My Summary of Guns, Germs and Steel

Jared Diamonds thesis:

History followed different courses for different people because of
differences among peoples environments, not because of differences among
people themselves.
Environments: Geography Plants and animals Agriculture gave rise to
conquests, epidemics and genocide that shaped the world.

DO I AGREE?
I think Jared Diamond presents some valid and insightful points in
his book, such as the east-west axis advantage that Eurasia had that
allowed for agriculture to develop successfully. Also, the animals.
The interpretation of Yalis question is highly debatable, therefore
drawing a wide range of critiques for his arguments. If we assume
Yalis question is about material goods, then Diamond is not wrong
in answering how the opportunity arose for certain societies to
have cargo and others to not have such. Anything outside the scope
might be irrelevant. But I think there are other important factors to
consider, namely, human nature, international relations, political
fragmentation certain important individuals who capitalized on the
opportunity presented to them, therefore shaping history.
Also, this is an argument between environmental determinism and
posibilism and Diamond is an apologetic White male. Are they
mutually exclusive?

Chapter 1
Does the region have domestic-able animals and plants?
(YES) Society with a sedentary farming lifestyle Rise of towns, languages
and technologies Exploration and conquest of other lands and people
(NO) Society with a primitive hunter-gatherer lifestyle
What is the Great Leap Forward?

Are there racial differences in intelligence?

Jared Diamond asserts that New Guineans are more intelligent than
Westerners who have more cargo.
Different social environment and educational opportunity.
These influenced their cognitive abilities during childhood.
IQ tests are a measure of cultural intelligence not pure intelligence.
Intelligent people are more likely to escape death in harsh living
conditions; New Guineans spend more time in stimulatory activities
that promote mental development.
DO I AGREE?
That New Guineans are smarter? No. First, he does not provide very
sound evidence that they are smarter (his criteria is flawed tv and shit
promote mental development too, like his documentary). Just because
they engage actively in mental development that makes them smarter?
Implicit in his argument is that peoples IQ arises from opportunities
presented to them by the environment, not genetics. At the same time, he
argues that New Guineans environment selected them for intelligence that
is presumably hereditary (how is knowledge for survival passed down
then?). Yet he does not apply the same principle for European genetic
evolution (plagues, invasions and economic competition).

Chapter 2
A Natural Experiment in History
Humans lived in vastly different environments, and this influenced their
development. Environment determines the path of society and its people.

The original Polynesians were scattered over thousands of Pacific

Islands from 1200 BC to 500 AD.
The islands had vastly different environments in terms of isolation,
elevation, climate, productivity and resources
E.g. the Chatham Islands were too cold and could not support the
growth of typical crops, and were too small, so the population of the
island was about 2000 hunter-gatherers (Morioris). As a result of
being isolated on the island, the Polynesians on the Chatham Islands
learnt to settle disputes peacefully.
However, this was not the case for the inhabitants living on the larger,
northern, warmer island of New Zealand, where there were supplies
for metals and it was suitable for agriculture. As a result, population
was dense and its inhabitants, the Maoris, were chronically engaged
in warfare with their neighbors.
This is a clear case of how different environments plays a part in
affecting the growth a group of people of the same ancestry.

There are six sets of environmental variables observable in the Polynesian

islands.
1. Climate: Varies from tropical to subtropical to temperate to sub Antarctic.
Rainfall varies from the highest on earth to an amount too low for
agriculture.
2. Geology: Islands can be coral atolls, raised limestone, volcanic, continental,
or a mixture. Atolls and raised limestone islands offer no other
mineral, thin soil, and flat landscapes. They often have no source of
fresh water other than rainfall. New Zealand was part of a continent
(Gondwanaland) and has a wide range of minerals. Volcanic islands
have different types of stone for tools. Volcanic islands all have rich
soils but vary as to height. Those with higher elevations generate rain
and streams.
3. Marine Resources: Most of the islands have reefs and shallow waters
surrounding them, but some have rocky coasts and steep dropping
ocean bottoms that make seafood harder to obtain.
4. Area: Islands vary from 100 acres (Anuta) to 103,000 square miles (New
Zealand).
5. Fragmentation: Some are fragmented by steep walled valleys and ridges,
while others have gently rolling terrain.
6. Isolation: Some are so far from other islands as to have lost contact once
settled. Others remained in more or less regular contact with other
islands.

These factors played a part in affecting the growth of the society and how
they turned out to be in the future, as depicted by the Maoris and the
Morioris.
Economies flourished with food production and food surplus, leading to high
population densities to influence technology and economic, social and political
organization.
Political units depend on isolation and terrain. Several nearby islands might
be one unit, but one larger island with rugged mountains dividing it might
have many. A large island sparsely populated might not become unified at
all. Political units vary from a few dozen to 40,000 people.
The larger the size and the higher the density of the population, the more
complex and specialized the technology and organization. With high
population densities, farmers are devoted to intensive food production,
enabling support of non-producers, including chiefs, priests, bureaucrats, and
warriors. The biggest political units could muster large labor forces to build
irrigation systems and fishponds, increasing food production even more

(Hawaii).
Likewise, political organizations were also affected by population density,
with small populations, chiefs had little authority as most decisions were
made based on consensus, Land ownership rested with the entire community.
While in large populations, the power of chiefs equaled that of kings, like on
Hawaii and Tonga, including land control.
(Page 30 food production also enabled farmers to support politicians and a
political structure)
Technological variations also occurred with variations in densities and
population. Economies were simple with low density, low numbers, or both.
Each household made what it needed and there would be little or no
specialization. Specialization increased on larger, more densely populated
islands, reaching a peak on Samoa, the Society Islands and especially Tonga
and Hawaii. The last two supported hereditary, part-time craft specialists,
including canoe builders, navigators, stone masons, bird catchers and
tattooers.
(Page 4)
Social complexity followed the same pattern. The simplest and most
egalitarian (fair) societies were on the islands with low population or density.
They retained the original Polynesian custom of chiefs, but there was little or
no distinction of activity, dress, or living arrangement. Complexity peaked in
Hawaii, where people of chiefly descent were divided into eight hierarchically
ranked lineages. Chiefly classes were separated from commoners with no
intermarriage. All the chiefly lineages, bureaucrats, and some craft
specialists were freed from the work of food production.
Tools and material culture varied with the availability of raw materials.
New Zealand was the only area with metals. But people on large volcanic
islands, while lacking in granite, flint, or other continental rocks, did grind
and polish volcanic stone. Artifacts and architecture also grew with
population size and density. Artworks (bird feather capes), immense stone
structures (statues on Easter, tombs of Tongan chiefs, ceremonial platforms
of the Marquesas and temples of Hawaii and the Society Islands) were
created by craft specialists. All of these differences developed within a
relatively short time.
Did the same kind of diversification on other continents follow
environmentally determined pathways?

Chapter 3
Collision at Cajamarca

What happened at Cajamarca? Why was Pizarro able to conquer the

mighty Inca Empire?
Cajamarca was the fateful place where it was the start of the fall of the
mighty Inca Empire, starting with the capture of the king of the Incas,
Atahuallpa by Pizarro on November 16. 68 Spaniards killed thousands of
approximately 80,000 Inca soldiers and captured Atahuallpa all in a single
day.
What was Diamonds explanation for what happened?
Diamond believed that it was Pizarros and Spaniards advantage in guns,
germs and steel that gave them their victory over the Incas. The Spaniards
superiority of equipment, guns, steel swords and horses versus the Incas
bronze weapons and clubs, coupled with the Indians fear of horses, who had
never seen such creatures before. Horses allowed them to ride down foot
soldiers and outrun sentries and surprise enemies.
In addition, epidemic diseases the Spaniards brought along, small pox, also
led to the death of tens of thousands of Indians. At the time of the capture,
the Inca were in the midst of a civil war, which had followed an epidemic of
smallpox that had killed the emperor, his heir, and most of his court.

What was the impact of maritime technology and literacy at that situation?
At that time Europeans, had maritime technology (ships and sailing knowhow); the Inca and Aztec did not. So, the Spanish could travel to America, not
the reverse. The Spanish also had a political organization that enabled them
to finance, build, staff, and equip the ships.
The Europeans had a written language, which allowed for rapid, accurate,
and detailed information to be shared. They had writing, Information about
Columbus voyages; Cortezs conquest of the Aztec and much else was
readily available. The Inca had little or no information about the Spaniards.
They did not know of the previous successful conquest of Central America.
This allowed Pizarro to learn of previous encounters with a foreign tribe and
enabled the Spaniards to emerge as victors at Cajamarca.
The fundamental question is why those advantages lay with Europe and
not with the New World, which will be answered in later chapters.
OK but why was it only Europe to used these advantages to be
expansionistic?

Chapter 4
The rise and spread of food production Farmer Power

Different people acquired food production (farming/herding) at different

times in pre-history.
Some acquired it independently (China), some acquired it from their
neighbors (Egypt). Others never did.
Advantages of growing crops:
Increases the amount of calories available per acre Increased

populations
Increases yield per area to feed larger populations

Advantages of rearing animals:

Domestic animals are a source of protein
A source of milk
Milk products yield over the lifetime of the animal even more calories
than from one that is slaughtered
Provides fertilizers
Draught animals
Other Advantages:
Increased populations lead to shortened birth cycles. A huntergatherer mothers children are spaced 4 years apart to ensure that the
older one is self-mobile before the next child arrives. Farmers, on the
other hand do not have this consideration and space their children 2
years apart.
Food production increases settled life (fixed abodes) permits the
storage of food
Grain can be stored for future consumption; can be used to feed nonfood-producing specialists.
Crops and livestock yield fibers for clothing, blankets, nets, and rope.
Fiber crops include cotton, flax, and hemp. One of the earliest
cultivated plants in America was the bottle gourd used as a container.
Animals include sheep, goats, llamas, alpacas, and silkworms.
Animals also provided bones for artifacts and leather.
Large domestic animals were also ridden (horse, donkey, yak,
reindeer, camel). Cows and horses were hitched to wagons; reindeer
and dogs pulled sleds.

