Guns Germs and Steel 2-5-11

     Today in class we continued watching the movie Guns Germs and Steel. Today we learned more about how farming, and domesticating animals helped civlizations advance. We also learned how the animals and plants spread all over the world. We learned about the 14 domesticated animals again and why they were domesticated and other animals were not. For one we can not domesticate carnivores who are agressive and will either or attack or run away. Also some animals have a natural fear of humans and will run away. We learned most of the domesticated animals came from the Asia Europe and North Africa. with only one coming from South America( the llama). The big four animals (cattle) came form the middle east. After a while people eventually overfarmed the middle east. People in the Middle East created the first civilizations when they built homes to actually stay in and not just to sleep in. There wasnt enough water to farm and give to the animals and the land dried up. This forced them to move away from the fertile crescent to places all over the world like africa or Europe. Once they came to these places they brought their animals and plants with them and taught all these people how to succesfully farm with their useful wheat and barley and how to use the animals effectively. ( also moving away from the fertile crescent was easy because many places were directly east or west of the Fertile Crescent which made it easy to get there, and these places had similar crops and climates.) Once the animals and plants were brought to these areas civilization quickly sprung up. For example the arrival of these crops in egypt made the famous civilization we know for making pyramids spring up because Egypt could now have specialized workers. Same with Europe who now had powerful soldiers, and famous artists. Eventually all these things came to America also a place that had no native domestic animals. All these sepcilized workers allowed steel to be made a vital part of humanities advancement. at Papa New Guinea, all these things arent brought in easily because theyre on an island with no boats that cant take them to other places or transport cargo. Also Papa New Guinea was easily counquered when Westerners came because the Westerners had advanced technologies. So once again we go back to the fact the geographical luck is why some people advance and others dont.