The caste system, much like slavery, is a strong deterrent against industrializing.
When people say eurasia, I think they mean britain, to morocco, to saudi arabia, to thailand, to japan. Is that a wrong assumption?
Why didn't Africans ever establish any society on par with the ones in Eurasia? -
- Thread starter FUTUREMAN
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Try catching a zebra without using a horse. Try catching enough zebras to maintain a herd, and get those zebras used to being herded. Consistently do this for generations. Suddenly you see the issue. Domestication of the horse was luck, and happened in an area and time when there wasn’t the abundant predators that populate the areas where zebras are.
It also might not cross your mind if you're dumb.
Afticans did domesticate dogs, btw. But then again, so do baboons.
Bosmadden
kiwifarms.net
You need to have the ability to build coral fencing. Then you need to be able to scare your horses inside the fencing. Then you need someone crazy enough in your tribe to break the animal. It’s not complicated
Menotaur
kiwifarms.net
I jumped off this thread by page 5 but I notice the same odd arguments are popping up again talking about developments within the last thousands years. That is almost akin to describing African Americans within the last 100 years as being representative of all blacks going back thousands of years - it is not.
The genetics were fundamental and key and locked in by 2000 BC at least. You probably could have taken Roman technology to a 2000 BC African continent and the technology would have been lost within a generation.
Asian's make incredible fighter pilots, and fast acting and thinking - different brains.
Blacks make gifted hunters and have other spatial traits of brain function lacking in whites.
Jews have sophisticated regions of the brain ideal for calculations.
Javanese women - off the charts intelligence.
Aborigines from Australia - not bright at all.
the list if pretty big
Different brains.
Even within each race we will find brilliance and sheer stupidity. Neil Degrasse, then there is Will Smith. Stephen Hawking, then there is half the population of Oklahoma.
Clearly, Africans have survived Africa for millions of years and are clearly well adapted for their environment, A fat jew thrown into Africa 2000 years ago probably would do NOT well. An African of 2000 years ago thrown into Iceland is probably going to die. This is even with some assistance - different brains and different physical characteristics to suit their environment.
You could take a handful of average Americans today and thrown them into Africa 2000 years ago and they would probably die pretty quickly. Couldn't make a tool, couldn't build a hut...dead. But throw me into the Outback and I will take an aborigine with me to ensure I live. Take me to Wall Street and I will take a Jew. Want to win basketball game, gimme a black. Want to win baseball, I'll take a white dude.
This idea that modern civilization is somehow some advantage over a more primitive appearing culture is in itself a rouse. It is as if just because the breakthrough happened with language and written language there is this strange idea that it was meant to happen at all or was destined - it was not. Probably going back 400,000 years we've had the general intelligence for language and written words and technology - but it is a combo of factors that give rise to advancement. In all liklihood the end of mankind will likely be brought about through its societies and technological developments, whereas if we stayed in Africa we'd probably go on another million years.
I could take the words smartest parents, give me a new born that had a potential for 190 IQ and give the new born baby to a wildling family to raise... and come back 20 years later. I won't find the next Nobel Prize winner, I will find a human being barely recognizable as even human; making grunting sounds and attacking me with branches and rocks.
We are always 1 generation from going back 400,000 years in advancement. Don't forget it.
The genetics were fundamental and key and locked in by 2000 BC at least. You probably could have taken Roman technology to a 2000 BC African continent and the technology would have been lost within a generation.
Asian's make incredible fighter pilots, and fast acting and thinking - different brains.
Blacks make gifted hunters and have other spatial traits of brain function lacking in whites.
Jews have sophisticated regions of the brain ideal for calculations.
Javanese women - off the charts intelligence.
Aborigines from Australia - not bright at all.
the list if pretty big
Different brains.
Even within each race we will find brilliance and sheer stupidity. Neil Degrasse, then there is Will Smith. Stephen Hawking, then there is half the population of Oklahoma.