Rise of specialists and rulers

Gain control of food production through taxation or tribute
Moderately sized agricultural societies tend to be chiefdoms or
kingdoms.
A few hunter-gatherer societies in particularly rich environments
(coastal Pacific-Northwest of America, coast of Ecuador) did develop
sedentary societies with storage of food and chiefdoms, but did not
get any larger.
The acquisition of food production is a pre-requisite to Guns, Germs and
Steel.

Infectious diseases such as smallpox, measles, and flu were mutations from
animal infections.

They evolved in societies with domesticated animals and this led to the
farmers being exposed to the germs from the animals earlier than the
hunter-gatherers.

Those who survived gained immunity against these diseases.

When partly immune people brought those germs to those with no previous
exposure, epidemics resulted in death of up to 99% of the population,
playing a decisive role in European conquest of Native Americans (Historians
estimated 90% of the Native population died from diseases), Australians,
South Africans, and Pacific islanders.

Chapter 5
Historys Have and Have-nots
Identification of where food production started:
The earliest sites where agriculture and domesticated animals first appeared
are currently dry and degraded areas Iraq and Iran, Mexico, Andes, China
and Sahel zone of Africa.
As for modern breadbaskets that are ideal for food production today
(California, Pacific states, Argentine pampas, SW and SE Australia, Cape
region of South Africa), the emergence of farming was delayed.
Although it was developed independently in a few places, food production
was mostly initiated by importing domesticated crops and livestock from
elsewhere.
The timing was varied greatly among those places where it arose
independently, thousands of years earlier in Eastern Asia than in Eastern US
and never in Eastern Australia.
The same can be said for import times thousands of years earlier in
Southwestern Europe than in Southwestern US.

Food production apparently began independently in only a few places in the

world, and then spread to other areas, as a result of the geographical
advantage of domesticable animals and wild plants suitable for
agriculture.
Through carbon dating, 5 such places have been identified, namely, China,
the Fertile Crescent (Southwest Asia), Andes, Mesoamerica and the eastern
United States.
Dates where food production emerged independently
Southwest Asia Plants around 8500 BC and animals around 8000 BC.
China nearly as early.
Eastern United States 6000 years later.

Chapter 6
To Farm or Not to Farm Why did people adopt food production?
Is there a big gap between hunter-gatherers and famers?
Generally speaking, there isnt a huge gap between hunter-gatherers and
farmers as they are just alternative strategies to get food.
In fact, the first farmers were often smaller, less well nourished, had more
diseases, and died younger than the hunter-gatherers they replaced.
Initially, people did both gathering and farming, depending on the
environment and climate.
For example, people in New Guinea clear an area of forest and plant banana
and papaya, and then go off and live as hunter-gatherers for several months,
returning to harvest.

Likewise, the Apache in Southwestern North America farmed in the summer at

higher elevations, then switched to hunter-gathering style in the winter where
they moved to lower elevations.
The eventual decision was based on how the people wanted to allocate the finite
resources and time, since all foragers want to maximize returns. They will
choose moderate reliability over feast and famine if they can. However, over
time, the predominant result has been a shift to food production. Is this a valid
assumption? Probably.
Why did hunter-gatherers switch to farming? 5 factors as recognized by
Diamond.

1.

Decline in the availability of wild food (plants and animals)

2. Increase in availability of domestic-able wild plants (e.g. climate

changes that increased the spread of cereals)
3. Development of technologies used for collecting, processing, and
storing food, initially invented for dealing with abundant wild cereal
harvests. Increased yield.
4. Two-way link between population increase and food production
increase. It is unclear which is first; they are probably reciprocal.
Population increased as techniques for collecting and storing wild
foods improved. With increased density, balance shifts to food
production, which increases output, which increases population, etc.
5. Denser population of food producers, which allowed them to
displace or kill hunter-gatherers at boundaries between them
The result was that in most areas suitable for food production, huntergatherers were either displaced or they adopted food production.
The only exceptions were where hunter-gatherers were separated by natural
barriers, e.g., deserts (California), climate (the Cape of South Africa), ocean or
other water (Australia). The rest of the surviving hunter-gatherers lived in
areas unsuited for food production.

Chapter 7
How to Make an Almond?
The conversion of wild to domestic crops seems to have begun when seeds
were accidentally sown in latrines and garbage middens.
Naturally, when the time came, people selected the largest seeds for planting,
even if the genetics involved were not understood.
How does a bitter or poisonous wild plant get converted into an edible
domestic version e.g. Almonds? (Most are wild and poisonous)
The tree it was derived from was a mutation and lacked the gene for the
bitter poison. These trees had few offspring since animals and humans ate
most of them. Lima beans, watermelon, potato, eggplant, and cabbages are
among the many plants whose wild ancestors were bitter and/or poisonous.
Likewise, plants that normally scattered their seeds or had a heavy seed coat
would have been selected for non-scatter or coatless versions. What was

gathered would then at first accidentallyand later deliberatelyget

planted.
There then would be non-deliberate changes caused by the change in
conditions that farming (sowing, weeding, watering) brought over wild
conditions (dry, unirrigated, competitive environment).
What favors certain plants for domestication over others? (All examples
here are from the Fertile Crescent).
Some plants were already edible and giving high yields in the wild. These
plants needed few mutations to adapt to domestication since they were
easily sown, grew quickly and so could be harvested, were easily stored and
self-pollinating. E.g. wheat, barley and peas 10,000 years ago
The next group of crops was the first fruits and nuts around 4000 BC (olives,
figs, dates, pomegranates, grapes). These all take at least three years to bear
and as much as ten to full production. People must have already been settled
before planting these. But still, those listed are the easiest of this type to
cultivate. The third stage involved fruit trees that required grafting and only
came in classical times. This had to have been discovered through conscious
experimentation.
Another group of plants started as weeds (rye, oats, turnips, radishes, beets,
leeks, lettuce) and were discovered to be good to eat and cultivated.
The sequence of discovery was the same outside the Fertile Crescent. First
would be fast-growing, high carbohydrate cereals or grains (grass family),
and pulses which added protein (legume family). By Roman times almost all
of todays leading crops were being cultivated. Potential food sources that
were not cultivated are few. Acorns are a prime example as Oak trees take 20
to 30 years to become productive, not a time frame worth the heavy
investment of time and effort for domestication.
How do you select for desirable characteristics in a food crop?
The bitterness and toxicity of wild animals are determined by a single gene
easier to mutate and pass down; cf oaks.
Plants that dedicate a lot of resources to dispersal mechanisms dont put
resources into being tasty?
Self-fertilized or vegetatively-propogated plants are preferred.

Chapter 8
Apples Or Indians?

Advantages of the Fertile Crescent (site of the earliest food production and
domestication of almost all the major animals) over sites like New Guinea
and eastern U.S. neither of which developed the extensive technological and
political organization of the Fertile Crescent.
1. Mediterranean Climate: Mild, wet winters and long, hot, dry summers,
caused the natural selection of plants that are able to survive a long
dry season and resume growing rapidly when rains returns.
This is an ideal type of plant for storage. Many Fertile Crescent plants
are annuals, small plants reproduced by seeds with little energy spent
on woody or fibrous stems. Many of the big seeds, especially cereals
and pulses, are edible. Six of the twelve major crops of the world
originated there.
2. Crops that were already abundant and highly productive: occurring
in large stands. Huge amounts of these seeds could be collected and
stored.
Some hunter-gatherers in the Fertile Crescent had already settled into
permanent villages before they began cultivation. Fertile Crescent
cereals were so productive in the wild that they needed little change
under cultivationonly the breakdown of the system of seed dispersal
(getting them to hold on to their seeds until collected) and germination
inhibition (preventing germination while stored). These changes evolved
quickly. Big seeded annuals were among the first plants domesticated
in China and the Sahel. In contrast, corn in the New World required
drastic changes from any of the suggested ancestors (still being hotly
debated). The main candidate, teosinte, is so different that it wouldnt
be recognized (it has low productivity, a hard shell on the seeds, and a
tiny size). Archeologists are still debating how long (centuries,
millennia) it took to change the tiny corncobs up to the size of a thumb,
and how many thousands of years more to reach modern size.
3. A high percentage of Fertile Crescent plants are self-fertilizing: Most
plants in the world cross- fertilize (they require pollen from different
individual to fertilize their flowers). Self-fertilization preserves the
positive genes and passes on to its descendants. This is a disadvantage
in that any positive changes are easily lost when the new type is
fertilized by the original type. Most crops belong to the small
percentage of self-fertilizing or vegetative (from roots or runners)
reproducers. The first eight crops domesticated in the Fertile Crescent
were all self-fertilizers.
There are other locations with Mediterranean climate (California, Chile,
Southwestern Australia, South Africa) that never gave rise to indigenous
agriculture. What advantages did Western Eurasia have?
4. A large climate zone (size): gave rise to a large diversity of wild plants
and animals too. Western Eurasia is by far the largest Mediterranean
zone.
5. A great variation in climate: Western Eurasia has a great variation of

climate, season-to-season, year to year. Variation favors evolution

especially of a high percentage of annuals. A geographer studied wild
grasses and ranked the top 56 by seed size. Virtually all of them are
native to Mediterranean zones or other seasonally dry environments.
Thirty-two of them are found in the Fertile Crescent. Chile had only 2,
California and South Africa 1 each, Southwestern Australia none.
6. A wide range of geographic zones: this allowed for staggered harvest
seasons so more crops are harvested.
7. A wealth of biodiversity in plants and animals: this allowed for
domestication and encouraged agriculture and societal expansion. Four
species of big mammals goats, sheep, pigs and cattle were all
domesticated in the Fertile Crescent. Each lived originally in a different
area, but still in close enough proximity that once one was
domesticated in one area it was soon adopted in others. In contrast, the
other Mediterranean areas had no such animals.
8. Less competition from the hunter-gatherers in the Fertile Crescent
than in other areas, as there are lesser opportunities for huntergatherers. It has few large rivers and only a short coast, so there were
fewer fishing opportunities than elsewhere. The gazelle was hunted
almost to extinction in the area, so food production quickly became

But doesnt competition fuel the

invention of technology? If there were lesser competition
from hunter-gatherers, how did farming develop so fast?
superior (by 6000 BC).

