Guns, Germs And Steel Part 11

WHERE DO INNOVATIONS actually come from? For all societies except the few past ones that were completely isolated, much or most new technology is not invented locally but is instead borrowed from other societies. The relative importance of local invention and of borrowing depends mainly on two factors: the ease of invention of the particular technology, and the proximity of the particular society to other societies. actually come from? For all societies except the few past ones that were completely isolated, much or most new technology is not invented locally but is instead borrowed from other societies. The relative importance of local invention and of borrowing depends mainly on two factors: the ease of invention of the particular technology, and the proximity of the particular society to other societies.

Some inventions arose straightforwardly from a handling of natural raw materials. Such inventions developed on many independent occasions in world history, at different places and times. One example, which we have already considered at length, is plant domestication, with at least nine independent origins. Another is pottery, which may have arisen from observations of the behavior of clay, a very widespread natural material, when dried or heated. Pottery appeared in j.a.pan around 14,000 years ago, in the Fertile Crescent and China by around 10,000 years ago, and in Amazonia, Africa's Sahel zone, the U.S. Southeast, and Mexico thereafter.

An example of a much more difficult invention is writing, which does not suggest itself by observation of any natural material. As we saw in Chapter 12, it had only a few independent origins, and the alphabet arose apparently only once in world history. Other difficult inventions include the water wheel, rotary quern, tooth gearing, magnetic compa.s.s, windmill, and camera obscura, all of which were invented only once or twice in the Old World and never in the New World.

Such complex inventions were usually acquired by borrowing, because they spread more rapidly than they could be independently invented locally. A clear example is the wheel, which is first attested around 3400 B.C. B.C. near the Black Sea, and then turns up within the next few centuries over much of Europe and Asia. All those early Old World wheels are of a peculiar design: a solid wooden circle constructed of three planks fastened together, rather than a rim with spokes. In contrast, the sole wheels of Native American societies (depicted on Mexican ceramic vessels) consisted of a single piece, suggesting a second independent invention of the wheel-as one would expect from other evidence for the isolation of New World from Old World civilizations. near the Black Sea, and then turns up within the next few centuries over much of Europe and Asia. All those early Old World wheels are of a peculiar design: a solid wooden circle constructed of three planks fastened together, rather than a rim with spokes. In contrast, the sole wheels of Native American societies (depicted on Mexican ceramic vessels) consisted of a single piece, suggesting a second independent invention of the wheel-as one would expect from other evidence for the isolation of New World from Old World civilizations.

No one thinks that that same peculiar Old World wheel design appeared repeatedly by chance at many separate sites of the Old World within a few centuries of each other, after 7 million years of wheelless human history. Instead, the utility of the wheel surely caused it to diffuse rapidly east and west over the Old World from its sole site of invention. Other examples of complex technologies that diffused east and west in the ancient Old World, from a single West Asian source, include door locks, pulleys, rotary querns, windmills-and the alphabet. A New World example of technological diffusion is metallurgy, which spread from the Andes via Panama to Mesoamerica.

When a widely useful invention does crop up in one society, it then tends to spread in either of two ways. One way is that other societies see or learn of the invention, are receptive to it, and adopt it. The second is that societies lacking the invention find themselves at a disadvantage vis-a-vis the inventing society, and they become overwhelmed and replaced if the disadvantage is sufficiently great. A simple example is the spread of muskets among New Zealand's Maori tribes. One tribe, the Ngapuhi, adopted muskets from European traders around 1818. Over the course of the next 15 years, New Zealand was convulsed by the so-called Musket Wars, as musketless tribes either acquired muskets or were subjugated by tribes already armed with them. The outcome was that musket technology had spread throughout the whole of New Zealand by 1833: all surviving Maori tribes now had muskets.

