What are the factors that caused the new world civilizations to be less technologically advanced than the old world?
score:66
According to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, one of the first steps from a hunter-gatherer society towards civilization is agriculture. While agricultural societies appeared all over the world, the old world had a more suitable environment, especially with regards to the grains and large animals that lived there.
The old world had wheat, which is easy to plant, harvest and eat, while the new world had maize (corn), which is not. With regard to large domesticate-able animals, the old world had horses, sheep and cattle, while the new world just had llamas.
The old world could also trade east-west, which meant plants and animals could easily find similar climates (because of similar latitudes) over very long distances, while the new world's trade routes were primarily north-south.
Agricultural production encourages a sedentary society, which in turn leads to population growth, specialization of craft and labor, and a ruling class. Put it all together and you get more and better technology.
Upvote:2
Historically, civilizations have developed best along peninsulas: mostly surrounded by water, but with one land bridge. Egypt was a peninsula (between the Nile River, Red Sea, and Mediterranean). So was Babylon (between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers). India is one large peninsula, as was ancient China (between the Yellow and Yangtze Rivers). Greece and Rome, of course, were the classic examples.
The new world had fewer such peninsulas (in good climates). You can call Patagonia, Argentina a peninsula, but that's too cold. The Panama Canal has made Mexico/Central America a "peninsula," but one that's too hot.
The WHOLE purpose of the Erie Canal was to turn the Eastern United States into a "peninsula (by connecting the Great Lakes, Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico), which is one reason why that country prospered, beginning in the nineteenth century.
Upvote:4
Well, Africa is in the Old World, but most of sub-Saharan Africa was developed less than the Maesoamerican civilizations. Pre-Christian North-East Europe was also at the stage comparable with American cultures. Siberia and North Asia were less developed also.
That is, only the European civilization developed from Classic Antiquity had significant advantage over Mesoamerican civilizations (as well as over the rest of the Old World).
Upvote:7
The civilizations developed around the Mediterranean Sea (Egypt, Babylon, Greece, Rome, Judes) were close together, wich made it easier to share ideas and practice commerce. China, India and the Aztecs had to be developed in a relative vacuum.
Upvote:16
Depends on what you mean by advanced. If you mean in terms of metalworking, the lack of easily exploited tin deposits in the Americas means that a bronze age never took off. There was a copper-working culture surrounding the Great Lakes, and it pre-dated the chalcolithic in the old world by a few thousand years, but this lasted only as long as the accessible copper ore did.
On the other hand, the civilizations in the Americas had architecture, science, math and literature to match anything in the Old World. The Incas and their forebears were masters of textiles - they built massive suspension bridges, armor, even boats, from cotton. Along the Amazon and Mississippi cultures used massive earthworks projects and advanced horticultural knowledge to sustain huge cities. So, what happened?
What happened was Smallpox. It wiped out close to 90% of the population of the Americas in only a few decades. The cultures in the Americas didn't have the population base to copy and improve on what the Europeans were doing - in China and India, the political situation was ripe for exploit by outside powers (and this has been a recurring theme for both civilizations going back millennia), but in the Americas, it was plague and plague alone that allowed the Europeans to take over. (The Vikings had been trying off and on for 500 years before Columbus - things Did Not Go Well for them outside of Greenland.)
More post
- 📝 Was Lampsacus a Phocaean or Milesian colony?
- 📝 When was the testudo / tortoise formation first used by the Romans?
- 📝 Who kept noble prisoners captured in battle?
- 📝 Why was there a surge of writings about the Illuminati in America in the late 1910's?
- 📝 1972 textbook by Charles University professor on Thirty Years War
- 📝 What did Flaminius bring to the Greeks?
- 📝 Is there any short summary of John Rowe's theory of horizons about the Incas?
- 📝 Did pirates really drink a lot of rum?
- 📝 What portion of the finance industry was British prior to WWI?
- 📝 What is / are the specific reason(s) for Vyacheslav Molotov's fall from grace with Joseph Stalin?
- 📝 Did the Inca Empire know about the Polynesians, or vice versa?