There are eight Founder crops originating in the Fertile Crescent. These
are wild plants that founded agriculture in the region. Because of this
availability of a large number of suitable crops and animals, people
quickly had a potent and balanced package for intensive food
production.

They had three cereals for carbohydrates, four pulses with 20-25%
protein, four domestic animals as main protein sources, and flax as a
source of fiber for cloth and oil. Later the animals also provided milk,
wool, plowing, and transportation. This package of animals and plants
allowed the Fertile Crescent farmers to meet humanitys basic economic
needs for carbohydrates, protein, fat, clothing, traction and
transportation.

This is not due to the cultural characteristics of people. A look at

Eastern US and New Guinea will quickly show that this is so. Huntergatherers know well all the locally available wild species. Ethno-biologists
studies have shown such people to be extremely skilled in knowing

names and uses for as many as 1,000 or more plant and animal
species. The authors own experience in New Guinea reflects this and, in
addition, whenever he took a native New Guinean with him to other parts
of the island, they would talk with local people about plants and animals
and gathered potentially useful plants to take home.

In both New Guinea and eastern US, limits on indigenous food

production were not due to the native people, but instead depended
entirely on local biota and the environment. Surveys have shown that
areas of the world which never developed indigenous food production
probably offered even less in the way of suitable plants and animals than
New Guinea or eastern US.

One cannot conclude that those areas that had not developed
indigenous food production before they came in contact with crops
from other areas never would have done so. It is highly likely that they
would have. However, the lack of highly suitable local candidates delayed
this process, in some cases until they did come in contact with other
groups of plants or were invaded by other people.

One also cannot conclude that every society would have adopted food
production if it could have. There are too many examples of cultures
that have refused to do so. Cultures vary greatly in their openness to
innovation.

However, it is clear that adopting food production led to increases in

population and technology that allowed food producers to take over most
arable land that they came in contact with and often to kill or displace
hunter-gatherers who had previously occupied it.

If it was useless to them then they didnt need to.

Why were apples domesticated in Eurasia and North America?
This is answered by the timing of the adoption of food production. Apples
are the same everywhere but they are the most difficult fruit trees to cultivate
because their propagation requires grafting. (They were among the last major
crops to be domesticated in Europe.)
Thus, North America did not cultivate apples because they were delayed in
developing food production. The entire suite of plants and animals available
to them was only of modest potential until the arrival of the Mexican crops.
Why is the Banana natures most perfect food?

Low in fat and high in nutrition (potassium)

Carbohydrates provide a large amount of energy.
Helps in digestion, aids in dieting (weight loss)
Easy to tell when it is ripe.
Banana leaf can be used as an umbrella.
Medical properties, different parts of the plant.

Chapter 9
The Anna Karenina principle applied: Domesticable animals are all alike;
every undomesticable animal is undomesticable in their own way.
In other words, success means avoiding the many separate possible causes
of failure. This may explain why, in the process of animal domestication, so
many seemingly suitable big mammals e.g. zebras have never been
domesticated and why the successful domestications are almost exclusively
Eurasian.
Big mammals were crucial for meat, milk products, as a fertilizer, land
transport, plow traction, wool and germs that killed previously unexposed
peoples.
Small animals were not as important as big mammals were for pulling plows
or wagons, carrying riders, becoming war machines, or as food.
Big mammals: More than 100 pounds. Only 14 species were domesticated
before the 20th century. 9 remained in limited geographical areas while the
other 5 (cow, sheep, pig, goat, horse) spread around the world.
Domesticated animal: One that is selectively bred in captivity and thereby
modified from wild animals to be more useful. Elephants were not in the
above list because they were born wild, captured and tamed.
Two forces were at workfirst, the human selection of the most useful
animals and, second, the natural selection for optimization in the human
environment as compared to the wild.
The ways that animals evolved in domestication include:
1. Change of size: cows, pigs, and sheep got smaller, while guinea pigs got
bigger
2. Increasing amounts of wool and decreasing amounts of hair in sheep
and alpaca
3. Increasing milk production in cows
4. Several have smaller brains and less developed sense organs than their
wild cousins, reflecting less need.

If we define a candidate for domestication as any terrestrial herbivorous or

omnivorous mam- mal (i.e., not predominantly carnivorous) weighing more
than 100 pounds, Eurasia had the most candidates (72), sub-Saharan Africa
had 51, the Americas had 24, and Australia had 1. Therefore, Eurasia/ North
Africa had the most candidates to start with.
Why then were Eurasias horses domesticated and not Africas zebras; why
Eurasias pigs but not Africas or Americas peccaries; why Eurasias five
types of wild cattle, but not Africas buffalo or Americas bison; Asias sheep
but not Americas bighorn?
There were no cultural obstacles to the domestication of animals, as
supported by the following evidence.
1. Rapid acceptance of Eurasian domesticates by non-Eurasians as
soon as they were introduced. In Africa, farmers and herders with
cows and sheep overran hunter-gatherers in the rest of sub- Saharan
Africa. Horses transformed West African kingdoms with cavalry.
European horses were widely in use by native North and South
Americans within a generation of their escape from settlements.
Within a decade of the introduction of European dogs to Tasmania,
the Aboriginals were breeding them and using them in hunting. We
can only conclude that the difference lay with the animals, not the
people.
2. Universal human penchant for pets. Many more animals are and
were regularly tamed all over the world (giraffes, bears, cheetahs,
eagles, hawks, and all kinds of birds). This is the first stage leading to
domestication, but only a few went the rest of the way.
3. Rapid domestication of the ancient fourteen. Dates confirm that
early people quickly domesticated all of the big mammal species
suitable between 8000 and 2500 B.C. Sheep were first, around 8000
B.C.; Camels were last, by 2500 B.3C.
4. Repeated independent domestication of some. From DNA and
mitochondrial evaluation, we know that the humped Indian cattle and
the humpless European cattle diverged hundreds of thousands of
years ago. So, these must have been domesticated independently.
Dogs and pigs were also domesticated in several locations.
5. Limited success in modern efforts at further domestication. In the
19th and 20th centuries, at least six large mammals (eland, elk, moose,
musk ox, zebra, and American bison) were subjects of well-organized
attempts at domestication with very limited success.
To qualify for domestication, an animal must have many characteristics.
Lacking even one will disqualify it.
1. Diet: There must be efficiency of conversion of food to consumer
biomass of about 10%.

2. Growth rate: They must mature quickly (this eliminates gorillas and
elephants).
3. Ease of captive breeding: Some animals are very difficult to breed in
captivity (Cheetahs, Andean vicuas).
4. Pleasant disposition: Zebras become very dangerous, as they grow
older; they tend to bite and they dont let go, and they cannot be
lassoed. Eland and elk are also unpredictable and dangerous.
5. Slow to panic: Useful animals seek their protection in herds, stand
their ground and dont run until necessary. Nervous animals are hard
to keep in an enclosure. They tend to panic and either die of shock or
batter themselves to death trying to escape.
6. Social structure: All domesticated large mammals share three
characteristics: they live in herds, have a well-developed dominance
hierarchy, and have overlapping ranges. Humans replace the
dominant herd member. The animals are tolerant of each other and so
can be bunched in large groups. Cats and ferrets are the only
territorial animals domesticated and the motive for their
domestication was not to use them for food, but to keep them as
hunters and/or pets. Not all herd animals are candidates. Territorial
animals cannot be penned together. Many herd animals are territorial
during the breeding season (all the social African antelopes). The
males fight for the females. Many herds do not have well defined
dominance hierarchies, so they will not imprint to follow or yield to
humans.
Eurasian people inherited many more large herbivore mammals with all
the necessary characteristics for domestication than those of other
continents.
None of the ancestors of todays domestic animals were tame in the first
place. How is it that we could never manage Zebras even until today?
Shouldnt the fact that there were so few animals for the Native
Americans to choose from give them more impetus to domesticate the
bison? If they are trickier to tame then that superior intellect enable them
to tame a more difficult beast?
Furthermore, his knowledge of domestication warrants questioning. It
isnt just about identifying docile species but identifying docile
individuals within a species and having them mate in order to enhance
docility. This was proven in experiments with polar foxes in Russia.

Chapter 10
How did crops spread from the Fertile Crescent across Western Europe?