When societies do adopt a new technology from the society that invented it, the diffusion may occur in many different contexts. They include peaceful trade (as in the spread of transistors from the United States to j.a.pan in 1954), espionage (the smuggling of silkworms from Southeast Asia to the Mideast in A.D. A.D. 552), emigration (the spread of French gla.s.s and clothing manufacturing techniques over Europe by the 200,000 Huguenots expelled from France in 1685), and war. A crucial case of the last was the transfer of Chinese papermaking techniques to Islam, made possible when an Arab army defeated a Chinese army at the battle of Talas River in Central Asia in 552), emigration (the spread of French gla.s.s and clothing manufacturing techniques over Europe by the 200,000 Huguenots expelled from France in 1685), and war. A crucial case of the last was the transfer of Chinese papermaking techniques to Islam, made possible when an Arab army defeated a Chinese army at the battle of Talas River in Central Asia in A.D. A.D. 751, found some papermakers among the prisoners of war, and brought them to Samarkand to set up paper manufacture. 751, found some papermakers among the prisoners of war, and brought them to Samarkand to set up paper manufacture.

In Chapter 12 we saw that cultural diffusion can involve either detailed "blueprints" or just vague ideas stimulating a reinvention of details. While Chapter 12 ill.u.s.trated those alternatives for the spread of writing, they also apply to the diffusion of technology. The preceding paragraph gave examples of blueprint copying, whereas the transfer of Chinese porcelain technology to Europe provides an instance of long-drawn-out idea diffusion. Porcelain, a fine-grained translucent pottery, was invented in China around the 7th century A.D. A.D. When it began to reach Europe by the Silk Road in the 14th century (with no information about how it was manufactured), it was much admired, and many unsuccessful attempts were made to imitate it. Not until 1707 did the German alchemist Johann Bottger, after lengthy experiments with processes and with mixing various minerals and clays together, hit upon the solution and establish the now famous Meissen porcelain works. More or less independent later experiments in France and England led to Sevres, Wedgwood, and Spode porcelains. Thus, European potters had to reinvent Chinese manufacturing methods for themselves, but they were stimulated to do so by having models of the desired product before them. When it began to reach Europe by the Silk Road in the 14th century (with no information about how it was manufactured), it was much admired, and many unsuccessful attempts were made to imitate it. Not until 1707 did the German alchemist Johann Bottger, after lengthy experiments with processes and with mixing various minerals and clays together, hit upon the solution and establish the now famous Meissen porcelain works. More or less independent later experiments in France and England led to Sevres, Wedgwood, and Spode porcelains. Thus, European potters had to reinvent Chinese manufacturing methods for themselves, but they were stimulated to do so by having models of the desired product before them.

DEPENDING ON THEIR geographic location, societies differ in how readily they can receive technology by diffusion from other societies. The most isolated people on Earth in recent history were the Aboriginal Tasmanians, living without oceangoing watercraft on an island 100 miles from Australia, itself the most isolated continent. The Tasmanians had no contact with other societies for 10,000 years and acquired no new technology other than what they invented themselves. Australians and New Guineans, separated from the Asian mainland by the Indonesian island chain, received only a trickle of inventions from Asia. The societies most accessible to receiving inventions by diffusion were those embedded in the major continents. In these societies technology developed most rapidly, because they acc.u.mulated not only their own inventions but also those of other societies. For example, medieval Islam, centrally located in Eurasia, acquired inventions from India and China and inherited ancient Greek learning. geographic location, societies differ in how readily they can receive technology by diffusion from other societies. The most isolated people on Earth in recent history were the Aboriginal Tasmanians, living without oceangoing watercraft on an island 100 miles from Australia, itself the most isolated continent. The Tasmanians had no contact with other societies for 10,000 years and acquired no new technology other than what they invented themselves. Australians and New Guineans, separated from the Asian mainland by the Indonesian island chain, received only a trickle of inventions from Asia. The societies most accessible to receiving inventions by diffusion were those embedded in the major continents. In these societies technology developed most rapidly, because they acc.u.mulated not only their own inventions but also those of other societies. For example, medieval Islam, centrally located in Eurasia, acquired inventions from India and China and inherited ancient Greek learning.

