Blog Response #2 - Guns, Germs, & Steel Excerpts 4-6

- February 19, 2019

Blog Response Part A

Part A: What has impacted the development of civilizations?

In excerpts 4-6, Diamond explains how geography, agriculture, animals, and germs impacted and sometimes even determined the success of early civilizations.

Based on Diamond’s research, which theory do you think had the greatest impact? Why?

You must have at least one piece of evidence from the text to support your opinion.

Blog Response Part B

Part B: Identifying Emerging Topics

Review your list of Emerging Topics for Excerpts 4-6. Which one are you most interested in pursuing at this time?

1. Identify the topic and which excerpt it came from (this should include a quote).

2. Explain why this topic is "speaking to you."

REPLIES - DAY 2: Read through the posted blog comments. Reply to TWO: one you agree with and one that you disagree with and/or can followup with a clarifying question. Clearly explain why you agree or disagree with the author of the blog comment AND/OR explain your question in detail.

Comments

AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 10:01 AM
I would have to agree with the idea of geographical differences, some people had to be more dedicated to getting their food than others. In excerpt 4, page 1, he states, “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers”. With this, we can verify the challenges that came with the different climates. Due to most people in some areas being dedicated to finding food more often, this made for less time for advancements as a community.

I would have to say that the quote that “speaks to me” is, “the winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies”. This is because of the simple fact of biological advancements. People adapt to different things based upon their climate, (like when someone from Florida comes up to Wisconsin in the winter and say it’s too cold), and this is a perfect example of that. When people went to other’s land for war, they were stronger physically, but biologically they were the weakest.

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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 10:01 AM
The theory I thought had the most impact was animals because animals could be used for food and they could be used to make farming easier, making food more available and allowing people to spend more time developing and less time farming. In excerpt five or Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel Diamond states that, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This shows that animals had the most impact on development because they could be used to help with farming and they could be used as an alternative food source besides farm crops.

The topic I am interested in researching is diseases from animals from page one of excerpt six. In excerpt six Diamond states that, “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This topic is interesting to me because it would be interesting to learn about major diseases that had a huge affect on humans and it would be interesting to know how those diseases spread from animals to humans.

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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 11:57 AM
The theory that I thought that had the most impact was animals. I think this because animals can be used to help the society farm, and the animals can also be used as food. This would allow societies to spend more time developing, and being able to support a bigger population instead of farming. A quote from except 5 that shows this is when the author states “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This shows that animals had a significant impact because they were used to make farming easier and they could even be used as a food source.

The topic that I am most interested in researching is diseases from animals. In except 6 the author states ““The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This topic of diseases from animals is interesting to me because I think it would be interesting to learn how humans and diseases spread around the world.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:00 PM
I think that all theories go hand in hand but, one that I feel strongly made the biggest impact is the geography. The new Guineans lifestyle is completely and drastically different compared to many other places around the world. When you're talking about geography you're not just talking about the features of the earth and it's atmosphere it's includes the development of human activity, expansion of population, resources and the use of land. Due to the fact that they never got the chance to develop properly or like other places this really affected them. For example, when you get to the topic of weapons many many places have guns and bombs etc whereas New Guinea is still using stone tools. Some parts of the world developed literate industrial societies with metal tools/weapons, other parts developed only non-literate farming societies, and others maintained societies of hunter-gatherers with stone tools causing them to not be as developed and successful as the next place.

The topic I find most interesting is the topic discussed in excerpt 4, the battle between Maori and Moriori. In this excerpt Diamond makes the connection between the Maori slaughtering many Moriori people and modern time tragedies. He says "The tragedy of the Moriori resembles many other such tragedies in both the modern and the ancient world, pitting numerous well-equipped people against few ill-equipped opponents. What makes the Maori-Moriori collision grimly illuminating is that both groups had diverged from a common origin less than a millennium earlier. Both were Polynesian peoples." This "speaks to me" because many people will be quick to assume we're only different from them and can easily name many differences between other places of the world and the Polynesian people but forget in some ways we are or were similar to them as well as the New Guineans.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:04 PM
I think all of the things mentioned in excerpts 4-6 are a contributors to Yali's question because according to the excerpt 5 it says “Different peoples acquired food production at different times in prehistory. Some, such as Aboriginal Australians, never acquired it at all. Of those who did, some (for example, the ancient Chinese) developed it independently by themselves, while others (including ancient Egyptians) acquired it from neighbors.” which means geography and agriculture come into play because the different places mentioned have different geography as well as different foods that grow in that specific geography. In excerpt 6 it talks about all the animals and germs like in excerpt 6 it says “The most effortless way a germ could spread is by just waiting to be transmitted passively to the next victim. That's the strategy practiced by microbes that wait for one host to be eaten by the next host: for instance, salmonella bacteria, which we contract by eating already infected eggs or meat; the worm responsible for trichinosis, which gets from pigs to us by waiting for us to kill the pig and eat it without proper cooking; and the worm causing anisakiasis, with which sushi-loving Japanese and Americans occasionally infect themselves by consuming raw fish.”

One of my emerging topics that interest me is How can you find out if your animals have disease? I got this question by reading excerpt 6 “Given our Proximity to the animals we love, we must be getting constantly bombarded by their microbes. Those invaders get winnowed by natural selection, and only a few of them succeed in establishing themselves as human diseases.” This interested me because I have a cat and I wanted to know if I could get a disease from my cat so that question popped into my head. The answer to that question might be to easy to answer but I just put it there so that if I decided to look into it there would be more than one way to do so. The only way I can think of is to take your animals to the vets or have a vet come over to your house to check if your animals have a disease that you could get from being around them.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:07 PM
One theory by Diamond's research that had the greatest impact for the development of civilization would have to be animals, due to their ability to pass on dangerous diseases and germs to humans as a way to carry on a certain type of gene. An example of this is seen in Excerpt 6, "Lethal Gift Of Livestock," on page 3, "The first stage is illustrated by dozens of diseases that we now and then pick up directly from our pets and domestic animals. They include cat-scratch fever from our cats, leptospirosis from our dogs, psittacosis from our chickens and parrots, and brucellosis from our cattle. We're similarly liable to pick up diseases from wild animals, such as the tularemia that hunters can get from skinning wild rabbits. All those microbes are still at an early stage in their evolution into specialized human pathogens. They still don't get transmitted directly from one person to another, and even their transfer to us from animals remains uncommon."

One topic that I am most interested in pursuing is the "Ancestors of Diseases," from Excerpt 5, “Infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and flu arose as specialized germs of humans, derived by mutations of very similar ancestral germs that had infected animals. The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases.” The reason why I am pursuing this topic, and how it could be speaking to me is due to the fact that there is an unknown explanation of where diseases are coming from, except that it comes from an animal that stays around us every single day, and that a germ can enter very quickly with no warning to cause an infection within seconds.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:07 PM
In my opinion I believe what had the most impact of our history according to the author would have to be the animals because they could be used for food and farming purposes. Because of animals, farming had gotten easier throughout generations. This made food become more available and people would have easier access to it due to farming. In excerpt five of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel Diamond claims that, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This supports his claim by showing how animals had the greatest impact of development because they would be used for farming which helped humanity to make more food and could be used as an alternative food source instead of always using farm crops.

