"We’re all wrong, all the time—especially me." Perhaps we can rephrase it to "We all have particular perspectives, all the time."
Living in Germany I learnt two years ago from a ranger how disadvantageous the East - West orientation of the Alps is. During the last glacial period the forests North of the Alps lost a lot of their diversity in trees. It got too cold for many tree species and they could not "cross" the Alps and got extinct. In the Rocky Mountains the different tree species moved South when it got colder and then moved North again when it got warmer. Apparently today the variety in trees in North American forest ist about an order of magnitude higher than in North Europe. With the climate becoming warmer and dryer the remaining tree species in Germany are now endangered.
In elementary school I learnt how advantageous the East - West orientation of the first low mountain ranges in Germany is (just South of the North German Plain). During the glacial period a more or less constant wind blew from North to South and carried loess to the South across the North German Plain. The loess stayed at the edge of the plains where the low mountain ranges started, leaving very fertile land.
When humans decided to bring in new crops to Europe they did not follow latitudes (anyway there can be very different climate conditions on the same latitude). The other day I read in John Seymours book "Self-Sufficiency" the potato is originally a tropical plant. It was brought to Europe anyway, not following an East West direction but South North, leading to catastrophic historical incidences. We grow today potatoes in our garden in fertile soil enriched by glacial period loess.
Complex world, my limited personal perspectives. Let us make sure to take lot of different perspectives and develop our ideas further. Tomas, it is very stimulating to follow your perspectives and integrate them. Keep sharing your articles!
I think that the spiritual credence and rational systems plays a huge role in civilization. Philosophical ideas such as monotheism, are definitely an upgrade, from a technology standpoint, because they take on the table the idea of god's transcendence: god lives in "another world" and this world is at men's full disposal. This idea enables the possibility to "use" the world for taking benefits as long as the sea, the mountain, the river, the forest, the animals are not (or not anymore) owned by a susceptible god. That's the reason why, for example, climbing a mountain (reaching a place where life isn't even possible for an hour) is an activity respected in "occidental world" but it would be considered foolishness in Nepal...
Intriguing! I have only in my middle years developed an interest in history because I learned to hate it in grade school, so I am very grateful to you for providing this perspective. I also had not really understood what a fabulous space our nation occupies. I find so much pain in knowing our role in destroying the race and people we stole it from. Thank you for this series on geography.
I like to think of History in terms of systems, because it helps understand why things unfolded the way it did, but also because it helps us take distance with what happened.
I don't think an American should say "We Americans did this", but rather "Other people, in another time, did this. Our responsibility is not to inherit the world the way they left it to us, but rather to craft it the way we want it to be."
Interesting read, especially the comparison of civilisations with companies in free-market.
You might also find it interesting to read about Janpadas during Vedic period of Indian civilisation and how Magadha Janpada rose above them all due to closer access to iron mines and relatively protected capital city Patliputra by mountains.
The rise of Magadha empire is also an interesting read. At it's peak it covered almost entire Indian subcontinent except areas in deep south (present day Tamil Nadu and Kerala). A true Game of Thrones :)
"What are the most likely explanations of why civilization didn’t evolve there as fast in North America as in Eurasia and North Africa? Or even in Mesoamerica?"
One explanation I've read is the lack of domesticable animals and plants. The lack of such animals was itself induced by humans. Horses were native to North America, 15,000 years ago, but they went extinct soon after people arrived, along with a lot of other animals you wouldn't expect to be natives, like North American camels.
That might be because megafauna in Africa and Eurasia evolved alongside humans, but in the Americas these animals were first exposed to people after they had already gotten much smarter and much better at hunting:
The theory would be that animals that had a few hundred thousand years to develop a fear of hominids would do better than animals first exposed to homo sapiens only ~15,000 years ago. And it seems better than most other theories for the rapid extinction of many species across North America.
And again, related to this, how indian reservations are bigger in west coast and almost inexisting in the east, Maps normally matter, if we relate this two maps maybe we can have a relationship between those two. https://fronterasblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/reservasindias.jpg
I've worked remotely, as a consultant, for 17 years. I'm wickedly productive. I certainly have greater flexibility to use my 24 hours a day as effectively as possible for being a mother, wife, and working person. There's no commute. I'm outside the artificial box of the "workday." As long as I do what matters most, and plan accordingly, I deliver across the areas of my life, and I am rewarded. All that said, I"m not an employee. I don't have that level of certainty or the benefits package. But, I also don't participate in yearly performance development and other HR obligatories that in contrast drain my husband's work hours (along with a lengthy commute).