The importance of diffusion, and of geographic location in making it possible, is strikingly ill.u.s.trated by some otherwise incomprehensible cases of societies that abandoned powerful technologies. We tend to a.s.sume that useful technologies, once acquired, inevitably persist until superseded by better ones. In reality, technologies must be not only acquired but also maintained, and that too depends on many unpredictable factors. Any society goes through social movements or fads, in which economically useless things become valued or useful things devalued temporarily. Nowadays, when almost all societies on Earth are connected to each other, we cannot imagine a fad's going so far that an important technology would actually be discarded. A society that temporarily turned against a powerful technology would continue to see it being used by neighboring societies and would have the opportunity to reacquire it by diffusion (or would be conquered by neighbors if it failed to do so). But such fads can persist in isolated societies.

A famous example involves j.a.pan's abandonment of guns. Firearms reached j.a.pan in A.D. A.D. 1543, when two Portuguese adventurers armed with harquebuses (primitive guns) arrived on a Chinese cargo ship. The j.a.panese were so impressed by the new weapon that they commenced indigenous gun production, greatly improved gun technology, and by 1543, when two Portuguese adventurers armed with harquebuses (primitive guns) arrived on a Chinese cargo ship. The j.a.panese were so impressed by the new weapon that they commenced indigenous gun production, greatly improved gun technology, and by A.D. A.D. 1600 owned more and better guns than any other country in the world. 1600 owned more and better guns than any other country in the world.

But there were also factors working against the acceptance of firearms in j.a.pan. The country had a numerous warrior cla.s.s, the samurai, for whom swords rated as cla.s.s symbols and works of art (and as means for subjugating the lower cla.s.ses). j.a.panese warfare had previously involved single combats between samurai swordsmen, who stood in the open, made ritual speeches, and then took pride in fighting gracefully. Such behavior became lethal in the presence of peasant soldiers ungracefully blasting away with guns. In addition, guns were a foreign invention and grew to be despised, as did other things foreign in j.a.pan after 1600. The samurai-controlled government began by restricting gun production to a few cities, then introduced a requirement of a government license for producing a gun, then issued licenses only for guns produced for the government, and finally reduced government orders for guns, until j.a.pan was almost without functional guns again.

Contemporary European rulers also included some who despised guns and tried to restrict their availability. But such measures never got far in Europe, where any country that temporarily swore off firearms would be promptly overrun by gun-toting neighboring countries. Only because j.a.pan was a populous, isolated island could it get away with its rejection of the powerful new military technology. Its safety in isolation came to an end in 1853, when the visit of Commodore Perry's U.S. fleet bristling with cannons convinced j.a.pan of its need to resume gun manufacture.

That rejection and China's abandonment of oceangoing ships (as well as of mechanical clocks and water-driven spinning machines) are well-known historical instances of technological reversals in isolated or semi-isolated societies. Other such reversals occurred in prehistoric times. The extreme case is that of Aboriginal Tasmanians, who abandoned even bone tools and fishing to become the society with the simplest technology in the modern world (Chapter 15). Aboriginal Australians may have adopted and then abandoned bows and arrows. Torres Islanders abandoned canoes, while Gaua Islanders abandoned and then readopted them. Pottery was abandoned throughout Polynesia. Most Polynesians and many Melanesians abandoned the use of bows and arrows in war. Polar Eskimos lost the bow and arrow and the kayak, while Dorset Eskimos lost the bow and arrow, bow drill, and dogs.

These examples, at first so bizarre to us, ill.u.s.trate well the roles of geography and of diffusion in the history of technology. Without diffusion, fewer technologies are acquired, and more existing technologies are lost.

BECAUSE TECHNOLOGY BEGETS more technology, the importance of an invention's diffusion potentially exceeds the importance of the original invention. Technology's history exemplifies what is termed an autocatalytic process: that is, one that speeds up at a rate that increases with time, because the process catalyzes itself. The explosion of technology since the Industrial Revolution impresses us today, but the medieval explosion was equally impressive compared with that of the Bronze Age, which in turn dwarfed that of the Upper Paleolithic. more technology, the importance of an invention's diffusion potentially exceeds the importance of the original invention. Technology's history exemplifies what is termed an autocatalytic process: that is, one that speeds up at a rate that increases with time, because the process catalyzes itself. The explosion of technology since the Industrial Revolution impresses us today, but the medieval explosion was equally impressive compared with that of the Bronze Age, which in turn dwarfed that of the Upper Paleolithic.