The topic that mostly stood out to me and caught my attention was the diseases from animals from excerpt 6 on page 1. In excerpt 6 Diamond claims/states, “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This stood out to me because I would like to learn more about how the diseases started to attack us and how we developed our bodies over time to battle those diseases and become stronger and as well as how we invented new medicine to help us fight it. It is very interesting to learn how diseases spread out from animals to humans.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:09 PM
This comment has been removed by the author.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:10 PM
In my opinion the best or greatest impact, based on Diamond's research, determined the success of early civilizations is geography. Not to just agree with diamond but because I believe he has a point. In the video anyone can see that the New Guinea people have less agriculture than the middle Eurasia where the Fertile Crescent lays. Also according to the same video when two or more places on Earth lie on the same longitude they share similar weather patterns and animal migration patterns as well. And for the topic I’m interested in researching is diseases from animals from page one of excerpt six.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:10 PM
I think that livestock has the biggest impact because they are used for so many things like food, work, and transportation. Not only do they help with various things they also make the process go much faster than if a person were to plow a field alone, opposed to if they had donkey plowing the field for them. In excerpt five it says, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This shows that animals had a huge impact in helping the human population grow and advance in ways of farming.

The topic I'm interested in researching is environmental impacts on human society. In excerpt four it says, “environmental effects on a very large scale— effects on human societies around the world for the last 13,000 years— you might reasonably want assurance, from smaller tests, that such effects really are significant.” This topic interests me because it's a really tough question to answer if there even is an answer to it. How exactly did humans survive as long as they did in different environments? And what steps were taken to make us more advanced?

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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:40 PM
In my opinion I think that the theory that had the most impact on the civilization we have today was the animals, because they have so many uses. Such as food, clothes and for animal power. There are downsides to animals too such as the fact that you can get germs in the text Yali says, ““ The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases.” But over time the animals were immune to these diseases and we could keep breeding them cause at some time in a certain animals species life they all get a deadly disease and die out.

The most interesting part that I was looking at and stood out to me was, ““ However, they have other uses, such as keeping us warm and providing us with valuable materials. Crops and livestock yield natural fibers for making clothing, blankets, nets, and rope.” This shows that animals can be used for a wide variety of resources and we can find more uses for them in the future, cause still today we do not use everything out of the animals we kill.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:55 PM
The theory that I think had the greatest impact was animals. I believe this because animals had multiple uses that put many societies ahead. Animals were used for meat for people to eat, milk for people to drink, fertilizer for their crops, and plow for those societies to continue their agriculture. In excerpt five it states that, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” That quote itself shows that animals had the largest impact due to their many uses.

Because of my thoughts on animals having the biggest impact above everything else, the most interesting topic that spoke to me was from excerpt 6 on page 1. Diamond says, “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This took me by surprise because of how much help the animals actually did for people. I love how both arguments can be applied from stating that either animals are the main reason for those peoples' success or they were the number one reason they plummeted because of major diseases causing catastrophic numbers in death.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 12:55 PM
The theory that I thought had the most impact was animals because they could be used for food and they could as be used for easier farming. It also helps with making food easier and available so that they can spend less time on farming more on interacting with people around them. A example is from excerpt 5 when he states that, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This shows that animals had a huge impact because they are a good source to help with farming. They also could be used for other things beside farm crops.

The emerging topic that I found most interesting is the difference between cultures and societies, from page 1 in excerpt 4, where it states, “ If we could understand the reasons for the disparate development of those two island societies, we might have a model for understanding the broader question of differing developments on the continents.” This topic is intriguing to me because it shows how each culture and society does different thing but could still have the same output.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 1:04 PM
I think the theory that I agree with the most is the geographical impact on early civilizations. I say this because with certain areas, they don’t have the same resources as another and that could lead to a potential downfall of said civilization. Aside weaponry, they may have a much harder time growing crops or raising animals for food. In excerpt 4 page 1, Diamond states, “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers.” In a sense, this proves that some civilizations did not have same survival opportunities that others had. And because of this, it was much harder for them to thrive as a civilization.

A quote that really stood out to me, or “spoke to me” was, “The winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies” Truthfully, this quote stood out to me because it sounds like a quote from one of my favorite books, The Art of War. But aside from that, it really spoke to me because it really shows how much humanity has advanced. He says that germs were the true killer back then but now, not really. Sure there’s still horrible diseases out there now, there’s no more Black Plague (or Black Death) which killed 25 million people. Take for example the Europeans conquest to America, the genocide of the Natives wasn’t just because of advanced weaponry or better tactics, it was the germs the Europeans carried over that killed them off. And I find it fascinating how far along we’ve come from that, we visit a foreign country and we don’t die from their germs anymore, we may get sick but we won’t die.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 1:43 PM
I believe what had the greatest impact on the developing civilizations would be the luck of geography. In excerpt 4, page 1, Diamond pointed out, “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers.” the land in certain areas could not support heavy farming, and in turn the delicate land had turned into a wasteland where anything barely grew. Since they did not have a surplus of food to let them focus on other developments, they did not ‘progress’ as far as other civilizations did. This was an insane impact to developing countries, and those who progressed a lot faster easily had an upper hand.

The emerging topic out of the most current 9 topics, I would say the sentence that grabbed my attention the most would be in excerpt 6, page 2. It read (gore warning), “Those parasites pass to a person from an eaten animal, but the virus causing laughing sickness (kuru) in the New Guinea highlands used to pass to a person from another person who was eaten. It was transmitted by cannibalism, when highland babies made the fatal mistake of licking their fingers after playing with raw brains that their mothers had just cut out of dead kuru victims awaiting cooking.” Like, WHAT? How common was cannibalism, and why haven’t I heard of this happening earlier? Was this for religious purposes, or was it a part of an everyday life thing? Why would you let your kids eat an uncooked brain, let alone near a dead KURU INFESTED BODY?! It was just really eye-opening...and absolutely disgusting. I’d research this out of pure curiosity.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 1:48 PM
I think the biggest impact was the animals. Because animals can be used for so many uses and resources. Animals can be used for fur, food, milk, labor work, and fertilization which will help advance them further. In article 5 it states, “livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows. First and most directly, domestic animals became the societies' major source of animal protein, replacing wild game”. This supports my claim that animals are used for many things and that it helped them in more than one way. Also in article 5 it also states, “ Big domestic mammals also interacted with domestic plants in two ways to increase crop production. First, as any modern gardener or farmer still knows by experience, crop yields can be greatly increased by manure applied as fertilizer”. This will make them be able to grow crops more efficiently and more faster and the animals can do a lot of the labor work for them as well.
The topic I am looking into researching about is the Blackfoot Indian Tribe. In article 5 it states, “Among the farmhands, though, was a member of the Blackfoot Indian tribe”. That lead me to question who are they? Where are they located and are they still a tribe today?
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 1:52 PM
I think that animals being introduced to civilizations had the most impact on the development of civilizations. The reason is with animals there is a lot you can get from them. For example, you can get milk, cheese, wool, and food. In exprect five Diamond explained it like this, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This quote shows that people who had animals that were domesticated they were better off because they could get more food.

