This question is one of the central concerns of the 1997 book by Jared Diamond entitled Guns, Germs, and Steel, and I suspect your question is referencing this book. So I will basically explain Diamond's answer. The answer is complex, but it is basically rooted in geography. These areas were largely isolated from other areas by deserts or other geographic features (the Sahara, for example) that made it impossible for technologies and crops to spread to them. Also, most of these regions lacked many of the domesticable plants and animals that made agriculture possible. The Americas, for example, were devoid of many of the animals of Eurasia (including horses, chickens, and cattle) that were crucial to agriculture. Grizzly bears and African buffalo, for example, are excellent sources of meat, but cannot be domesticated and herded. Nor can zebras, gazelles, or kangaroos. Diamond also highlights the difficulty of spreading agriculture through continents that are along a north-south axis (like Africa and the Americas) as opposed to an east-west axis (like Eurasia), where similar climates existed in distant regions along the same lines of latitude. In short, these regions lacked the advantages that others had for the independent development of agriculture, and they were isolated geographically from regions that could, a fact that impeded the spread of agricultural technologies, plants, and animals from regions where agriculture did develop.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Summarize the major research findings of "Toward an experimental ecology of human development."
Based on findings of prior research, the author, Bronfenbrenner proposes that methods for natural observation research have been applied in ...
-
One way to support this thesis is to explain how these great men changed the world. Indeed, Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) was the quintes...
-
At the most basic level, thunderstorms and blizzards are specific weather phenomena that occur most frequently within particular seasonal cl...
-
x=4cost y=2sint First, take the derivative of x and y with respect to t. dx/dt=-4sint dy/dt=2cost Then, determine the first derivative dy/dx...
-
Ethno-nationalism is defined as "advocacy of or support for the political interests of a particular ethnic group, especially its nation...
-
Both boys are very charismatic and use their charisma to persuade others to follow them. The key difference of course is that Ralph uses his...
-
Find the indefinite integral $\displaystyle \int \sec^4 \left( \frac{x}{2} \right) dx$. Illustrate by graphing both the integrand and its an...
-
The most basic attitude difference between Mr. Otis and Lord Canterville is their attitude toward the ghost. The attitude difference start...
No comments:
Post a Comment