absent

today i was absent from school

absent

i was out of school today

COWS AND WHEAT!

We continued onto part 6 of the video today. All the animals and crops in the Fertile Crescent spread out into different parts of the world, completely transforming people’s lives. We talked about how if to places share the same latitude then they share plants, animals, their length of day, and their growing resources. The last couple of things we talked about from the movie had to do with cattle and wheat; in the 16^th century people brought cows to the United States and currently there are about 100 million cattle in the United States. Wheat: the average American consumes about 20 million tons of wheat per year. One last thing we talked about was why the people of New Guinea didn't just have other animals other than pigs be brought to their island, we discussed this and came to the conclusion that they just couldn't because they lived in a rain forest and they couldn't just let cattle graze and walk around in a closed area, they would have to create an open space for them but the people of New Guinea couldn't just rip up all their trees and vegetation that may inhabit other animals and some of the trees also give them their food. That was all for today!

More on the video

We watched more of the video on James Diamond today! In today’s video we learned that before the industrial revolution people used a horse and plow and just basically depended on most of their animals. There are about two million species of animals in the world and out of all those there are only really fourteen of which we can use and domesticate: goats, sheep, pigs, cows, horses, donkeys, camels (Bactrian and Arabian), water buffalo  llamas, reindeer, yaks  mithans, and ball cattle. We have found that zebras are not able to be domesticated because of their on-edge nature. Also the people in the video talk about when they want to control a herd of animals they would look for the leader of the herd (usually a male) and try to gain control over that animal and then usually the other animals would do the same. Jared Diamond’s theory was that some areas were just lucky enough to have the right plants and animals to help them thrive. In South America there were llamas and in the Middle East and Europe the other 13 animals reside. Next in the video archaeologists had discovered a village named Guar that had people living it about 9,000 years ago and they found evidence that people had been able to build their homes out of a plaster made out of rhinestone that has to be heated up to 1,000 degrees to be able to use it like that, but after a while their crops failed to grow so they had to leave the area. New Guinea had never developed advanced technology because most of the time they were looking for ways to feed themselves. 

Jared Diamond's research

Today in human geography we continued to watch a video about Jared Diamond and the New Guineans. James Diamond talks about how all great civilizations have three things in common and they are: advanced technology, a large population (several dozen at least), and a well-organized work forced. People back then had to have one of two jobs; either they were a hunter or a gatherer- they shared their labor. Jared studied the have and have not’s; this was the idea of developed vs. undeveloped for example: if you knew a way to find food, get water, and stay healthy than you were a have, if you couldn't do any of these things you would be a have not. We also found out that Jared had to search through history back to a time when everyone was equal, like when everyone shared the same way of life. In Papua New Guinea people still hunt and gather, 13,000 years ago people in the Middle East lived this way, but the people had to rely more on gathering than hunting because hunting was unpredictable. The women did most of the gathering, in Papua New Guinea there is a tree called the Sago tree that the people process because in the center there is a pulp that they can harvest into dough that they can eat, but it isn't very nutritious. One Sago tree only holds about 70 pounds of the pulp and it usually takes three days to process, they also eat some cereal grasses that grow there like barley and wheat; wheat and barley was also native in the Middle East.  12,000 years ago there were ice age like conditions and there was a drought that lasted for 1,000 years. Next in the video we learned that there was a village called Drah and it was the oldest village, an archaeological dig was set up and they discovered a very well structured building, it was found to be a granary; this was a place where the villagers could store their crops without them getting dried out or collecting moisture and spoiling, this was the center of the village and it was also the first community.  The people located themselves near a water source and grew crops; these people where the first farmers and they learned how to control the flow of the food. After a while people began to learn different things and they had new jobs that they could do like weaving baskets, making clothes and making food; this is when civilization took off. Eventually people learned how to control plants (domestication) In China rice was grown, in America there was corn, squash, in Africa there was sorghum, millet, and yams. In the highlands of New Guinea they had what Jared Diamond called “Geographic luck” , but the crops there spoiled very quickly and most of their food didn’t have a high nutrition level so sometimes people would just eat giant spiders. At about 9,000 years ago people( mostly farmers) learned how to domesticate animals and use them to improve their society; goats and sheep were the first to be tamed and the people could milk the goats and use the sheep’s wool for clothing, with the help of animal domestication a good system was formed.  That was it from the video today!

