We all know that by the time of 1500 or so, Europe and Asia were in a much greater state of advancement that gave them some advantage in carving up the rest of the world between them that had not kept pace: Africa, the Americas, Australia, for example. But what intrigued me is how such disparity evolved in the first place in the pre-1500AD era. I've read some interesting articles that address this topic that propose a number of different reasons for why by 1500, it was Europe at the forefront. This one I found particularlt insightful: https://www.edge.org/conversation/jared_diamond-why-did-human-history-unfold-differently-on-different-continents-for-the - Domestication of animals. More species of animals in Eurasia could be domesticated than the Americas. "East-West" Vs "North-South". Interesting thing I never really considered before reading this article. The argument that a continent like Eurasia that spans from east to west allows goods, crops, livestock, commerce to be transferred/grown than North-South in which climatic change makes this impossible. - Balkanisation of Europe forced societies to evolve and adapt to survive, breeding much greater advancement than monolithic empires that enjoy security that disincentivises need for innovation. To give an example from the last theory: from my understanding, the Aztec Triple Alliance were fairly comfortable in their own position at their height, with no other power as large or influential to challenge them, that they would fight ceremonial wars with their traditional enemies. The Roman Empire that was just as mighty, seemed to face existential threats from both without and within throughout its lifetime, and underwent a number of notable transitions before its eventual downfall. They were well-known also for assimilating the innovations and best parts of foreign cultures and making them their own. What most interests me is this: how much stock can we really put into the contributions of singular inventions to a society's technological advancement, when compared to much broader geographical and cultural factors? E.g., the wheel, irrigation, metallurgy... For example, Native America could have discovered metallurgy before Eurasia, yet this was not so for thousands of years until the Conquistadores finally made contact. This has less so to do with factors like available livestock and geography. If Americans had iron - would this really have changed the course of history, for example, when Europe had cattle and horses? For the tl;dr - In essence I ask: was this simply happenstance that Eurasia was the first to make these discoveries?
There's tons of explanations out there on why different continents evolved differently. And there's also loads of books which explore alternative history - or, you can write one! What sort of book is this research for?
I think small advancements can make a huge difference. In the wars between Athens and Persia, Persia had the technological advantage in every field of thought. The only thing equal we’re their boats, which the Persians had more of, and the Persians still lost land battles. The Greek armor and phalanx were just better for battles off the open plain. If the Greeks came out in bullshit wicker armor, they would have been crushed the first time.
Yet no technological advancement helped that one time when the Australians lost the war against the Emus . The Emu civilization could have conquered the planet. Unstoppable.
An interesting article, but I wanted it to be a conversation so I could ask the author to clarify a few things! Like, he seems to be using "domesticated" as a synonym for "domesticate-able"... he looks at places that have no domesticated native animals and assumes there were no domesticate-able animals. But is there anything inherently less domesticatable about a zebra compared to a truly wild horse (the original ones, before human intervention)? And what about elephants? Are African elephants not domesticated, only Asian ones? I don't think so, but I'm not sure. How about wild dogs? I think dingoes are descendents of feral animals, but I'm pretty sure the African wild dog is truly native - why wasn't it domesticated? To clarify - I love the guy's thesis that there are reasons beyond racism to explain why cultures and societies developed the way they did in different places. But I don't think he's covered all the bases yet... ETA: For the North American context, I have neighbours who raise elk, and I think caribou are the same as reindeer, which have been domesticated in parts of the world. Why didn't it happen in North America? ETA2: There are African buffalo, and obviously NA buffalo, both bovines. They're certainly wilder NOW than domestic cattle of Eurasian descent, but are they any wilder than the wild bovines that were bred to create modern domestic cattle? ETA3: My cat is currently walking all over the keyboard, possibly trying to ask why the smaller wild cats weren't domesticated in either Africa or NA? She suggests it's probably due to agricultural practices - her ancestors didn't have much interest in humans until we started raising all that grain to feed the rodents she'd like to snack on - but she's pretty sure there was at least some grain production in Africa and North America... I'm wondering if there's a sort of chain reaction with domestication? Like, once it occurs to us that we can domesticate ONE animal, we open our minds to considering what OTHER animals might be useful. Apparently goats and sheep were likely the first domesticated animals, and maybe once we figured them out we got a bit more creative? Although there are mountain goats native to NA, I think, so why weren't they domesticated here?!?
