Name: Michael Miller Section #

Guns, Germs, and Steel: Episode 1

Directions: Before viewing the film, read each question below so you know what information and ideas you
should be looking for as you watch Episode 1. Record your answers to each question by providing as many
facts, details, and examples as possible to answer each question. Your answers are to be typed into this
worksheet and written in complete sentences with proper grammar.

1. Explain in your own words the question/issue that Jared Diamond is attempting to answer/explore in his
book and video series.
1a. He is trying to answer the questions of how certain civilizations developed faster than others and
how these civilizations gained an advantage over other civilizations, and why there is historical
inequality among different regions of the world.

2. Summarize Diamond’s “answer” to the question/issue that he exploring?

2a. In the video, Diamond was attempting to find the answer for the inequality throughout different
civilizations but what he found was that geography plays the largest part. By being born in New Guinea,
those people have less access to raw materials than someone born in London might have. These
geographic differences developed inequality; therefore, inequality did not result in cultural differences.

3. For thousands of years, people have been cultivating crops. Describe the early process used to
domesticate crops and create plants that yielded bigger harvests.
3a. The video described the domestication of crops when talking about wheat and barley in the Middle
East. The people would harvest the wheat in certain times of the year and then replant the seeds during
certain times on the year. They would replant seeds from crops that were larger and better tasting,
which would produce larger and tastier crops that in nature would not have grown or been useful to the
plant. This human interference is what domesticated crops.

4. What advantages are there to the plants/grains that are found in the Fertile Crescent as compared to
those of New Guinea and other tropic areas?
4a. The plants in New Guinea are difficult to cultivate, take a long time to extract, cannot be stored for
long periods, and are not rich with proteins. The plants in the Fertile Crescent can be stored for years,
were durable enough to survive harsh weather, could be planted easily where seeds would be thrown at
random and would grow instead of having to be carefully planted,

5. According to Diamond, livestock also plays a significant role in a civilization’s ability to become rich
and powerful. How did the domestication of animals help people? Give four examples of what animals
provided to humans.
5a. Animals helped advance civilizations by (one) providing meat and milk, protein, that civilizations
dependent on crops could not provide. By having animals to rely on for food, civilizations could afford
specialists that work with metal and other trades outside of farming. In addition, (two) animals could
pull plows to produce a larger crop harvest and do work that would be too strenuous for humans to do by
 themselves. Also, (three) animals could provide skins used to keep humans warm in cold weather.
Lastly, (four) animal dung is a great fertilizer for the crops.

6. List 4 necessary characteristics of animals that makes them “domesticatable”.

6a. First, the animals had to be herbivores, feeding a carnivorous animal would have been too difficult.
Second, the animals needed to have a social hierarchy so that if humans controlled the leader, they
controlled the pack as well. Third, they need to be able to give birth quickly and be produce at least three
offspring a year. Lastly, the animal needs to be able to get along with humans and have a calm
temperament.

7. List the animals that can be domesticated and the locations where they can be found (note, especially,
the one animal that can be found in a very different location than all of the others).
7a. The list of domesticated animals is as follows: pigs, cows, goats, sheep, horses, donkey, Bactrian
camels, Arabian camels, yaks, reindeer, water buffalo, llama, mithuns, and bale cattle. The llama is the
one outlier because it is the only one located in South America exclusively. All the other animals came
from Eurasia or North Africa. Cows, sheep, goats, and pigs came from the Middle East, known as the
Fertile Crescent.

8. How can the list of animals and locations be used to support the theory of geographic luck? In other
words, what relevance does the original home of domesticated animals have to Diamond’s theory of
geographic luck?
8a. For example, in New Guinea, where there are no domesticated animals, the civilization can’t afford
the labor for metal workers and are therefore stuck working with stone. In the Fertile Crescent, where
they had cows and goats, people could afford to have specialists and eventually could use their animals
for transportation and eventually war. Essentially, domesticated animals lead to an increase in
productivity.

9. Explain the movement of early humans (in which direction, or to what areas) from the Fertile Crescent?
9a. The Fertile Crescent had land that couldn’t sustain long term farming and the soil eventually gave
up on the people. These early civilizations would then move east or west across the same latitude where
conditions were relatively similar so their animals and crops could still survive.

10. In what ways do you feel that Jared’s “answer” falls short of being “the whole story”. In other words,
what critiques or questions do you have regarding his argument?
10a. I don’t believe he covers the extraneous variables outside of crops and animals. War,
colonialization, religion, and politics are some major factors that I feel he does not acknowledge in his
theory of why certain civilizations evolved faster than others. There is no question that animals had a
large part in the development of a culture, and in the Fertile Crescent, the outward expansion of those
civilizations would happen ten times out of ten, which would spread animals and crops into different
parts of the world regardless. However, at a certain point, Europe and then America took off faster than
other civilizations even though we had the same resources. Why did America develop electricity, cars,
television, etc. first? Why didn’t Egypt have any major technological advancements? Why did China
have a slew of inventions before the 8th century but not past that? There are just too many factors
playing against each other to make a concentrated statement that is as simple as ‘crops and animals’.