Jared Diamond's research

Today in human geography we continued to watch a video about Jared Diamond and the New Guineans. James Diamond talks about how all great civilizations have three things in common and they are: advanced technology, a large population (several dozen at least), and a well-organized work forced. People back then had to have one of two jobs; either they were a hunter or a gatherer- they shared their labor. Jared studied the have and have not’s; this was the idea of developed vs. undeveloped for example: if you knew a way to find food, get water, and stay healthy than you were a have, if you couldn't do any of these things you would be a have not. We also found out that Jared had to search through history back to a time when everyone was equal, like when everyone shared the same way of life. In Papua New Guinea people still hunt and gather, 13,000 years ago people in the Middle East lived this way, but the people had to rely more on gathering than hunting because hunting was unpredictable. The women did most of the gathering, in Papua New Guinea there is a tree called the Sago tree that the people process because in the center there is a pulp that they can harvest into dough that they can eat, but it isn't very nutritious. One Sago tree only holds about 70 pounds of the pulp and it usually takes three days to process, they also eat some cereal grasses that grow there like barley and wheat; wheat and barley was also native in the Middle East.  12,000 years ago there were ice age like conditions and there was a drought that lasted for 1,000 years. Next in the video we learned that there was a village called Drah and it was the oldest village, an archaeological dig was set up and they discovered a very well structured building, it was found to be a granary; this was a place where the villagers could store their crops without them getting dried out or collecting moisture and spoiling, this was the center of the village and it was also the first community.  The people located themselves near a water source and grew crops; these people where the first farmers and they learned how to control the flow of the food. After a while people began to learn different things and they had new jobs that they could do like weaving baskets, making clothes and making food; this is when civilization took off. Eventually people learned how to control plants (domestication) In China rice was grown, in America there was corn, squash, in Africa there was sorghum, millet, and yams. In the highlands of New Guinea they had what Jared Diamond called “Geographic luck” , but the crops there spoiled very quickly and most of their food didn’t have a high nutrition level so sometimes people would just eat giant spiders. At about 9,000 years ago people( mostly farmers) learned how to domesticate animals and use them to improve their society; goats and sheep were the first to be tamed and the people could milk the goats and use the sheep’s wool for clothing, with the help of animal domestication a good system was formed.  That was it from the video today!

James Diamond and his world famous book!

Jared Diamond was born on December 10^th 1937 and he was born in Boston Massachusetts into a Jewish family.  He is a professor at U.C.L.A and he teaches Geography. Jared is also an author, an ornithologist (the studying of birds), and he is also an anthropologist (the study of cultures). As an author he won the Pulitzer prize for his book Guns, germs, and steel. He is now married with twins and he has always been interested in birds so he went out to Papua New Guinea Island to do some more research and while he was there he discovered that unlike our modern civilization, the people of Papua New Guinea do not have a developed civilization at all really. James Diamond’s theory was- why did some civilizations advance and why others didn't  some people like the people in Papua New Guinea, still live the way people did 13,000 years ago.

One of his most famous books is Guns, Germs, and Steel. This book tries to explain how the Eurasians were able to conquer so many places; this book also explains why guns, germs, and steel were a main factor in their victories. In this book James talks about how important the locations were for these conquerors because if they found a place where there was no sickness they would be ok, also if they found a place where crops could be grown and there were animals for them they would thrive, becoming stronger and stronger. Eventually these people would become more civilized, making weapons, farming and using other natural resources making them highly evolved.