Essay About Remote Islands And Papua New Guinea

Book Review of “guns, Germs, and Steel”
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The book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, was written by Jared Diamond, a
professor of evolutionary biology at UCLA. Throughout the book,
Diamond explained why history evolved differently for people from
various geographical areas. He tried to prove his idea that it was
geographical and environmental factors that gave some civilizations an
advantage over others. He doesnt believe that some societies became
less advanced than others due to deficiencies in genes or
intelligence.
At the beginning of the book, Diamond discussed human evolution.
He mentioned that the history of humanity started approximately 7
million years ago, when a population of African apes diverged into
three separate populations, one of which evolved into modern humans.
For the first 5 or 8 million years after this separation, the human
population was confined to Africa. The earliest human ancestor to
spread beyond the realms of Africa was Homo erectus, who moved into
Southeast Asia around 1.8 million years ago. Approximately half a
million years ago, when human fossils started to bear similarities to
modern Homo sapiens, our race gave birth to an outburst of milestones
in technology and the arts, including standardized stone tools and the
earliest preserved jewelry in eastern Africa. This period, known as
the Great Leap Forward, was associated with the pioneer expansion of
the human geographical sphere. People started to colonize Australia
and Papua New Guinea around 35,000 years ago. This journey was
connected with our earliest use of watercraft as well as the first
extermination of large mammals. North and South America were the last
continents to be settled by modern humans. The occupation of the
Americas required either boats or the conquest of Siberia in order to
walk across the Bering land bridge. “The oldest unquestioned human
remains in the Americas are at sites in Alaska dated around 12,000 BC,
followed by a profusion of sites in the United States south of the
Canadian border and in Mexico in the centuries just before 11,000 BC”
(pg. 45). With the invasion of the Americans, most habitable regions
in the world supported humans except for remote islands in the Indian
and Pacific Oceans.
Then, Diamond talked about the effects of environmental and
climatic variation on the evolution of Polynesian societies. Polynesia
is an amalgamation of thousands of islands scattered across the
Pacific Ocean. Among these islands, there are huge differences in
climate, area, geological characteristics, terrain, and natural
resources. For example, the climate is tropical in Hawaii and Fiji,
temperate in northern New Zealand, and sub-Antarctic on the Chatham
islands and in the southern part of New Zealand. The geological
structures of the Polynesian islands range from coral atolls to raised
limestone and from volcanic islands to fragments of continents. “The
habitable terrain of some islands, notably the Marquesas, is
fragmented into steep-walled valleys by ridges, while other islands,
such as Tonga and Easter, consist of gently rolling terrain presenting
no obstacles to travel and communication (pg. 59). Also, the islands
vary strongly in area, from the 100 acres of Anuta to the 103,000 sq.
miles of New Zealand. Due to those differences, the peoples of various
Polynesian islands developed in isolation from each other, even though
they were all descended from a common ancestor.
Differences in geography and the environment was the major factor
that led to the massacre of the Moriori people. The environmental
conditions of New Zealand were poles apart from that of the Chatham
islands. Northern New Zealand had a temperate climate with an
abundance of tropical crops like taro and yams, while the Chatham
islands had a sub-Antarctic climate that didnt support the growth of
these plants. Thats why the Maori and Moriori people formed societies
that were completely disconnected from each other. The Maori were
productive farmers, possessed sophisticated weapons and technology,
and engaged in violent, ferocious battles. In contrast, the Moriori
were peaceful people who lived by hunting and gathering, fed on fish
and shellfish, didnt have the tools to engage in war, and lacked an
organized government. Therefore, it was not suprising that in December
1835, the Maoris sailed to the Chatham islands, killing and enslaving
all of the Moriori. Using this example, Jared Diamond demonstrated
that in the course of history, technologically advanced societies
always