A topic that I have found most interesting is getting disease from our pets. What I found most interesting about this is I always thought that you couldn't get sick from animals, but I guess you can. What I want to know is what can you get from your animals and how is it spreed.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 1:52 PM
I think that the theory that I most agree with is the Animal theory. I mean, think about it, That was their horse power, food, and labor. Europeans rode horses into battle, and had cattle and goats to at and produce milk. I also agree with agriculture, because your people, farmers and soldiers are gonna die off if you have no food, and that was mass produced on both ends, animals and food. New guinea only had pigs. i don't know how much you about pigs, but they are a good food source, but they don't do much else. they also have very high tempers and cant be domesticated easily. In excerpt 4 page 2, i found this quote, 'the Chathams are relatively small and remote islands, capable of supporting a total population of only about 2,000 hunter-gatherers. With no other accessible islands to colonize, the Moriori had to remain in the Chathams, and to learn how to get along with each other. The result was a small, unwarlike population with simple technology and weapons, and without strong leadership or organization' This shows how big livestock has on a population and where it goes in the future.

The most interesting research topic, however, is who got which food. it was interesting when he talked about how the chinese got food first from themselves, and resulted in their own food culture, bringing us to a delicious ending of orange chicken. in excerpt 5 page 1 i found, ' Of those who did, some (for example, the ancient Chinese) developed it independently by themselves' while then i saw that egypt got food from other which shocked me ' while others (including ancient Egyptians) acquired it from neighbors.' i've never had any egyptian food, but they were such a big empyre that i assumed that they'd done it themselves
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 5:51 PM
I think Diamond's theory of Animals specifically livestock had the most impact on the civilizations back in the day. I think this had the biggest impact because without livestock you could farm but didn’t get as good fertilization as you did in cow manure for example. Another reason is the meat and food that they gave off was a lot and very protein filling in pigs and bulls. Finally, the amount of people you could have in a civilization only increased due to the amount of food livestock gave you not only in meat, milk, or eggs but also their fertilization. Diamond stated, “That strength of brute numbers was the first of many military advantages that food-producing tribes gained over hunter-gatherer tribes.” This means that the more food the more people that in the end gave them more power and as I said in my first blog the more power you acquire the stronger your civilization can be. I found the most interesting topic to be the arrival of diseases with Captain Cook because this is what brought influenza and other huge diseases that caused tons of death all over North America. When Diamond stated,”Syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis, and influenza arriving with Captain Cook in 1779, followed by a big typhoid epidemic in 1804.” This shows how that happen during that era that was a huge part of the history of America and that is why it interests me.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 9:07 PM
Based on Diamond’s research I believed the geography had the greatest impact. I think this because he states that the fertile crescent yielded the best crops and later spread across the east and west. Also in the video we watched he stated that because the climate was so good and the land was very fertile, civilizations were able to work harder and make advanced things such as the pyramids in Egypt. This is explained in excerpt 5 when he states,”In short, plant and animal domestication meant much more food and hence much denser human populations.” A denser population results in a very powerful workforce capable of such great tasks.

A topic I found while reading excerpt 5 I found to be most interesting.This is when it stated,”At current rates of change, within the next decade the few remaining bands of hunter-gatherers will abandon their ways, disintegrate, or die out, thereby ending our millions of years of commitment to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.” This topic interests me because I’m not completely sure if this change is a bad thing. Also i’m kind of not surprised that this change will occur and how it has not already occurred.
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AnonymousFebruary 19, 2019 at 10:54 PM
2 of Diamond’s theories that I think had the biggest impact was the black death theory which caused over 200 million people to die from. Diamond said “We'll examine why many of our most familiar infectious diseases run in epidemics, such as our current AIDS epidemic and the Black Death (bubonic plague) epidemics of the Middle Ages.” I found this to be another cause as to why the new guineas race had such an impact. Another theory I found interesting was diseases from pets, I know that animals get sick and could cause harm to us if they catch something dangerous.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 9:27 AM
In my opinion, I think that the theory that had the greatest impact on the civilization we have now were the animals. Animals have been around for so many of years and most of the people have used them for so many things such as for farming, for food, and even for clothing. Animals have been very useful and have continued helping us make everything much easier. For example farming, they also have been used as food as well, Allowing us to make food more available to everybody in a much easier way. A piece of evidence that helps me support my opinion was in excerpt 5 of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel where Diamond states “In human societies processing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This piece of evidence shows that animals have had a big impact on the civilization since they have made farming easier and because they can always be used as a food source.

The topic that stood out to me the most were the diseases you can get from animals. I would like to learn more about how often people get sick by the animals and what are the possibilities of you getting a disease by them. I would also want to learn more about how this is possible and how it spreads. Also, how fast the germs spread.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 9:46 AM
I find the animal theory to be the most interesting. Animals play a big role in our day to day lives including the food we eat. In excerpt 5, the author states, “Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, with game such as venison just a rare delicacy.” We can use animals for our advantage by breeding the animals that give us lots of protein. Animals also can be used for farming and fighting. For example, “The military uses of horses and camels, and the killing power of animal-derived germs, complete the list of major links between food production and conquest.” (Excerpt 5)
The emerging topic I found interesting was Lyme disease. I found this topic in excerpt 6, when the author states, “ Better established is Lyme disease, caused by a spirochete that we get from the bite of ticks carried by mice and deer.“ I found this interesting because one of my family friends has lyme disease and I would like to learn more about how this affects her day to day live.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 9:58 AM
I think the animal theory impacted civilization the most because in excerpt 5 on page 2 the author states “domestic animals became the societies’ major source of animal protein, for instance Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep and chickens” and “Big domestic mammals also interacted with domestic plants in two ways to increase crop production”. I think this theory had the greatest impact because the animals did help the success of early civilizations by making farming a lot easier, and with farming being easier more food becomes available to the civilians.
The topic I am most interested in is how environments affect human societies from excerpt 4 page 2. On page 2 of excerpt 4 the author states “Maori and Moriori history constitutes a brief, small scale natural experiment that tests how environments affect human societies”. This topic is interesting to me because I think it would be interesting to learn how environments do affect human societies and why they affect the societies.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 10:00 AM
The theory that made the most sense to me was the animal theory, because animals have many uses like, food, clothing, and they work. This allowed society to have more food to feed more people, than more people can start developing more tools and research without a problem. From excerpt 5, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This shows that animals made farming, food, and getting clothes a lot easier for humans.

An interesting topic would be diseases that humans got from animals. In excerpt 5, “Infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and flu arose as specialized germs of humans, derived by mutations of very similar ancestral germs that had infected animals. The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases.” The topic of diseases from animals and diseases from humans spread across the world.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 10:03 AM

The theory that makes the most sense is the idea that geography is the key to how some civilizations thrived and grew more than others. The landscape that civilizations like Yali faced, made growth and structure difficult to produce. These people had to focus on surviving, unlike most who were able to thrive.