This is a very broad question with no easy answer. If you are asking: Why do civilization evolve technologically in different ways at different speeds. Then, really you're looking for an answer that could literally and has, filled entire books. If, however, you are asking as to why eurasia developped 'faster' then other civilizations, then really, that is a complicated answer. I am not entirely sure what the OP is asking in this particular thread, and as historian I am quite interested in this thread. In answer to the more direct question: "was this simply happenstance that Eurasia was the first to make these discoveries?" posted by @Dracon then no, I do not think that it was happenstance. I believe through my own conclusions and studies that eurasia, in particular the mediterranean sea and surrounding land's geography help create the first civilizations and helped create a situation that resulted in a continually evovling civilisations. Firstly, the first complex civilizations evovled around the euphrates or the nile (which one was earlier is a hotly debated topic amongst our lot, personally I think it is the mesopotamian civilisation came first). Why did they evovle in these location in particular and not in ethiopia for example, that is a question with no clear answer to anyone that studies history. *To be noted, civilizations arose in different areas as well (like the indus civilisation) at different times.* However, we know that it happen and the proximity of these two caused migrational patterns and the expantion of complex civilizations throughout the known world. Eventually, places like anatolia, greece, italy became hotbeds of civilisations which each location, due to their trade and overland contacts, communication and large population (europe was leading the world in human population for a long time, China did not overtake until the fall of the roman empire). This combination results in lots of conflict and trade, both of which intices technological development. Aditionally, the geography of europe allowed constantly for powers to rise in secluded safety and eventually challange established powers (like Rome, Greece, Babylon, Hittites, etc....) Additionally, we know that civilisations that had a negative technological growth or were very slow to adopt new technological became extinct because, simply put, their neighbours overpowered them. This general trend allowed civilisation to grow, and typically only slowed or stopped until a local superpower became decadent, fell, or otherwise a period of 'darg age' evovled. This is but a brief view and, honestly, it is quite poor considering the extense of the subject at hand. If you are asking why did civilisation evolved different, then that is very different subject and more to do with sociology than history. Typically, change in culture occurs in two ways, a major 'wave' or smaller incidents. A modern major wave currently changing our world is the whole 'feminism' movement. There are other historic example for example like nationalism. Then, there are smaller incidents - Martin Luther's actions for example, Adolf Hitler's demands, The assassination of Franz Ferdinand by a member of the Black Hand. Stuff like this can change worlds. "A small pebble is nothing, but the ripples it creates can destroy the strongest empires." I am not sure who said this, and I may even have said it myself, but it sounds like something you find in some old grave of a greek philosopher of something. So really, it is a combination of major and minor events that culimnate into changing people minds, mentality and views. Whether this be my religion or otherwise it does not matter. Every single change create a shift that eventually causes thing to occur differently. Some people even go to the argument that "every action" causes shifts in the cultural perspective - Here i am effectively talking about the butterfly effect. At least, that is my views.
Based on the linked article, I think the idea is to trace things back as far as possible and figure out why. So, for example, instead of saying that things developed in Europe partly because of the large population, the idea would be to question why the population was larger there. Say that it's larger because of agriculture and then ask why did agriculture develop there, etc. etc. as far back as you can go.
It's an idea I've been sitting on for a while now, and am starting to brainstorm an outline. It's a fantasy inspired by the Age of Discovery and the Spanish conquest of Central America with a twist that I can formulate into a "What if?" question. What if the Aztecs knew that the Conquistadores were coming? They don't know when they will come, they don't know where they will land, only that one day they would face a for across the shore with vastly superior military capability? What would they do? Even more interesting: is there anything they can do? So my "lesser advanced" peoples to the west already have iron, horses, all of that stuff - the equivalent of Ancient Europe. So I'm sort of trying to muse who the "more advanced" peoples with the guns and galleons are, why they are more advanced, and how I can make them different without them being a carbon copy, but further along the timeline of history. E.g., one conundrum that particularly troubles me is that it might be a little weird for both the west and east continents separated by an ocean to both have horses (my novel is set in an equivalent of Earth and I'm not keen on inventing my own species). But then there is a sort of paradox how the "more advanced" people came to be so without the horse. Or can I really just handwave and say that they just happened to invent all of this stuff first, so that's why they're more technologically advanced?
ELEPHANTS!!! WAR CATS!!! PACKS OF WILD DOGS TRAINED TO ATTACK!!! Horses are boring. How ELSE could nature be dangerous?
Elephants and dogs are already in my idea bank In fact, the Spanish did use dogs to great effect in their battled against the Aztecs. Without some sort of extra mobility, I don't quite see how an expeditionary force could hope to be successful against a civilisation with horses
The thing is when considering anything to do with history, especially with very old topics, is that simply put it is guesswork. At best, history is 75% guesswork, 10% luck and 15% facts. What I am saying is that getting "Why" in history is rarely the question because nobody is able to properly satisfy the "why" of any question in civilisation. Why did egypt worship Horus? Why did they consider horus a god? I do not know, and nobody alive today knows. But they may have guesses I think this is one aspect of history that confounds people. There are no set answer to anything, it is guesswork and theories that change over time. Imagine that 5000 years from now, @BayView has become some kind of god worshipped by hordes of people globally, with shrines, temples, cults and everything. People will wonder why. The answer could be guessed, and there will be plenty of theories and whilst BayView might know why he became some kind of worshipped god, nobody else 5000 years from now would know why. Theories will arise and some of them might even get close, or even be entirely correct and be hailed as the true reason why he became a god. But the fact still remains, it is mostly a guess, a good and correct guess perhaps, but a guess nonetheless.
