Be More Specific

Ok. Take the small scale example of Polynesian daughter societies. All hailing from the same culture, Polynesian people were the first humans to colonize islands such as New Zealand, Societies, Hawaii, Easter Island and many other various islands. The key word is various. They all came from the same culture with the same farming traditions. However many of these daughter societies eventually went back to hunter-gatherer techniques. They didn't suddenly become barbaric; it was simply the most adaptive and practical thing to do. These societies were ones that had settled islands that could not support their former farming traditions. The new climate was too cold, or they had settled on a flat island that didn't have its own rivers. Since these societies couldn't support farming they couldn't support large population densities, couldn't support specialized skills craftsmen, armies, chiefs. The Big Hawaiian Island, for example, with its high, weathered, river-carved land, could support a good deal of intensive, irrigated, farmland. There chiefdoms developed, empires began. Other islands were not as inviting. Needless to say, as the farming societies began growing too large, or just too greedy, they started exploring farther out into their surroundings. There are cases where they ran into islands of hunter-gatherers and conquered them or exterminated them. Or, they ran into a society that maybe had some farming, but only limestone in their rock beds. These societies had found an island that had never been part of a continental fragment and thus had no continental rocks or metals with which to form advanced tools. Bone would probably be their best bet. My arm is made of bone, but it doesn't really stand up as a good weapon against a metal sword.

But, overall, if those islands were so poor in resources why would the farming socieities want to conquer them? Well, maybe it didn't happen that often, and there are some cases where they might want to. The next question is, well, the Americas had some very good farming lands, why did they get conquered by the Europeans other than the proximate factors? I think Diamond is going to explain that the Europeans had a head start. Human beings did not populate the America's until around 11000-13000 years ago (i think) or so Diamond would contend. These dates mark the Clovis period, according to some adjusted form of carbon dating from archeological sites. (adjusted isn't the word he used, but) The adjusted date differs about 2000 from what most people would have been taught was the Clovis period. Also, others say that the New World had been inhabitted earlier, but these dates are unconfirmed and either way they would not indicate a large scale society. Large scale socities in the New World did not appear until clovis. Now this is important but I can't remember right now, but I think it was 40000 years ago that modern humans, homo sapiens sapiens, appeared in W. Europe.

So, a head start? Well, not yet. I haven't learned when the first large scale society appeared in W. Europe. Also, Africa had the largest head start, right? So what conditions prohibbited Africa from becoming filled with societies that would eventually develop navies, etc. There's a big desert and steeply vallied jungles, but weren't the plains and plateaus suitable for farming? Couldn't they have domesticated some of the big animals? Some of you may have answers for these already, and tell me if you do, or if you wish to guess, but otherwise I'll see what Diamond says about my questions. So far his tone indicates that he'll basically prove it.