The thing that was most interesting to me was the hatred between the Moriori and the Maori. Author Jared Diamond told the story of the Moriori and the Maori that caught my eye. He claims it went like this, “the Moriori had a tradition of resolving disputes peacefully. They decided in a council meeting not to fight back but to offer peace, friendship, and a division of resources. Before the Moriori could deliver that offer, the Maori attacked en masse. Over the course of the next few days, they killed hundreds of Moriori, cooked and ate many of the bodies, and enslaved all the others, killing most of them too over the next few years as it suited their whim.”
The question that I have is why did the Maori attack? What did they have to gain from fighting?
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 10:08 AM
I think that the theory that had the most impact are the animals. On page 1 of excerpt 5, the author says that "all humans on Earth fed themselves exclusively by hunting wild animals." On page 2 of excerpt 5, the author says that "first and most directly, domestic animals became the societies' major source of animal protein, replacing wild game. Today, for instance, Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, with game such as venison just a rare delicacy."

The emerging topic that stood out to me was the diseases that we could get from animals. On page 1 of excerpt 6, the author says "The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals."
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 10:09 AM
I believe that germs had the biggest impact on developing civilizations. With the advancement of medicine we now have cures or vaccines against diseases or ailments that use to kill millions. But back in the day, the ailments that came from animals killed thousands of people due to the fact that no treatment or agent could be used to fight the sickness. A piece of evidence to support this claim comes from excerpt 6. Diamond states “Eurasian germs played a key role in decimating native peoples in many other parts of the world, including Pacific islanders, Aboriginal Australians, and the Khoisan peoples (Hottentots and Bushmen) of southern Africa. Cumulative mortalities of these previously unexposed peoples from Eurasian germs ranged
from 50 percent to 100 percent.”

The topic I’m most interested in pursuing is the black death. It is also known as the bubonic plague. The black death is spoken about in excerpt 6, page 1. Diamond is quoted as saying, “We'll examine why many of our most familiar infectious diseases run in epidemics, such as our current AIDS epidemic and the Black Death (bubonic plague) epidemics of the Middle Ages.” The reason this topic is “speaking to me” is because I’ve heard of the bubonic plague my whole life. Despite the fact that I’ve heard of it, I don’t know too much about what it is or what it is caused by.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 10:15 AM
The theory that I found to have the greatest impact is animals. Why I found that this theory had the greatest impact is because with animals they can be used for many things such as either food or as farm animals this helps benefit civilizations since their skin and fur can be used for clothing and their milk and bodies can be used for food and work, such as pulling heavy plows to get their farm work done faster. So they essentially won't go hungry or be as fatigued as they would be if they continued farming by human power, and as Jared Diamond said “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.”
The emerging topic that I found to be the most interesting to me at this time has to be how can diseases from our livestock be spread to humans? Why were some animal diseases transmitted to humans? This emerging topic has came from excerpt six and comes from this quote said on the first page “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals” and why I had found this topic interesting is because I wanted to know if our livestock did not have some these diseases would we be battling with them today?
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 11:15 AM
The theory that I found to have the biggest impact was the animal theory. The reason I think that theory had the greatest impact is because animals are a needed thing for humans to survive based on human life. Without animals humans wouldn't have a main source of meat needed for our diet, and animals help with other services. Animals such as chickens, cows, sheep and horses are used to harvest or simply used to help farm. Without animals humans would starve and die, and with animals being around humans survive off of their product and meat. On page 2, paragraph 3 in excerpt 5 the author states “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows. First and most directly, domestic animals became the societies' major source of animal protein, replacing wild game. Today, for instance, Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, with game such as venison just a rare delicacy. In addition, some big domestic mammals served as sources of milk and of milk products such as butter, cheese, and yogurt. Milked mammals include the cow, sheep, goat, horse, reindeer, water buffalo, yak, and Arabian and Bactrian camels. Those mammals thereby yield several times more calories over their lifetime than if they were just slaughtered and consumed as meat.” Meaning in which all races rely on animals and food in order to live.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 11:20 AM
The theory that has most impact is the geography. A quote that backs up my thoughts is on page 1 of excerpt 4, “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chatham' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers.” This shows that people will have to adapt to different weather and situations which will affect there way of life. For example like it states in the quote Maoris crops could not grow due to the climate, so they took matters into their own hands and thought of ways around it. Because of all the challenges that came with the geography changing people were more focused on that than on how to advance as a whole society.

The emerging topic that I found most interesting is the difference between cultures. I think this connects to the geography topic also because it is showing how everyone has different ways of doing things. Which can be the reason why others are behind in finding new discoveries. A quote that backs up my thinking is stated on page 1 excerpt 4, “ If we could understand the reasons for the disparate development of those two island societies, we might have a model for understanding the broader question of differing developments on the continents.” So because everyone is different there isn't really a good way of finding out the answer to that question.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 11:33 AM
The theory I believe had the greatest impact was animals. With animals people could farm easier which would produce more food also being able to hunt the animals and farm then. (like chickens in a coop) Also if they have animals to help farm the time it would take to farm would decline substantially so, the colonies would be able to have more time to do other stuff like upgrade weapons or increase the productivity for their irrigation systems. In excerpt five it says “ In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows. First and most directly, domestic animals became the societies' major source of animal protein, replacing wild game.” That shows that animals are the most impact because they are used for a source of food and manual labor.

The topic I am most interested in is diseases from animals. In excerpt 6 page 1 it says “ The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals”
I find it most interesting because it is interesting to think or how big of a impact the diseases from the animals caused on humans.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 11:38 AM
I believe that geography is most impactful when determining success of early civilizations. When a civilization is on a small island in the middle of the ocean, they will most likely be isolated and unable to learn ideas from others, and have a limited set of resources. If a civilization is in the middle of a continent, they can gather ideas, and resources from the people around them and learn from others. Geography can determine so many more things that can affect human development. It can affect how fertile land is, and what kind of animals live there. Geography is a big factor that can determine the rest. In Excerpt 4, page 1, Diamond states, “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers”. thus making geography the deciding factor

An interesting quote I found in the excerpts is, “The ultimate ancestors of all modern Polynesian populations shared essentially the same culture, language, technology, and set of domesticated plants and animals. Hence Polynesian history constitutes a natural experiment allowing us to study human adaptation, devoid of the usual complications of multiple waves of disparate colonists that often frustrate our attempts to understand adaptation elsewhere in the world.” I would like to look further into this topic, and look at the differences between the Polynesians and other colonist of the world.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 11:41 AM
The theory that I found to have the greatest impact was germs. Even though animals helped societies by being able to be used for so many things without them they wouldn't be able to use them for anything. For example in excerpt 6, Jared Diamond says, Microbes have evolved diverse ways of spreading from one person to another, and from animals to people." This shows that any disease that animals might have could get passed on to humans and animals might have worse diseases then humans might ever have. Without being able to use animals for their food, milk, or plowing everything that the people worked for would mean nothing.

