More Notes on Guns, Germs, and Steel

Pre-History is when before people wrote down things. History is when people wrote down things. "Hunter Gatherers"- are people who hunted, gathered and created shelter they would live in for a long time. It is very rare to catch people catching animals. It takes skill and knowledge to hunt animals. Since hunting is so unpredictable gathering is done more. Gathering is mostly done by women. The main resource is called sago and the pulp inside the trees are used to make a dough. There is not enough sago to support a nation of people. Barley and wheat are better than sago. Before barley and wheat were able to be made it had to become warmer and moist for it to make food. During this ice age and famine they needed to create a new way of life that would change the way of the world. Ian Kithe is a person who studies the history and ancient remains of the Middle East. Mainly in the Jordan Valley. He just found a village about 11 thousand years ago. They also discovered the worlds first grannary it is a place to store grains like wheat and barley it is hearty and able to be stored for years. 11 thousand years ago the people figured out they could grow food and they didn't need to keep moving and had to keep hunting and gathering. The people would try and live close to a body of water. The stone aged people of the middle east became the first farmers. Farming evolved in a lot of other countries like China, the Americas, and Africa but it didn't happen in the islands of New Guinea. New Guinea has the oldest form of farming as any country (10 thousand years). These people were one of the earliest farmers in the world but how did they not advance in technology. Since their food and crops rotted so quickly and were low in protein, they had to eat some giant spiders, sago, bananas, and roots. Most of the things that happened geographically happened with a lot of luck. Since they spend so much time hunting and gathering they do not have time to advance in their technologies. Not everybody has to be working to keep everybody fed. The civilizations that didn't find good things to grow are stuck back 11 thousands years ago. Domesticated Animal- In a house, it is not wild. Domesticated plant- is a plant that you control. Wheat which makes up about a fifth of our calories in food. In Domesticating animals humans did not have to go out and hunt and gather for food, clothes, for fertilizers from their dung, and as plow. New Guineas only farm animal is          a pig. A good domesticated animal to have is a herbivore that only eating. No African farmers have been able to farm an elephant because of how big it is and the amount of food it is and that it takes 15 years for it to mature and to reproduce. The 14 domesticated animals are goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, 2 camels, water buffalo, mython, lamas, reindeer, yacks, bali cattle. Some animals have to be in a group of animals to be social and reproduce. When you have a surplus of food to store in a grannery you won't have to worry about what you are going to eat the next week. South Americ had one of the domesticated animals. The other 13 came frome Europe, The Middle East, and North Africa. North America, New Guinea, and Africa were without domesticated animals. The Middle East had the best animals to domesticate and the best crops were apart of the fertile cresent. Plast comes from Limestones it took days for it to melt at about 1000 degrees. The reason was that they didn't have a food surpluses in food. With no food there were no specialists to create, heal, etc. The fertile crescent is not the powerhouse even though they had the head start. People were still leaving the area because of how hot and arid it was. When the people left the fertile crescent the went east or west towards Eurasia. Papua, New Guinea has never had interactions with other continents because they did not have anything to offer which made them isolated. Other countries had things to offer other countries. The crops that they had made were able to be made everywhere else. When the people from the fertile crescent moved to Egypt there was an explosion of food, architecture, etc. Even in Europe all of this exploded. Jarred Diamond is also an anthropologist.