since everyone seems to be missing Question 40, heres what Ive got. getting the answer to this one is a bit of a run-around, but for anyone interested in full quotes, the pages are basically pg. 300-307. these are just the reminder notes I have for myself, the full answers from the book are multi-paragraph in length: 40. Why does Diamond argue that New Guinea was physically more suitable to human occupation than Australia? Why was New Guinea highland agriculture confined at elevations above about 4,000 feet? Why did New Guinea remain a stone tool culture despite the invention of agriculture? What were the main statistics/characteristics of New Guineas population before European contact - New Guinea More Suitable To Human Occupation because of: “equatorial location, much higher rainfall, much greater range of elevations, and greater fertility” - Agriculture confined at elevations above 4000 feet because of: steep terrain, persistent cloud cover, malaria , and risk of drought at lower elevations. - Remained a Stone Tool Culture because: “although indigenous food production did arise in the New Guinea highlands, it yielded little protein” “since neither pigs nor chickens can be harnessed to pull carts, highlanders remained without sources of power other than human muscle power” “a second restriction on the size of highland populations was the limited available area: only a few broad valleys capable of supporting dense populations” “for all these reasons, the population of traditional new guinea never exceeded 1,000,000 until European colonial governments brought western medicine and the end of intertribal warfare”. “with a mere 1,000,000 people, new guinea could not develop the technology, writing, and political systems that arose among populatiosn of tens of millions in China, the fertile crescent, the andes, and Mesoamerica”. “new Guinea’s population is not only small in aggregate, but also fragmented into thousands of micropopulations by the rugged terrain” (basically, lack of protein rich foods, labour-suited animals, small, highly fragmented population, and geographic isolation kept New Guinea a “stone tool” culture. Pg 305-307 for the full quotes) - Main Statistics of New Guinea’s population: under 1,000,000 people, fragmented into thousands of micropopulations. “NG has highest concentration of languages in the world: 1,000 out of the world’s 6000 languages”. also, if you spot anything here thats wrong, feel free to correct it.
Posted on: Sat, 19 Apr 2014 04:01:26 +0000
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