# Did geology prevent American civilisations from leaving the stone age? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 25, 2011, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598 "2011-09-25T22:46:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/21 "2011-09-26T11:27:00Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Anthropologist Marvin Harris has persuasively argued that the apparen veneration of the cow in India is really the result, not the cause, of its utility. I’m not sure you can separate cause and effect when you go back far enough. The earliest religions seem to be ones that venerated animals that were powerful or were commonly hunted. So if a religion evolved venerating the cow for it’s utility and that caused people to by chance make “offerings” to the cows and to not harm them, so they lost their fear of people and that made them even tamer and more useful and so they were venerated even more… and so on. No one had any idea they were selectively breeding tamer cattle over generations but the end result is the same. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 11:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/22 "2011-09-26T11:41:29Z")
Veneration came long after domesticity in this case. Hindus (well, Vedic Aryans) started out as beef-eating cowherders. The groups that eventually stopped eating beef and using them only for milk and pulling ploughs were more successful than the groups that didn’t. At what point it literally became part of the religion is unclear, but it was probably gradual. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/23 "2011-09-26T12:16:10Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > Did something about the Americas stop American civilisations leaving the Stone Age? A lack of surface copper and tin, perhaps? No. The Americas had more than their fair share of native metals and ores. They were just a little behind the development curve from Europe & Asia, is all. If they’d been untroubled for another couple centuries, they’d probably have made the transition to mixed bronze & iron cultures, at least in Meso-America and the Andes, probably also the Great Lakes/Woodlands areas. > [@Acsenray](#): > > Veneration came long after domesticity in this case. Hindus (well, Vedic Aryans) started out as beef-eating cowherders. The groups that eventually stopped eating beef and using them only for milk and pulling ploughs were more successful than the groups that didn’t. At what point it literally became part of the religion is unclear, but it was probably gradual. It seems like originally the Vedic religion included ritual centred on [another](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%C5%9Bvamedha) animal, like their Indo-European forbears. The whole Bull Cult was also there, just like in other IE cultures, so I’m not saying horses were earlier and cows came later, but priorities/emphasis may have shifted as nomadism declined in favour of civilization. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Panda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee7513/32.png) [@Darth\_Panda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Panda)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 12:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/24 "2011-09-26T12:27:56Z")
> [@Cayuga](#): > > Maybe I’m being excessively dim, but what does domesticating animals have to do with making things out of copper and bronze? > [@Acsenray](#): > > According to Diamond, the science of smelting ore on a scale that it becomes useful only happens when society is producing enough food calories – in the form of large domesticated animals and mass-produced grains – that individuals can start specializing in order to discover such innovations. This isn’t just Diamond - the necessity of specialization for cultural advancement is a basic anthropological theory. And in order to have specialization, you need to free a portion of your society from food gathering - hence the need for either animal husbandry or, preferably, farming (often with one leading to the other - since once you stop chasing the animals around, you have more time to play with crops) > [@Acsenray](#): > > Look at how difficult it is to get pandas to breed at all in captivity. OK, take it easy here. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/25 "2011-09-26T13:31:14Z")
I believe (please correct me if the facts are wrong) the argument is that while North/Central America has plenty of iron ore, coal and copper ore, but almost no tin. Now, it’s easy to learn how to smelt copper by accident, since it will melt in an ordinary campfire. But iron ore needs a dedicated extra hot fire and special techniques to get useful iron. And pure copper is too soft to be a really useful tool, but adding tin to get bronze makes a valuable metal. So the crux of the argument is that once Europeans more or less accidentally made bronze, they were motivated to really develop smelting technology (and even then it took them a while to really learn about iron). Wheras the Americans didn’t have any easy first step to convince them to invest a lot of research in metallurgy, so there’s wasn’t a path to learn to smelt iron. Now, I don’t know enough history of metallurgy to know if this is a very good argument, but it’s how I understand the argument goes. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/26 "2011-09-26T13:51:52Z")