Thanks, very interesting. I agree with your central thesis, but I wonder if their are a couple of other important factors at play. As you have pointed out water transport was vitally important before railways and roads were developed. The Mediterranean provided a link between a lot of the early European civilisations both in trade and in conflict which stimulated technological development. I also wonder how much of a role was played by the fact that the cradle of humanity happened to be in Africa, with a land connection to Europe. This meant that that humans got to Europe and multiplied before they conquered the mountain ranges and oceans to spread further afield.
I have always been a believer in the theory that life in the tropics is too easy: food is plentiful and there is less need for competition, conflict and technological advancement. Further away from the equator, cultivation and co-operation are required as well as warmth, better shelter and food storage for Winter.
Hi Mark, thank you for your comment. I will expand on many of these mechanics in future articles!
Interestingly, what I'm concluding based on what I've read is the opposite: Areas with plenty of resources are perfect for development, because there's more to win by harnessing those resources. That's why technologies like agriculture and big public works have appeared in many tropical places around the world independently, even in very hot climates, such as in the Yucatan, Amazon, many places in Africa, or Papua New Guinea. I believe we need to look at other mechanisms to explain the slower progress from thereon in all these places.
On your other point: I believe the emigrations from Africa happened much earlier than the appearance of technologies. My intuition based on what I've read is that the early advantage that Africa had this way was eliminated by the worse geography it had for development.
We live on a space-crafted chessboard. Life requires energy and energy comes from our sun. The most reliable supply of this energy is in the Tropics along with that other vital ingredient: water. So life in the Tropics is easy right? Yes, but it is easy for ALL forms of life.
At some point life flourishes so well that organisms find themselves in competition with others of their own species and those of other species. The winners survive, reproduce and evolution gallops along. Precisely because of the abundance of resources, the competition and conflict becomes intense for every ecological niche in that world (just watch one of David Attenborough’s tropics episodes for a glimpse of just how intense). The Tropics in fact became a difficult place to survive and thrive.
So how did hominids win the battle? They didn’t. They moved to places that were a bit less resource rich so there was less competition and more ecological space. Their brainpower, upright stance and ability to use tools allowed them to thrive and multiply there. As population density increased, the same process continued and early humans were then forced to find new places to live by competition and conflict with others of their OWN species. They moved from Africa to Eurasia.
As Phillip J pointed out, no one in their right mind would choose to move somewhere more inhospitable to live. Though we may have started out as essentially a tropical species, that is most certainly no longer true. The spread of humans into more environmentally hostile areas was a consequence of the species’ success. They were forced to seek out and adapt to new areas because all the best locally available territory became occupied and could not support greater hunter gatherer populations.
Domestication of plants and animals allowed a step change in the density of the human population that could be supported by a particular area. The downside of sedentary lifestyle is that you have to be able to defend your investment to reap the benefits, but of course if an area can support more people and they can band together, then that becomes much easier. People=power. The problem is that for larger groups to be able to function effectively, new social structures had to develop to manage internal conflict.
Those who could keep valuable territory (or take it from others) were those who had better technology and more people power due to effective social structures (hence my suggestion of adding conflict to your flywheel in History’s Network Effects). Population density creates conflict, and conflict creates selection pressure for development, particularly in military technology. And population density is a function of duration of settlement: millions of years in Eurasia vs 13,000 years in the Americas! Low population density=plenty of resources per capita=less human conflict=less intraspecies selection pressure. The cradle of humanity was in Africa, it seems likely to me that because of the geography the epicentre of human development moved to the nearest suitable place where domestication could take place and start the development process in earnest.
This is social and technological evolution rather than the much slower process of genetic evolution, but the process has strong similarities. All organisms have needs (reproduction is the most basic of those), some have wants as well. Inevitably different needs/wants come into conflict and it is the manner of resolution of these conflicts that determines the path that life takes. As the most powerful species, human needs and wants have had the greatest effect on our planet and are likely to for the foreseeable future. I think the intelligence and wisdom to make good decisions is there if we choose to use it and yes, I think we do have the free will to make that choice if we want to. I thought this was probably the best place to start expanding on Constant Conflict “Theory”. It is more at the observation stage at the moment, a useful way of looking at and understanding the world, the theory part is more of work in progress, as is any predictive ability. I don’t think it is particularly new, as Marx applied it to economics and social evolution is already being discussed, but I think the world makes a lot more sense when seen from that viewpoint.