Clearly, Africans have survived Africa for millions of years and are clearly well adapted for their environment, A fat jew thrown into Africa 2000 years ago probably would do NOT well. An African of 2000 years ago thrown into Iceland is probably going to die. This is even with some assistance - different brains and different physical characteristics to suit their environment.
You could take a handful of average Americans today and thrown them into Africa 2000 years ago and they would probably die pretty quickly. Couldn't make a tool, couldn't build a hut...dead. But throw me into the Outback and I will take an aborigine with me to ensure I live. Take me to Wall Street and I will take a Jew. Want to win basketball game, gimme a black. Want to win baseball, I'll take a white dude.
This idea that modern civilization is somehow some advantage over a more primitive appearing culture is in itself a rouse. It is as if just because the breakthrough happened with language and written language there is this strange idea that it was meant to happen at all or was destined - it was not. Probably going back 400,000 years we've had the general intelligence for language and written words and technology - but it is a combo of factors that give rise to advancement. In all liklihood the end of mankind will likely be brought about through its societies and technological developments, whereas if we stayed in Africa we'd probably go on another million years.
I could take the words smartest parents, give me a new born that had a potential for 190 IQ and give the new born baby to a wildling family to raise... and come back 20 years later. I won't find the next Nobel Prize winner, I will find a human being barely recognizable as even human; making grunting sounds and attacking me with branches and rocks.
We are always 1 generation from going back 400,000 years in advancement. Don't forget it.
Schway
kiwifarms.net
This is why I included the bit about the pre-domesticated horse. All of those things were true for it as well, and it was successfully domesticated and by people who didn't have access to guns and modern construction knowledge/supply lines.
I don't think I will, instead I will take foals whos parents were killed(maybe by me) and raise them instead so they bond to me. Maybe I'll take the ones that are too wild and don't bond well and slaughter them for meat while using the ones that are calmer and more obedient for drafting and riding. This is just one of many ways ancient peoples domesticated animals.
I don't really see the issue. I'm not making the argument that it's easy to domesticate a wild animal, I'm saying it's a smart move that pays off and that zebras are no more difficult than the pre-domesticated horse.
I'm not sure I understand the argument about how the horse was a streak of random luck. To me it seems akin to saying that everyone who made some big achievement was lucky, sure there was luck there but there needs to be dedication, skill and capability to exploit that. We're talking about thousands of years here, are you really saying there was no opportune moment for the zebra to be domesticated in all that time?
Yeah, sorry. There are paragraphs there, but I forgot to put a space between each one. I'll fix it. It's kind of a spergy post anyways.
EDIT: Somebody beat me to the chase, but I edited the original post anyways.
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Yes. First off, even if you have ONE semi-domesticated foal, that's not really enough to start a breeding population. you need more. You need to repeat this process again and again. Now, you also need to defend said herd against lions, hyenas, leopards, cheetahs, wild dogs, and random chance. On top of that, you need those zebras to be able to socialize with a population of wild zebras without joining that herd and returning to you, or catch more for yourself, either way this isn't super easy. Zebras are very, very aggressive, way more than horses. They will happily attack people, biting and kicking and even killing an adult human. Zebras are notorious for injuring zookeepers. Even wild horses aren't that aggressive! Imagine trying to keep something like that captive. It's hard, dangerous, and really not worth it.
Zebras also have a massive avoidance tendency towards humans, which sort of makes sense - we evolved in a similar area, and we hunted them for a long long time. They also have a big avoidance tendency since they evolved in a landscape dominated by big predators. Zebras also have a very different social structure compared to bovines or domestic horses. Rather than a stricter hierarchy around a dominant male, it's very fluid. This sounds like a benefit but it really isn't. Essentially, any zebra can try and become the lead of the herd, so rather than just needing to tame a few animals you need to tame many, many, many animals. As in, an entire herd, and even then that might not work out.
