Regarding the Columbian exchange, why did the ecological factors surrounding the re-connecting of the continents favor the Old World?
Upvote:-1
Just as my personal theory, the Old World population had already been filtered through a very severe selection process, as from the time of the Greeks explorers & traders had brought back diseases from distant lands. Some of those developed into major plagues, killing off large fractions of the population. The survivors passed on robust immune systems to their descendants.
Upvote:5
As was mentioned in the comments, Guns, Germs, and Steel explains this.
Essentially, the Old World had a lot of very good animals and plants that could be domesticated. Domestication led to settled agriculture, but now you had a load of people living together in close quarters with animals and each other. This resulted in really bad diseases spreading through the population quickly. If you weren't resistant to a disease, you died, and didn't pass on your genes. As the population became more disease-resistant, the diseases had to become more virulent to survive.
The Americas did not have nearly as many good plants and animals that could be domesticated. So they had less urbanization, less contact with animals, less infections, and less resistance to disease. As soon as all these diseases came in contact with them, boom!
In terms of agriculture, old world plants and animals benefited the Americas greatly - wheat and rice are way better than corn. It's just that the people who benefited from them were European settlers, because by that point 90% of the population of Native Americans was dead.
More post
- 📝 When did people decide that all caps means the writer is shouting?
- 📝 Did they really use these for street lights and warmth in the Victorian London?
- 📝 What time was it in Dawson Creek, BC at 1900-01-01 00:00:00 +0000?
- 📝 Did the Dominion of Newfoundland establish diplomatic missions?
- 📝 Is the 1918 flu pandemic responsible for the majority of Iranian casualties during the first world war?
- 📝 How profitable was India for the British Empire in the 1800s?
- 📝 Were warhorses unable to graze in grass fields and thus needed to be manually fed an exclusive type of hay?
- 📝 What is the purpose of this Roman siege tactic as shown in this Illustration?
- 📝 Why is Killiniq island divided between Nunavut and Labrador?
- 📝 What denomination of Christianity did Anne Boleyn believe in?
- 📝 Was there anything like an African-American architectural style or symbolism at the beginning of the 20th century?
- 📝 Why is the Ping Yuen river in Hong Kong called River Ganges?
- 📝 Where was the Japanese surrender signed on Okinawa in June 1945?
- 📝 Explaining the data in the 2004 Republican primary results
- 📝 Was Jerome K Jerome Vice President of the Oxford University Labour party?
- 📝 Is it true that US tracer rounds were red and VC green during Vietnam war?
- 📝 How much armor did elephant units wear?
- 📝 Did James Monroe and James Madison ever disagree?
- 📝 How does the cost-benefit relationship of owning a horse differ today from the Middle Ages or Early Industrial Revolution?
- 📝 Where was the site of Mary Seacole's store in Aldershot?
- 📝 Is this Civil War era uniform?
- 📝 Who standardized the Roman measurements?
- 📝 Athenian Democracy - How were the citizens motivated to be so politically active?
- 📝 Did Charlemagne ever visit Constantinople?
- 📝 Why did Sun Tzu believe you shouldn't wait beside a river when eager to fight?
- 📝 What is going on in this depiction of a mosque scene?
- 📝 Virginia's response to Harper's Ferry, compared to the US response to 9/11
- 📝 What was American anti-tank doctrine during WWII on paper, and how did it differ from in practice?
- 📝 Are there any contemporary diaries about the Yugoslav Wars?
- 📝 What is the difference between the union free state and the territories controlled by the federal government?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Regarding the Columbian exchange, why did the ecological factors surrounding the re-connecting of the continents favor the Old World?
- 📝 Why did Spain trade Florida to the British in exchange for Havana?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
- 📝 Why did the Confederacy think they could win the American Civil War?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 Why did the British scuttle the u-boats surrendered after WWII?
- 📝 Why did Canada not join the American Revolution?
- 📝 Why did Churchill order the destruction of the bombes?
- 📝 Why did the USSR give Crimea to Ukraine?
- 📝 Why did the Western Roman Empire collapse but not the Eastern Roman Empire?
- 📝 Why did stock brokers go bankrupt after the crash of 1929?
- 📝 Why did the Germans spare Allied troops trapped at Dunkirk?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Why did Columbus cross the mid-Atlantic instead of exploring from Greenland?
- 📝 Why did LBJ, a staunch segregationist, champion and sign the 1964 Civil Rights Bill?
- 📝 Why did the Roman military start to favour swords over the spear phalanx?
- 📝 Why did Hitler declare war on the USA?
- 📝 Why did Germany officially acknowledge the contents of the Zimmerman telegram?
- 📝 Why did Europe not see Roman-era numbers of men participating in battles until the 17th century?
- 📝 Why did the Germans use the Enigma machine rather than the far superior "Lorenz" cipher machine?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union have multiple airplane manufacturers?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union name their strongest bomb Tsar Bomba?
- 📝 Why did Lincoln wait to issue the Emancipation Proclamation?
- 📝 Why did the United States not resort to nuclear weapons in Vietnam?
- 📝 Why did China shut itself out of the world in the 15th century?
- 📝 Why did Hitler not order the use of poison gas in combat?
- 📝 ‘Avoid sleeping on your back’ & ‘breathe in toilet smells’ were seen as precautions against the Black Death. Why did doctors think these would work?
- 📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?
- 📝 Why did Chamberlain act to appease Hitler leading up to the outbreak of World War 2?