I agree that Africa's geography didn't favour technological development development. The Southern hemisphere's ideal latitudes have much less land mass and particularly East to West as you mention in the article. My point was more related to the emigrations from Africa being initially by land, so that a critical mass of people in the Eurasian city/civilisation latitude triggered the competition, trade and technology nexus. Someone with a better knowledge of the timelines and the ice age than me (that includes you!) would understand how much the geographical barriers like the big oceans slowed the human settlement of the rest of the world.
To develop agriculture and big public works requires some degree of security and a social structure: no barrier to this in the tropics as you say. I feel it is the competition for the resources that rewards larger, more complex social structures and advances in military technologies. More resources= less competition plus jungles do provide some degree of natural barrier to invasion. During WW2, the Japanese and allied ground forces were sometimes on the same pacific island , but never properly engaged each other because it was just too difficult. Just some thoughts anyway, looking forward to the future articles!
I've enjoyed your essays on the impact of geography on history and human development - it all makes a great deal of sense. I think this would dove-tail nicely into a discussion of the positive impacts of migration on development and how migration along the trade routes , east-west and north -south axes impacted the exchange of technology and ideas and differentially promoted development.
Thank you for sharing your articles and keep them coming!
Intriguing! I have only in my middle years developed an interest in history because I learned to hate it in grade school, so I am very grateful to you for providing this perspective. I also had not really understood what a fabulous space our nation occupies. I find so much pain in knowing our role in destroying the race and people we stole it from. Thank you for this series on geography.
talking about geographic barriers is often relevant but the mountains in the US have never really played a role in our international standing, certainly not on the scale of impact from our early discovery of oil, commerce advantages from chattel slavery and conquest of natives for exploitation of land, coal & water resources.
"We’re all wrong, all the time—especially me." Perhaps we can rephrase it to "We all have particular perspectives, all the time."
Living in Germany I learnt two years ago from a ranger how disadvantageous the East - West orientation of the Alps is. During the last glacial period the forests North of the Alps lost a lot of their diversity in trees. It got too cold for many tree species and they could not "cross" the Alps and got extinct. In the Rocky Mountains the different tree species moved South when it got colder and then moved North again when it got warmer. Apparently today the variety in trees in North American forest ist about an order of magnitude higher than in North Europe. With the climate becoming warmer and dryer the remaining tree species in Germany are now endangered.
In elementary school I learnt how advantageous the East - West orientation of the first low mountain ranges in Germany is (just South of the North German Plain). During the glacial period a more or less constant wind blew from North to South and carried loess to the South across the North German Plain. The loess stayed at the edge of the plains where the low mountain ranges started, leaving very fertile land.
When humans decided to bring in new crops to Europe they did not follow latitudes (anyway there can be very different climate conditions on the same latitude). The other day I read in John Seymours book "Self-Sufficiency" the potato is originally a tropical plant. It was brought to Europe anyway, not following an East West direction but South North, leading to catastrophic historical incidences. We grow today potatoes in our garden in fertile soil enriched by glacial period loess.
Complex world, my limited personal perspectives. Let us make sure to take lot of different perspectives and develop our ideas further. Tomas, it is very stimulating to follow your perspectives and integrate them. Keep sharing your articles!
Super interesting. I did not know any of this. Thanks for sharing!
I think that the spiritual credence and rational systems plays a huge role in civilization. Philosophical ideas such as monotheism, are definitely an upgrade, from a technology standpoint, because they take on the table the idea of god's transcendence: god lives in "another world" and this world is at men's full disposal. This idea enables the possibility to "use" the world for taking benefits as long as the sea, the mountain, the river, the forest, the animals are not (or not anymore) owned by a susceptible god. That's the reason why, for example, climbing a mountain (reaching a place where life isn't even possible for an hour) is an activity respected in "occidental world" but it would be considered foolishness in Nepal...
Intriguing! I have only in my middle years developed an interest in history because I learned to hate it in grade school, so I am very grateful to you for providing this perspective. I also had not really understood what a fabulous space our nation occupies. I find so much pain in knowing our role in destroying the race and people we stole it from. Thank you for this series on geography.
I like to think of History in terms of systems, because it helps understand why things unfolded the way it did, but also because it helps us take distance with what happened.
I don't think an American should say "We Americans did this", but rather "Other people, in another time, did this. Our responsibility is not to inherit the world the way they left it to us, but rather to craft it the way we want it to be."
Thank you for that. It's a very healthy reframing.
It's called the Pacific Northwest Tomas, not Northwestern Pacific! (Wouldn't that be Japan?)
Vancouver reader
Interesting read, especially the comparison of civilisations with companies in free-market.
You might also find it interesting to read about Janpadas during Vedic period of Indian civilisation and how Magadha Janpada rose above them all due to closer access to iron mines and relatively protected capital city Patliputra by mountains.
