Guns, Germs, and Steel - Notes

Population Density

Hunter Gatherer: 5 / sq. mile
Low Agriculture: 28 / sq. mile
Normal Agriculture: 120 / sq. mile
High Agriculture: 250 / sq. mile (Upper limit 1,100)
Political Unit size varies with size of territory, internal fragmentation, and isolation from other territories. Subsistence farming dominates with small populations and small population densities. As population / density increase, part time specializations develop, which further develop into full time specialization with enough agricultural support. Low population / low density societies are nearly perfectly egalitarian, with social stratification and ruling powers increasing with job specialization.
Population and Density are affected both by land size and by available resources. Lowest resource is on atolls (surfaced coral reefs) with resources limited to limestone (the reef), seashells, and fish. Next are volcanic islands, which have fertile soil but limited rock types (primarily volcanic obviously). Next are micro-continents, islands large enough to support diverse rock formations and diverse forms of wildlife. Finally are true continents, with the most diverse resources, including metals. Tool use and variety corresponds to the variety in materials and the size of the population. Subsistence farmers make their own simple tools, while semi-specialized crafters start off by making specialized tools.

The Dominance of Farming

Benefit 1: More Calories = More People. only a small minority of wild plants & animals are edible (poisonous, indigestible, few calories, etc), most biomass is bank & leaves which can only be digested by a few species. By growing edible plants, they make up 90% of biomass instead of 0.1% so 1 acre can now feed 10 times to 100 times as many farmers as hunter-gathers.

Benefit 2: Animal Power. Domestic animals are easier to "hunt" than wild ones. Domestication also allows for milking, which is much more calorie efficient than killing the animal. Animals provide manure which fertilizes the soil, and the largest animals can be used to plow tough soil, greatly expanding the amount of arable land.
Benefit 3: Sedentary Lifestyle. Amble production in one area allows societies to build up more material possessions and to support more kids, both in feeding and literally being able to keep track of them in the living space. Living in one space allows residents to store food, which in turn allows for the development of specialists who live off the surplus of others.
Benefit 4: Government. Some of those new specialists include kings and bureaucrats. Hunter-gatherers are mostly egalitarian, with no organization larger than band/tribe. Moderate agricultural societies develop hereditary chiefdoms, and larger societies develop kingdoms with subordinate bureaucrats. This political elite extorts taxes from the people, which feed themselves, feed permanent standing armies, feed priests who provide religious functions, feed artisans who develop new technologies, and feed scribes who preserve information about how everything works.
Benefit 5: Miscellaneous Uses. Body heat (and manure fires), natural fibers for materials (flax, cotton, hemp, wool, silk), bones for tools, leather hides, containers, land transportation, military animals (first dogs, then everything else)
"Benefit 6": Germs. Constant exposure to animals and the high populations of both animals and people allows germs to mutate cross species. The people who domesticate animals are the first exposed and the first to develop partial immunity, and passing those germs to unprotected groups produces mass genocide.

Why Farming?

Once farming develops, it is a Gambler's Fallacy. It is all around a more difficult lifestyle than hunter-gather, but it does provide more calories, allowing larger populations, which in turn need the increased calories to sustain themselves. Farmers on average are shorter, less well nourished, suffer from worse diseases, and have shorter lives than hunter-gathers.