The orientations of the large continents determined their suitability for

farming and the likelihood that farming techniques would spread.
East-West axes were much more favorable than North-South axes. Thus
farming methods diffused to Europe from the Fertile Crescent, but not to
South America from Mexico. This is because the societies along an East-West
axis would be at about the same latitude and therefore share similar
environmental climates and rainfall, hence favoring agriculture and food
production rather than hunter gathering.
Sometimes, the spread could be inhibited by geographic and climactic
difficulties; such as the 2000 miles of tropical conditions south of the
Sahara prevented Fertile Crescent crops from reaching the Mediterranean
climate of South Africa.
America also had climactic differences north and south. Even though the
Mexican highland and the Andes could have supported similar crops, most
did not make it because of the intervening hot low- lands of Central America.
Most of the American crops are of related species or even of genetically distinct varieties in Mesoamerica, South America, and Eastern North America.
Topographical (height) or ecological (desert, rainforest) barriers can also
interfere. The dry area of Texas and the Great Plains divides southeastern
United States and southwestern United States. East of the Indus Valley in
India the shift from winter rain to summer rain meant that the same crops
could not be used. The Central Asian desert, Tibetan plateau, and the
Himalayas isolate the temperate areas of China. But this barrier was partly
overcome between 1000 and 2000 BC (wheat, Barley, and horses reached
China from the west).
Technology had similar difficulty and ease. Southwest Asian technology of
the wheel spread within a few hundred years throughout much of Eurasia.
Alphabetic writing took about 1,000 years.

Chapter 11
Lethal Gift of Livestock
Farmers tend to have nastier germs, better weapons and armour, and more
powerful technology, and live under centralized governments with literate
elites better able to wage wars of conquest. Hence, the sedentary lifestyle
gave rise to diseases, but also language, technology and centralized
government.
There are passive germs and active germs.
Some passive microbes and wait for their current host to be eaten to spread

(Salmonella, Trichinosis). Some hitchhike on the saliva of an insect biting the

old host and then a new one (mosquitoes, fleas, lice, and tsetse flies spread
malaria, plague, typhus, and sleeping sickness). Others can pass from
mother to fetus (syphilis, rubella, and AIDS).
For active microbes, many symptoms of the disease are actually the ways
the microbes have of spreading. Skin lesions (smallpox, venereal disease)
directly spread the microbe to the skin or membrane of another victim.
Inducing the victim to cough or sneeze releases a cloud of microbes to a new
host (influenza, the common cold, whooping cough). Diarrhea puts bacteria
into the water supply (cholera). Rabies induces a frenzy of biting to spread
itself from the saliva of a host to another. Killing the victim is an
unintended byproduct of such strategies of reproduction of the microbe.

How people defend from germs?

Our bodies attempt to survive by killing the microbe. One response is fever
to bake them. We also mobilize the immune system, which includes cells
that seek out and kill foreign microbes. We gradually develop specific
antibodies for the particular microbe infecting us, which means that we are
less likely to be re-infected. Sometimes this immunity is temporary (colds); in
other cases it is permanent (measles, mumps, rubella, whooping cough, and
smallpox). This is the principle of vaccination. Some microbes evolve quickly
into slightly different forms, fooling the immune system (influenza, malaria,
sleeping sickness, AIDS).
The slowest defense is natural selection. But for almost any disease, some
people are more resistant. In an epidemic, these people are more likely to
survive and reproduce. Over time, as a population is repeatedly exposed to
particular pathogens, it will consist of a higher proportion of those
resistant to the disease. Some such defenses come at a pricethe sickle cell
gene for malaria, Tay-Sachs for tuberculosis, and cystic fibrosis for bacterial
diarrhea.
For some germs (malaria, hookworm), new cases appear at any time. For
epidemic diseases, the pattern is different. There will be no new cases for a
long time, then a large number, then none again for a while (influenza,
cholera).
The greatest single epidemic in history was the Influenza epidemic at the
end of WWI, which killed 21 million people. Bubonic plague (the Black Death)
killed one fourth of the European population between 1346 and 1352. In
1880s Saskatchewan, tuberculosis killed nine percent of the population per
year. This illustrates the previous point.
What

are the characteristics of epidemics?

Spreads quickly
Acute illness one either dies or recovers in a short period of time
Those who recover develop antibodies, which leave them immune for
a long time/for life

Restricted to humans; the microbes tend not to survive in soil or

animals

How did crowd diseases arise?

From the buildup of large, dense populations (which happened after
the rise of agriculture)
Frequent camp changes by hunter-gatherers meant that they left
behind the sources of passing infection through feces and
contaminated water.
Sedentary farmers lived near their own sewage. It is a short path
from sewage to drinking water to another person
Also, some farming populations use their own feces and urine as
fertilizer in their fields, where people work.
Irrigation and fish farming created environments for water borne
parasites.
Cities were even more densely packed with even worse sanitation.
Until the 20th century, urban areas needed a constant influx from the
countryside to keep populations steady because of losses to crowd
diseases.
Another bonanza for microbes was world trade routes joining the
populations of Europe, Asia, and North Africa into one giant breeding
ground. Today, the spread is even more rapid.

Since these diseases need large concentrated populations, they evolved

from animals that also congregate in large, dense populationsour own
domesticated social animals, such as cows and pigs.

The stages of evolution of a specialized human disease from its animal

precursor are as follows:

Diseases that we occasionally get from animals but dont spread to

each other, such as cat scratch fever (from cats), leptospirosis (dogs),
psittacosis (chickens, parrots), brucellosis (cat- tle), and tularemia
(rabbits)
Diseases that do get transmitted directly between people and cause
epidemics, but quickly die out for any of several reasonsthey are
cured by medicine, everyone has already been infected and ether has
died or is immune, (e.g., Onyong-nyong fever in East Africa in 1959,
which probably started with monkeys and was spread by mosquitoes.
Patients recovered quickly and became immune. Another example is
Kuru, which was spread by cannibalism in New Guineas For tribe and
died out when cannibalism was stopped). History tells of diseases that
appeared and disappeared, such as English sweating sickness in
Europe from 1485-1552, and Picardy sweats in 18th- and 19thcentury France.
Diseases that are established in humans and have not (not yet?) died
out and may or may not still be major killers, such as Lassa fever (from
rodents) in Nigeria, Lyme disease in the US, and AIDS.
Major, long-established epidemic diseases, confined to humans. The

transformation often means that the microbe finds a new vector to

transfer itself more conveniently from victim to victim. Typhus was
first transmitted by rat fleas, then by human lice, and, now that
Americans have de-loused themselves, it has found a new route via
flying squirrels in the attic.
Why didnt lethal crowd diseases arise in the Americas?
The Americas lacked domesticated herd animals of the type to easily spread
diseases. The turkey in Mexico and Southwestern United States, and Muscovy
duck in Amazonia were not kept in large flocks or indoors. Guinea pigs
(Andes) may have contributed, but it is uncertain. Llamas and alpacas were
not kept indoors or in large herds and people did not drink their milk.

Chapter 12
Why did writing arise so late in human evolution?
Key transitions from savagery to civilization include writing, technology and
centralized governments. But writing is the most restricted geographically,
which explains why originally, it was absent in so many countries and regions,
until the expansion of Islam, and the European conquests.
What are the 3 approaches/strategies underlying the writing systems
1. Alphabets: one sign = one sound (phoneme), are the most common
today. Since there are usually more phonemes than there are letters,
some letters denote more than one sound and some sounds take more
than one letter (th and sh in English are separate letters in Russian
and Greek alphabets).
2. Logograms: one sign = one word, are used for Chinese and Kanji
(Japanese) today, but also for Egyptian hieroglyphs, Mayan glyphs, and
Sumerian cuneiform.
3. Syllabaries: one sign = one syllable, are today found in Japans Kana,
which is used for telegrams, bank statements, etc. It was common in
ancient times (Linear B of Mycenaean Greece).
No writing system uses one strategy exclusively. For example, English uses
many logograms ($, %, @, &, etc.). Syllabic Linear B had many logograms and
logographic Egyptian hieroglyphs included many syllabic signs as well as a
virtual alphabet of individual letters for each consonant. Chinese today is not
purely logographic.

Which is easier to copy or to create de novo?

The difficulty is evident in that on only a few occasions in history have
people invented writing on their own. Two indisputable occasions are the
Sumerians (Mesopotamia) somewhat before 3000 BC and the Mexicans
before 600 BC. Egyptian writing (3000 BC) and Chinese writing (before 1300
BC) may have arisen independently. Probably all the others have borrowed,
adapted, or at least been inspired by existing system or systems.

To create de novo required people (scribes) to:

figure out how to decompose a continuous utterance into speech

units, regardless of whether those units were taken as words, syllables
or phonemes.

also had to learn to recognize the same sound or speech units through
all the normal variations in speech volume, pitch, speed, emphasis,
phrase grouping and individual idiosyncrasies of pronunciation.

They had to devise ways to represent sounds by symbols

The fact that so few occasions in history have people invented writing
on their own proves this difficulty.
And therefore those who achieved it were more intelligent?
We have the greatest detail about the oldest form, Sumerian cuneiform. For
thousands of years before it developed into actual writing, people used clay
tokens with simple shapes for accounting purposes.
Just before 3000 BC, they developed, within the accounting format, signs and
technology that rapidly led to writing. They began to use flat clay tablets as a
writing surface. Initially they scratched marks on it, but then began to use a
reed stylus to make precise marks. Conventions were gradually adopted and
marks were organized into ruled rows or columns (horizontal rows in Sumer)
and marks were made in a constant direction of read (left to right, top to
bottom in Sumer).
But the crucial change was the devising agreed upon visible marks that
represent actual spoken sounds rather than ideas or words independent of
sound. First were accounting reportsnumerals and a pictograph noun for
an object. There were no grammatical elements. Then, gradually, with the use
of the stylus, signs became more abstract. New signs were created by with
combining old onese.g., the sign for head plus that for bread became
eat.
Perhaps the most important step was the introduction of phonetic
representationinitially by writing an abstract noun by means of a sign

for a depictable noun with the same phonetic pronunciatione.g., arrow

and life were pronounced the same in Sumeria (Ti), so an arrow was used
for life. Ambiguity was resolved with a small sign called a determinative.
Once this principle was discovered, it was used for more than just abstract
nouns (syllables and grammatical endings). Sumerian writing came to be a
complex mix of several types of signs: logograms were used for a whole
word or name; phonetic signs were used for syllables, letters, and
grammatical elements or parts of words; and determinatives, which were not
pronounced, were used to resolve ambiguities. Still, Sumerian was not a
complete syllabary or alphabet. Some syllables lacked any written signs. The
same sign could be pronounced in different ways and the same sign could be
read as a word, a syllable, and a letter.