One reason why technology tends to catalyze itself is that advances depend upon previous mastery of simpler problems. For example, Stone Age farmers did not proceed directly to extracting and working iron, which requires high-temperature furnaces. Instead, iron ore metallurgy grew out of thousands of years of human experience with natural outcrops of pure metals soft enough to be hammered into shape without heat (copper and gold). It also grew out of thousands of years of development of simple furnaces to make pottery, and then to extract copper ores and work copper alloys (bronzes) that do not require as high temperatures as does iron. In both the Fertile Crescent and China, iron objects became common only after about 2,000 years of experience of bronze metallurgy. New World societies had just begun making bronze artifacts and had not yet started making iron ones at the time when the arrival of Europeans truncated the New World's independent trajectory.

The other main reason for autocatalysis is that new technologies and materials make it possible to generate still other new technologies by recombination. For instance, why did printing spread explosively in medieval Europe after Gutenberg printed his Bible in A.D. A.D. 1455, but not after that unknown printer printed the Phaistos disk in 1700 1455, but not after that unknown printer printed the Phaistos disk in 1700 B.C. B.C.? The explanation is partly that medieval European printers were able to combine six technological advances, most of which were unavailable to the maker of the Phaistos disk. Of those advances-in paper, movable type, metallurgy, presses, inks, and scripts-paper and the idea of movable type reached Europe from China. Gutenberg's development of typecasting from metal dies, to overcome the potentially fatal problem of nonuniform type size, depended on many metallurgical developments: steel for letter punches, bra.s.s or bronze alloys (later replaced by steel) for dies, lead for molds, and a tin-zinc-lead alloy for type. Gutenberg's press was derived from screw presses in use for making wine and olive oil, while his ink was an oil-based improvement on existing inks. The alphabetic scripts that medieval Europe inherited from three millennia of alphabet development lent themselves to printing with movable type, because only a few dozen letter forms had to be cast, as opposed to the thousands of signs required for Chinese writing.

In all six respects, the maker of the Phaistos disk had access to much less powerful technologies to combine into a printing system than did Gutenberg. The disk's writing medium was clay, which is much bulkier and heavier than paper. The metallurgical skills, inks, and presses of 1700 B.C. B.C. Crete were more primitive than those of Crete were more primitive than those of A.D. A.D. 1455 Germany, so the disk had to be punched by hand rather than by cast movable type locked into a metal frame, inked, and pressed. The disk's script was a syllabary with more signs, of more complex form, than the Roman alphabet used by Gutenberg. As a result, the Phaistos disk's printing technology was much clumsier, and offered fewer advantages over writing by hand, than Gutenberg's printing press. In addition to all those technological drawbacks, the Phaistos disk was printed at a time when knowledge of writing was confined to a few palace or temple scribes. Hence there was little demand for the disk maker's beautiful product, and little incentive to invest in making the dozens of hand punches required. In contrast, the potential ma.s.s market for printing in medieval Europe induced numerous investors to lend money to Gutenberg. 1455 Germany, so the disk had to be punched by hand rather than by cast movable type locked into a metal frame, inked, and pressed. The disk's script was a syllabary with more signs, of more complex form, than the Roman alphabet used by Gutenberg. As a result, the Phaistos disk's printing technology was much clumsier, and offered fewer advantages over writing by hand, than Gutenberg's printing press. In addition to all those technological drawbacks, the Phaistos disk was printed at a time when knowledge of writing was confined to a few palace or temple scribes. Hence there was little demand for the disk maker's beautiful product, and little incentive to invest in making the dozens of hand punches required. In contrast, the potential ma.s.s market for printing in medieval Europe induced numerous investors to lend money to Gutenberg.

