Big history powerpoint

BIG HISTORY

JARED SMITHHISTORY 140 ONLINE 71153

THE JOURNEY OF A MAN

• Geneticist Spencer Wells believes that all of us share a common ancestor, traced back by a piece of DNA- the Y chromosome.

• We are all traced back to an African Man from Eastern/Southern Africa around 60,000 years ago

JOURNEY OF A MAN PT. 2

We all supposedly came from a dark skinned man, but because of the areas where we live, we have adjusted to survive. In Africa, the tropical sun was very strong. People need a darker pigmentation to protect them. When we moved into the Northern Hemisphere the sun wasn’t as strong and we needed more Vitamin D, so we lost some pigmentation to allow more sunlight through.

GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL• Jared Diamond thinks that there was no

superiority between any racial or ethnic group. Other races failed mainly because of just bad luck.

• Diamond suggests that European’s and Asian’s did so well because, they had access to plants and animals that would help them become domestic.

• Eurasia had 32 out of the 56 wild grasses that were good for cultivation, when other regions only had 6 or less types.

• Eurasia also had 13 out of the 14 types of animals that were most important to humans.

• The Fertile Crescent, in Southwest Asia had large amounts of food available for the people to use.

• People outside of Eurasia were at a big disadvantage because there wasn’t much around for them to work with.

• Not very many of the worlds 200,000, wild plant species had food value for humans. Only like 12 species do, like, banana, barley, corn, potato, rice, sugar cane, and wheat.

GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL PT. 2

• Animals played a big part in helping humans become domesticated. They helped pull plows, helped win wars. Humans used them for meat, milk, and fertilizer.

• North America didn’t have many large animals that would work for domestication, mainly just the llama, and there wasn’t many, due to hunters coming, and killing many animals that would have worked.

• The Natives did not use horses during war because there were no native horsemen. The Americas didn’t have horses again until the Europeans brought them and then they escaped.

GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL PT. 3

• Larger animals like Rhinos, Elephants, and Zebras could not be used either, because they cannot be domesticated. They can be tamed, but not controlled like horses.

• Disease also played a big part in the population. • European disease wiped out 95% of Americas pre-Columbian population.• Epidemic diseases like measles, small pox, and tuberculosis came from

domesticated animals like cattle, pigs & ducks brought the flu.• Indians didn’t have the epidemic diseases because they didn’t have the

domesticated animals

GUNS, GERMS, AND STEEL PT. 4

• Eurasians had an advantage over the Africans and Americans because they could travel East and West in the same climates. When the Africans and Americans had to travel North and South in mountains, deserts, and rain forests, and were also unable to share in the advances of other cultures.

• A thousand years ago Asia was equal or ahead of Europe in many technologies. Diamond argues that Europeans pulled ahead, because Japan & China pulled away and stopped trading ideas with other countries.

• Europeans dominated much of the world until after World War 2. Japan and China have come back as economic powers. Japans technological innovation has been a big part of it’s success.

• What we were change because what we knew changed.• In the 11th century Arab crusaders made a discovery which gave us modern day university

degree.• In 1420 we found new ways of painting which led to navigating ships in the modern day.

• Up to the 15th century we were turning knowledge into poetry or song

• 300 years ago we believed the sky was made from crystal spheres, we crushed those thoughts and stepped into the beginning of modern science.

• For centuries we handcrafted all our tools • Then came the 18th century when religious misfits came and invented tools that could move

mountains• In 1844 came the telegraph which led to the invention of the computer

THE DAY THE UNIVERSE CHANGED

• The reason we kept changing and left the others in the dust is because we try to pick the universe apart, we are curious and we want answers

CATASTROPHE• The mid 6th century was the

most important date in the past 2000 years.

• Catastrophic climatic events buried in the heart of the dark ages, believed to alter the course of worlds history

• Research shows a harsh global disaster

• They say cold, darkness, and ash filled the sky

CATASTROPHE PT. 2

• Research shows there are only few answers to what happened and those are a volcano, asteroid, and a comet.

• The earth was pulled into a prolonged winter• There would need to be a huge object to move the earth to cause a

climatic catastrophe

THE WORLD AND TRADE• Today the word “drugs” refers to

outlaw, commodities, socially harmful & criminal goods that dwell in the underworld of the blackmarket.

• Drugs are viewed as an embarrassment to capitalism, a throwback to primitive times before bourgeois ethics and consumption patterns took hold

• Free trade, which was suppose to bring great advantages to everyone involved by increasing profit to the most efficient producers and costs to consumers, does not apply to the world of drugs

• Historically, goods considered drugs, were products ingested, smoked, sniffed, or drank to produce an altered state of being, have been central to exchange and consumption

• In the 17th century people all over the world began to drink, smoke, and eat exotic plants.