Finding the Roots

   In class today we started off talking about "Guns, Germs, and Steel". Jarred Diamond is the narrator and from UCLA. He sees that the people from New Guinea are smart and can do all different things. They can't make jets, huge homes, etc. but that doesn't make them stupid. We moved on in the movie.

- Hunter-gatherers: Go gather food. Look for things that don't make you sick and tastes good. You might look for something to kill, trap, shoot. Once you ate everything in the area you move on to the next place. Everyone is pretty much on their own and have to go find their own food. The women usually look for food.
- Gram airy- Wheat and Barley were mostly stored in these. Its where food is grown.
- Geographic Luck- Where you happen to be born helped people be better farms and have better crops than others.
- Sago is a giant tree that was eaten. It doesn't have much protein and can't be stored long.
- Domesticated plant: you can control it or manipulate it.

      Why have some society's progressed faster than others? Jarred was trying to solve the giant puzzles of human history. How was he going to do this? He had to turn the time back to millions of years ago. 13, 000 years ago people lived as hunter-gatherers. They lived in shelters they made as long as they could feed themselves. They would then move and find more food for them. To be a hunter you have to be pretty smart. It takes time to track each animal. Since hunting is so unpredictable they mostly rely on gathering which is done by the women. The sago tree is a major food source, but doesn't support enough calories for the people. It is low on protein and can't be stored for very long. They have to find a very productive environment, but those are usually not safe places. Barley and wheat are good foods for the people. The middle east changed the face of the earth. Draa' in the middle east is where study is done for the stone age. They found that there was a village there. People were settling down there 11&a half thousand years ago. They food that in the middle east the people could make things out of the grains. They found how to plant, grow, and control everything. The people didn't have to keep moving. They could still hunt for things, but they could just plant things too. Gram-Airy is where they stored their food. This was the first time seen anywhere in the world. The middle east people became the first farmers in the world. They were changing the very nature of the crops around them without knowing. People were starting to control nature. The hunter gatherers couldn't produce as much as the farmers or store as much either. The hunter gatherers were always at a disadvantage. Other places started farming things as well, but in the Highlands of New Guinea it was different. They had one of the oldest systems of farming in the world. Almost as long as the the middle east. Why didn't they produce their own cargo? Whats the difference? They were just as good as the farmers from all over the world. They farmers in New Guinea didn't have much protein for the people.  They eat giant spiders to replace the protein sometimes. People with the most productive crops were the most productive farms. It was kind of luck. It was Geographic luck. The places like the middle east just happen to move faster than New Guinea.