The rise of Magadha empire is also an interesting read. At it's peak it covered almost entire Indian subcontinent except areas in deep south (present day Tamil Nadu and Kerala). A true Game of Thrones :)
Fascinating!
This is a nicely written article. You asked:
"What are the most likely explanations of why civilization didn’t evolve there as fast in North America as in Eurasia and North Africa? Or even in Mesoamerica?"
One explanation I've read is the lack of domesticable animals and plants. The lack of such animals was itself induced by humans. Horses were native to North America, 15,000 years ago, but they went extinct soon after people arrived, along with a lot of other animals you wouldn't expect to be natives, like North American camels.
That might be because megafauna in Africa and Eurasia evolved alongside humans, but in the Americas these animals were first exposed to people after they had already gotten much smarter and much better at hunting:
https://medium.com/discourse/we-killed-the-mammoth-acdbc1ff058a
Those early extinctions may have ultimately limited the Native Americans' ability to build a civilization, thousands of years later.
We didn’t coevolved with megafauna in Eurasia!
I'm referring specifically to Homo Erectus being present across Eurasia over hundreds of thousands of years:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_erectus
See, for instance, Peking Man in China:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peking_Man
The theory would be that animals that had a few hundred thousand years to develop a fear of hominids would do better than animals first exposed to homo sapiens only ~15,000 years ago. And it seems better than most other theories for the rapid extinction of many species across North America.
Ah, interesting.
So it wouldn't be a fear of homo sapiens, but hominids.
I buy that. Reasonable!
And again, related to this, how indian reservations are bigger in west coast and almost inexisting in the east, Maps normally matter, if we relate this two maps maybe we can have a relationship between those two. https://fronterasblog.files.wordpress.com/2020/06/reservasindias.jpg
Only to add more to think, history matters too, and it really has a relation to geografy: This map is from 200 years ago.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/c0/00/b8/c000b8febc9ee15ec02f460eef9b1890.png
Absolutely. This is where I address this:
https://unchartedterritories.tomaspueyo.com/p/history-network-effects
I've worked remotely, as a consultant, for 17 years. I'm wickedly productive. I certainly have greater flexibility to use my 24 hours a day as effectively as possible for being a mother, wife, and working person. There's no commute. I'm outside the artificial box of the "workday." As long as I do what matters most, and plan accordingly, I deliver across the areas of my life, and I am rewarded. All that said, I"m not an employee. I don't have that level of certainty or the benefits package. But, I also don't participate in yearly performance development and other HR obligatories that in contrast drain my husband's work hours (along with a lengthy commute).
Go you good thing, go!
Thanks, very interesting. I agree with your central thesis, but I wonder if their are a couple of other important factors at play. As you have pointed out water transport was vitally important before railways and roads were developed. The Mediterranean provided a link between a lot of the early European civilisations both in trade and in conflict which stimulated technological development. I also wonder how much of a role was played by the fact that the cradle of humanity happened to be in Africa, with a land connection to Europe. This meant that that humans got to Europe and multiplied before they conquered the mountain ranges and oceans to spread further afield.
I have always been a believer in the theory that life in the tropics is too easy: food is plentiful and there is less need for competition, conflict and technological advancement. Further away from the equator, cultivation and co-operation are required as well as warmth, better shelter and food storage for Winter.
Hi Mark, thank you for your comment. I will expand on many of these mechanics in future articles!
Interestingly, what I'm concluding based on what I've read is the opposite: Areas with plenty of resources are perfect for development, because there's more to win by harnessing those resources. That's why technologies like agriculture and big public works have appeared in many tropical places around the world independently, even in very hot climates, such as in the Yucatan, Amazon, many places in Africa, or Papua New Guinea. I believe we need to look at other mechanisms to explain the slower progress from thereon in all these places.
On your other point: I believe the emigrations from Africa happened much earlier than the appearance of technologies. My intuition based on what I've read is that the early advantage that Africa had this way was eliminated by the worse geography it had for development.
Best,
Tomas
We live on a space-crafted chessboard. Life requires energy and energy comes from our sun. The most reliable supply of this energy is in the Tropics along with that other vital ingredient: water. So life in the Tropics is easy right? Yes, but it is easy for ALL forms of life.
At some point life flourishes so well that organisms find themselves in competition with others of their own species and those of other species. The winners survive, reproduce and evolution gallops along. Precisely because of the abundance of resources, the competition and conflict becomes intense for every ecological niche in that world (just watch one of David Attenborough’s tropics episodes for a glimpse of just how intense). The Tropics in fact became a difficult place to survive and thrive.
