Reading #7(Chapter 6)

In this chapter we saw the similarities and differences between Eurasia, Africa, and the Americas. One of craziest things to me is the way the population was distributed, 85% of the population was in Eurasia. I think the number one thing this can be attributed to is agriculture. In the americas there weren't as lucky as they were in Eurasia. They did not have animals they could domesticate, they also had not developed any written language. Because of this the Americas and Africa had civilizations that were a lot smaller. Another major difference is that the Americas were isolated so they didn't really have anyone to communicate with like the people of Eurasia and Africa. Although the people of the Americas did not have access to iron tools or animals for domestication they still eventually achieved great things. We see with the Mayans were able to have a political system, engineering, mathematics, and even a writing system. The people of Teotihuacan formed Americas largest urban complex which even had military and political activity.
In Africa it was crazy to see how their climate differed from every region. Some places it was so dry and in others is was very fertile. But every region adapted to their conditions and made the most of it. Meroe was pretty big in Nubian Civilization which had rainfall based agriculture. One very important thing they developed was meroic script which was different at the time. They were able to develop a military power and accumulated large wealth. As we saw with other kingdoms they probably declined from exhaustion of the land. But after them they were taken over by their neighbors the Axum. They had plow based agriculture which proved to be really successful for them. They participated in commerce, and one thing that got them a lot of revenue was taxing the merchants.