Farming developed in regions where hunter-gather lifestyle was plentiful enough to promote sedentary societies. Agriculture develops from harvesting volunteer crops nearby similar to the ones gathered afield, and gradually learning that planting seeds corresponds to more growth. From there possession of the fields spurs more technological development to maximize production and to defend your crops. Food production develops in a piecemeal fashion with intermittent conversion from gathering to harvesting.
The different mindsets. Proto-farmer societies tend to value maximizing long term stable gains. Hunter societies tend to value more impressive immediate displays, at the cost of long term gains. Cultures might have seemingly arbitrary preferences and taboos, and value different lifestyles relative to each other.
Farming will be adopted at different rates in different places. This will primarily depend on how much competition it has with existing food methods, and how productive each of the competing methods are.
Cause 1: Decline of wild foods. Decrease in effectiveness of hunter-gather competitiveness increases desirability of farming. This is usually due to over-hunting and potential extinctions of primary animals.
Cause 2: Increase in Domesticable Plants. If wild food only disappears, that prompts migration, not farming. If wild animals disappear but wild pants which can be grown increase, those plants will gradually be adopted for farms. The single best, easiest crop for humans is cereals (grasses with big seeds).
Cause 3: Development of Farming Technologies. Tied to abundance, new techniques are developed for gathering wild plants which in turn make it easier to harvest domestic plants.
Cause 4: Self-fulfilling growth. More food allows for more people to grow more food which allows for more people.
Cause 5: The spread. Food producers out-bred food collectors, allowing them to overwhelm the competition with numbers. If geographic factors prohibited rapid invasion, that gave time for gathers to adopt production. Where those barriers aren't present, the producers swarm over gathers killing them or pushing them out. The stronger the barriers, the longer the diffusion time.

Selection Criteria for Domestic Plants

Plants need a way to disperse seeds, and different plants are optimized to use different animals as their dispersal mechanism. Latrines, garbage dumps, or gathering trials become littered with the seeds the animal prefers and germinate more often in those locations. Animals tend to select seeds that are easiest for them to access, which for humans means grasping with minimal digestion. Humans also prefer larger, brighter, sweeter, fleshy fruit, or oily seeds, or longer fibers. Hunter-gathers unconsciously select for these factors by choosing between plants of the same species, but their are other selection changes which gathers aren't aware of.

Change 1: Convenient Dispersal. Gatherers prefer clusters of seeds, not scattered ones. Seed pods that stay intact until picked are preferred over those that burst open on their own.
Change 2: Random Germination. Some plants have seeds that randomly germinate after several years, making it less likely they all germinate in a bad year. Gathers instead select for seeds that germinate every year, otherwise effort is wasted planting seeds that didn't grow.
Change 3: Self-Reproduction. Self-reproduction increases the chances that desirable mutations are preserved between generation, so those plants which can self-reproduce tend to outpace those that can't for domestication.
Plants are therefore domesticated based on how much they conform to the existing parameters, and and how easily they adapt to the new conditions. The earliest crops are wheat, barley, and peas, with their naturally large seeds, high yields, simple growth requirements, easy storage, and self-pollination. Next came fruit and nut trees (olives, figs, dates, pomegranates, and grapes) which have the drawback of required a longer start up time (3 to 10 years) but are otherwise ideal afterwards. Third is the more difficult fruit trees (apples, pears, plums, cherries) which require conscious effort from grafting. Last are the former weeds which are adopted for new use including rye, oats, turnips, radishes, beets, leeks, and lettuce. Berries and some tree nuts are the hardest to domesticate when they are A) selected for by other more common species, B) take a long time to grow to maturity, and C) have multiple genes affecting desirable mutations.

Why Farming? Part 2

In order to convert from nomadic life to farming, there needs to be a critical mass of good crops in the area to incentives sedentary life. There also needs to be a favorable climate for planting. The best climate to select for the easiest crops is the Mediterranean climate, with mild wet winters and long dry summers (selecting for grains with long term storage and quick growing potential). These are annuals, which wastes little energy on the plant body and focus on large seeds (desirable for people). The area with the highest concentration of different grains and pulses will be the cradle of farming civilization, because they will have the greatest variety to choose from. (This is aided by having more extreme weather and greater elevation changes, favoring increased variety)

What Makes a Good Boy?

All domesticated animals share a set of dominant qualities and all undomesticated animals are missing one or more of these qualities. Wolves will always be domesticated (the good-est of boys) because they integrate into the hunter-gather pack perfectly. Birds and small mammals are occasionally domesticated (chickens, ducks, turkeys OR guinea pig, ferrets, cats) for specialized uses, and the insects (honeybees and silkworms) for very specialized uses. But the most important animals (outside of the good-est boys) are the big mammals.