EDIT: The reason why I say it's luck is we have evidence that there was short term domestication of some wild horse species, that then reverted back to being wild very quickly - that's Przewalski’s horses. This species is very closely related to domestic horses, which tells us a lot - firstly, that it wasn't a single event that got us the domestic horse. Second, that there were likely plenty of failed attempts to get domestication started of horses that failed for whatever reason. One was lucky enough to stick.
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The Curmudgeon
kiwifarms.net
It varied. The Sahelian kingdoms and other parts of West and Central Africa had a modest Iron Age to medieval level of civilization. The Horn of Africa and Swahili Coast also had a medieval level because of their interactions with Arabs. Ethiopia was sufficiently stable and developed compared to many other Sub-Saharan African nations. What really raises questions for me is this: Despite the fact that many West and Central African kindgoms and tribes benefited from the Columbian Exchange, they didn't really utilize this advantage to modernize their nations. Same thing for the Swahili Coast and the various sultanates on the Horn of Africa. They traded with Arabs, the Indians, and even the Chinese for centuries, yet they also fell behind and failed to modernize.
When the Scramble for Africa happened around the end of the 19th century, none of those nations were able to stop any Europeans from invading and conquering with the lone exception of Ethiopia.
When the Scramble for Africa happened around the end of the 19th century, none of those nations were able to stop any Europeans from invading and conquering with the lone exception of Ethiopia.
It’s too hot in Africa.
I know when I got overheated I get either tired or cranky.
I know when I got overheated I get either tired or cranky.
Absolute simpering pussy.
This thread is pure tricknology.
Schway
kiwifarms.net
Yes, and in the steppe you need to do the same with the pre-domesticated horse against wolves, bears and random chance.
Firstly I think you're overstating the aggressiveness of zebras, secondly truly wild horses are aggressive, most likely just as aggressive as Zebras. The problem is that what most people think of as wild horses are just untamed members of the domestic horse subspecies that's already been selectively bred to be tamer.
The people of the Euroasian Steppe thought otherwise and posterity seems to prove them right.
Again, I see no reason to believe they have a significant difference between the zebra and the pre-domesticated horse. For what it's worth Horace Hayes(that's his wife on the zebra I posted above) in his book says that the greatest difficulty in taming a zebra is that they're cunning:
We must bear in mind that the greatest difficulty in subduing zebras is their extreme cunning in refusing, under ordinary circumstances, to exhaust themselves by " playing up," which horses do in a way that would make a zebra smile. I found it expedient with this powerful animal to make her lie down until she arose submissive and quiet to be ridden without any trouble. The younger zebra evinced very little desire to assert her authority. Jess, however, was far less trouble to break in than a Mountain zebra stallion which I made quiet for my wife to ride in Calcutta, probably because my Calcutta pupil had only been in captivity a short time.
Where are you getting this? From my understanding the three main species of Zebra have dominant males, the mountain zebra has a standard one male and a harem structure, plains is much the same but multiple families can come together into large herds like baboons do.
The grevy's zebra is the closes to what you're saying where males establish a territory and monopolize females that enter them. Grevy's zebra has a very small territory compared to the other two.
Again, even if we accept your idea of taming a more fluid social structure being more difficult, which I don't think there's any reason to(I believe you'd need to tame every animal anyway), zebras don't seem to differ much from horses.
That doesn't follow. There being multiple events that got us to the domestic horse contributes more to the idea that it was determination and skill rather than lucky chance.
Of course it sometimes failed(or was just abandoned), seems like it succeeded plenty as well. How does this attribute the thing to chance more than capability?
It's suggested that the domestication happened in multiple areas simultaneously as opposed to just one place that spread out. This again makes the idea of a freak random event less likely.
You seem to be arguing both that the zebra was uniquely untamable compared to the horse and that it was a freak event that ended up having the horse tamed. You should pick one.
If you see every people as interchangeable I suppose you inevitably have to go into the weeds like this.
