| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/15/2007 2:25:19 PM | | I have often wondered why some early societies, (Mid east, Asia, Europe)advanced technologically more so than others. Up until very recently there were still societal groups that live as they have lived for thousands of years, (Amazonian tribes, Nomads and tribal groups in Africa). I would be very interested in other peoples take on the situation. My own original theory on the development of European cultures was the necessity to deal with winter, but that doesn't apply so much to the Mediterranean regions (Greece, Rome). | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/15/2007 4:08:56 PM | | North American Indians had to deal with winter, but they didn't develop in the same way as cultures in Europe. I think that it has to do with the values espoused by particular cultures rather than environmental factors. Aggressive cultures tend to expand, innovative cultures tend to develop technology, structured cultures tend to develop extensive organizations and networks. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/15/2007 5:14:45 PM | Trial and error of social and technological evolution. One species prevails, another does not, similarly one society advances whereas another does not.
When a technological advancement is discovered or invented, it isn't discovered or invited by everyone, but is discovered or invented by one country/company/group/person. I'm sure when our ancestors started using tools for the very first time, not every one of them on the planet did so.
New ways are either not shared on purpose, e.g.: one party wants the advantage, or (more modernly) one party does not wish to interfere with the other. Possibly one party simply does not want to change.
As for the tribes that are left 'untouched' on our planet, I'd say they simply haven't been conquered. Much of the world would still be living in the dark ages or worse if various empires did not rise and fall, because of the way both the invading and invaded societies end up integrating. In modern times technology is shared because of capitalism, as well as good-natured reasons. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/15/2007 5:59:25 PM | Different societies had their rises and falls. Comparing the Ulmec, Toltec, Aztec, or Myan societies to Europe during the dark-ages would find Europe lacking.
But yes, some individual cultures (amozonian tribes) failed to develop because of a lack of impetus to form towns and cities. They were not agragrian, and so did not need perminent settlements. Without such pressures, society doesn't evolve much technology. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/15/2007 6:49:49 PM | | Well you know how some people can solve rubics cube blindfolded, and others can't stop shitting down their leg at the supper table? If you get too many of groupe 2 in the struggleing civilization then it can't advance, or it does at a drooling can't eat solid food speed. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/15/2007 7:50:45 PM | Many societies, over the years, didn't survive because their population outgrew their resources.
Before modern transportation methods, food and building materials needed to be grown near the population. As land in an area may have been over-farmed to supply food, or forests cut down to supply firewood and lumber, the land would be subject to erosion, and the eroded land could no longer support the growing population.
Inteesting that you mentioned some tribes in the Amazon and Africa. These tribes are largely hunter/gathers, who never did develop a reliance on a domesticated food supply. | |
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Dug01
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Joined: 1/3/2007
Msg: 8 | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/15/2007 10:02:44 PM | | I would recommend Guns, Germs and Steel that deals with this very issue. Makes a very convincing case. To a lesser extent The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers makes some good points too. But I'm not going to try to precis either one. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/16/2007 7:26:47 AM | | I forgot where, but I read somewhere that it has to do with deseases, permanent foodstreams and exchange of ideas. Australia drifted apart from Indonesia, 10.000 years ago. The Aboriginals didn't develop anymore after that. Then there were Aboriginals on Tasmania, and this island drifted apart from Australia (got isolated from an already isolated culture). When the Dutch arrived in the 17th centurey these Aboriginals even lost their ability to make fire. | |
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arri
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Joined: 10/5/2005
Msg: 12 | |
| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/16/2007 7:36:59 AM | It all comes down to the economy. When a nation state reaches a level of stability, secuirty and economic capacity to go beyond basic survival, it can then invest resources in the arts, letrature and scientific progress. That explains the early civilization in the middle east and egypt.
Sumerians and Egyptions built their civilizations around the agreculture around fetrile river vallys, protected by desert. The deserts give them a nice buffer zone against nomadic attacks and offered them the security to grow. Then the need for adminstration gave birth to taxation and city states were born. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/17/2007 10:01:28 PM | | I think it has to do with cross cultural mixing of ideas, often at the point of a sword. When you run into other cultures, some of the things they do just seem like good ideas, so you do it too. Or sometimes when you're being attacked by another culture then you need to come up with something new in order to survive. The cultures who didn't advance just had themselves to deal with, so they didn't get good foreign ideas or get forced by survival requirements to come up with good ideas of their own. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/18/2007 12:34:45 AM | very interesting...globalization perhaps and since we were nomadic peoples (many peoples of the world) people came and went all over, trading posts obviously helped and major routes of transportation helped societies.....the road less travelled so to speak leads you to villages less disrupted, but major ports, trading, and trans. routes brought many things to many societies....
what gets me are the civilizations and socities that just up and disappear - the mayans? | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/18/2007 1:27:17 AM | I also recommend "Guns Germs and Steel."
Basically it was all about farming and food production, prior to farming humans were normadic therefore women could only carry one child at a time. Farming enabled humans to settle, hence women could have more children, thus communities grew.
Funny enough when farming developed in the middle east (fertile crescent and europe), but the Australian aboriginals did not adopt any farming techniques, but they did invent the water craft prior to any europeans transporting themselves to New Zealand and the pacific islands.
European and middle eastern communities thrived within their communities basically because their initial survival need was meet, ie food production. Hence they were able to focus their attentions on community structures, technology and implementations to assist with farming and food production.
Menawhile the Australian aboriginals remained constant not changing their ways, at the time of white settlement the australian aboriginals had not even invented the bow and arrow, which made them the most primitive of all cultures.
Guns, Germs and Steel states that eventually given time without european settlement the Australian aboriginals would have adopted these practices. But that is a whole other topic.
Basically it's all to do with food production and farming. If one notices when a new housing estate is being established the very first thing to be built, besides roads is a supermarket, food production again but in a modern form.
Loved the TV Documentary as well on Guns, Germs and Steel but not as comprehensive as the book itself. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/18/2007 2:05:56 AM | I have not gone through all of the posts so I am going to assume that i am repeating what has already been posted. AGRICULTURE. You are right in citing climate to have a big influence on tech advances. As people planted crops rather than being hunter gathers they became agrarian and that gave them a larger pool of people as they stayed in one place. As far as the amerind cultures you see alot more inovation with tribes that stayed in one place for extended periods. Still you see the rise of technology in the plains indians and woodland cree and in the pacific coast tribes. These tribes all had territories and would have to work with the resources at thier disposal. The plains Indian was much like the bedouin of North Africa but with different impetus, the bedouin(sp) were traders and had to be mobile and would have remained a herding tribe had it not been for the agrarian cities that were forming that needed to have trade. The stories of a plains indian tribe of 3 or 4 hundred people being ready to move in under three hours was probably true as this was key to thier survival. That is one factor that kept their tech a the place it wasthey could not afford to take the time to innovate as they had mouths to feed and in a nomads life it is a huge time and energy consumer.
As for european culture it lagged way behind the levant and the med areas. it was not till the romans coming north that they were turned modern. Now my question is similar to yours in why did so much come from the semetic peoples in the way of tech advances? I know why can you guess why?
Man I'm glad i made it to grade nine eh! | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/18/2007 2:29:16 AM | Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond states that cities initially commenced in the fertile crescent in the Middle East which consists of part of Turkey, Syria, Jordan and Iraq.
that area appears to have been the earliest site for a whole string of developments, including cities,, writing, empires and what we term (for better or worse) civilisation. All those developments sprang, in turn, from the dense human populations stored food surpluses and feeding of nonfarming specialists made possible by the rise of food production in the form of crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Jarred Diamond
He also states that by the time the romans appeared every food source known to humans had already been cultivated. The Romans were the masters in engineering technology, harvesting water and building structures.
Great topic .. | |
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JAJ82
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Joined: 1/26/2007
Msg: 20 | |
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Ivarr
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Joined: 2/15/2007
Msg: 21 | |
| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/19/2007 1:39:45 AM | | I would recommend one great book which explores the origins of world societies; "After the Ice" by Steve Mithen. It is a 'history' of the human race from the end of the last Ice Age to the beginnings of the Neolithic, or new stone age. He poses a number of questions and attempts to answer them using archaeological and anthropological evidence. While I do not agree with all his theories I did feel that he asked the right questions. | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/19/2007 5:16:55 AM | What you are asking is why did the European culture develop technology and conquer the world and other societies didn't ?
After all, the only real difference historically between us and Native Americans, Africans, or Asians has been the level of technology. There isn't anything intrinsically or morally superior about our culture in comparison to theirs.
I would say it's really just a matter of, we got to it first.
If the Africans had of developed technology and used it to spread African culture all over the world at the point of a gun, then some African would be asking today how come the Europeans didn't become " advanced ". | |
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| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/19/2007 10:15:26 PM | "Trial and error of social and technological evolution. One species prevails, another does not, similarly one society advances whereas another does not"
Yes, I think you're onto something.
Furthermore, wars breed technology and create wealth for the winner and thus more spoils and human capital potential are available for more innovation. Innovation creates advantage. Efficiencies are created and along with that we have economies of scale as populations grow with an ever-increasing desire to improve the standards of life which creates a strong ecnomy and more innovation and also the desire to protect capitalism via means of..you guessed it.. more war | |
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rake_
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Joined: 7/16/2006
Msg: 25 | |
| Why did some societies advance and other not?
Posted: 2/20/2007 4:29:52 AM | | this is actually a very interesting question. I honestly couldnt differentiate between important factors vs non. I would guess that before becoming a civilization a society would need to sustain producing food over the history of the civilization. Without this i don't see how it would be possible to grow into a civilization. From this assumption you can make a few more....the climate and environment would have to be suitable for supporting a wide variety of agriculture for food and harvesting and animals for domestication. I think that writing is key for the evolution of a civilization. Through writing, agriculture and food production methods can be maintained, shared and reproduced and then serve as a basis for advancements from new ideas, technologies, practices, etc....and thats just the beginning....writing is necessary in order for the advancement of practically every major aspect of human endeavour....i.e. literature, culture, science, Technology, economy, trade, medicine and Philosophy, theology, art, you name it....the only other thing that is clear to me is that to sustain growth the civilization will have to undergo ,major revolutions (i.e. iron age, bronze age, war, political, socio-econmic, agricultural, industrial, technological, medical) but what the best mix of Political, Economic, Social, Cultural, and Religious conditions make up the best suited climate to allow these revolutions to occur and evolve I have no idea.... | |
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