Response Paper Assignment
ikerramos04
GunsGermsandSteel11-1-11.pptxGuns, Germs, and Steel
Jared DIamond
Problems to Consider
In the last 13,000 years or so, human history has proceeded in many different directions.
Yali’s Question
“Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo … but we black people had little cargo of our own?”
Breaking it Down
Yali’s question references the inequalities between different civilizations.
Some civilizations, such as those in Europe and Eastern Asia, have developed great power and wealth and used it to dominate the inhabitants of Australia and the Americas.
Why did the Europeans conquer the Native Americans, and not the other way around?
Why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?
Some Clarification
Diamond could be misinterpreted to be saying that he celebrates the Europeans for their conquests.
On the contrary, Diamond isn’t glorifying anyone or anything—he’s just describing what happened, and why.
One could also misinterpret Diamond to be arguing that hunter-gatherer culture (for example, Native Americans and aborigines) is inferior to agricultural or industrial civilization (the civilizations that conquered the Native Americans and the aborigines).
Diamond doesn’t say that any kind of society is better than another.
In many ways, hunter-gatherers are actually better off than people in a country like the U.S.
The Past
There have been many attempts to answer Yali’s question in the past.
For centuries, people believed that Europeans conquered the rest of the world because Europeans were naturally superior.
After Darwin’s theory of evolution in the 1800s, people tried to argue that Europeans were more evolutionally advanced than Native Americans or aborigines.
i.e. Eugenics, the use of science to further racist cultural conceptions
There is absolutely no scientific evidence to support the idea that people in hunter-gatherer cultures are less talented or intelligent than their counterparts in an industrialized country.
Some history on Eugenics
Eugenics is the “science” of improving human populations by selective breeding
Pushed in the 1890s by British anthropologist Francis Galton
A major influence on the eugenics movement was Herbert Spencer, an English philosopher and prominent political theorist. He is best known as the father of social Darwinism, a school of thought that applied the evolutionist theory of "survival of the fittest"—a phrase coined by Spencer—to human societies.
By the 1900s, the scientific community’s understanding of race was both essentialist—defining each race by certain biological and social characteristics—and taxonomic (hierarchical).
The Intelligence Argument
In Western society, survival was largely a product of being healthy and lucky—i.e., not killed by infectious diseases like the black plague or smallpox.
In New Guinea, on the other hand, survival was more often a product of talent and intelligence: being able to hunt food, avoid accidents, etc.
Furthermore, New Guineans spend more time exploring the world than average Westerners (who watch lots of TV).
Would you survive if left on your own in harsh wilderness?
The Climate Argument
Diamond relates another popular explanation for human inequalities across culture: climate stimulates the mind.
In cold climates, it’s been argued, humans have to work harder to survive.
They have to build more sophisticated houses, plan ahead for the winter, and do other things that make them more industrious.
But this idea doesn’t hold up to close inspection either.
Europeans who lived in cold climates received many of their most important ideas and technologies (writing, the wheel, etc.) from Eurasia, where the climate was actually warmer.
Proximity to Water
Another famous answer to Yali’s question: civilizations that arose near rivers become more successful over time.
Many of the earliest civilizations did emerge near big rivers (Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc.), and it’s been suggested that the development of irrigation systems led to the development of complex bureaucracies, the basis for government and society.
But studies have shown that early civilizations developed irrigation systems after they’d already developed centralized bureaucracies.
Diamond’s Argument
Another explanation is that civilizations with access to weaponry, immunity to infectious diseases, and proximity to metal were most successful.
This explanation is on the right track, Diamond claims, but it doesn’t go in-depth about why certain civilizations ended up with the guns, the germs, and the steel.
There are many civilizations with access to metal, for example, that never developed serious metallurgy.
Diamond’s thesis: History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among people’s environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves.
Origins of Man
The ancestors of human beings broke off as a separate lineage from other animals about 7 million years ago in Africa
Human ancestors began walking upright around 4 million years ago
They moved to Eurasia around 1 or 2 million years ago
The Great Leap Forward
Sometime between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, not long after human fossils began to resemble modern homo sapiens, our race created an explosion of new technological and artistic innovations that far surpassed anything previously created
Homo Sapiens
It is usually argued that humans—that is, Homo sapiens—first emerged from the evolutionary tree half a million years ago, having evolved independently from Homo erectus around the world.
here is no perfect definition of Homo sapiens, and therefore no perfect “cutoff point” for when Homo sapiens first appeared.
Nevertheless, scientists and anthropologists generally agree that Homo sapiens are distinguished from some of their ancestors by their larger skulls and their ability to make fire.
Expanding Territory
Between 50,000 and 35,000 years ago, the human race expanded its territory
Although human ancestors had remained in Africa and Eurasia for millions of years, people now moved outward to Australia, the South Pacific, and the coldest northern regions of Eurasia.