The other independent writing arose in Mesoamerica. The best understood is

Mayan (although not yet completely translated), where the oldest date is 292
AD. The forms are quite different from Sumerian or any other Old World
writing, but the principles are similar. They used both logograms and
phonetic signs. Logograms for abstract words often used the rebus
principle. Like Japanese Kana and Mycenaean Greek Linear B, most signs are
for syllables of one consonant and one vowel. Like the early Semitic
alphabet, a sign is often derived from a pictogram of a word starting with
the same syllable. These similarities attest to the universality of human
creativity. The languages may have no special relationship, but writing
raised similar basic issues. The solutions invented by Sumerians before 3000
BC were also invented by the Mesoamericans before 600 BC. With the
possible exceptions of Egyptian, Chinese, and Easter Island writing, all
other writing appears to be either descendants of or inspired by Sumerian
or early Mesoamerican.

The rapid spread of the already invented Sumerian or Mesoamerican system

and other technology was either through direct copying, called blueprint
copying, where an existing system is modified for use, or by idea diffusion,
where the basic idea of it is imported but people invent their own details.

Why did writing arise in and spread to some societies, but not to many
others?

The limited capabilities of uses and users of early writing systems.

Early scripts were incomplete, ambiguous, complex, or all three of

these. For example, the oldest, Sumerian, was telegraphic shorthand
restricted to names, numerals, units of measures, words for objects
counted and a few adjectives i.e., one could say John 27 fat sheep,
not We order John to deliver the 27 fat sheep he owes to the
government. Later Sumerian cuneiform added a messy mix of
logograms, phonetic signs, and unpronounced determinatives to

become capable of rendering prose. But it was still confusing, using

the same sign for several related consonants. It was as if our language
spelled rap, lap, lab, and laugh, identically.

Another limitation was that the early scripts were confined to

professional scribes in the employ of kings or temples. Such small
cadres of palace bureaucrats that individual scribes can still be
distinguished by their handwriting used Linear B in Mycenaean Greece.

Writing was restricted to uses where ambiguity was countered by

context to make its meaning clear. Cuneiform and Linear B were used
for accounting; early Egyptian for religious and state propaganda and
bureaucratic accounts; Mayan for propaganda, births and accessions,
victories of kings, and astronomical observations of priests; and
Chinese for religious divination. Early users wanted writing restricted
to professional scribes to record tax information and not to be used
by the masses to write poetry and hatch plots. Personal use came
much later, when systems became simpler and more expressive.
Linear B, for example, disappeared when Mycenaean civilization fell
and Greece returned to pre-literacy until the 8th century BC, when
uses and users were quite different. At that time, writing was a
borrowed alphabet (Phoenician) to which the Greeks added vowels.
Instead of lists of goods that could only be read by palace scribes,
Greek alphabetic writing was from its appearance used for poetry and
humor. The sequence of uses for alphabetic writing was the reverse of
that for earlier systems of logograms and syllabaries.

All of the likely or possible independent inventions of writing (Sumer,

Mexico, China, Egypt) and all of the early adaptations (e.g., Crete, Iran,
Turkey, Indus Valley, Maya) involved socially stratified societies with
complex centralized political institutions. Writing served the needs of the
political institutions (record keeping, royal propaganda, etc.). Users were fulltime bureaucrats nourished by food surpluses grown by peasants. Writing
was never developed or adopted by hunter-gatherers, who lacked both the
institutional uses and food surpluses required to feed scribes.
Food production was a necessary condition; it was not a cause. There were
some food-producing societies with complex political organization that did not
develop writing (Inca, Tonga, Hawaii, all the states and chiefdoms of
subequatorial Africa and Sub-Saharan West Africa, and the largest native
North American society in the Mississippi valley). Most of these societies
developed food production later than Sumer, Mexico, and China so, given
enough time, they might have developed writing as well. Had they been able
to be in contact with societies with writing they might have acquired it.
Writing systems were incorporated only if there was a need for it.

Chapter 13
Necessitys Mother
Technology of weapons and transportation are the direct means by which
certain peoples have expanded their realms and conquered others. Why
were Eurasians, not Native Americans or Sub- Saharan Africans, the inventors
of firearms, oceangoing ships, and steel equipment? This difference extends
to most other significant technological advances (printing presses, glass, steam
engines). Why were they all Eurasian? Why were New Guineans and Native
Australians still using stone tools in 1800 AD, despite rich deposits of gold
and iron?

Did inventions arise because of a need or due to curiosity of the individual

inventor? What examples do you have to support your choice of answer?
Inventions were developed by the curiosity of the individual inventor, who
would then have to find an application for the invention or create a need
for it.
Often an invention for one purpose finds most of its use in other
unanticipated ways.
For example, the phonograph invented by Thomas Edison was first thought
to be an office-dictating machine. He even objected to jukeboxes as debasing
his invention. It took him 20 years before he conceded that its main use was
to record and play music.
When the automobile was invented, people were using horses and steam
locomotives. There was no shortage of horses or dissatisfaction with railroads. The first engine (1866) was too heavy, weak, and large (7 feet tall) for
much use. Even 50 years later, autos were still expensive, unreliable toys for
the rich. WWI created the need for trucks. Most inventions initially work
rather poorly or are too large, heavy, or expensive to be of much use. It
often takes years of tinkering for them to be productive.
Likewise, the heroic view of inventing is encouraged by modern patent law.
In fact, most inventions have many precursors and most are
improvements on previous designs. For example, the steam engine
invented by James Watt in 1769 was an improvement on that of Thomas
Newcomen in 1712, which followed Thomas Saverys in 1698, which was
preceded by Denis Papins of 1680, which came from ideas of Christiaan
Huygens and others. The other factor is timingan invention or
improvement must coincide with a time when society can use it. How many
inventions failed because society couldnt exploit them?

Therefore, Jared Diamonds conclusion is that

1. Technology develops cumulatively.
2. Technology finds most of its uses after it is invented rather than being
invented to meeta need.

The development of technology had nothing to do with the cultural

characteristics of people. This is supported by the authors own experiences
in New Guinea. He observed that these so called technologically primitive
people today constantly pick up and tinker with things, especially when in
a new environment or when finding objects abandoned by others, seeing if it
might be useful for something

How did people probably discover invention?

Natural materials were the raw substances available to ancient people
stone, wood, bone, skins, fiber, clay, sand, limestone, and minerals in great
variety. People gradually learned to work certain types of stone, wood, and
bone into tools; to convert clay into pottery; to work mixtures of sand,
limestone, etc., into glass; and to work pure soft metals (copper, gold). They
later learned to extract metals from ores and, finally, to work hard metals
(bronze, iron). Combustible natural products make themselves noticed
(e.g., resinous logs explode in a fire).

Why did technology evolve at different rates on different continents?

Depending on their geographic location, societies differ in how

readily they can receive technology by diffusion from other societies.
The societies most accessible to receiving inventions by diffusion were
those embedded in the major continents, where technology is
developed the most rapidly because they accumulated not only their
inventions but those of other societies. Therefore, technology
develops fastest in large productive regions with large human
populations, many potential inventors and many competing
societies.
Example: Aboriginal Tasmanians, the most isolated people on Earth,
lived without oceangoing watercraft on an island 100 miles from
Australia, had no contact with other societies for 10,000 years and
acquired no new technology other than what they invented
themselves. Whereas, medieval Islam, centrally located in Eurasia,
acquired inventions from India and China and Ancient Greek.

Technology begets more technology, so the importance of diffusion

potentially exceeds the importance of original invention. The

history of technology exemplifies this autocatalytic process. The
speed of change increases with time because the process catalyzes
itself. There have been many explosions of technology, the most
recent following the Industrial Revolution of the 18th century. But the
Medieval period, the Bronze Age and the Upper Paleolithic were
others.

Technology catalyzes itself because advances depend on previous

mastery of simpler problems. Iron was not the first metal worked
because it required high-temperature furnaces. It grew out of
thousands of years of human experience working with metal, starting
with naturally occurring pure soft metals (copper and gold) and
developing simple furnaces to make pottery. Gradually, metals
requiring higher and higher smelting temperatures came into use.
Bronze, for example, was produced for about 2,000 years in China and
the Fertile Crescent before iron objects were made. New World
societies were just beginning to make bronze when the Europeans
arrived.

How does technology link to food production?

Human technology developed from the first stone tools 2 1/2 million years
ago to today, but initially hundreds of thousands of years passed with no
discernible change. Now change is reported almost daily. There were,
however, two especially significant jumps. The first occurred between
100,000 and 50,000 years ago, probably due to genetic changes allowing
modern speech and/or modern brain function, and led to bone tools, singlepurpose stone tools, and compound tools. The second jump resulted from
the adoption of settled lifestyles, as early as 13,000 years ago in some parts
of the world. This change is linked to food production and allowed
accumulation of non-portable possessions (pots, looms, etc.).
Food production also allowed the development of economically
specialized non-food- producers.