From what I know about aurochs, it is not obviously tameable, at least more so than a bison. Someone must have had to idea of herding them. Perhaps, they found a calf and decided to put it into a pen and let it grow a bit larger before slaughtering it. The practice may have spread. This was possible only after agriculture had taken hold because you would have required excess food and a sedentary life. At any rate, they must have noticed that some of the animals took more easily to being penned and decided, brilliant decision, to try to breed them. This is all pure speculation of course. One thing I am not sure about is whether the bison’s range overlapped the parts of the new world that actually had agriculture. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/27 "2011-09-26T14:15:12Z")
IIRC - Diamond said Zebras have a nasty habit of biting as a defnce, and can take a serious chunk out of a man; apparently you see a lot of these injuries in the countries were zebras are found. Similarly, bison have a habit that when they start to stampede,early and often, they are hard to stop. I’ve seen fields out west where buffalo are contained, but early man lacked miles of solid wire fencing that would hold back a bison. One simple stupid little characteristic that made these animals very poor candidates for domestication. Also, IIRC corn is low in many key vitamins, meaning that unlike wheat it needs a greater supplement of other foods for a regular diet. I think the main reason is, if yo accept the cmmon timeline, the Americas had about 13,000 years or so to go from simple nomads in unfamiliar territory to where the Europeans found them. What is amazing is that they had domesticated corn and had several agricultural societies. They had developed some metallurgy (gld silver copper) and done serious stone contruction. Another millenium undisturbed and they probably would have reached the iron age? ---
**Author:** ![Bartman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/779978/32.png) [@Bartman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bartman)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/28 "2011-09-26T14:17:33Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > One thing I am not sure about is whether the bison’s range overlapped the parts of the new world that actually had agriculture. Yes. The original Bison range went east through the Appalachians to the coast in the Mid-Atlantic states. So bison completely overlapped with the Mississippian culture, but not with the SW desert or Meso-American cultures. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/29 "2011-09-26T14:30:10Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > They had developed some metallurgy (gld silver copper) and done serious stone contruction. Another millenium undisturbed and they probably would have reached the iron age? Probably a lot less. Parts (Moche, Inca, Mexico) were already smelting alloys, so in what might be called the Bronze Age (for all that the outdated 3-stage system is worth - see below) > [@Quercus](#): > > So the crux of the argument is that once Europeans more or less accidentally made bronze, they were motivated to really develop smelting technology (and even then it took them a while to really learn about iron). Wheras the Americans didn’t have any easy first step to convince them to invest a lot of research in metallurgy, so there’s wasn’t a path to learn to smelt iron. Explain how Africa[jumps right to iron metallurgy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ferrous_metallurgy#Sub-Saharan_Africa), then. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/30 "2011-09-26T14:40:09Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#): > > Also, agriculture is hard: it’s typically adopted only after you’ve hunted down all the easy megafauna, a development which occurred earlier in Eurasia. True, the Iroquois, the Incas and others were practicing agriculture at the time of the southern European’s first encounter with the New World, but they had not been at it for thousands of years. That is incorrect. Corn was domesticated 6,000 years ago and potatoes 5,000 years ago. > [@md2000 IIRC](#): > > - Diamond said Zebras have a nasty habit of biting as a defnce, and can take a serious chunk out of a man; Didn’t stop us from domesticating wolves. I think the Diamond hypothesis is weak because it assumes an active domestication process when it could just as easily have been passive. That is, certain animals essentially domesticated themselves by evolving into forms that were useful to humans and that could live along side us. It’s a strong reproductive advantage to be protected by humans. Also, note that the Americas were not lacking in matalurgy, they just used it mainly for ornamentation, not for tools. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/31 "2011-09-26T14:52:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I think the Diamond hypothesis is weak because it assumes an active domestication process when it could just as easily have been passive. That is, certain animals essentially domesticated themselves by evolving into forms that were useful to humans and that could live along side us. It’s a strong reproductive advantage to be protected by humans. How does that make Diamond’s hypothesis weak? Indeed, it would go hand-in-hand with it. Diamond’s general hypothesis is that what’s in the environment affects technological advancement. If there are animals domesticating themselves in X place but not in Y place, then, well, there you go. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/32 "2011-09-26T15:51:43Z")
Yeah, the theory is that dogs and cats evolved from wild animals feeding off the garbage dumps (and in the case of cats, the mice and rats eating our grain). It was less a case of “let’s pen and hold these” but rather, “that animal is handy, I won’t throw rocks at it to kill it or drive it away” and later, maybe try to save an orphaned litter. OTOH, to raise cattle or equivalent, you need to be able to either herd or fence them. Animals that are vicious or unrestrainable are a poor candidate for that. If you want to ride the animal or have it pull something, losing two fingers each time you harness it is a poor start. ---