First, a caveat. Historic precedent only includes terrestrial mammals, because it is very difficult for terrestrial humanoids to domesticate aquatic ones. But the same principles should able in the water as on land for merfolk.
Big mammals (megafauna) are anything over 100 lbs. (of human mass or greater) Historically, only 14 have been domesticated, and only five of those see widespread use (cow, sheep, goat, pig, and horse). Tamed animal: taken from the wild and trained. Domesticated: bread in captivity, usually for several generations with selective breading employed. Domestication changes include: change in size (closer to human), increased wool/milk production, and less intelligence.
Suitable candidates for domestication were unevenly spread around the between the continents (terrestrial herbivore or omivore weighing more than 100 pounds). Increased size and increased geological diverse increases the number of animals present, increasing probability of discovering a suitable candidate. However, even in regions with large numbers of potential candidates, there are six factors required for them to become domesticated.
Diet: Obligate carnivores are too calorie expensive to domesticate because of the diminishing returns on converting food into body mass. All domesticated species much be either herbivores or omnivores who are not picky about their food type (disqualifying kolas and pandas).
Growth Rate: The domesticated animals need to have a lifecycle shorter than the people domesticating them. This disqualifies gorillas and elephants (though not for elves?)
Captive Breeding: Many animals are shy about breeding, unwilling to do so in front of humans. Alternatively they may have complex mating rituals which they can't perform in captivity. (Disqualifying Cheetahs and some camels)
Natural Disposition: To be domesticated, animals need to have an even enough temper to be safe to handle. Most of these animals will be significantly larger than their handlers and could potential kill them with ease if slightly annoyed. For example, only horses and donkeys have been domesticated of the equines, because the rest are a real pain in the ass. This disqualifies the otherwise ideal bears, buffalo, hippos, rhinos, zebras, and elk.
Tendency to Panic: Animals that herd up and stand their ground when surrounded by humans are easier to corral and control. Those that flee at any trouble are impossible to tame, because their panic can send them into shock when put in captivity. This disqualifies deer, antelope, and gazelles.
Social Structure: Domesticated animals are always those that live in herds, have defined social hierarchies, and can have overlapping territories. Human leaders place themselves into the leadership position of the hierarchies, and different herds can coexist without fighting. Cats and ferrets only mildly tolerate us, and were domesticated as solitary hunters anyway.

Spreading the Tools

Because climate remains relatively constant east to west, it is far easier for technologies, especially farming technologies, to spread east and west instead of north and south. This is slightly amended if north-south is governed by a river.

Writing

Writing greatly expands the effective size of the brain by prompting storage of more information. This in tern allows that information to be distributed further and quicker. Blueprint copying is taking another's working system and attempting to recreate it, twisting it as necessary to suit your own needs. Idea diffusion is merely hearing about or becoming aware of the possibility of a new invention, then inventing your own version without any guidance. These two patterns of distribution can be tracked based on how much variation exists between the older system and the newer.
Writing systems have three general structures: logograms (one symbol is one word), syllabic (one symbol for one syllable), and phonetic or alphabetic (one symbol for one sound). While no one writing system is purely one of these three, one of these categories tends to dominate. Early writing systems are incomplete, ambiguous, and complex. They start off with bookkeeping using counting symbols combined with pictorial representations. As the writers try to convey more complex ideas they add more and more symbols to the system to denote pronunciation, grammar, and alternative meanings. This produces exponential complexity, restricting the use of writing to a small scribe caste which can afford to learn the system. This initial system is often kept intentionally complex, so that only the elite know how to write and communicate with each other. Only with the development of streamlined alphabetic systems does writing begin to see common use, and use for things outside of bureaucratic bookkeeping.
Writing therefore requires an elite bureaucracy which has the time to develop it, and a society producing enough goods to have need to develop it. From those complex, stratified societies of bookkeepers, the idea and its use will spread to other agrarian societies, following major trade-routes and climate zones.