The topic that I'm the most interested in is in excerpt 6 about the black Death or the bubonic plague. Diamond says that it was an epidemic in the Middle Ages. He uses it with the AIDS epidemic, so I wonder if it is like AIDS at all or if it's nothing like it.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 12:10 PM
The theory that impacts most civilizations back then, and even today, is the animal theory. We use these animals for protein and utilizing them for war. In excerpt 5, on page 2 the author lists a few examples of the different livestock we use. “Domestic animals became the societies’ major source of animal protein, for instance Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep and chickens” They also used Camels and Horses for war. I believe this theory is the most important and impactful, if we didn’t have the sufficient amount of protein their bodies wouldn’t be able to keep up and be as successful as others.

One thing that I noticed was the government, essentially, has a food surplus built by taxation. This surplus is used to not only feed kings and higher up, but the soldiers as well. Here is my textual evidence that supports this topic. “A stored food surplus built up by taxation can support other full-time specialists besides kings and bureaucrats. Of most direct relevance to wars of conquest, it can be used to feed professional soldiers.” stated in excerpt 5.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 12:43 PM

I think that agriculture is the most important theory, because without it we would still all be hunters and gatherers. That wouldn't work because we would have killed and ran out of all our food long ago. With the advancement in agriculture it lets some places in the world prosper and thrive, while other places that did not learn it fast enough died off or became enslaved.

In excerpt 5 on page 2 paragraph 2 he states “By selecting and growing those few species of plants and animals that we can eat, so that they constitute 90 percent rather than 0.1 percent of the biomass on an acre of land, we obtain far more edible calories per acre. As a result, one acre can feed many more herders and farmers— typically, 10 to 100 times more—than hunter-gatherers. That strength of brute numbers was the first of many military advantages that food-producing tribes gained over hunter-gatherer tribes. “ By this he is saying how because of agriculture we can feed many more people than hunter and gathers can and how it will make a strong military because we have more food to feed them.

The emerging topic of domestic animals comes from excerpt 5 page 3 paragraph 3 he writes “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.”

This Topic speaks to me because it bring in the idea of how domestic animals really have changed the world. Plus it adds insight into what domestic animals did back when they were introduced compared to now.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 1:16 PM
I believe that animals are the greatest factor in the development of society, considering the impact that they had on the other three reasons. First, agriculture was important, but it was not truly effective until work animals were introduced to reduce labor. “The largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows and thereby making it possible for people to till land that had previously been uneconomical for farming. Those plow animals were the cow, horse, water buffalo, Bali cattle, and yak / cow hybrids.” Second, geography was no longer an issue as the work animals could help build farms in more difficult to farm areas, as well as allow humans to travel across difficult terrain safe and fast. Finally, livestock greatly affected the way that germs spread due to their presence being a place for the germs to cultivate and grow.

In excerpt 5, the author says that, “the largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows and thereby making it possible for people to till land that had previously been uneconomical for farming. Those plow animals were the cow, horse, water buffalo, Bali cattle, and yak / cow hybrids.” This quote gave me the question “what is the process to domesticate an animal?” I was really interested in this since I did not know how and that there are only a few animals that can be domesticated.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 1:28 PM
Based on Diamond’s research, I believe that animals had the greatest impact of the development of early civilization. This theory has the most likely to determine the success of these civilizations because animals have been around the world for so long that people use animals to make really comfortable clothing to wear during the winter also they use animals for farming and also to make food. One piece of evidence that supports this is “Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens, with game such as venison just a rare delicacy.” This supports this theory because using animals for farming, making food, and clothing out of them made it easier for humans to work because they didn’t do as much work as they needed to do.

The topic that I am most interested in researching at this time is the diseases you can get from an animal]. I got this idea from the text when it said “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals, even though most of the microbes responsible for our own epidemic illnesses are paradoxically now almost confined to humans.”
This seems like an interesting topic for me to research because I never knew you could get a disease from an animal that you can own at your home. I would like to know more how bad it can affect a body from a human being and also how fast the germs can spread around.
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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 2:43 PM
Based on Diamond’s research, I believe that Animals had the greatest impact on the development of early civilizations. This theory was most likely to determine the success of these civilizations because animals gave human food and provided them with clothing made out of animals for them to live. One piece of evidence that supports this is”For most of the time since the ancestors of modern humans diverged from the ancestors of the living great apes, around 7 million years ago, all humans on Earth fed themselves exclusively by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants, as the Blackfeet still did in the 19th century. It was only within the last 11,000 years that some peoples turned to what is termed food production: that is, domesticating wild animals and plants and eating the resulting livestock and crops. Today, most people on Earth consume food that they produced themselves or that someone else produced for them. At current rates of change, within the next decade the few remaining bands of hunter-gatherers will abandon their ways, disintegrate, or die out, thereby ending our millions of years of commitment to the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
. This supports the theory because people feed themselves by killing and hunting animals to live. When there was no more crops and plants/fruit they needed food so then they feasted on the animals.

The topic that I am most interested in researching at this time is Why should scientists research rats? I got this idea from the text when it said If you were a laboratory scientist studying rats, you might perform such a test by taking one rat colony, distributing groups of those ancestral rats among many cages with differing environments, and coming back many rat generations later to see what had happened. Of course, such purposeful experiments cannot be carried out on human societies. Instead, scientists must look for "natural experiments," in which something similar befell humans in the past.
This seems like an interesting topic for me to research because rats are very dangerous they carry a disease called rabies which can be highly deadly.

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AnonymousFebruary 20, 2019 at 9:59 PM
While they all state a reason behind the real cause of inequality, I believe the geography or battle between Maori and Moriori had the greatest impact due to the explanation of how the civilization has advanced and not just how they were able to kill other civilizations. As stated, “Thus, Moriori and Maori societies developed from the same ancestral society, but along very different lines” (Excerpt 4 Pg. 2). When Diamond says, “...But along very different lines” he is saying that these two civilizations originated from the same place and ended up in two different geographical locations thus leading to one civilizations advancing and one not so much. While food does play a role in how civilizations advance, the geographic terrain has to allow a society to mass produce food.

One topic that stood out to me was that germs are the biggest killers of them all. A quote on excerpt 6 page 1 said, “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis…” I’ve found it interesting how true that statement is and how it is still an issue in today’s world. While this was just an issue in our “recent history” however far back they consider that is, these germs were here before any other animal.
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AnonymousFebruary 21, 2019 at 9:50 AM
The theory that makes most sense is from the video when he was saying that the geographical location that you get. The location you live in can make it harder on you because you may not have all the things that other countries may have and not be able to advance because you have to work harder somewhere else. Some places have to work harder to get food meaning they cant move further in technology.

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AnonymousFebruary 21, 2019 at 10:09 AM
I think the farming power theory had the greatest impact on people. The animals helped civilizations evolve quicker because they would use the animals for farming and that gave them an advantage because it is more efficient then doing work with only people power.
Diamond writes, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows. First and most directly, domestic animals became the societies”

The topic I am most interested in is the impact of environment on human development because it seems the most interesting. It makes sense that people evolved differently because of the environment they lived in and what they had to do survive.
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AnonymousFebruary 21, 2019 at 11:29 AM
The theory that I thought had the most impact was animals. Animals can be used to help with a lot of things on a farm. Even as a source of food. This theory allow societies to spend more time on developing, and improving the support for more assistance in farming. In except 5 states “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This quote explains that animals had a large impact on farming because it made it easier to farm. The animals are also a great food source.