HUMAN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPED from the first stone tools, in use by two and a half million years ago, to the 1996 laser printer that replaced my already outdated 1992 laser printer and that was used to print this book's ma.n.u.script. The rate of development was undetectably slow at the beginning, when hundreds of thousands of years pa.s.sed with no discernible change in our stone tools and with no surviving evidence for artifacts made of other materials. Today, technology advances so rapidly that it is reported in the daily newspaper. from the first stone tools, in use by two and a half million years ago, to the 1996 laser printer that replaced my already outdated 1992 laser printer and that was used to print this book's ma.n.u.script. The rate of development was undetectably slow at the beginning, when hundreds of thousands of years pa.s.sed with no discernible change in our stone tools and with no surviving evidence for artifacts made of other materials. Today, technology advances so rapidly that it is reported in the daily newspaper.

In this long history of accelerating development, one can single out two especially significant jumps. The first, occurring between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, probably was made possible by genetic changes in our bodies: namely, by evolution of the modern anatomy permitting modern speech or modern brain function, or both. That jump led to bone tools, single-purpose stone tools, and compound tools. The second jump resulted from our adoption of a sedentary lifestyle, which happened at different times in different parts of the world, as early as 13,000 years ago in some areas and not even today in others. For the most part, that adoption was linked to our adoption of food production, which required us to remain close to our crops, orchards, and stored food surpluses.

Sedentary living was decisive for the history of technology, because it enabled people to acc.u.mulate nonportable possessions. Nomadic hunter-gatherers are limited to technology that can be carried. If you move often and lack vehicles or draft animals, you confine your possessions to babies, weapons, and a bare minimum of other absolute necessities small enough to carry. You can't be burdened with pottery and printing presses as you shift camp. That practical difficulty probably explains the tantalizingly early appearance of some technologies, followed by a long delay in their further development. For example, the earliest attested precursors of ceramics are fired clay figurines made in the area of modern Czechoslovakia 27,000 years ago, long before the oldest known fired clay vessels (from j.a.pan 14,000 years ago). The same area of Czechoslovakia at the same time has yielded the earliest evidence for weaving, otherwise not attested until the oldest known basket appears around 13,000 years ago and the oldest known woven cloth around 9,000 years ago. Despite these very early first steps, neither pottery nor weaving took off until people became sedentary and thereby escaped the problem of transporting pots and looms.

Besides permitting sedentary living and hence the acc.u.mulation of possessions, food production was decisive in the history of technology for another reason. It became possible, for the first time in human evolution, to develop economically specialized societies consisting of non-food-producing specialists fed by food-producing peasants. But we already saw, in Part 2 of this book, that food production arose at different times in different continents. In addition, as we've seen in this chapter, local technology depends, for both its origin and its maintenance, not only on local invention but also on the diffusion of technology from elsewhere. That consideration tended to cause technology to develop most rapidly on continents with few geographic and ecological barriers to diffusion, either within that continent or on other continents. Finally, each society on a continent represents one more opportunity to invent and adopt a technology, because societies vary greatly in their innovativeness for many separate reasons. Hence, all other things being equal, technology develops fastest in large productive regions with large human populations, many potential inventors, and many competing societies.

Let us now summarize how variations in these three factors-time of onset of food production, barriers to diffusion, and human population size-led straightforwardly to the observed intercontinental differences in the development of technology. Eurasia (effectively including North Africa) is the world's largest landma.s.s, encompa.s.sing the largest number of competing societies. It was also the landma.s.s with the two centers where food production began the earliest: the Fertile Crescent and China. Its east-west major axis permitted many inventions adopted in one part of Eurasia to spread relatively rapidly to societies at similar lat.i.tudes and climates elsewhere in Eurasia. Its breadth along its minor axis (north-south) contrasts with the Americas' narrowness at the Isthmus of Panama. It lacks the severe ecological barriers transecting the major axes of the Americas and Africa. Thus, geographic and ecological barriers to diffusion of technology were less severe in Eurasia than in other continents. Thanks to all these factors, Eurasia was the continent on which technology started its post-Pleistocene acceleration earliest and resulted in the greatest local acc.u.mulation of technologies.