What are the factors that influence societal acceptance of a new

invention? There are 4 factors that affect the acceptance of new
technology in society:

relative economic advantage compared with existing technology

social value and prestige (can override economic benefit)
compatibility with vested interests
ease with which their advantages can be observed

Once a use for a new technology is found, society must be persuaded to

adopt it. In actuality, there will be some societies highly receptive to
innovation and change and others that arent everywhere. Conservative
societies resist new ways, while innovative societies may selectively adopt

new ways.
When we observe recent history in places like New Guinea, Africa, North
America, or Australia, we see that when Europeans brought technology, some
societies adapted and adopted it and some didnt. And often those that did
came to dominate those that didnt.
The same variations exist in the same society over time. Medieval Islam
was technologically advanced and open to innovation. Many major advances
in areas like windmills, trigonometry, maritime technology, metallurgy,
engineering, irrigation moved into Europe from Islamic areas. Now many of
the same societies are conservative and suspicious of technology. China
shows a similar pattern. This unpredictability means that societal variation
is a random factor. Over a large enough area (a continent) at any particular
time, some societies are likely to be innovative and some will not.
Sometimes a society will acquire a technology and then abandon it, as the
Japanese did with guns in the 17th century. But again, they need isolation to
do this. No central European country could afford to do it because their
neighbors would have overrun them. The Japanese quickly resumed gun
manufacture after the US Fleet visited them in 1853.
Why do societies vary greatly in innovativeness? There are many reasons.

Technology develops fastest in large productive regions with large

human populations, many potential inventors and many competing
societies.

Variation in these three factors time of onset of food productions,

barriers to diffusion, and human populations size led to the
observed intercontinental differences in the development of
technology today.

Eurasia and North Africa occupy the largest landmass with the largest
number of competing societies and are where food production first began.
The east-west axis permitted many inventions to spread relatively quickly to
societies in similar latitudes and climates. It is broad along its north-south
axis as well and lacks severe ecological barriers like those along the major
axes of America and Africa. Eurasia was the continent where technology
started earliest and spread most widely and, therefore, had the greatest local
accumulations.
North and South America, when considered together, compose the second
largest landmass, significantly smaller than Eurasia. They are also
fragmented by geography and ecology. The Northern Mexican desert
separated the advanced Mesoamerican societies from North America and the
narrow Isthmus of Panama and the Central American rainforest separated
them from South America. Also, the main axis is north-south, forcing
diffusion to go against latitude and climate. For example, wheels were
invented in Mesoamerica and llamas were domesticated in the Andes. But
after 5,000 years, they had not met up with each other, even though they
were only 1,200 miles apart. Contrast this with 6,000 miles between China
and Europe separating the wheel and horse.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the third largest continent but is much smaller than
North and South America. Although it is more accessible to Eurasia than the
Americas, the Sahara was a major ecological barrier. The north-south axis
also was an obstacle, both to diffusion from Eurasia and North Africa and
within Sub-Saharan Africa itself. For example, pottery and iron metallurgy
arose in or reached the Sub-Saharan Sahel zone at least as early as it reached
Europe, but pottery didnt reach the southern tip of Africa until 1 AD, and
metallurgy hadnt reached there by the time the Europeans did.
Australia is the smallest continent. It has very low rainfall and productivity
throughout most of it. This makes it even smaller in its capacity to support
a human population. It is the most isolated continent. Food production
never arose there, nor did metallurgy.
Not surprisingly, population sizes compare in the same way as land mass.
Eurasia/North Africa had many more people than North and South
America, which had more than Sub-Saharan Africa, etc. More people mean
more inventors and more competing societies. Differences become
exaggerated because technology catalyzes itself. The initial advantage of
Eurasia was huge by 1492 by reason of geographynot intellect.

Chapter 14
Egalitarian The principle that all people are equal and deserve equal rights
and opportunities.
Kleptocracy A ruler who uses their power to steal their countrys
resources.
How did government and religion arise?
Did political, economic and social institutions all arise at the same time?
Over the past 13,000 years the trend has predominantly been toward larger
and more complex units. But this is an average, long-term trend with
innumerable shifts each way. Large units regularly break up into smaller
ones (most recently, the USSR, Yugoslavia, and Czechoslovakia). Sometimes
large, complex units are overrun by smaller, simpler ones (both Rome and
China at times). But the trend is the other way.
States arose independently prehistorically on every continent but
Australia. They arose multiple times in many areas. Chiefdoms arose even
more often. There have been many attempts to explain this evolution but
were unsatisfactory.

How is societal organization linked to food production?

The correlation between societal organization and population size means

that we need to use this to trace the chain of cause and effect toward
complex societies.

Large or dense populations only arise where food production exists or at

least within an exceptionally productive environment for hunting and
gathering. However, no hunter-gatherer society ever became a state.

Intensified food production and societal complexity stimulate each other,

i.e., population growth leads to increased complexity, which leads to
intensified food production, which leads to population growth.

Complex centralized societies are uniquely able to organize public works

(including irrigation), long distance trade (including the importation of
metals with which to make better agricultural tools), and activities of
economic specializations.
Food production also contributes to some special features of complex
societies. Seasonally pulsed inputs of labor mean that when the harvest is
stored, farmers are available for other projects. Food production can lead to
stored food surpluses permitting economic specialization and social
stratification. Food production permits or requires sedentary living, a
prerequisite for acquiring substantial possessions. Increased population
size also makes many features of complex society possible, but that does not
prove that food production and large populations make complex societies
inevitable.
Societies can be classified as band, tribe, chiefdom or state.

Band
Smallest society
Nomadic
Region lacks local concentration of resources necessary for large
groups to form.
Exists in the most remote parts of New Guinea or Amazonia today.
All are or were hunter-gatherers.
Egalitarian, but not all members are equal in prestige.
It just shows there were no class structure and no formalized
leadership. Really? How about a band of thieves? They must have a
leader.

Tribe

Usually fixed settlements.

Much smaller than the group learning language and culture.
Emerged about 13,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent.
A pre-requisite for living in settlements is either food production or a
very productive environment where resources can be hunted or
gathered within a small area
Chiefdom
Size grows to over a few hundred
This brings up the difficulty of conflict resolution between strangers.
Some large tribes may have the characteristics of Chiefdom E.g. the
local Big Man may be responsible for dividing meat slaughtered for
feasts.
Chiefs vs tribal Big Man: Chiefs dressed differently from everyone
and held much more power.
Only a few chiefdoms existed without food production, notably in the
Pacific Northwest of North America, where the Kwakiutl, Nootka,
Tlingit, and others lived under chiefs in villages without agriculture or
domestic animals because of the richness of the ocean and rivers in
fish
Food surpluses supported chiefs, their families, bureaucrats, and craft
specialists.
Chiefs graves much richer than others.
Chiefdoms varied in size and complexity, from those looking much
like tribes except having a hereditary big man and a few other
attributes of chiefdoms, to large, complex societies with multiple
classes, large public works, and massive amounts of tribute, even
many villages with one chief village and slaves.
At best, the government does good by providing expensive services
impossible to accomplish on an individual basis. At worst, it becomes
a kleptocracy, transferring wealth from commoners to upper classes.
A chiefdom characteristically has an ideology, a precursor to an
institutionalized religion, buttressing the chiefs authority
The chief will either be both the political leader and priest or support
a separate group of priests who provide ideological justification for
the chief.
This is the reason why so much tribute goes to constructing temples
and other public works as centers of an official religion and visible
signs of the chiefs power.
State
Had monumental public works, palaces of rulers, accumulation of
capital from tributes or taxes, and the concentration of people other
than food producers.
Early states had a hereditary leader with a title equivalent to king, like
a super chief with even greater monopoly on information, decisionmaking and power.
Central control and economic redistribution (taxes) are more
extensive.
Economic specialization is more extreme (even todays farmers are not
self-sufficient). Hence, when state government collapses the effect on
society is catastrophic.

Most, if not all, early states had mass production and public works
that made wider use of slave labor. A larger scale of warfare provided
them with more captives.
Levels of administration within government grows much more
complexnot only vertically, with more levels, but also horizontally
with increased specialization.
Internal conflict resolution is increasingly formalized with laws,
judiciary, and police.
Early states had state religions and standardized temples. Many early
kings were considered divine and given special treatment. For
example, Japanese has a special form of the pronoun you for use
only when addressing the emperor. Early kings often were head of a
state religion.

(States continued)

The ways that states diverge from chiefdoms in new directions

include:
1. They are organized on political and territorial lines, not kinship.
2. They are regularly multiethnic and multilingual.
3. Bureaucrats are professionals selected, at least partly, on ability
and training, not only on heredity and kinship.
4. In later states, leadership is not hereditary, and many abandon the
entire system of formal hereditary classes.

States triumph over simpler entities because they usually have the
advantage in weapons, technology and numbers. But chiefdoms and
states also have centralized decision makers to concentrate troops
and supplies and they have official religions and patriotic fervor,
which make troops willing to risk their lives for.

Every state has its slogan for King and country, etc. Such sentiments
are unthinkable in bands and tribes. New Guinean accounts of tribal
warfare have no hint of patriotism, of suicidal charges or any other
military action carrying an accepted risk of being killed. Raids are
initiated by ambush or by superior force to minimize the risk of
death. This attitude limits its options compared with states.

What makes patriotic and religious fanatics such dangerous

opponents is their willingness to accept the deaths of some of their
number in order to crush their enemy. Fanaticism in war, which
drove Christian and Islamic conquest, was probably unknown until
chiefdoms and especially states emerged.

The benefits of institutionalized religion for a central society?