- 📝 Internal customs in the Roman Empire
- 📝 What drugs were used in England during the High Middle Ages?
- 📝 How could a prisoner get lessons to read, write and do mathematics in jail, while innocent people didn't get the basic knowledge in 18th-19th century?
- 📝 How could Germany afford waging WWII?
- 📝 How much power and influence could a child monarch have?
- 📝 Do We Know 100% of the Victims of 9/11?
- 📝 What was the life expectancy of a Medieval European monarch?
- 📝 How did Romans know if their money was debased?
- 📝 Were political parties in the U.S during 1918 as polarized generally as they are now?
- 📝 Which George V stamp would be used for a letter sent from London to Sweden in 1919/1920?
- 📝 Why Americans like to enroll in military services despite huge risks involved?
- 📝 What are the themes of post-WW2 Polish immigration to the United States?
- 📝 How strong a land force did Germany need for a conquest of the British Isles in the summer of 1940?
- 📝 Did humans hunt with dogs before planting crops for food?
- 📝 Did World War I soldiers carry swagger sticks, while in combat?
- 📝 Demonym for someone from the kingdom of D'mt
- 📝 Dictators who came back through elections?
- 📝 Which historical/legendary/mythological accounts turned out to be true?
- 📝 Have American writing styles changed between the Civil War and Today?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 What are the factors that caused the new world civilizations to be less technologically advanced than the old world?
- 📝 What were the factors that caused the world to move away from the Gold Standard in the 20th century?
- 📝 What were the factors that caused debtors' prison to disappear in most parts of the world in the 20th century?
- 📝 What were factors that led to a decline in bond yields during World War II given that the opposite should have happened?
- 📝 Is it true that there are more slaves in the world now than ever at one point in history?
- 📝 What was the liquor that was based on petrol which was produced in the USSR during the Second World War?
- 📝 What factors related to the Eastern Crisis contributed to the outbreak of World War 1?
- 📝 What were the factors that aided Margaret Thatcher in her victory against the trade unions when her predecessors failed?
- 📝 What is the source of "the three most useless things in the world are the Great Wall, Pyramids, and the Yamato"?
- 📝 What is the corruption that John Winthrop mentions in "Reasons for the Plantation in New England" (1628)
- 📝 What are the 'mushroom trusts' referenced in Churchill's "Second World War"?
- 📝 To what extent did Gandhi affect the factors that led to the partition of India?
- 📝 What evidence is there that English Political divisions from the 1600s are replicated in American politics today?
- 📝 Considering what was known about Hitler in 1933, why would German bishops declare that Catholics could cooperate with the new State?
- 📝 After World War II, what happened to the Soviet industrial facilities that had been evacuated?
- 📝 What is the oldest road in the world that has been in continuous use?
- 📝 What literary or philosophical works did the ancient Egyptians have that have influenced ancient civilizations or the modern word?
- 📝 What were the factors that led to stagflation in the United States during the 1970s?
- 📝 What are exceptions to the hypothesis that "climate determined "regional" loyalties in the U.S. Civil War"?
- 📝 To what extent was the Cold War caused by post World War 2 economics?
- 📝 In Russia, are the anniversaries of the various events that occurred in 1917 and '18 observed according to the Old Style or the New Style calendar?
- 📝 What factors enabled the New York Journal to survive the yellow journalism wars?
- 📝 What is the source of the claim that Enigma codebreaking efforts shortened the Second World War by years and saved millions of lives?
- 📝 What caused the increase in world population rate around 1700's?
- 📝 Holders of what offices are usually used to inaugurate the new head of state in various countries?
- 📝 What was the most important change that took place in American society as a result of the New Deal?
- 📝 What are the largest numerical units that the median-wealthy person in Western civilization was aware of through the centuries?
- 📝 Are there factors which caused the printing revolution to begin in Europe in 1450 and not some other place some other time?
- 📝 What factors contribute to the fact that only a handful of countries manufacture aircraft jet engines?
- 📝 In 1492, what was the shortest distance you could travel to discover the new world from the old world?