North and South America are conventionally regarded as separate continents, but they have been connected for several million years, pose similar historical problems, and may be considered together for comparison with Eurasia. The Americas form the world's second-largest landma.s.s, significantly smaller than Eurasia. However, they are fragmented by geography and by ecology: the Isthmus of Panama, only 40 miles wide, virtually transects the Americas geographically, as do the isthmus's Darien rain forests and the northern Mexican desert ecologically. The latter desert separated advanced human societies of Mesoamerica from those of North America, while the isthmus separated advanced societies of Mesoamerica from those of the Andes and Amazonia. In addition, the main axis of the Americas is north-south, forcing most diffusion to go against a gradient of lat.i.tude (and climate) rather than to operate within the same lat.i.tude. For example, wheels were invented in Mesoamerica, and llamas were domesticated in the central Andes by 3000 B.C. B.C., but 5,000 years later the Americas' sole beast of burden and sole wheels had still not encountered each other, even though the distance separating Mesoamerica's Maya societies from the northern border of the Inca Empire (1,200 miles) was far less than the 6,000 miles separating wheel- and horse-sharing France and China. Those factors seem to me to account for the Americas' technological lag behind Eurasia.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the world's third largest landma.s.s, considerably smaller than the Americas. Throughout most of human history it was far more accessible to Eurasia than were the Americas, but the Saharan desert is still a major ecological barrier separating sub-Saharan Africa from Eurasia plus North Africa. Africa's north-south axis posed a further obstacle to the diffusion of technology, both between Eurasia and sub-Saharan Africa and within the sub-Saharan region itself. As an ill.u.s.tration of the latter obstacle, pottery and iron metallurgy arose in or reached sub-Saharan Africa's Sahel zone (north of the equator) at least as early as they reached western Europe. However, pottery did not reach the southern tip of Africa until around A.D. A.D. 1, and metallurgy had not yet diffused overland to the southern tip by the time that it arrived there from Europe on ships. 1, and metallurgy had not yet diffused overland to the southern tip by the time that it arrived there from Europe on ships.

Finally, Australia is the smallest continent. The very low rainfall and productivity of most of Australia makes it effectively even smaller as regards its capacity to support human populations. It is also the most isolated continent. In addition, food production never arose indigenously in Australia. Those factors combined to leave Australia the sole continent still without metal artifacts in modern times.

Table 13.1 translates these factors into numbers, by comparing the continents with respect to their areas and their modern human populations. The continents' populations 10,000 years ago, just before the rise of food production, are not known but surely stood in the same sequence, since many of the areas producing the most food today would also have been productive areas for hunter-gatherers 10,000 years ago. The differences in population are glaring: Eurasia's (including North Africa's) is nearly 6 times that of the Americas, nearly 8 times that of Africa's, and 230 times that of Australia's. Larger populations mean more inventors and more competing societies. Table 13.1 by itself goes a long way toward explaining the origins of guns and steel in Eurasia.

TABLE 13.1 13.1 Human Populations of the Continents Human Populations of the Continents

Continent 1990 Population Area (square miles) Eurasia and North Africa 4,120,000,000 24,200,000 (Eurasia) (4,000,000,000) (21,500,000) (North Africa) (120,000,000) (2,700,000) North America and South America 736,000,000 16,400,000 Sub-Saharan Africa 535,000,000 9,100,000 Australia 18,000,000 3,000,000

All these effects that continental differences in area, population, ease of diffusion, and onset of food production exerted on the rise of technology became exaggerated, because technology catalyzes itself. Eurasia's considerable initial advantage thereby was translated into a huge lead as of A.D. A.D. 1492-for reasons of Eurasia's distinctive geography rather than of distinctive human intellect. The New Guineans whom I know include potential Edisons. But they directed their ingenuity toward technological problems appropriate to their situations: the problems of surviving without any imported items in the New Guinea jungle, rather than the problem of inventing phonographs. 1492-for reasons of Eurasia's distinctive geography rather than of distinctive human intellect. The New Guineans whom I know include potential Edisons. But they directed their ingenuity toward technological problems appropriate to their situations: the problems of surviving without any imported items in the New Guinea jungle, rather than the problem of inventing phonographs.