The topic that I am most interested in researching are the diseases from animals. Except 6 states “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This quote shines the light on the topic of diseases from animals. I think that it's interesting to me because I would like to learn about how and why diseases spread around the world.
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AnonymousFebruary 21, 2019 at 12:37 PM
I would have to think the idea of geographical differences had the greatest impact. In excerpt 4, page 1, Diamond says, “Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers”. This quote has the ability verify the difficulty that opposed different people with the different climates. The more people that are dedicated to finding food, the less they can focus on biological advancements.

I would have to say the strongest quote in the excerpt was, “the winners of past wars were not always the armies with the best generals and weapons, but were often merely those bearing the nastiest germs to transmit to their enemies”. This is simply because of biological advancements. Climates are the one thing that people can’t control and have to adapt to, (like when someone from Florida comes up to Wisconsin in the winter and say it’s too cold). When people went to other’s land for war, they were stronger physically, but biologically they were the weakest.
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AnonymousFebruary 21, 2019 at 12:54 PM
The theory that had the most impact in development of civilizations in my opinion was animals. Because you could use them for food and they made farming way easier for the people that had them. Some animals could be use to make clothes. In excerpt five Jared Diamond states, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows. This shows how animals were a big impact to the development of civilizations because some civilization didn’t have animals and needed to take more time farming then developing other things. The civilizations with animals developed more faster because farming was easier and with animals you could feed more people. The civilizations with animals took less time farming and that give them more time to develop more things.

The emerging topic that I’m most interested in is diseases from animals from excerpted six. In excerpted six Jared Diamond states, “The major killer of humanity throughout our recent history-smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera-are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” I found this interesting because I want to learn more about how these diseases affected how the world is today.

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AnonymousFebruary 21, 2019 at 12:55 PM
The theory I believe makes the most sense to me is the animal theory, because animals provide manual labor, food and, clothing. Which in turn helped develop societies because they were able to raise them and make food/clothing which required much less time and had the potential to create enough food to feed others. This got rid of hunting/gathering and created more time for people to focus on creating tools and the development of societies. In excerpt 5, Diamond states "In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This excerpt shows that societies developed much faster with the introduction of "farm" animals

The topic that I am most interested in researching is animalborne disease. In except 6 the Diamond states “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This topic of animalborne diseases is interesting to me because I'm interested in learning how animals, humans and, diseases spread around the world.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 8:13 AM
I think the theory that I found to be the greatest impact is geography because it plays a huge role in New Guinea as well as Melanesia. Before 1200 B.C, they didn’t have any access to watercraft so they couldn’t have any geological or biological resources. In excerpt 4 where it states, “For most of human history those islands lay far beyond the reach of watercraft. Around 1200 B.C. a group of farming, fishing, seafaring people from the Bismarck Archipelago north of New Guinea finally succeeded in reaching some of those islands.” This evidence tells the reader about how climate change can develop over time which depends on what they do for survival and other resources.

The emerging topic that I’m most interested in is about the possession of animals for livestock because it makes farming easier so they can have the essential needs for livestock. In excerpt 5 where it states, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” It makes the topic interesting because it helps the reader to understand how farmers do their work.

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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 9:27 AM
The theory that impacted early civilization the most were animals. Animals played a significant role on how early civilization would survive, and also the things that animals could be used to help out early civilization as in like Clothes, Food, Work, etc. This was very successful for the New Guineans, because they wouldn't have to focus so much on work and be able to produce more food, because animals could help them out with their work. This also helped the civilization with removing hunting which let them do more thing such as making weapons or stuff to make their civilization rise. An example in excerpt 5, Jared Diamond states "In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.”

The emerging topic that really interested me the most is diseases from animals. In excerpted six Jared Diamond states, “The major killer of humanity throughout our recent history-smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera-are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” That stood out me the most because it interesting that animals really carry that many diseases.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 9:55 AM
I agree with agriculture being the most important thing for a civilizations’ survival. This is because without a reliable food source that they can keep growing, the civilization would fail. In excerpt 4, page 2, it is stated, “In contrast, the northern (warmer) part of New Zealand, by far the largest island group in Polynesia, was suitable for Polynesian agriculture. Those Maori who remained in New Zealand increased in numbers until there were more than 100,000 of them. They developed locally dense populations chronically engaged in ferocious wars with neighboring populations. With the crop surpluses that they could grow and store, they fed craft specialists, chiefs, and part-time soldiers. They needed and developed varied tools for growing their crops, fighting, and making art.” This shows that through simple agricultural needs, they developed tools for their soldiers, and their farmers.

The quote I’m interested in pursuing would be; The brutal outcome of this collision between the Moriori and the Maori could have been easily predicted. The Moriori were a small, isolated population of hunter-gatherers, equipped with only the simplest technology and weapons, entirely inexperienced at war, and lacking strong leadership or organization. The Maori invaders (from New Zealand's North Island) came from a dense population of farmers chronically engaged in ferocious wars, equipped with more-advanced technology and weapons, and operating under strong leadership.” (Excerpt 4 page 1) This topic is speaking to me, since if you kill or conquer everyone in the world, then there’s only a few ways your civilization can fail, which is if people revolt against the government, or you run out of natural resources. Nobody can attack you if everyone’s on your “team”.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 11:14 AM
The theory that I believe had the greatest impact was animals. I think this because animals had multiple uses that put many societies ahead. Animals were used for meat for people to eat, milk for people to drink, fertilizer for their crops, and plow for those to continue their agriculture. In excerpt 5 it states that, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” That quote itself shows that animals had the largest impact due to their many uses.

Because of my beliefs on animals having the biggest impact above everything else, the most interesting topic that spoke to me was from excerpt 6 on page 1. Diamond says, “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This took me by surprise because of how much help the animals actually did for people. I love how both arguments can be applied from stating that either animals are the main reason for those peoples' success or they were the number one reason they plummeted because of major diseases causing catastrophic numbers in death.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 11:16 AM
I think that the biggest reason for success in civilization would be the animals that were present in a given region. Animals are not only good for food but can be used as valuable tools in many way, from farming to fertilizing and an other farm work or agricultural duty. Which in turn helped develop societies because they were able to raise them and make food/clothing which required much less time and had the potential to create enough food to feed others. evidence to support this comes from excerpt 4 "The largest domestic mammals interacted with domestic plants to increase food production by pulling plows and thereby making it possible for people to till land that had previously been uneconomical for farming. Those plow animals were the cow, horse, water buffalo, Bali cattle, and yak / cow hybrids.” The ability to produce a large amount of food quickly freed up more time for people to make other advances in society instead of having to worry about finding food ( Hunter and gatherer style)
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 11:35 AM
The theory that i thought that had the biggest impact was the animals because animals can be used to help farmers with there farm i also would say that they had an impact because animals can be used for food and to help food grown such as poop. this allows the society to focus more on making new ways to support bigger and better populations. in expert 5 they said " in human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows." this supports my thought because they stated that it made farming easier and they said that they were used for a food source. witch i said in my thought.