First, it solves the problem of how unrelated people can live together without
killing one another by providing a bond not based on kinship.
And second, it gives the people a motive for self-sacrifice on the behalf of
others. At the cost of the society members who die in battle as soldiers, the
whole society becomes more effective at conquering others and/or resisting
attack.
Why do commoners tolerate the transfer of wealth to kleptocrats?
To maintain public support while still enjoying a better lifestyle than
commoners, kleptocrats throughout history have used a mix of four
solutions.
1. Disarm the populace and arm the elite. This is easier in these days of
high-tech weapons than in the days of clubs and spears.
2. Make masses happy by redistributing much of the tribute in popular
ways.
3. Use the monopoly of force to promote happiness by maintaining public
order and curbing violence, (an often under-appreciated benefit. In the
past, anthropologists tended to idealize band and tribal societies as
gentle and nonviolent, whereas, after long study, it is clear that murder
is a leading cause of death in these societies).
4. Construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy. While bands and
tribes had supernatural beliefs, they did not serve to justify a central
authority, the transfer of wealth or maintain the peace between unrelated
individuals. When supernatural beliefs gained those functions they
became institutionally transformed into what we term a religion.

There are 4 obvious reasons why all existing large societies are complex
centralized organizations.
1. The problem of conflict between unrelated strangers. Relationships
within a band of 20 yield 190 possible 2-person interactions
(20x19/2). A band of 2,000 would have 1,999,000 such dyads (a group
of 2 people). Dyads can explode into murderous argument. Each
murder in bands and tribes usually leads to an attempted revenge
murder, starting an unending cycle of murder/counter-murder that
destabilizes society. In a band, everyone is related and relatives step
in to mediate the quarrel. In a tribe, everyone knows everyone and
mutual friends and relatives mediate. Once a group is large enough
to contain strangers, bystanders are likely to know only one or
neither member of the quarreling dyad and are likely to have little
ability to prevent its escalation into a brawl. Hence, large societies

must have centralized authority to monopolize force and resolve

conflict, or they blow up.
2. Communal decision-making becomes logistically impossible.
3. Transfer of goods between members in a small society can be done
reciprocally. But a large society must have a redistributive economy
so that goods can get to those with a deficit, who are usually unknown
to the people with the excess.
4. Large societies have not only more people but greater population
density. As density increases, more of the necessities must be
obtained from outside the individuals physical areae.g., Hollands
16,000 square miles and 16 million people couldnt be divided into
800,000 self- sufficient territories of 13 acres and 20 people. They
couldnt produce enough for their needs. It requires a complex
structure to support such dense populations.

What drives the amalgamation of people into such large groups?

Societies in the same category are infinitely diverse. Among tribes, some
big men are more charismatic, powerful, and skilled in decision making
than others. Their tribes will tend to have greater centralization and will
have the advantage over others. Tribes that resolve conflict poorly tend to
blow apart into bands. Ill-governed chiefdoms blow apart into smaller
chiefdoms or tribes. Societies with effective conflict resolution, sound
decision making, and harmonious economic redistribution can develop
better technology, concentrate military power, seize larger and more
productive territories, and crush autonomous smaller societies.
Large societies will have an advantage over smaller units if they can solve
the problems that come with larger size, such as upstart claimants to
leadership, commoner resentment of kleptocracy, and increased difficulty
with economic integration.
Amalgamation occurs either by merger under threat of external force or
by conquest. Numerous examples of each are available. War or threat of
war leads to amalgamations when population density is high enough.
If the density is very low, survivors of a defeated group can just move
farther away from enemies, as tends to happen with wars between nomadic
bands.
In moderate density, as with food producing tribes, there is usually no
large vacant area for survivors to flee to. The victors will have no need of
slaves and the defeated wont produce enough for tribute, so the only use for
survivors is to take the women in marriage. So, most of the defeated tend to

be killed and the territory occupied.

With high density, there is still nowhere to go, but the victors can exploit the
losers while leaving them alive, as slaves, or leave them in place, deprived of
political autonomy, and extract tribute in food or goods. This will eventually
lead to their amalgamation into the victorious state or chiefdom.

Chapter 15
Timeline of Australias development

More than 40,000 years ago Both New Guinea and Australia were
colonized from Asia via land bridges and short ocean voyages.
40,000 years ago Australia was ahead of Europe and other
continents
30,000 years ago Asian colonials reached the furthest part of New
Guinea and Australia.
13,000 years ago Australia had the least cultural change out of all
the other continents.
12,000 to 8,000 years ago Australia and New Guinea separated due
to the rise of seas. Before they were one continent as ocean water was
trapped in ice sheets. (Pleistocene Ice Age)
A few thousand years ago Contact between Asia and the two
continents.
Evidence: Asian pig was imported into New Guinea. Asian dog was
imported into Australia.

However, New Guinea and Australia developed in isolation to Asia as

the languages showed no clear relationship to modern Asian
languages.
1500 years ago Austronesian Expansion

Background of Australia

The only continent where native people lived without the hallmarks of
civilization farming, herding, metallurgy, settled villages, writing,
chiefdoms or states.
Australian Aborigines were nomadic hunter-gathers that lived in
bands and used stone tools.

Background of New Guinea

New Guinea was more developed that Australia.

Most New Guineans were farmers or herdsmen that lived in settled
villages.
They had more substantial dwellings and more seaworthy boats and

more numerous and varied utensils.

They had a higher population density with several times the number
of people living in 1/10 the area as Australia

Why was New Guinea more advanced than Australia then?

Aboriginal Australians and New Guineans also diverged physically and

linguistically from each other.
Physically blood group B is present in New Guinea but absent in
Australia, New Guineans have tightly-coiled hair while Australians
have wavy or straight hair.
Linguistically The languages are mostly unrelated.
Differences in climate, terrain and ecology which influenced the
cultural history of each area.
NEW GUINEA

AUSTRALIA

Mountainous & rugged

Low and flat

One of wettest areas on Earth

(>100 rain annually)

One of driest (<20 rain

annually)

Equatorial climate with little

variation

Highly seasonal climate

with highest variation year
to year of any on Earth

Many large permanent rivers

The only permanent rivers

are in the east, and even
the largest has ceased in
long droughts

Mostly dense rain forest

Mostly desert and dry

woodland

Young fertile soil from

volcanic and glacial activity

Oldest, most infertile, most

nutrient-leached soils of
any continent with no
volcanic or glacial activity
to refresh it

Many mammal and bird

species

Few mammal and bird

species

Why did both continents not develop further though?

New Guinea

For biological and geological reasons.

Firstly, their indigenous food products are low in protein and they
lacked large animals to assist in agriculture. (Biological)
Second, the limits on available area limited population. There are

only a few broad valleys in the highlands capable of supporting dense

populations. (Geological)
Third, only that zone, between 4,000 and 9,000 feet (highland), is
suitable for intensive food production. (Geological)
This meant that no large-scale economic exchange of foods developed
which could lead to a more balanced diet.
Until European colonial government brought western medicine and an
end to tribal warfare, the population never exceeded one million. Even
so, it was insufficient to develop technology, writing, or complex
political systems.
The rugged terrain fragmented the population even more, with
different languages (more than 1,000 of them), culture, and
intermittent warfare. Geographical isolation restricted the inflow of
ideas and technology from elsewhere. The nearest neighbors are less
developed than the New Guineans until about 1600 BC and the
Austronesian expansion, when New Guinea received pottery, chickens,
dogs, and pigs.
Expansion was interrupted by Europe.

Australia

Australia developed neither herding nor farming because soon after it

was colonized by humans, no large animals remained.
The only domesticable animal (the dog) arrived about 1500 BC. Native
Australians kept captive dingoes, as the dogs became, for
companions, watchdogs, and even as living blankets (the phrase 5
dog night describes a very cold night) but not for food or as hunting
companions.
They did not develop agriculture because this is the driest continent
with the most infertile soil and a climate that is mostly under a nonannual cycle known as the El Nio Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
Severe droughts, lasting years, were followed by unpredictable
torrential rains and floods.
Even today, with Eurasian crops and motorized equipment, food
production is risky. Herds built up in good years die off in drought.
Also, there are almost no domesticable native plants. Even modern
plant geneticists have only developed macadamia nuts from them.
A nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle based on a great variety of wild
foods makes sense in such a climate. A small mobile population could
easily move to a more clement area if conditions deteriorated.
The Aborigines did engage in firestick farming to increase the
production of edible plants. This involved intentionally burning an
area to drive out animals to kill and eat; to convert dense thickets into
open parkland, which could be more easily traveled and was an ideal
habitat for kangaroo; and to stimulate new grass (for kangaroos to
eat) and new ferns (for people to eat).

The population varied with rainfall and abundance of aquatic foods in

the sea, rivers, and lakes. The highest density was in the wettest, most
productive regions, which also came to support the densest
populations of European settlers.

Prior to European invasion:

Aborigines had intensified food-gathering methods in some regions

which increased population densities, including methods to remove
poison from abundant and nutritious cycad seeds, building fish farms
and elaborate canal systems for eels.
They also built elaborate eel weirs and traps, which adapted to
changing levels of water. In these areas, settled villages developed.
Eastern and Northern Aborigines had begun harvesting wild millet.
They had stone tools to harvest and to grind the millet, skin and
wooden storage vessels. Tools were similar to those developed in
the Fertile Crescent for the same activities.
Because they remained hunter-gatherers, they did not develop
metal, writing, or politically complex societies. They remained
hunter-gatherers because of their environment.
Tasmania, an island separated from Australia 10,000 years ago, had
the simplest material culture in the world, lacking many of the
technologies and artifacts widespread on the mainland (Australia).
Both Tasmania and Australia suggest the effects that isolation and
limited population size have on development, including loss of
technology as well as the failure to invent it.
This implies that size matters and explains some of the differences
in development rates for the largest (Eurasia) and smaller
continents (Africa, North America, South America).