CHAPTER 14

FROM E EGALITARIANISM TO K KLEPTOCRACY

IN 1979, WHILE I WAS FLYING WITH MISSIONARY FRIENDS over a remote swamp-filled basin of New Guinea, I noticed a few huts many miles apart. The pilot explained to me that, somewhere in that muddy expanse below us, a group of Indonesian crocodile hunters had recently come across a group of New Guinea nomads. Both groups had panicked, and the encounter had ended with the Indonesians shooting several of the nomads. over a remote swamp-filled basin of New Guinea, I noticed a few huts many miles apart. The pilot explained to me that, somewhere in that muddy expanse below us, a group of Indonesian crocodile hunters had recently come across a group of New Guinea nomads. Both groups had panicked, and the encounter had ended with the Indonesians shooting several of the nomads.

My missionary friends guessed that the nomads belonged to an uncontacted group called the Fayu, known to the outside world only through accounts by their terrified neighbors, a missionized group of erstwhile nomads called the Kirikiri. First contacts between outsiders and New Guinea groups are always potentially dangerous, but this beginning was especially inauspicious. Nevertheless, my friend Doug flew in by helicopter to try to establish friendly relations with the Fayu. He returned, alive but shaken, to tell a remarkable story.

It turned out that the Fayu normally lived as single families, scattered through the swamp and coming together once or twice each year to negotiate exchanges of brides. Doug's visit coincided with such a gathering, of a few dozen Fayu. To us, a few dozen people const.i.tute a small, ordinary gathering, but to the Fayu it was a rare, frightening event. Murderers suddenly found themselves face-to-face with their victim's relatives. For example, one Fayu man spotted the man who had killed his father. The son raised his ax and rushed at the murderer but was wrestled to the ground by friends; then the murderer came at the prostrate son with an ax and was also wrestled down. Both men were held, screaming in rage, until they seemed sufficiently exhausted to be released. Other men periodically shouted insults at each other, shook with anger and frustration, and pounded the ground with their axes. That tension continued for the several days of the gathering, while Doug prayed that the visit would not end in violence.

The Fayu consist of about 400 hunter-gatherers, divided into four clans and wandering over a few hundred square miles. According to their own account, they had formerly numbered about 2,000, but their population had been greatly reduced as a result of Fayu killing Fayu. They lacked political and social mechanisms, which we take for granted, to achieve peaceful resolution of serious disputes. Eventually, as a result of Doug's visit, one group of Fayu invited a courageous husband-and-wife missionary couple to live with them. The couple has now resided there for a dozen years and gradually persuaded the Fayu to renounce violence. The Fayu are thereby being brought into the modern world, where they face an uncertain future.

Many other previously uncontacted groups of New Guineans and Amazonian Indians have similarly owed to missionaries their incorporation into modern society. After the missionaries come teachers and doctors, bureaucrats and soldiers. The spreads of government and of religion have thus been linked to each other throughout recorded history, whether the spread has been peaceful (as eventually with the Fayu) or by force. In the latter case it is often government that organizes the conquest, and religion that justifies it. While nomads and tribespeople occasionally defeat organized governments and religions, the trend over the past 13,000 years has been for the nomads and tribespeople to lose.

At the end of the last Ice Age, much of the world's population lived in societies similar to that of the Fayu today, and no people then lived in a much more complex society. As recently as A.D. A.D. 1500, less than 20 percent of the world's land area was marked off by boundaries into states run by bureaucrats and governed by laws. Today, all land except Antarctica's is so divided. Descendants of those societies that achieved centralized government and organized religion earliest ended up dominating the modern world. The combination of government and religion has thus functioned, together with germs, writing, and technology, as one of the four main sets of proximate agents leading to history's broadest pattern. How did government and religion arise? 1500, less than 20 percent of the world's land area was marked off by boundaries into states run by bureaucrats and governed by laws. Today, all land except Antarctica's is so divided. Descendants of those societies that achieved centralized government and organized religion earliest ended up dominating the modern world. The combination of government and religion has thus functioned, together with germs, writing, and technology, as one of the four main sets of proximate agents leading to history's broadest pattern. How did government and religion arise?