Wolves and bears are not exactly what I'd call the most aggressive predators, bears especially. Wolves can be, but wolves aren't as dangerous to humans as you'd think. Meanwhile, having a nearby herd of zebras is basically going to attract every single large predator in the savannah. And those predators are very, very willing to tangle with humans for food.
Grevy's Zebra has very fluid structures regarding how herds are formed, with essentially dominant and subdominant males declaring a territory, and trying to monopolize the females within said territory. The structure of any given herd can change very quickly as young males move around, females enter and leave areas, etc. etc. That's the most likely kind of zebra to attempt to domesticate, as they're the largest - which is why I mentioned them as the default zebra for domestication. They're the best candidate, and are located around the Horn of Africa. If there was any species of zebra that would get domesticated, it'd be Grevy's zebra. They weren't.
I don't think you get how hard zebras are to capture, and just how aggressive zebras really are - even wild horses aren't as aggressive as zebras. The Eurasian horse didn't evolve in an environment of super predators. The zebra did. They're targeted by every single predatory species around them, and there's a lot MORE of those predators than there was in Eurasia. And we were among those predators, don't forget that, and we were among those predators for a much, much longer time than we were preying on horses in Eurasia. Zebras injure more zookeepers than any other animal - and these are zebras often raised in captivity. Trying to tame even a zebra foal isn't super easy. Imagine how much harder it would be if you weren't familiar with raising horses?
And it wasn't a freak event that got us horse domestication, it was lucky events - events that were just not possible for those in Africa compared to those in Eurasia, due to the aggression of the zebra and abundance of predators - us among those predators. It's luck that one of those domestication attempts stuck, as horses aren't exactly super useful to have until you have the cart, compared to cows. Multiple domestication attempts and one success tells us that keeping horses was very difficult and groups that had achieved it sometimes decided it just wasn't worth the effort - or got wiped out despite having horses. A less aggressive zebra is a herd animal that attracts predators without being able to as easily defend itself or flee. Then there's the issue of - 'well we've got them, what do we do with them?' Meat and hide are great and all, but when the animal is a bitch to get and breed in captivity, and doesn't offer benefits other animals you might have do offer, well, then it's just not worth it.
I found this claim hard to believe, but there is some evidence that this indeed is the case.
It led me along other things to this: https://theconversation.com/why-zebra-refused-to-be-saddled-with-domesticity-65018
Particularly this I found funny:
They can be savage biters and possess a “ducking” reflex that helps them avoid being caught by lasso. Familiarity with human hunter gatherers may also have fostered a strong avoidance response in the zebra.
Essentially they let zebra's evolve to be better at thwarting humans, lol.
Supposedly anyways, this is just some surface level reading.
Zebra hater.
yeah afaik hippos are basically like muscovy ducks that will fucking kill you
Schway
kiwifarms.net
If their social structure makes them so hard to domesticate then they're by default not the most likely species to get domesticated. Even with that in mind I think the effect of their social structure on taming could go either way, they still bond as foals and most likely any difference in behavior when being tamed is inconsequential. I believe Hayes found the mountain Zebra to be the hardest to break.
Again, I don't think there's good reason to think that the ancient zebra was more aggressive than the ancient horse. You could turn that argument on its head by pointing out that Zebras show aggressive responses to smaller predators like wolves or wild dogs, and flee from big ones like lions because fighting them is not effective. As there are no lions in the steppe you could conclude that the aggressive behavior would work better there and hence the ancient horse was more likely to be more aggressive.
I assume the reasons for that are that zookeepers often aren't as careful with zebras as they are with obviously dangerous animals like lions. It's also easy to assume that Zebras act just like the domestic horse and get a nasty surprise.
Freak event/Lucky event same difference. We're spinning in circles here but those multiple attempts resulted in multiple successes and presumably some failures or abandonments(It could very well be that they found a better breed to domesticate ect.) so it's not one lucky event that occurred. Obviously something about the people in europe/asia made them think it was worth the effort, and for reasons I already pointed out you can't attribute it to the ancient zebra being worse for domestication than then ancient horse.
