Diamond realized that the question was far more complex than it appeared.

The question is old as history itself

How could Diamond possibly solve the great puzzles of human history...

To understand  where inequality came from he had to turn back the clock 1000 years back into pre history before inequality existed to figure out what inequality actually meant

The world was becoming warmer and wetter.

Humans were thriving the Middle East.

People hear lived like people everywhere at this time in small gatherings and groups.

They were frequently on the move.

Wherever they could find animals for food and caves for shelter they would go.

As seasons changed and animals migrated they would move onto another valley for food

The rainforest of New Guinea is a place present day where Diamond can see how people lived thousands of years ago

You have to be quite smart to be a hunter

13 thousand years ago people in the middle east hunted the same way tracking down what animal they could find

Hunting has never been a very productive way of finding food

You didn't always come back with someone

The people of New Guinea used  a bow and arrow just like they used to

Because hunting is so unpredictable particular society's had usually relied on gathering

A gathering is done by women an important part of food there is Sago

The have to get the pulp of the center

Gathering is usually a more productive way than hunting but doesn't provide enough calories to provide for New Guinea

One tree only yields about 70 pounds of sago

The sago starch is low on protein and can not be stored for long periods of time

In the Middle of East there were very dif. Plants together

Barley and Wheat much more nutritious than sago

12 and a half thousand years ago the world climate became colder

Global temps. Dropped and ice age conditions returned the world become colder and dryer

The middle East suffered an environmental clasp

Trees and plants and animal hers died out

The drought lasted thousands of years

Despite the conditions they would somehow survive

 middle east ^

Mr. Kite specializes in the stone age history of the middle east , work focused on The Jordan Sea a place known as dry

Part of a team of archeologists

This village of 40, 50 people living in the same place

they found that the city emerged 11 and a half million hears ago

When the drought ended in the middle east

At some point during the drought of the missile east people started growing their own food, they planted new fields of plant and barely around them , they were growing these next to their villages

People in the Middle East were becoming farmers. The first farmers in the world

These new farmers were changing the nature of the crops around them

The interrupeted the normal environemtnal cycle and elected certain plants that would be most useful to them

People were starting to control nature

Domestication -

Not so dif. Than what the first farmers were doing thousands of years ago in the middle east.

The people of New Guinea could not produce as much food as marmers

They were at a disadvantage

Diamond traveled to a new place where there were early farmers

China came along and started farming after the Middle East

They started growing rice

Than Africa

Than was an exception to the rule of farming spreading around the worlld the highlands of New Guinea

The highlands of New Guinea were said to be uninhabited

They ended up producing their own cargo

New Guineans crops can not be stored for years like we can. And they have to be planted one by one

People have so little protein that sometimes they eat giant spiders

Farming was clearly crucial but something just as crucial was the type of farming. Ultimately it game down to geographic luck.

Geographic luck is the very basis of Diamonds theory.

The people of Papa New Guinea were just as talented