The colonization happened at least 12,000 or 13,000 years ago
Amazing that it happened in a relatively short amount of time
the Fates of Human Societies
Diamond begins his consideration of the fates of human societies around 11,000 B.C., or 13,000 years ago
During this period all the habitable continents were populated with hunter-gatherers
No society had advanced technologically to become farmers or city dwellers
In 11,000 B.C.E., Africa had been populated for the longest time, which would have allowed its people to develop the most expansive knowledge of their landscape and environment.
The Great Leap
The development of complex tools, such as needles, awls, etc., as well as the construction of large houses and buildings and the creation of art (cave paintings).
In New Guinea, there is archaeological evidence that humans exterminated many animals soon after arriving.
Other scientists argue that many species in New Guinea went extinct because of unrelated changes in the environment, such as drought.
Humans settled many different parts of the world after the Great Leap.
Many parts of the world weren’t settled with human beings until surprisingly recently.
For example, there were no human beings in Iceland until the 9th century A.D.
Africa
Why didn’t Africa become the most powerful region in the world?
Africa had a “head start” in producing human beings, since thousands of years ago, there were more Homo erectus and later Homo sapiens in Africa than anywhere else.
Effectively, Africa has “5 million more years of proto-human existence than any other continent.”
Africa
To answer his own questions, Diamond tries to be precise about the idea of a “head start.”
Africa had more “protohumans” (evolutionary ancestors to Homo sapiens) than any other country. And even today, there is more genetic diversity in Africa than anywhere else on the planet, reflecting the large numbers of protohumans in Africa millions of years ago.
And yet, 11,000 years ago, one could have made different, fairly convincing arguments that each colonized continent was going to become the dominant one.
Africa had the most people and the most genetic diversity. But people in Australia had already developed sophisticated boats and other technologies, beyond what people in Africa had built.
In Eurasia, there was more geographic diversity than anywhere else on the planet, suggesting that people who lived in Eurasia would adapt to many different environments and therefore colonize many different parts of the world.
Summary of Main Point
In short, Diamond says, you could have made an argument that any region of the globe where there were humans 11,000 years ago was going to become the most powerful and dominant one.
The Inca
Pizarro was leading less than 200 soldiers through Peru on an expedition, while Atahuallpa was surrounded by tens of thousands of soldiers and on his “home turf.”
And yet Pizarro managed to kidnap Atahuallpa almost immediately and then ransom him for huge sums of gold.
The Inca
Pizarro traveled across Peru, using torture to extract information from Inca people his soldiers captured.
This information led the expedition to the center of the Inca kingdom, where Atahuallpa lived.
Atahuallpa received Pizarro as a visitor and willingly walked into Pizarro’s camp without armed soldiers to protect him.
But when Atahuallpa refused to open a copy of the Bible, Pizarro gave the order for his soldiers to capture Atahaullpa and, outside the camp, fire their guns and attack the Incas with their swords.
Having captured the king and slaughtered many Incas, Pizarro soon rose to control the entire kingdom.
The Spanish
While some historians have tried to argue that the Spanish conquistadors prevailed in the New World because they were seen as intimidating, or even gods, the frank reality is that they won because they had better weapons than the Native Americans.
Horses were also a huge advantage for the conquistadors: they could outrun their opponents, who had no horses of their own.
The SPanish
Guns didn’t play a huge role in Pizarro’s victory: he only had about a dozen of them, and they were difficult to load.
His biggest advantage was steel: the steel swords and lances that his soldiers used to slaughter the Incas, and the steel armor that protected his expedition from the Incas’ clubs.
The combination of horses, steel, and, to a much smaller extent, guns, helps us understand how Pizarro defeated the Incas.
Breakout Rooms Assignment
Consider the questions in your Steinberg et. al. reading:
What are the rules governing ownership and use of natural resources and how are they established, enforced, and changed?
Who participates in rule making?
What is the relationship between local rules-in-use and official government policy?
How have these local institutions responded to changes driven by technology, shifting social norms, global trade, immigration, and new government regulations?
Using these questions and your readings last week, analyze what took place in First Contact and what the New Guinea population deals with today. How does the unique history of the New Guinea people affect their use of land and environment, and how does this help/hinder their societal development. Consider what Diamond relates to us in the film about their plant/animal use and compare to what your readings mention about environmental considerations.
Breakout Rooms Assignment
Your group will have about an hour to answer the questions on the previous slide. Please work quickly to assign roles. Everyone will need to do some outside research on New Guinea and use the readings to direct the discussion.
Student roles:
Group Leader – Facilitates the discussion
Historians/Fact-checkers – Makes sure to analyze the points presented in the discussion and keep note of both the historical context and accuracy.
Time-Keepers – Makes sure that the discussion is fruitful, on-topic, and timely given the constraints of the assignment
Note-Takers – Keeps accurate records and engages in transmitting the groups ideas to paper. It will be your job to keep a record of what is discussed and disseminate to group so that everyone can upload their assignment to Canvas at the end of today’s lecture.