The topic that i am most interested in researching is Diseases in animals. in expert 6 the diamond "states the major killers of humanity throughout our recent history smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals" Diseases in animals is interesting to me because i wanna learn more on how animals get the diseases or if they are just born with it and i also wanna learn how they give it to humans.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 11:56 AM
There are many reasoning to which the succession of civilizations are determined, but it seems that agriculture seems to be the biggest to a civilization’s success. The reasoning to why agriculture is the biggest determination is because it is mentioned in all three excerpts. This shows that even though there are different factors into making or breaking a civilization, agriculture mixes into all of the reasons that are debated in Diamond’s research. For example, in excerpt 4, while explaining the start of the Maori population he mentions that because they cropped tropical crops, they were not able to grow in the Chatham’s cold climate; “While those ancestral Maori who first colonized the Chathams may have been farmers, Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers”. An example in excerpt 5, which is mainly about agriculture, Diamond talk about how we had come up with food production, which causes people to be provided with food from farmers who crop and sell their goods for profit, causing our civilization to grow by taking the food that is being produced and making it into a profit for others to use and rely on. ; “ It was only within the last 11,000 years that some peoples turned to what is termed food production: that is, domesticating wild animals and plants and eating the resulting livestock and crops. Today, most people on Earth consume food that they produced themselves or that someone else produced for them”. And in excerpt 6 it is said that, “Numerous as were the Native American victims of the murderous Spanish conquistadores, they were far outnumbered by the victims of murderous Spanish microbes. Why was the exchange of nasty germs between the Americas and Europe so unequal?”. The reasoning to why germs were exchanged is not only because Europeans and the American Indians came into contact with each other, it is also because of the goods that we had traded for theirs. We gave them blankets and animals and tons of other things that we used from our agriculture to make and trade with them. Because the goods we gave them contained the germs that the Europeans were immune to they were put off as a kind gesture and peaceful.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 12:06 PM
In Diamond’s research, the topic that interests me the most is the effect of geography and location on the development of a society. I think this topic is the most interesting because things like temperature, resources and tools can change how a society will have budget their time and efforts for survival. With advantages in geography, a society can use what they have for tools or advancements in getting more resources. With a poor location of geography, a society may have to struggle more to get what they need and will be forced to get creative and cautious with their materials. On page 2, of excerpt 4, Diamond says, “While those ancestral Maori who first colonized the Chathams may have been farmers, Maori tropical crops could not grow in the Chathams' cold climate, and the colonists had no alternative except to revert to being hunter-gatherers.” The Maori had to change their methods of food because of climate and this challenged them to change the way they get and crops.

The emerging topic that interests me the most is human adaptation. This was found in excerpt 4 where Diamond says, “Hence Polynesian history constitutes a natural experiment allowing us to study human adaptation, devoid of the usual complications of multiple waves of disparate colonists that often frustrate our attempts to understand adaptation elsewhere in the world.” Learning about how people changed and advanced in the past to overcome their challenges can show how we may change in the future.” I’m interested in this topic because future development could be helped if we observe our past.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 12:07 PM
Based upon Diamond’s research, I think geography stands out as having the most impact. In excerpt 5, at the bottom of page 1, Diamond explains, “Hence, geographic variation, or when the peoples of different continents became farmers and herders, explains to a large extent, their subsequent contrasting fates.”
I believe that geographical areas that supported agriculture had an advantage. Agriculture/farming feed more people that hunting/gathering, but it also required technology to develop tools, and eventually weapons to protect their land and food. Those areas also supported big animals like cows and horses, which could be domesticated to provide food. Big animals also were domesticated for labor such as pulling plows. The settled lifestyles of farmers and their crops led to denser populations that required governments and armies to form, and these tools, weapons and domesticated horses gave a huge advantage to the armies, over simple hunter-gatherer people. Further, the dense populations in the climates that supported agriculture also supported diseases. The denser the population, the more diseases, but also the more immunities to diseases. Therefore, when peoples who had no immunities were infected entire civilizations were killed.

Big animals such as cattle, sheep, goats provide meat and milk. Cattle and oxen were domesticated to pull plows, which made it possible to plant more acres of land. The animals pulling plows were able to plow ground that was too hard to dig by hand, meaning the people could expand to more areas. Big animals also supply manure to use as fertilizer for growing crops. The domestication of big animals such as horses and camels strengthened militaries. Horses were ridden bareback at first, and eventually horses pulled wagons and chariots. These early vehicles gave the people who had domesticated the big animals an advantage both in agriculture and in war. “In all these examples, peoples with domesticated horses (or camels) or with improved means of using them, enjoyed an enormous military advantage over those without them.” (Excerpt 5 page 3) The topic of the domestication of big animals also would include the diseases that animals spread to humans as discussed in excerpt 6, “Lethal Gift of Livestock.”
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 12:28 PM
I believe that the animals of a country has the biggest impact on its development. This is because not all animals can be domesticated, for instance in Africa zebra were flighty and aggressive towards people, whereas horses can be easily broken and used to power machinery. Due to this having easily domesticated were a huge advantage over more aggressive fauna. The food that animals provide allowed a country to do more than just hunt and gather. It allowed them to develop technologies to further advance as a civilization. Animals could also be used as muscle power, allowing people to build quicker and produce more food. This would allow a civilization to sustain a significantly larger population.

The emerging topic that I am interested in is the spreading of diseases. For example: "the major killers of humanity throughout our recent history smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera are infectious diseases." This shows that most of the diseases that killed people originated from animals. Due to the unsanitary conditions in European cities, diseases could easily spread from animals to humans.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 12:38 PM
I think the theory that had the most impact was the animals and wildlife. I think this had the most impact due to the fact that it was a living source to stay alive and keep others your with alive depending on how much of the food source you have. There were four ways in Jared diamond's excerpt 5, “ Livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: meat, milk, fertilizer and by using them to pull plows”. These are ways that helped and effected how they lived by helping them have something to eat, wear, drink and grow crops.

The most interesting topic I found was with the diseases and animals and how it affected other stuff. It explains the types of severe diseases in excerpt 6 “ The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” It's interesting it figure out how the disease were made up and how they spread with humans.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 12:46 PM
The theory that made the most sense to me was the animal theory, because animals have many uses like, food, clothing. This has allowed society to have more food to feed people, and more people can start making more products. From excerpt 5, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This shows that animals made farming, food, and getting clothes a lot easier for humans and it easier for humans to survive

Interesting topic is diseases that humans get from animals. In excerpt 5, “Infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and flu arose as specialized germs of humans, derived by mutations of very similar ancestral germs that had infected animals. The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases.” The topic shows the diseases from animals and diseases from humans spread across the all around world.
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Jose CastilloFebruary 22, 2019 at 12:48 PM

A theory I found the most interesting was the animals one because, these animals could be used as food and they could also be used to farm way faster and easier, it also allows people to spend more time advancing their economy and they have to focus less in farming. In excerpt 5 it states, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This demonstrates that animals had the biggest impact on development because the animals could be used to farm and they could also be used as food when needed instead of eating what they’re farming.

