The evolution of civilization

A little while back, I put up a post about Melanesians (and the people of New Guinea in particular) that speculated on why Melanesians seem pretty bright despite their having been in the Stone Age within living memory. A reader has offered the following interesting observations on the factors which may have affected their evolution and the evolution of civilization in general:

“As usual you’ve written something that is both interesting and correct, but which requires elaboration. In particular the the reasons for Papuan technobackwardness, which also relates to Ireland, Tasmania, the Cape Province, and Tierra del Fuego.

Back as an undergrad I took courses from one Charlie Nelson, an Africanist, at UMASS/Boston (where one of my classmates was a Papuan student, by the way, and a very good one. I hope he didn’t have to become some government bureaucrat.) One day were were discussing the development of agriculture, a necessity for any even low tech society, and Nelson commented that the earliest civilizations were found in areas which were on trade routes. Mesopotamia is the perfect example, being along rivers that link the highlands of Anatolia with Mohenjo-Daro and India, with the highlands of Iran (the source of what) to the North East and Egypt way off to the far west beyond the Levant. Mesopotamia was able to take advantage of the resources from all those areas in building a stable, year supply base (chickens from Thailand via India, Copper from Anatolia, etc.) and so had the world’s first true urban centers.

A similar situation existed in various parts of the New World, where the Valley of Mexico’s nascent civilizations had access to materials from the highlands and lowlands (the Olmecs began in swamps, by the way, along the Gulf of Mexico—they gave birth to the basic structures for both Mayans and Nahuatl speakers (who have totally different languages.) Civilization was held back by a lack of domesticable animals (the bison cannot be domesticated. Alas. And the paleoindians ate the last of the horses.) The same is also true of South America where the resource lines in the Andes were highly vertical (to survive a village has to keep farms at many elevations.) The civilzations of early China clearly began along river courses—and we now know there was widespread communication with the ‘west,’ from which they got both the chariot and the word for it ("che" is the term for car now. Also iron technology.) The Cape Province is at the end of Africa. Take a look at a map of Africa—what does it face? Where can you get to from there? What navigable rivers does it have? The areas which faced Europe and the Levant (and the one area which had a navigable river) developed high civilizations; the rest of the continent is, in many ways, as isolated as any Papuan valley. It wasn’t until around 1AD that the Bantu acquired iron and the food complex that allowed them to explode out of the Bight of Benin area (the armpit of Africa, shall we say) and head in various streams south, east, and then south again, exterminating or absorbing the native Bushmen (take a look at Nelson Mandela’s face as proof of that.)

Now, the most technobackward of all cultures were those at the ends of the supply lines. Austronesia is a case in point. The native Tasmanians were as primitvie technologically as the Tierra del Fuegans. The most primitive economy in Europe was the Irish (something that predated even the Celtic invasions) and remained that way until the island became part of the Viking era trading empire. Japan is more akin to Great Britian here, with its northenmost province being the most primitive, but they were also culturally dominated by China and the ancestors of the Japanese were relatively advanced when they moved to the Island from the Korean Peninsular.

Geographic determinism is very real in a number of senses, but rather it sets limits. Both the Greeks and Papuans were constrained by mountain valleys, yet the Greeks were on the trade routes from Persia to the Baltic and had the Med to play in, the Papuans were cut off from Asia and had Australia to the south”.

Posted by jonjayray on Monday, October 24, 2005 at 01:39 AM in Anthropology
Comments (8) | Tell a friend

Comments:

Posted by Fred Scrooby on October 24, 2005, 03:12 AM | #

John the person said nothing in that communication to you—nothing. Nothing whatsoever.

Posted by John S Bolton on October 24, 2005, 08:56 AM | #

Some of the most important trade routes of antiquity went through very long stretches of the most inhospitable terrain and waters. Trade routes may start like the tendrils of root fibers, if the people are responsive those roots will thicken and extend. If the people are in the habit of killing outsiders, the merchants may never have been able to build up routes. Civilization is not to blame for failing to extend itself everywhere, savagery is. How many transcontinental railways were completed before the first steel axe reached the highlands of New Guinea? If they were peacable, the moslem or Chinese, or Dutch or other merchants would have reached them and got the placer gold, which is only today starting to be taken. Placer gold is still lying there in abundance, like nowhere else in the inhabited world, this means something!

Posted by Al Ross on October 24, 2005, 03:19 PM | #

Ireland’s historical backwardness may have something to do with the fact that the Romans didnt venture there at all, preferring to concentrate their efforts on Celtic Britain.

Posted by jonjayray on October 24, 2005, 11:43 PM | #

I think the Irish were just too priest ridden

Living next door to the worlds most advanced country for centuries and not getting on is inexplicable otherwise

The Irish are both very prosperous today and also generally contemptuous of the hierarchy

Posted by Fred Scrooby on October 25, 2005, 01:43 PM | #

“I think the Irish were just too priest ridden [...] The Irish are both very prosperous today and also generally contemptuous of the hierarchy” (—John Ray)

... and also are rapidly turning their country into a non-white one, seemingly without much public disagreement—perhaps because they were too priest ridden? To see how the Catholics as a group put the Jews to shame as race-replacement advocates check out this thread at another site (the site, if I understand correctly, is a pro-Nazi one, by the way—or actually more of a skinhead site from what I’ve seen though I still don’t know much about skinheads or Nazis).

I am in favor of Christianity( * ) both Catholic and Protestant (and Eastern Orthodox of course) and I don’t think Ireland (or Italy or Spain or Québec) has been “too priest-ridden” but I do think the Catholic Church has to change its policy of support for race-replacement immediately. It is wrong, immoral, unchristian, and uncatholic.
______

( * I’m in favor of Christianity for Christians, that is. I’m in favor of Islam for Moslems, Judaïsm for Jews, Buddhism for Buddhists, Hinduism for Hindus, Shintoism for Shintoists, and so on. What I oppose is eradication of races, religions, peoples, nation-states, and so on. What I favor is the preservation of these things.)

Posted by The other guy on October 28, 2005, 12:33 PM | #

The people who use terms “priest ridden” show an ignorance of history. Ireland did not become priest ridden until a deal was done with the Brits to establish Maynooth College rather late in the game.

The first schools in Saxon Britain were founded by more advanced Irish monks and this continued til Whitby.

Posted by vaikom madhu on November 23, 2007, 03:03 AM | #

There is nothing new for honjayray to offer. It is an established fact that where trade flourised on trade route passed by civilization matured and people became prisperous. I, as a Keralite, native of Kerala, a south-western provincde of India can vouchsafe it. From Greeks, Egyptians to Chinese were partners of our trade from the days of Kingh Soloman. East and West achored their ships to collect spices especially pepper, Ivory, Perals, cardomom and all sorts of spices, silk etc. There were nearly a dozen busy ports were on the west coast, Arabian Sea, doing brisk export-Import. Portuguese first reached our shore as far as 1498. Then Duch, French and finally English.

Quilon, now Kollam was the busiest port in west coast doing brisk trade with China. All the ships from west to China invariably called at Kollam Port. They also brought a number of Items from China from potteries, Fishing net, cooking utensils, metals. We developed an unique technology of making mirror without silica and others coonventional materials going tinto glass production. A plate made of special alloy with a polished surface resulted in Unique form of mirror called ‘Aranmula Kannadi’ in lical lingo. To This day we preserve the secret of its making. Nowhere else in the world, its technology could be replicated or forged. Kerala is far ahead of many so called developed countries in the world with 90% leteracy and so many other plusses.
Thank you.
vaikom madhu

Posted by Laptoper on April 29, 2008, 03:29 PM | #

Civilization is evalues!

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