How did New Guinea develop after European Invasion? Why?

Because of malaria, the number of European settlers remained small in
New Guinea, despite European superiority in ships, compasses, writing,
printing, guns, and administration. It remains a barrier today. New Guinea
was not infected on a massive scale by European infectious diseases because
there were no permanent European settlements until the 1880s, by which
time Europeans understood how to control those diseases, and the long
exposure to Asian mainland diseases (via Indonesia), which increased New
Guinean resistance. Although the highlands offer the only New Guinea
climate where Europeans do not suffer from health problems, the rugged
terrain prevented their reaching this area until the 1930s. There was already
a dense population there and governments were no longer willing to open
an area for European settlement by killing or displacing the native
population.
In addition, European crops and livestock did poorly everywhere in New
Guinea. Some South American tropical crops (coffee, squash, corn, tomatoes)
are grown. But New Guineans seemed to have already perfected crops for
their climate and terrain.

How did Australia develop after European Invasion? Why?

Australia was colonized by Europeans for all the same reasons that New
Guinea wasnt. Today 20 million non-Aborigines populate and govern
Australia, mostly of white European descent (non-whites have only been
allowed to immigrate since 1973). The Aborigine population has declined
80% since the Europeans arrived.
The Aborigines fared worse than the New Guineans because of the
suitability of Australia for European food production combined with
European guns, germs, and steel, which cleared the Aborigines out of the
way. Agriculture in the Australian temperate zone is dominated by Eurasian
crops (wheat, barley, oats, apples, and grapes) with some from the Sahel
(sorghum and cotton), Andes (potatoes), and tropical areassugar cane (New
Guinea), bananas and citrus (Southeast Asia), and peanuts (South America).
Livestock includes Eurasian sheep in more arid areas and Eurasian cattle in
the wetter ones. None are of native origin. Europeans removed the
Aborigines from the desirable areas by shooting them (still acceptable in
the 19th century) but also by epidemics of Eurasian diseases.
English colonists did not create a literate, food-producing, industrialized
democracy in Australia. They brought it with them. Without their inherited
technology, European settlers could not have survived in Australia.
Aboriginal Australians did create a society in Australiathey adapted to
the harsh environment and were prevented by that environment from
further development.

Chapter 16
How China became Chinese
China is one of the six most populous nations in the world that are melting
pots. The other countries are USA, Russia, India, Indonesia and Brazil.
It was the earliest nation out of the 6 to be (politically) unified by 221 BC
(under the Qin Dynasty)
Statistics about China:

Only one writing system

Of 1.2 billion people, 800 million speak Mandarin and the other 300
million speak seven other similar languages.
The Chinese vary mire than the Swedes and Italians.
Northern Chinese are similar to Tibetans and Nepalese. They are
taller, heavier and paler than their Southern counterparts. They have

pointier noses and smaller eyes with more slant.

Southern Chinese are similar to Vietnamese and Filipinos.

The genetic differences imply a long history of moderate isolation. So how

did they end up with similar or the same language and culture?
Humans have inhabited China for over 500,000 years. Because China became
politically unified much earlier than other regions, it homogenized a huge
region and repopulated tropical Southeast Asia and influenced Japan,
Korea, and perhaps India.
(DO I AGREE?)
Evidence from a linguistic map shows that speakers of Thai, Lao, and
Burmese all moved from South China to their present locations in historical
times, inundating (overwhelming) descendants of previous migrations and
replacing or converting them. Chinese speakers in the Zhou dynasty (1100221 BC) conquered and absorbed most of Chinas non-Chinese speaking
population.

Linguistic tracing of history is based on three types of reasoning:

1. Known linguistic expansions in recent millennia can be analyzed in
reverse, showing the movement of language into an area.
2. Modern areas with a single language group testify to recent
geographic expansion because over time a single language will
differentiate into many.
3. Conversely, an area with a high diversity of languages within the same
linguistic family has spoken the language longer and is therefore
closer to the original location of that language.
Linguists have concluded that North China is the origin of Chinese and
other Sino-Tibetan languages.
South China is the origin of the other three Asian languages. Austronesian
(spoken in the Philippines and Polynesia) may have originated on the Chinese
mainland, but has vanished from there. (Indisputable)
By looking at the process of domination by European languages of English
and Spanish in the Americas and Australia, we see how language
replacement occurs. Native speakers are initially killed or pushed out.
Later they are pressured into adopting the dominant language because of
the advantages of its speakers in technology and politics.
Therefore, need to determine if Chinese had a similar superiority throughout
history.

By 7500 BC food production has appeared in China, possibly

independently in the North and the South. Evidence showed later
animal domestication of pigs, dogs, chickens and silkworms, followed
by increased variety of crops grown.

By 3000 BC bronze metallurgy came about. Fortified towns and class

differences already came into existence.

By 2000 BC written accounts of the Xia dynasty were found.

By 1000 BC writings referred to all non-ethnic Chinese as

Barbarians and show a tendency to view China as superior.

By 500 BC iron metallurgy came about.

By 221 BC unification under Qin Dynasty.

1000 AD technological inventions included paper, compass,

wheelbarrow, and gunpowder.

Large long rivers transversed the east and west of China (Yellow in the north
and Yangtze in the south). These were connected by canals that facilitated
north-south communication. Western Europe is much more rugged and
without unifying rivers. Some development spread south to north in China
(notably iron smelting and rice), but the predominant spread was north to
south. Writing, bronze technology, the Sino-Tibetan language, and state
formation all developed in the north.
Although all East and Southeast Asian culture did not come from China, its
role is disproportionate. The original people of Southeast Asia were so
thoroughly replaced that only three tiny pockets survived (although these are
also probably the people who colonized New Guinea and Australia). Japan
still uses Chinese writing despite problems in representing Japanese speech.

Chapter 17
Speedboat to Polynesia
There were three pre-historical waves of migration from east Asia to the
Pacific.
New Guinea had them all.
1st wave colonization of New Guinea and Australia 40,000 years ago. Mostly

descended into highland New Guineans.

2nd wave started from south China 6000 years ago, through Indonesia and
Java, reaching New Guinea 3,600 years ago. Known as the Austronesian
Expansion and was among the biggest population movements of the past
6,000 years ago.
The spread of the Austronesian culture took about 1,000 years. There is
evidence of a cultural package (pottery, stone tools, crops and animals)
around 3000 BC in the Philippines, 2500 in Indonesian Celebes and North
Borneo and Timor, 2000 BC in Java and Sumatra, and 1600 BC in New
Guinea. From there it spread eastward to all uninhabited islands of the
Pacific and Westward to Madagascar by 500 AD
3rd wave movement from North China, South China and then East China
into all parts of Asia.

Where is the Austronesian language spoken?

Madagascar (East) to Easter Island (West). Java, Western and Central
Indonesia, Philippines. Some pockets of Malaysia, Vietnam and Cambodia. All
of Polynesia.
Why is language important?
It gives us clues to the route of expansion. Malayo-Polynesian is a sub-family
of the Austronesian language. It covers almost all of the geographical area
and contains 945 out of 959 Austronesian languages. This suggests that
Malayo-Polynesian was a recent differentiation and spread from the
Austronesian homeland.
The other three sub-families differ considerably from each other and from
Malayo-Polynesian. They are spoken by tiny groups of people, all of which
are Aborigines of Taiwan. This suggests Taiwan as the original home of
Austronesian.
There is also archaeological evidence of early agriculture and technology to
support this. Agriculture, deep-sea fishing, and regular sea traffic and
exchanges with the mainland show development of the maritime skills,
which later allowed the expansion over the Pacific.
Linguistically, all the Austronesian languages have words from their shared
culture, such as dog and pig. And they share roots for outrigger canoe and
other maritime words. However, tropical crop words, such as taro,
breadfruit, banana, yams, and coconuts, which are present in proto-MalayPolynesian, are not present in the three Taiwanese proto-Austronesian
languages. This suggests they were added after migration, which agrees
with archeological evidence.
Austronesians replaced hunter-gatherers in the Philippines and Indonesia
for the same reasons Europeans replaced native Australians. They were
farmers with denser populations, superior tools and weapons, more

developed watercraft and maritime skills and epidemic diseases (success).

In some areas, the Austronesians were blocked by preexisting Austro-Asiatic
speakers (failure)
In New Guinea, they were only able to colonize about 15% of the island.
Most of New Guinea speaks one of the many Papuan languages and they were
already farmers and toolmakers and had same resistance to diseases as
the Austronesians (failure).

Does language movement require the migration of people first?

No. Sometimes a language moves although the people dont. Most of the
people on Bismarck and the Solomon Islands speak Austronesian languages,
although genetically they are mostly Austro-Asiatic.
(LINK TO FOOD PRODUCTION)
The Austronesian Expansions successes and failures show the importance
of food production in human population movements. Where people were
still hunter-gatherers, the Austronesians displaced them. Where the people
were already settled farmers, they did not.

Culture is influenced by environment. The South Chinese people

developed food production and technology and received writing from North
China. They then went on to colonize tropical Southeast Asia and Taiwan,
largely replacing indigenous hunter-gatherers.
Within Southeast Asia, descendants had a wide range of culture. Some were
forced to revert to hunting gathering, while others progressed to complex
empires with elaborate metal work and magnificent monuments.
Austronesians show the same variety. Europeans were only able to colonize
in significant numbers the largest and most remote islands nearest the
temperate zones (New Zealand, New Caledonia, and Hawaii). The rest remain
occupied by East Asian and Pacific peoples.

Chapter 18