So how did hominids win the battle? They didn’t. They moved to places that were a bit less resource rich so there was less competition and more ecological space. Their brainpower, upright stance and ability to use tools allowed them to thrive and multiply there. As population density increased, the same process continued and early humans were then forced to find new places to live by competition and conflict with others of their OWN species. They moved from Africa to Eurasia.
As Phillip J pointed out, no one in their right mind would choose to move somewhere more inhospitable to live. Though we may have started out as essentially a tropical species, that is most certainly no longer true. The spread of humans into more environmentally hostile areas was a consequence of the species’ success. They were forced to seek out and adapt to new areas because all the best locally available territory became occupied and could not support greater hunter gatherer populations.
Domestication of plants and animals allowed a step change in the density of the human population that could be supported by a particular area. The downside of sedentary lifestyle is that you have to be able to defend your investment to reap the benefits, but of course if an area can support more people and they can band together, then that becomes much easier. People=power. The problem is that for larger groups to be able to function effectively, new social structures had to develop to manage internal conflict.
Those who could keep valuable territory (or take it from others) were those who had better technology and more people power due to effective social structures (hence my suggestion of adding conflict to your flywheel in History’s Network Effects). Population density creates conflict, and conflict creates selection pressure for development, particularly in military technology. And population density is a function of duration of settlement: millions of years in Eurasia vs 13,000 years in the Americas! Low population density=plenty of resources per capita=less human conflict=less intraspecies selection pressure. The cradle of humanity was in Africa, it seems likely to me that because of the geography the epicentre of human development moved to the nearest suitable place where domestication could take place and start the development process in earnest.
This is social and technological evolution rather than the much slower process of genetic evolution, but the process has strong similarities. All organisms have needs (reproduction is the most basic of those), some have wants as well. Inevitably different needs/wants come into conflict and it is the manner of resolution of these conflicts that determines the path that life takes. As the most powerful species, human needs and wants have had the greatest effect on our planet and are likely to for the foreseeable future. I think the intelligence and wisdom to make good decisions is there if we choose to use it and yes, I think we do have the free will to make that choice if we want to. I thought this was probably the best place to start expanding on Constant Conflict “Theory”. It is more at the observation stage at the moment, a useful way of looking at and understanding the world, the theory part is more of work in progress, as is any predictive ability. I don’t think it is particularly new, as Marx applied it to economics and social evolution is already being discussed, but I think the world makes a lot more sense when seen from that viewpoint.
I agree that Africa's geography didn't favour technological development development. The Southern hemisphere's ideal latitudes have much less land mass and particularly East to West as you mention in the article. My point was more related to the emigrations from Africa being initially by land, so that a critical mass of people in the Eurasian city/civilisation latitude triggered the competition, trade and technology nexus. Someone with a better knowledge of the timelines and the ice age than me (that includes you!) would understand how much the geographical barriers like the big oceans slowed the human settlement of the rest of the world.
To develop agriculture and big public works requires some degree of security and a social structure: no barrier to this in the tropics as you say. I feel it is the competition for the resources that rewards larger, more complex social structures and advances in military technologies. More resources= less competition plus jungles do provide some degree of natural barrier to invasion. During WW2, the Japanese and allied ground forces were sometimes on the same pacific island , but never properly engaged each other because it was just too difficult. Just some thoughts anyway, looking forward to the future articles!
Loved the article on Geography's affects on the development of civilizations.
I've enjoyed your essays on the impact of geography on history and human development - it all makes a great deal of sense. I think this would dove-tail nicely into a discussion of the positive impacts of migration on development and how migration along the trade routes , east-west and north -south axes impacted the exchange of technology and ideas and differentially promoted development.
Thank you for sharing your articles and keep them coming!
Interesting. I haven't read anything about that specifically. Have you? I would love to learn more.
Thank you. Very interesting article.
Intriguing! I have only in my middle years developed an interest in history because I learned to hate it in grade school, so I am very grateful to you for providing this perspective. I also had not really understood what a fabulous space our nation occupies. I find so much pain in knowing our role in destroying the race and people we stole it from. Thank you for this series on geography.
talking about geographic barriers is often relevant but the mountains in the US have never really played a role in our international standing, certainly not on the scale of impact from our early discovery of oil, commerce advantages from chattel slavery and conquest of natives for exploitation of land, coal & water resources.
Well, the fact that the Rockies extend south to Mexico makes Mexico a much weaker neighbor.
And they're a huge discouraging factor to even try to invade.
But yes, I agree that they are a lesser factor