A topic I wanna research is the the diseases from animals on excerpt 6 page 1, “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” This topic interests because I wanna know what those diseases do our bodies besides killing us.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 1:14 PM
The one thing I enjoyed learning about in Diamonds video and research is how the people around him use the animals to there survival. When it comes to domestic animals doing some of the farming such as plowing and it kinda relates to one of the excerpts in our research on the excerpts for survival.

The excerpt and topic that stood out the most to me was excerpt 5 which did a whole deal on different farming and survival skills that two groups used. One was fast food producing way which used domestic animals at use to get farming done quicker and used animal manure to make things quicker too. While hunter-gatherers took there time finding animals and hunt them down. The downfall behind that was that it took longer and didn't have as many resources to food producing ways. "By selecting and growing those few species of plants and animals that we can eat, so that they constitute 90 percent rather than 0.1 percent of the biomass on an acre of land, we obtain far more edible calories per acre. As a result, one acre can feed many more herders and farmers— typically, 10 to 100 times more—than hunter-gatherers. That strength of brute numbers was the first of many military advantages that food-producing tribes gained over hunter-gatherer tribes." The part that sticks out to me is that we use this method a lot in daily life and a hunter-gathers way of getting resources is like the annual hunting that goes on in the area.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 1:17 PM
A theory that I found the most interesting and plausible was the one situated around animals. Animals depending on the type can provide a plethora of food to a civilization with their meat, while providing clothing and other useful things with their hides and bones. Animals can also be used for food indirectly, as labor in the fields. Animals such as cows can be tamed to plow farmers fields, producing more food while using less manpower. The access manpower can be used as builders, craftsman, inventors, blacksmith’s, and more. The text from excerpt 5 describes this perfectly, when it states, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows,” (Paragraph 8). These four aspects described in the excerpt show how animals have helped societies advance in many ways.

A topic that I found interesting was the movement of animals from Europe to the Americas, and how it changed the society of the native populations. I got this topic from Excerpt 5, when it states, “Americans tend to get most of their animal protein from cows, pigs, sheep, and chickens,” (Paragraph 8). With this quote, I just used my prior knowledge of how many of these animals were moved to the Americas through European explorers. This topic interests me overall because I find it interesting how none of these animals existed in the Americas, and then how much it must have changed Native American culture and lifestyles.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 1:20 PM
I believe that animals has impacted the development of civilization in a positive and a negative way. It has helped it a positive way because their are so many of them we eat their meat. In excerpt 5, page 2 Diamond says, “All those are direct ways in which plant and animal domestication led to denser human populations by yielding more food than did the hunter-gatherer lifestyle.” It shows that the animals are a positive because we eat their meat and they help with farming. It’s also a negative because some animals have diseases and their contagious, so those diseases get past on to us and we get sick, so sick that we could potentially die. In excerpt 6 on the bottom of the page there is a table titled “ Deadly Gifts From Our Animal Friends.” We could catch Measles and Tuberculosis from cattle, the flu from pigs and ducks, and also Pertussis from pigs and dogs. Therefore animals could be a good and a negative impact of the development of civilization.

The most interesting to topic to me was when Diamond said, “When highland babies made the fatal mistake of licking their fingers after playing with raw brains that their mothers had just cut out of dead kuru victims awaiting cooking.” I want to know why the baby was in the same room and why the baby could reach the stuff that was being cut out.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 1:20 PM
The theory that I thought had the most impact was the animals, because there is a lot that you can do with animals they can be used for food and you could use their fur for clothes, and for labor you can also use their waste for fertilizer which help the crops grow better. In excerpt 5 it states that In “human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows”. This shows that animals had the most impact on development because it helped improve farming and helped improved food resources.

The topic that stood out to me the most was diseases from excerpt 6 on page one it states “Thus, questions of the animal origins of human disease lie behind the broadest pattern of human history, and behind some of the most important issues in human health today. (Think of AIDS, an explosively spreading human disease that appears to have evolved from a virus resident in wild African monkeys.)” This stood out to me because I find it interesting that animals such as “monkeys” can have a disease such as aids and how we developed the disease from them.

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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 1:41 PM
Based on Diamond’s research, I believe that animals had the greatest impact on the development of early civilizations. This theory has was most likely to determine the success of these civilizations because animal were kill in order for people to have food and get material to life and to make clothes for them to survive. One piece of evidence that supports this is ”For most of the time since the ancestors of modern humans diverged from the ancestors of the living great apes, around 7 million years ago, all humans on Earth fed themselves exclusively by hunting wild animals and gathering wild plants, as the Blackfeet still did in the 19th century”. This supports the theory because it says that the people were killing animal for them to survive.

The topic that I am most interested in researching at this time is should scientists research rats?. I got this idea from the text when it said “If you were a laboratory scientist studying rats, you might perform such a test by taking one rat colony, distributing groups of those ancestral rats among many cages with differing environments,”. This seems like an interesting topic for me to research because rats are nasty but in some places people eat them.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 2:23 PM
I believe the biggest impact of our history according to the author would had to be the animals because they could be used for food and farming purposes. The animals have helped farming in many ways, and have made farming easier for generations to come. With a whole new way of farming, many people didn't have to spend hours on trying to till the ground so they could have crops, but now with enough horsepower they could have the animals do the plowing for them and spend their time on other things needing to be done. In excerpt 5 Jared Diamond claims that, “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” This helps support that animals were really the biggest and most helpful impact in early civilizations. They had many benefits to the people at that time they could perform multiple desires from food to helping the people with crops, they had a wide range of “skills”. The animals helped a lot in the early civilizations of humans. They have changed the way farming is today, without them a lot of more people back then would have still been hunters and gathers.

An interesting topic to research would have to the diseases that the humans got from the animals. The animals helped early civilizations early on, but later down the road it came back to haunt the humans. In excerpt 5 the author claims, “Infectious diseases like smallpox, measles, and flu arose as specialized germs of humans, derived by mutations of very similar ancestral germs that had infected animals. The humans who domesticated animals were the first to fall victim to the newly evolved germs, but those humans then evolved substantial resistance to the new diseases.” It also says the the quote that the diseases they got helped them for when discovered new diseases. So it’s like everything helped the the humans evolve and prepare them for worse things.
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AnonymousFebruary 22, 2019 at 3:43 PM
The theory that I found most interesting was the one with the animals because they can be used to help on farming like making plowing easier and with animals being used for farming people have more time to focus on the community and make it better. but they can also be used as food that can feed a lot of people. One piece of evidence I found on excerpt 5 said “In human societies possessing domestic animals, livestock fed more people in four distinct ways: by furnishing meat, milk, and fertilizer and by pulling plows.” this shows that animals help a lot in farming but even as food.

An emerging topic i'm interested on researching is on animal diseases “The major killers of humanity throughout our recent history—smallpox, flu, tuberculosis, malaria, plague, measles, and cholera—are infectious diseases that evolved from diseases of animals.” I found this quote on excerpt 6 and i want to learn if you can a disease from eating a animal that has a diseases or can you only get it from just being around them for example in a farm.
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