Invention

Technological developments are the primary driving force which allows one group to conquer another, and therefore are the primary driving force for all of history. But the development and adopting of new technologies seems wildly idiosyncratic. Most people believe that necessity is the mother of invention, but most often a new invention creates a new necessity once it has been adopted.
Raw natural materials of ancient time: stone, wood, bone, skins, fiber, clay, sand, limestone, and minerals. Ancient inventors gradually learned to work particular types of stone, wood, and bone into tools; turn clay into pottery or bricks; convert sand, limestone, and dirt into glass; or work pure soft metals (gold and copper), extract metals from ores, and finally work hard metals (bronze, then iron).
All humans are natural tinkers. People will pick up new / unfamiliar materials and try to find new uses for them when they have free time. Agrarian societies have upper castes with more free time than farmers, which gives them more opportunities to tinker and begin to invent new tools. These new tools initially have no real use, until the inventor discovers one and begins to use it or attempt to convince others to use it.
Which tools are accepted and which are rejected within a society depends of four factors. The first is the relative economic advantage of the new technology over existing methods. The second is social value / prestige, the arbitrary favoritism one culture applies between two different methods. Third is compatibility with vested interests. A government profiting off one technology is loath to promote a new competing technology. Last is the ease the advantage of the new technology can be conveyed.
Technologies adopted by a society spread in one of two ways: either the adopting society is close to the developing one and is overwhelmed by the relative advantage, or the adopting society is far enough away for the idea to arrive before the invaders and is adopted once its use is recognized. The acquisition of the technology can come from trade, espionage, emigration, and war. The more centrally located a society is, and the more inventive neighbors it has, the faster new technologies will be adopted, and the less likely it is they will be discarded. Technology then becomes autocatalytic; growing faster and faster as new developments spur new trade which brings in new ideas which spawn new developments.

Development of Government

Some categories

	Band	Tribe	Chiefdom	State
Membership
Number of People	dozens	hundreds	thousands	over 50,000
Settlement patten	nomadic	fixed: 1 village	fixed: 1+ villages	fixed: many villages
Basis of relationships	kin	kin-based clans	class and residence	class and residence
Ethnicities and languages	1	1	1	1+
Government
Decision making, leadership	"egalitarian"	"egalitarian" or big-man	centralized, hereditary	centralized
Bureaucracy	none	none	none, or 1, or 2 levels	many levels
Monopoly of force and information	no	no	yes	yes
Conflict resolution	informal	informal	centralized	laws, judges
Hierarchy of settlement	no	no	no -> paramount village	capital
Religion
Justifies kleptocracy	no	no	yes	yes -> no
Economy
Food production	no	no -> yes	yes -> intensive	intensive
Division of labor	no	no	no -> yes	yes
Exchanges	reciprocal	reciprocal	re-distributive (tribute)	re-distributive (taxes)
Control of land	band	clan	chief	various
Society
Stratified	no	no	yes, by kin	yes, not by kin
Slavery	no	no	small-scale	large-scale
Luxury goods for elite	no	no	yes	yes
Public architecture	no	no	no -> yes	yes
Indigenous literacy	no	no	no	often

A band is 5 - 80 people, held together by birth or marriage, and is effectively and extended family. Bands are entirely hunter-gather, and have no social institutions outside of familial structure. The band structure is common between early humans and all apes.

Tribes are the next level up, which politically consist of one sedentary village and the land it controls. Tribes require either food production of sufficient resources for sustained hunting-gathering. Land and resources belong to family based clans, but the tribe is overall small enough for all members to know each other (a few hundred individuals). The transition from tribe to chiefdom occurs when the population becomes large enough that no one knows everyone, and a central power is required to coordinate.
Chiefdom is characterized by a population large enough to sustain strangers regularly interacting. These interactions are governed by a centralized leader with an official position, with a recognized distinction between the chief and the commoners in both power and information. A chief may have a few subordinate bureaucrats, but they have shared, generalized governing roles. Chiefdom will sport luxury goods (restricted to the elite), public architecture, and specialized labor.
More complex forms of government tend to develop as population density increases. This is because those large societies which are more likely to survive are those which can best handle the growing number of social interactions. To handle these interactions, societies need to develop an organized system of rules, which supports the development of leaders who make and execute the rules. Once groups have reached a critical mass, growth becomes self-catalyzed. Either one dominant group begins to conquer other groups, or the presence of one dominant group spurns weaker groups to assembly into one group to combat them.