Guns, Germs, and Steel
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Yali’s Question * Yali’s Question: Why is it that white people developed more cargo than us black people? * New Guinea-Stone Age until 200 years ago. * 11,000 B.C.-all humans are hunter gatherers. * New Guineans proven more intellectually superior than advanced races. * Climates effect-cold enhances creativity?-no-Mayans, pottery, art, science, flourished in tropics. * River Valleys foster centralized rule?-no, centralized rule has come before agricultural and transportation in river valleys. * “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves.”-J.D.’s summary * 6,000 world languages, 1,000 in New Guinea. * Writing develops in earliest sites of food production. * Unequal germ exchange? * Food production increases-skilled craftsmen are able to create advanced technologies. * Food supports bureaucracies which support armies, exploration, and conquest.
From Eden to Cajamarca
Up to the Starting Line * Plant and animal domestication gives people an early advantage? * 7 million year history-humans split off from apes. * Primitive stone tools-2.5 mil yrs. ago. * 1/1.8 mil yrs. ago, Homo erectus left Africa. * 50,000 yrs. ago, Great Leap Forward- standardized stone tools, jewelry, modern humans. * Harpoons, spears, later bows and arrows-Cro-Magnons. * Aesthetic and cultural development, houses and clothing increase ability to survive in cold (thus Europe and Asia). Increased hunting technology enriched diets. * Did Great Leap evolution occur in one or all groups of people? * Cro-Magnon technology probably allowed them to displace the Neanderthals. * Aboriginal Australians had used watercraft 40,000 years ago, perhaps 30,000 years before others had. * Giant animals in Australia and Africa may have been killed off by pre-historic
Yali’s Question * Yali’s Question: Why is it that white people developed more cargo than us black people? * New Guinea-Stone Age until 200 years ago. * 11,000 B.C.-all humans are hunter gatherers. * New Guineans proven more intellectually superior than advanced races. * Climates effect-cold enhances creativity?-no-Mayans, pottery, art, science, flourished in tropics. * River Valleys foster centralized rule?-no, centralized rule has come before agricultural and transportation in river valleys. * “History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among people themselves.”-J.D.’s summary * 6,000 world languages, 1,000 in New Guinea. * Writing develops in earliest sites of food production. * Unequal germ exchange? * Food production increases-skilled craftsmen are able to create advanced technologies. * Food supports bureaucracies which support armies, exploration, and conquest.
From Eden to Cajamarca
Up to the Starting Line * Plant and animal domestication gives people an early advantage? * 7 million year history-humans split off from apes. * Primitive stone tools-2.5 mil yrs. ago. * 1/1.8 mil yrs. ago, Homo erectus left Africa. * 50,000 yrs. ago, Great Leap Forward- standardized stone tools, jewelry, modern humans. * Harpoons, spears, later bows and arrows-Cro-Magnons. * Aesthetic and cultural development, houses and clothing increase ability to survive in cold (thus Europe and Asia). Increased hunting technology enriched diets. * Did Great Leap evolution occur in one or all groups of people? * Cro-Magnon technology probably allowed them to displace the Neanderthals. * Aboriginal Australians had used watercraft 40,000 years ago, perhaps 30,000 years before others had. * Giant animals in Australia and Africa may have been killed off by pre-historic