**Author:** ![MLS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/919ad9/32.png) [@MLS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MLS)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/33 "2011-09-26T18:11:46Z")
I think it’s in Jared Diamond’s book also that domestication of zebras was tried many times without success. Basically anything that could be domesticated has been domesticated somewhere. ---
**Author:** ![Skammer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skammer/32/143_2.png) [@Skammer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skammer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/34 "2011-09-26T18:20:28Z")
Had not the Incas domesticated the llama or alpaca? That factoid is swimming around in my brain for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/35 "2011-09-26T18:36:12Z")
I have to think that travel obstacles played a role by limiting trade and exchange of knowledge. The Western world has always had a lot of trade going through the Middle East and Mediterranean. There was even trade with the East during parts of history. Jared Diamond says that Europe had just enough barriers to keep cultures developing somewhat independently, but not such significant barriers that they didn’t trade and communicate. The New World is a different story. Even today, there’s no land route connecting Mexico and Peru. Getting from one coast of South America to the other is no cake walk. Canada and the US are a little more conducive to travel… but neither saw any civilizations even as advanced as the Aztec, Maya or Inca. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/36 "2011-09-26T18:36:15Z")
> [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > This isn’t just Diamond - the necessity of specialization for cultural advancement is a basic anthropological theory. And in order to have specialization, you need to free a portion of your society from food gathering - hence the need for either animal husbandry or, preferably, farming (often with one leading to the other - since once you stop chasing the animals around, you have more time to play with crops) That doesn’t sound right: the making of clothes and pottery pre-date both agriculture and the domestication of livestock, don’t they? ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/37 "2011-09-26T18:46:28Z")
> [@MLS](#): > > I think it’s in Jared Diamond’s book also that domestication of zebras was tried many times without success. Basically anything that could be domesticated has been domesticated somewhere. I’m not sure this is true. There was a (now) well publicized set of Russian experiments showing that the fox can be domesticated (and, interestingly, when it does so, it acquires many of the physical characteristics of the domestic dog), but we don’t have domesticated foxes (barring the few eccentric individuals – there’s nothing like the commonality of domesticated cats and dogs). People have made pets of squirrels and other mammals, but I wouldn’t call them “domesticated”, either. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/38 "2011-09-26T19:05:18Z")
For some reason, I’m thinking that llamas and alpacas are not very well suited to pulling very heavy loads or for ploughing. Also, the mountainous terrain where they live doesn’t easily yield to mega-scale farming. It’s done, but it’s very labor-intensive work. The Incas did make it work to a great extent. > [@Quartz](#): > > That doesn’t sound right: the making of clothes and pottery pre-date both agriculture and the domestication of livestock, don’t they? Certainly woven fiber clothing wouldn’t have been available to non-settled non-agricultural people. You might have furs, but you wouldn’t have cotton or woollen cloth. Also, pottery, being fragile, would not have been very useful for non-settled people. Although, the development of pottery is very important for storing grains, so it is a critical component of agricultural society. > [@CalMeacham](#): > > People have made pets of squirrels and other mammals, but I wouldn’t call them “domesticated”, either. The guinea pig is domesticated. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/39 "2011-09-26T19:17:12Z")
> [@Skammer](#): > > Had not the Incas domesticated the llama or alpaca? That factoid is swimming around in my brain for some reason. Yes, they had. However, there are disadvantages to those critters compared to something like a horse or cow. They don’t produce as much meat/milk and aren’t strong enough for heavy hauling or plowing. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2011, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598/40 "2011-09-26T19:42:49Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > The guinea pig is domesticated. Has anyone ever tried to plough a field with one? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-geology-prevent-american-civilisations-from-leaving-the-stone-age/597598.md?page=3)