FAYU BANDS AND modern states represent opposite extremes along the spectrum of human societies. Modern American society and the Fayu differ in the presence or absence of a professional police force, cities, money, distinctions between rich and poor, and many other political, economic, and social inst.i.tutions. Did all of those inst.i.tutions arise together, or did some arise before others? We can infer the answer to this question by comparing modern societies at different levels of organization, by examining written accounts or archaeological evidence about past societies, and by observing how a society's inst.i.tutions change over time. modern states represent opposite extremes along the spectrum of human societies. Modern American society and the Fayu differ in the presence or absence of a professional police force, cities, money, distinctions between rich and poor, and many other political, economic, and social inst.i.tutions. Did all of those inst.i.tutions arise together, or did some arise before others? We can infer the answer to this question by comparing modern societies at different levels of organization, by examining written accounts or archaeological evidence about past societies, and by observing how a society's inst.i.tutions change over time.

Cultural anthropologists attempting to describe the diversity of human societies often divide them into as many as half a dozen categories. Any such attempt to define stages of any evolutionary or developmental continuum-whether of musical styles, human life stages, or human societies-is doubly doomed to imperfection. First, because each stage grows out of some previous stage, the lines of demarcation are inevitably arbitrary. (For example, is a 19-year-old person an adolescent or a young adult?) Second, developmental sequences are not invariant, so examples pigeonholed under the same stage are inevitably heterogeneous. (Brahms and Liszt would turn in their graves to know that they are now grouped together as composers of the romantic period.) Nevertheless, arbitrarily delineated stages provide a useful shorthand for discussing the diversity of music and of human societies, provided one bears in mind the above caveats. In that spirit, we shall use a simple cla.s.sification based on just four categories-band, tribe, chiefdom, and state (see Table 14.1)-to understand societies.

Bands are the tiniest societies, consisting typically of 5 to 80 people, most or all of them close relatives by birth or by marriage. In effect, a band is an extended family or several related extended families. Today, bands still living autonomously are almost confined to the most remote parts of New Guinea and Amazonia, but within modern times there were many others that have only recently fallen under state control or been a.s.similated or exterminated. They include many or most African Pygmies, southern African San hunter-gatherers (so-called Bushmen), Aboriginal Australians, Eskimos (Inuit), and Indians of some resource-poor areas of the Americas such as Tierra del Fuego and the northern boreal forests. All those modern bands are or were nomadic hunter-gatherers rather than settled food producers. Probably all humans lived in bands until at least 40,000 years ago, and most still did as recently as 11,000 years ago.

TABLE 14.1 14.1 Types of Societies Types of Societies

Band Tribe Chiefdom State Membership

Number of people dozens hundreds thousands over 50,000 Settlement pattern nomadic fixed: 1 villages fixed: 1 or more villages fixed: many villages and cities Basis of relationships kin kin-based clans cla.s.s and residence cla.s.s and residence Ethnicities and languages 1 1 1 1 or more 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 noparamount village capital

Bands lack many inst.i.tutions that we take for granted in our own society. They have no permanent single base of residence. The band's land is used jointly by the whole group, instead of being part.i.tioned among subgroups or individuals. There is no regular economic specialization, except by age and s.e.x: all able-bodied individuals forage for food. There are no formal inst.i.tutions, such as laws, police, and treaties, to resolve conflicts within and between bands. Band organization is often described as "egalitarian": there is no formalized social stratification into upper and lower cla.s.ses, no formalized or hereditary leadership, and no formalized monopolies of information and decision making. However, the term "egalitarian" should not be taken to mean that all band members are equal in prestige and contribute equally to decisions. Rather, the term merely means that any band "leadership" is informal and acquired through qualities such as personality, strength, intelligence, and fighting skills.

Band Tribe Chiefdom State Religion

Justifies kleptocracy?

no no yes yesno Economy