CHAPTER 6: CIVILIZATIONS
2) How do you understand areas of the world, such as Bantu Africa, North America, and Pacific Oceania, that did not generate “civilizations”? Do you see them as “backward,” as moving slowly
toward civilization, or as simply different?
I would say that do not know as much as we wish we could in order to call something backwards, I would say it's simply different. For Bantu, it wasn't more of generating civilization, rather than just a movement of cultures, lifestyles, resources, etc. To their advantage, Bantu people were mostly farmers, therefore, they were always thinking of new ideas for making tools, making a more productive economy, and allowing a larger amount of people to live in a smaller environment. With this, it wasn't that what they were moving away from civilization, they just had a different view on life and did things that worked for them.
"Even more widespread — in the eastern woodlands of the United States, Central America, the Amazon basin, the Caribbean islands — were societies sustained by village-based agriculture. Owing to environmental or technological limitations, it was a less intensive and productive agriculture than in Mesoamerica or the Andes and supported usually much smaller populations, (321)." In North America's case, it wasn't that they were going backwards as well, it was more like they knew what resources they had, and had to just adapt and work with it. I strongly believe you're a product of your environment, and while that usually means that you are shaped by where you come from, I also believe that you adapt to what resources you have, and learn how to use them in multiple ways.
The Pacific Oceana setting was, you guessed it, more water based (islands), so they had to adapt with their surroundings. "They hunted, gathered, and fished, and burnt large tracts of undisturbed forests. Resource depletion, deforestation, and soil erosion followed, no doubt contributing to the abandonment of at least several dozen islands, as their inhabitants, (325)." However, it started to become a highly populated habitat, which led to a growing social complexity. They had to be farther advanced than they really were.
I would say that do not know as much as we wish we could in order to call something backwards, I would say it's simply different. For Bantu, it wasn't more of generating civilization, rather than just a movement of cultures, lifestyles, resources, etc. To their advantage, Bantu people were mostly farmers, therefore, they were always thinking of new ideas for making tools, making a more productive economy, and allowing a larger amount of people to live in a smaller environment. With this, it wasn't that what they were moving away from civilization, they just had a different view on life and did things that worked for them.
"Even more widespread — in the eastern woodlands of the United States, Central America, the Amazon basin, the Caribbean islands — were societies sustained by village-based agriculture. Owing to environmental or technological limitations, it was a less intensive and productive agriculture than in Mesoamerica or the Andes and supported usually much smaller populations, (321)." In North America's case, it wasn't that they were going backwards as well, it was more like they knew what resources they had, and had to just adapt and work with it. I strongly believe you're a product of your environment, and while that usually means that you are shaped by where you come from, I also believe that you adapt to what resources you have, and learn how to use them in multiple ways.
The Pacific Oceana setting was, you guessed it, more water based (islands), so they had to adapt with their surroundings. "They hunted, gathered, and fished, and burnt large tracts of undisturbed forests. Resource depletion, deforestation, and soil erosion followed, no doubt contributing to the abandonment of at least several dozen islands, as their inhabitants, (325)." However, it started to become a highly populated habitat, which led to a growing social complexity. They had to be farther advanced than they really were.
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