Michael Pollak wrote:
> On Mon, 19 Jun 2000, Wojtek Sokolowski wrote:
>
> > For some reason, American buffalo are are unsuitable for
> > domestication.
>
> Nonsense. They're domesticated now. And if they had been domesticated
> over millenia, they would have changed their physical characteristics to
> make it easier.
>
> > The main point Diamond is making is that when you start in a
> > relatively isolated and resource-poor environment, your civilisation
> > will not get very far (that is, btw, the main lesson of the
> > "Civilisation" computer game). However, in the Americas this argument
> > takes a different twists, because the arrival of the stone age hunters
> > coincides with the extintion of large mammals, which in all likelihood
> > were hunted to extinction. Hence the line that an initial
> > technological success (efficient hunting weapons and organization
> > necessary to hunt big game) may later on turn into a relative
> > disadvantage. That's dialectics, pure and simple.
>
> So simple it seems to be made up. Bison certainly weren't hunted to
> extinction. Nowhere near it. Megafauna were -- but equally so in Europe.
> At first glance the opposite seems to be true: there was more easy game
> left in the North America than in Europe at the end of the Stone Age.
>
> > The argument was put forth by Jared Diamond in his book _Guns, Germs
> > and Steel_ and I must admit his environmental explanation of
> > 'civilisational' differences go a very log way. Unlike conventional
> > environmentalist who try to explain civilizational advances by
> > environmental influences, Diamon explains the ABSENCE of certain
> > advantages by unfavourable environmental influences, such as the
> > absense of suitable species or geographic isolation.
>
> I dunno Wojtek. Explaining why North Americans didn't domesticate buffalo
> by saying they are undomesticatable seems both circular and untrue.
>
> Saying that Europeans had a different mix of animals and plants available
> for domestication is certainly true. That that different mix might have
> been more conducive to the development of agriculture might be true too.
> Might be, could be, maybe.
>
> It could also be that North Americans harvested food from wild buffalo
> herds and other forms of hunting and nomadism more efficiently that
> Europeans got it through domestication. That would still allow you to say
> that success sometimes stands in the way of progress. But culture
> wouldn't vanish the way you'd like.
>
> >From the evidence, I see nothing to choose between these two positions.
> Do you have something more?
>
> BTW, this argument isn't original with Diamond. It was laid out by Marvin
> Harris in _Cannibals and Kings_ in 1977. I was attracted to it when I
> first read it myself. But he didn't have a good answer to the bison
> question either.
>
> Michael
>
> __________________________________________________________________________
> Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com
-- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu