Farmer Power Chapter Summary

Chapter four, “Farmer Power,” brought up some interesting facts about the importance of domestic animals and crops. Domestication of animals and farming throughout history has proven to be probably the most important factor in the advancement of a society. Societies blessed with large mammals to domesticate, fertile soil, and plants to farm are bound to become successful. History has proven that food is a major key in the formation of advanced societies. It follows a similar pattern every time. If there are animals and plants to domesticate and farmland a society can support large numbers of people by creating surpluses in food. These people can specialize in making weapons and advancing technology, science, and forming an army. All those factors …show more content…
Why was it that some of the most fertile areas of the world currently didn’t develop farming power? This chapter was mostly an in depth analysis about when places in the world first domesticated plants and animals as the latter chapter discusses as being vital to success. It needs no explanation why food production wasn’t formed in Eurasia’s artic areas or some of Africa’s desserts. It would simply be unable to support domesticated plants and animals. Farming first developed in small negligible parts of the globe. Which may be surprising given the fact that the today’s breadbaskets didn’t acquire domesticated plants and animals until much later. The factors that lead up to the ability of some areas to produce foods will ultimately help explain how history’s haves and have-nots came to be. It laid the foundation for Eurasia’s success. Archaeologists have been able to easily determine domesticated plants and animals because of their small differences to there wild ancestors. That makes it easier to carbon date. Despite problems with carbon dating scientists have been able to determine when and where domesticated plants and animals originated. Many scientists agree Southwestern Asia is where domesticated animals and plants first arose. Many places followed soon after. As domesticated crops and animals spread people …show more content…
It was written to explain Eurasia’s dominance in yet another aspect of food production and warfare with their lead in animal domestication. Success in animal domestication requires several factors and is not determined on one sole factor. In reality there are only 5 major domesticated species for food. The author coined them the, “major five,” consisting of: sheep, goat, cow, pig, and horse. The domesticated animals became slightly different from the ancestors (think of comparing a wolf to a poodle!). Perhaps way more surprisingly is the origin of different domesticated species. Candidates for domestication are herbivorous (or omnivorous) mammals weighing over 100 lbs. Eurasia has the most possible candidates with 72 possible animals; they would go on to domesticate 13 species (18%). Although you may be thinking about how low this number is, it is not what is most astounding. Sub-Saharan Africa domesticated 0% of their 51 possible species, Australia tamed 0 of there one candidate species, and the Americas domesticated a mere 4% (1) of their 24 candidates. So, the question lays not on necessarily why Eurasia had the most species to start out with but rather why the other continents were so unsuccessful at domesticating animals. First, lets tackle the most puzzling of the continents: Sub-Saharan Africa. Africa is known for large mammals. Yet, they could not even domesticate 1. It’s not because