Post by Faelcind on Jan 16, 2005 19:54:55 GMT -5
It drives me crazy to see some many misunderstanding on this subject constantly repeated and used as an excuse for rascism, accusing this regions or that of not producing anything worthwile for civilization its just ridiculous.
This is consistently seen as mystery with possible racial implications on these boards when in mainstream archeology its been considered as solved issue for over twenty years. Whether civilization devolops in one region or another simply has nothing do with the racial make up of the area. It has to do with whether the region has the ecological resources to support civilization. This paradigm is called ecological materialism and has become powerfully influential in archeology and amazingly well supported by the evidence.
Heirarchal nation states are dependant on sufficient food production to sustain large populations. Controll of food resources surplusses is the root of the heirarchy. Almost all nation state level societies have used Grains as their primary food resource as infact the world still does to day. Its no coincidence that the wild ancestors of todays most important grains grow in very same regions that were earliest civilizations devolped. Wheat and Barley in South west asia, Rice in Southeast asia, and Maize in Mesoamerica. Mark Blumber of the university of California found that Of the 52 grass species with the largest seeds 32 are native to the medditerean, only 4 are native to Sub-Saharan africa none south of the Sahelian region, 11 from the americas of which only Maize and Quinoa have proved agricultural productive, and australia just two.
If you add other food crops and domestic animals to the list the advantages of certain regions become even more obvious. Of the five most important domestic animals(not including dogs) Cows, Sheep, Pigs, Goats and Horses all are native to south west asia North africa, south asia, and south east asia all shared some of these species and had a few other less significant domesticates of their own. Sub-Saharan Africa despite is wealth of megafauna provided only one domesticate the Guinea fowl, america only the llama and Australia no domesticates what so ever. Llegumes, grapes and olives were all native to the medditerean as well, no other region was gifted with more productive domesticatable species.
Now racialists might claim that the domestication of many species says as much about the domesticators as the plants and animals, but despite having invaded many of these regions for as much as 400 years ago euroasians have not had anymore luck taming the native species then the natives had. Zebras famously were impossible to tame.
Another problem with racialist argument is that south west asia despite not being significantly changed racial since the rise of civilization is not the dominant region in the world anymore. But rather northern regions of europe and Asia that devolped significantly later have superseded them. This is not because of racial superiority or inferiority but simply because the resources of the fertile crescent were exhausted, irrigation salinized the soil, the forest were cut down and did not grow back and areas has been hugely desertified.
Sub-Saharan africa is the most maligned of the regions in the civilization and race debate. With the common beleif being the devoloped nothing of their own, and the implication that they are inherently incapable of thriving in a true civilization. Aside from ignoring the reasons for the rise of Civilizations this is simple innacurate. Despite having considerable disadvantages Sub-Saharan did devolop agrarian nation states using the less productive Pearl Wheat and Sorghum of the Sahelian region. As well as a number of little known and also less productive ethiopian domesticates. The Songhai, ghana, Mali, Great Zimbabwe, Kush, and Ethiopia are just a number of the unequivicol nation states that devolped in Sub-Saharan Africa. Iron working became common in SS Africa before it did in Europe or east asia, and was more sophisticated technologically up untill the 19th century.
So please let go of this ridiculous my people had better, earlier and bigger civlizations than yours debate, its ridiculous. If you interested in the actual mechanism of the rise of Civilizations check out Jared Diamonds "guns germs and steel" from whence I got most of the figures for this post( I lost my more scholarly texts), its an excellent introduction and easy to read. Marvin harris's our kind is also an interesting read though his complete dissmissal of biology is irratating. If you really want to get into it look up the subject on google scholar and track down some peer reveiwed articles.
Here is cool site on african kingdoms.
[ftp]http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/4chapter4.shtml[/ftp]
This is consistently seen as mystery with possible racial implications on these boards when in mainstream archeology its been considered as solved issue for over twenty years. Whether civilization devolops in one region or another simply has nothing do with the racial make up of the area. It has to do with whether the region has the ecological resources to support civilization. This paradigm is called ecological materialism and has become powerfully influential in archeology and amazingly well supported by the evidence.
Heirarchal nation states are dependant on sufficient food production to sustain large populations. Controll of food resources surplusses is the root of the heirarchy. Almost all nation state level societies have used Grains as their primary food resource as infact the world still does to day. Its no coincidence that the wild ancestors of todays most important grains grow in very same regions that were earliest civilizations devolped. Wheat and Barley in South west asia, Rice in Southeast asia, and Maize in Mesoamerica. Mark Blumber of the university of California found that Of the 52 grass species with the largest seeds 32 are native to the medditerean, only 4 are native to Sub-Saharan africa none south of the Sahelian region, 11 from the americas of which only Maize and Quinoa have proved agricultural productive, and australia just two.
If you add other food crops and domestic animals to the list the advantages of certain regions become even more obvious. Of the five most important domestic animals(not including dogs) Cows, Sheep, Pigs, Goats and Horses all are native to south west asia North africa, south asia, and south east asia all shared some of these species and had a few other less significant domesticates of their own. Sub-Saharan Africa despite is wealth of megafauna provided only one domesticate the Guinea fowl, america only the llama and Australia no domesticates what so ever. Llegumes, grapes and olives were all native to the medditerean as well, no other region was gifted with more productive domesticatable species.
Now racialists might claim that the domestication of many species says as much about the domesticators as the plants and animals, but despite having invaded many of these regions for as much as 400 years ago euroasians have not had anymore luck taming the native species then the natives had. Zebras famously were impossible to tame.
Another problem with racialist argument is that south west asia despite not being significantly changed racial since the rise of civilization is not the dominant region in the world anymore. But rather northern regions of europe and Asia that devolped significantly later have superseded them. This is not because of racial superiority or inferiority but simply because the resources of the fertile crescent were exhausted, irrigation salinized the soil, the forest were cut down and did not grow back and areas has been hugely desertified.
Sub-Saharan africa is the most maligned of the regions in the civilization and race debate. With the common beleif being the devoloped nothing of their own, and the implication that they are inherently incapable of thriving in a true civilization. Aside from ignoring the reasons for the rise of Civilizations this is simple innacurate. Despite having considerable disadvantages Sub-Saharan did devolop agrarian nation states using the less productive Pearl Wheat and Sorghum of the Sahelian region. As well as a number of little known and also less productive ethiopian domesticates. The Songhai, ghana, Mali, Great Zimbabwe, Kush, and Ethiopia are just a number of the unequivicol nation states that devolped in Sub-Saharan Africa. Iron working became common in SS Africa before it did in Europe or east asia, and was more sophisticated technologically up untill the 19th century.
So please let go of this ridiculous my people had better, earlier and bigger civlizations than yours debate, its ridiculous. If you interested in the actual mechanism of the rise of Civilizations check out Jared Diamonds "guns germs and steel" from whence I got most of the figures for this post( I lost my more scholarly texts), its an excellent introduction and easy to read. Marvin harris's our kind is also an interesting read though his complete dissmissal of biology is irratating. If you really want to get into it look up the subject on google scholar and track down some peer reveiwed articles.
Here is cool site on african kingdoms.
[ftp]http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/4chapter4.shtml[/ftp]