Guns, germs and Steel by Jared Diamond Page A
Authors: Jared Diamond
Tags: General Interest
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monumental Polynesian architecture was obviously evolving in the same direction as the pyramids of Egypt, Mesopotamia, Mexico, and Peru. Naturally, Polynesia's structures are not on the scale of those pyramids, but that merely reflects the fact that Egyptian pharaohs could draw conscript labor from a much larger human population than could the chief of any Polynesian island. Even so, the Easter Islanders managed to erect 30-ton stone statues – no mean feat for an island with only 7,000 people, who had no power source other than their own muscles.
THUS, POLYNESIAN ISLAND societies differed greatly in their economic specialization, social complexity, political Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel organization, and material products, related to differences in population size and density, related in turn to differences in island area, fragmentation, and isolation and in opportunities for subsistence and for intensifying food production. All those differences among Polynesian societies developed, within a relatively short time and modest fraction of the Earth's surface, as environmentally related variations on a single ancestral society. Those categories of cultural differences within Polynesia are essentially the same categories that emerged everywhere else in the world.
Of course, the range of variation over the rest of the globe is much greater than that within Polynesia. While modern continental peoples included ones dependent on stone tools, as were Polynesians, South America Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel also spawned societies expert in using precious metals, and Eurasians and Africans went on to utilize iron. Those developments were precluded in Polynesia, because no Polynesian island except New Zealand had significant metal deposits. Eurasia had fullfledged empires before Polynesia was even settled, and South America and Mesoamerica developed empires later, whereas Polynesia produced just two protoempires, one of which (Hawaii) coalesced only after the arrival of Europeans. Eurasia and Mesoamerica developed indigenous writing, which failed to emerge in Polynesia, except perhaps on Easter Island, whose mysterious script may however have postdated the islanders' contact with Europeans.
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel That is, Polynesia offers us a small slice, not the full spectrum, of the world's human social diversity. That shouldn't surprise us, since Polynesia provides only a small slice of the world's geographic diversity. In addition, since Polynesia was colonized so late in human history, even the oldest Polynesian societies had only 3,200 years in which to develop, as opposed to at least 13,000 years for societies on even the last-colonized continents (the Americas). Given a few more millennia, perhaps Tonga and Hawaii would have reached the level of full-fledged empires battling each other for control of the Pacific, with indigenously developed writing to administer those empires, while New Zealand's Maori might have added copper and iron tools to their repertoire of jade and other materials.
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel In short, Polynesia furnishes us with a convincing example of environmentally related diversification of human societies in operation. But we thereby learn only that it can happen, because it happened in Polynesia. Did it also happen on the continents? If so, what were the environmental differences responsible for diversification on the continents, and what were their consequences?
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel
CHAPTER 3
COLLISION AT CAJAMARCA
THE BIGGEST POPULATION SHIFT
OF
modern times has been the colonization of the New World by Europeans, and the resulting conquest, numerical reduction, or complete disappearance of most groups of Native Americans (American Indians). As I explained in Chapter 1, the New World was initially colonized around or before 11,000 B.C. by way of Alaska, the Bering Strait, and Siberia. Complex agricultural societies gradually arose
THUS, POLYNESIAN ISLAND societies differed greatly in their economic specialization, social complexity, political Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel organization, and material products, related to differences in population size and density, related in turn to differences in island area, fragmentation, and isolation and in opportunities for subsistence and for intensifying food production. All those differences among Polynesian societies developed, within a relatively short time and modest fraction of the Earth's surface, as environmentally related variations on a single ancestral society. Those categories of cultural differences within Polynesia are essentially the same categories that emerged everywhere else in the world.
Of course, the range of variation over the rest of the globe is much greater than that within Polynesia. While modern continental peoples included ones dependent on stone tools, as were Polynesians, South America Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel also spawned societies expert in using precious metals, and Eurasians and Africans went on to utilize iron. Those developments were precluded in Polynesia, because no Polynesian island except New Zealand had significant metal deposits. Eurasia had fullfledged empires before Polynesia was even settled, and South America and Mesoamerica developed empires later, whereas Polynesia produced just two protoempires, one of which (Hawaii) coalesced only after the arrival of Europeans. Eurasia and Mesoamerica developed indigenous writing, which failed to emerge in Polynesia, except perhaps on Easter Island, whose mysterious script may however have postdated the islanders' contact with Europeans.
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel That is, Polynesia offers us a small slice, not the full spectrum, of the world's human social diversity. That shouldn't surprise us, since Polynesia provides only a small slice of the world's geographic diversity. In addition, since Polynesia was colonized so late in human history, even the oldest Polynesian societies had only 3,200 years in which to develop, as opposed to at least 13,000 years for societies on even the last-colonized continents (the Americas). Given a few more millennia, perhaps Tonga and Hawaii would have reached the level of full-fledged empires battling each other for control of the Pacific, with indigenously developed writing to administer those empires, while New Zealand's Maori might have added copper and iron tools to their repertoire of jade and other materials.
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel In short, Polynesia furnishes us with a convincing example of environmentally related diversification of human societies in operation. But we thereby learn only that it can happen, because it happened in Polynesia. Did it also happen on the continents? If so, what were the environmental differences responsible for diversification on the continents, and what were their consequences?
Jared Diamond Guns, Germs and Steel
CHAPTER 3
COLLISION AT CAJAMARCA
THE BIGGEST POPULATION SHIFT
OF
modern times has been the colonization of the New World by Europeans, and the resulting conquest, numerical reduction, or complete disappearance of most groups of Native Americans (American Indians). As I explained in Chapter 1, the New World was initially colonized around or before 11,000 B.C. by way of Alaska, the Bering Strait, and Siberia. Complex agricultural societies gradually arose
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