Darwin and evolution

GET1020

Dr John van Wyhe

Contents © J. van Wyhe et al. The reproduction of

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Illegal distribution or sale will be prosecuted.
Professor Jared Diamond
 Eurasian colonization
(the most recent era of human colonization)
Was it because some races could beat others?
Homo sapiens- anatomically modern humans (all
of us) - arose in Africa c. 200,000 years ago

•‘Mitochondrial Eve’ …
• "all mitochondrial DNAs
stem from one woman" and
she probably lived around
200,000 years ago in Africa.

• c. 60,000 years ago a great leap forward?

Cave art, 44,000 years ago until recently
Cave paintings from Lascaux in
France. 16,000 years old.
Hunter-gatherers
Domesticating plants
• Domesticated animals.

Darwin was the first to describe the

parallel between domestication &
evolution by natural selection in the
natural world.
Tame vs. domesticated?
 Why have only some animals been domesticated?
• Video clip:
• Guns Germs And Steel 01. animals.avi
(2.18 minutes)
What do domesticated animals provide?
 Results of domestications…
• Population growth
• Specialists
Pyramids

Ziggurats
And so much follows from that…
Cuneiform script from c. 4000 BCE
The evolution of Cuneiform script

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuneiform_script
The Phoenician alphabet, c. 1200–150 BCE
Indo-European expansion from c. 6000 years ago
Austronesian expansion from c. 1600 BCE
And so by the year 1500CE there were
very different societies in the world…
Population-weighted map of the
world, c. 1500CE
 Epidemic diseases
Smallpox, measles, influenza, typhus,
bubonic plague…
Dense populations & proximity to animals…
What about Australia?
• Video clip:
• Guns Germs And Steel 03. Malaysia and
Singapore.avi
(1.16 minutes)
Why not China?
 Criticisms of Diamond’s work:
• “geographic determinism”
• “Academic porn” !!!