely new rules apply to competition between the world’s peoples, and that as a result new powers are emerging – such as Taiwan, Korea, Malaysia, and especially Japan.” (p. 417)

Some Interesting Side Notes“Hence I briefly considered it in the book’s

epilogue. I suggested that the underlying reason behind Europe’s overtaking China was something deeper than the proximate factors suggested by most historians (e.g., China’s Confucianism vs. Europe’s Judeo-Christian tradition, the rise of western science, the rise of European mercantilism and captialism, Britain’s deforestation coupled with its coal deposits, etc.).” (p. 430)Why is this of particular interest to Sociologists?

Weber’s theory of capitalism and ultimately European dominance…

Some Interesting Side NotesWhy isn’t “culture” necessarily a good

explanation for differences in development?You can always ask the next question in the

regression… Why the difference in cultures?What does competition do for beer production?

Does competition do this in other areas of production?

“If your goal is innovation and competitive ability, you don’t want either excessive unity or excessive fragmentation. Instead, you want your country, industry, industrial belt, or company to be broken up into groups that compete with one another while maintaining relatively free communication.” (p. 438) Is this true?

The Future of Human History as a Science“…physicists and chemists can formulate

universal deterministic laws at the macroscopic level, but biologists and historians can formulate only statistical trends.” (p. 423)Why?

Human history is hard to describe as a science. Why?

QuestionsDiamond says that hunter-gathering will probably

be extinct in the next few decades. What will it take for the few groups left to stop hunting and start farming completely? Will it happen after they run out of game, or after they come to the realization that agricultural life is easier?

If corn has almost zero nutritional value then why is it used in so many different foods and why did people work so hard to make it look the way it does today?

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21Y0.html corn on the cob

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21vz.html 1 cup of flour

http://www.nutritiondata.com/facts-C00001-01c21GA.html 1 slice of bread

QuestionsWhat were some reasons as to why the

Chinese were so unified?If our past ancestors didn’t domesticate

animals would there be as many epidemics in the past?

Do you think that if the Europeans didn’t have the nastiest germs they would have been able to defeat the Native Americans?

How did AIDS get into Africa and turn into the epidemic it is today?

Is technology infinite? Will it ever stop?

QuestionsOnce specialization allows a class that lives off of the

labor of others (“upper classes”), generally speaking, does luck alone determine which members of society make it into this class? Is it a “meritocracy” for the first generation, and subsequent generations are included or excluded from this class based on the luck of their ancestry? Or does it work another way? In other words, what accounts for the particular members of society that become the ones to specialize as priests, administrators, etc.?

If technology begets more technology, or catalyzes itself, as Diamond contends, then does necessity still enter a symbiotic relationship with “auto-catalyzing” technology? Therefore, while it wouldn’t be right to contend that “necessity is the mother of invention,” would it be right to say that it still played a role once technological innovation began spreading?