Yes - I hadn't really considered that closely enough, and did not take into account buffalo and the like, just as the author did. So the potential was there, it was just never utilised. In fact, having said this - I seem to remember that there were some sort of horses in America but the natives were still hunter-gatherer and exterminated/drove them to extinction, so that potential was lost? I'll have to look into that now. Migratory patterns I could certainly make a feasible reason for the differences in development actually - if my less advanced people were the last to settle, then those that first settled would have had thousands of years headstart. I don't know, but it's certainly one I'll have to remember!
You might enjoy reading "Clash of Eagles." It's about the Roman Empire surviving into the twelfth century and invading North America. Some of the tribes have a little anachronistic technology when the Romans get there. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22570784-clash-of-eagles
It was happenstance, if you go back to when man first entered the Americas. During the Ice Ages, the continents were much more connected and globally the earth was more homogeneous in terms of biodiversity. The first known H. sapiens to enter the America's were the Clovis culture, who were big game hunters. They survived by hunting large mammals. Now in terms of the Overkill hypothesis, everyone thinks that we would have had to kill all the mammoths. This is a rather large fallacy. The changes to the climate combined with a reduction of 3% to the yearly survival rate of adult females would have been more than enough to send the species, and other North American megafauna into an extinction spiral. This would have resulted in the extinction of most domesticable animals in the Americas. Ancient domestication techniques had limits. The animal had to be tolerable of a wide range of conditions. If it had to migrate every year it couldn't be domesticated. Once you reach a certain population size, you have to settle down and use agriculture, since a nomadic lifestyle will no longer yield enough food to feed people. Rein deer are technically not domesticated, they are tamed. They still retain and use their wild instincts, but they can be herded from place to place, so they aren't wild. Native Americans of the plains were using similar process to tame American Buffalo. Another limit was social structure. There had to be a clear social structure by which ancient humans could install themselves at the top. By doing this they could command to the animal to do what they want or need it to do. In animals that do not have this, they act in their own interests and are thus much harder to control. A problem for low density human populations. Then, there is also just luck.
But presumably taming animals is the first step toward domestication, right? So why didn't that next step happen in these cultures? Why weren't the reindeer or buffalo selectively bred for further desirable qualities? Why weren't NA mountain goats even tamed, let alone domesticated? The migration thing is weird - are you suggesting that they "have to" migrate like they'll absolutely die if they don't? Or will they be fine in one place as long as they have adequate food/shelter/protection? Wild reindeer migrate, but do they have to if they're tamed? And the existing social structure thing is interesting, but doesn't really contribute to understanding the thesis in this case. Mountain goats have a strong social structure; so do both African and NA buffalo. But the humans living near them didn't domesticate them - why not?
Taming is the first, yes. We like to think of things occurring in steps, like domestication. But the reality of it is that domestication is a process, that takes hundreds to thousands of years. Domestication was in progress, but it is simply such a slow process that it appears non-existant, like evolution, since domestication is effectively a genetic and evolutionary process. In animals without clear social structure, it is really hard to selectively breed. You have to manage to separate the animal from a massive herd, which naturally causes a lot of distress (since their instincts are "A lone animal is a dead animal". A stressed animal tastes bad, and has lower reproductive capability. Mountain goats primarily inhabit above the tree line (around 8-10,000 feet in the Rockies). Granted wintering habitat is lower, and in some cases, close to sea level. But most overwinter at around 4500 feet or more. Now this doesn't seem like that much of a challenge, right? They could shave the goats in the summer so they roast to death, being goats they eat everything. But it is time to consider this. Nannies (females with kids) are extremely aggressive to each other, males, and even humans. That makes domestication much harder. It could be that were domesticated at one point, but the secrets and the goats themselves were lost. It could also be that they were in the process when European sicknesses rolled through the continent but that the people who did it died out. African Buffalo are highly aggressive, and North American Buffalo do not have a "strong" social structure. A social structure that makes domestication easier is one where there is one individual at the top. Take dogs, in packs of wolves (Contrary to popular belief, they are closest living relatives, not ancestors), there is an Alpha. The Alpha decides what happens. In process of domesticating dogs, we supplanted canine alphas to take up the position ourselves. For migrating animals, they migrate because the local conditions are not enough to sustain them. So if they stayed, they would likely either die, or come very close to it. For animals like Caribou, Zebra, American Bison, and Wildebeest, if they stayed and did not migrate, they would starve to death as there wouldn't be enough food. Being tamed has nothing to do with migration. Being tamed indicates how you respond to humans, not how you behave with other organisms. Granted there are bound to be exception to all of these rules. These rules make it easier to domesticate. Then there is also the component of sheer luck. Ancient techniques tamed the Water Buffalo, one of the most aggressive species in existence. Thanks to modern husbandry though, this process is so much more effective. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_red_fox However, there is an upside to no domestication. The vast majority of human disease (most viral and bacterial) originated from close contact with domestic animals. So North America would have been mostly free of illness before Europeans, with a population of about 50 million or more by modern estimations prior to contact. Tenochtitlan would have the most populous city in the world.
