Analysis of Jarred Diamonds Collapse free essay sample

With Jarred Diamonds book â€Å"Collapse† in focus for this report, written for the course â€Å"Intercultural Competence and Cross-Cultural Research†, his theories on why civilizations perish are discussed and compared to other facts that contradict stated in the book. Hypothesis Is the Diamond theory always proven in different cases of perished societies and can it be applied on future outcomes? Method The focus of our sources has been from the book, Collapse, by the author Jared Diamond. Other sources have been from the internet to find different point of views than those of Diamond.Emma Hamilton has covered the first part, Past, Attila Bodor has written about Chinas present and future and Maria Shishmanova has written about the neighboring countries Haiti and the Dominican Republic. All three have written the final summary and conclusion. Background The Diamond Hypothesis Jared Diamond was born in 1937 and is an American scientist and author. He has a history in ecology, ornithology, pysology, biophysics, geography and his popular science books are known to be a mix of these sources he has studied. We will write a custom essay sample on Analysis of Jarred Diamonds Collapse or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Diamond wrote the book â€Å"Collapse- How societies choose to fail or succeed† in 2005 and is in the book focusing more on the ecological facts on why societies have fallen instead of the more typical historical and cultural reasons to explain failure. (Wikipedia, 2010) By the word collapse, Diamond means a drastic decrease in population size or drastic changes in the complexity of the society politics or economic situation or social structure. This is also defined to be over a larger area and during an extended period of time.This is to be differed from minor power shifts such a small rises or falls, usually connected to a neighbors linked and opposite fall or rise, and smaller reformations of for example the social or political structure. (Diamond, 2005) The Diamond Hypothesis works with a five point framework, buy explaining 5 different reasons why society falls: 1. Environmental damage explained by fragility, how vulnerability the area is to damage and of resilience, t he potential for the area to recover from damage. These are both considered, by both human impact or by natural occurrence. . Climate change, only dealing with natural changes, which could make it either better or worse for the society. 3. Hostile neighbors, how well the society could can hold off enemies, when the community was weakened, either by health or society changes, it could be hard to fight off enemies 4. Friendly trade partners, neighbors who supported each other and less support from friendly neighbors could lead to a dramatic change and disaster. 5. The society’s response to the four explained threats, both environmental and other problems.A society’s response depends on its political, economic and social institutions and on its cultural values. But response to what was going on is very important for survival of the civilization. Diamond focuses strongly on the fifth theory, stating that a civilization â€Å"chooses† to survive or perish by dealing with the situation they are in. (Diamond, 2005) Results Past The Mayan Society The Mayan remains are popular tourist attractions and attractive archeology sites, not just because of their mystery and beauty but also because these findings are pure archeological sites, left intact with no other city built on top of the remains.The Mayan civilization was located in Mexico, Yucatan Peninsula and Central America. (Diamond, 2005) The area has two different seasons, with a seasonal rainforest and a seasonal dry period, sometimes more similar to a seasonal desert. The rain season lasts from May until October but the rainfall, as today, varied a lot over years. The southern part of the peninsula got more rain and this was one of the reasons why it was more productive agriculturally and supported a larger population. The farmers faced crop failure from many natural disasters, such as drought and hurricanes.Even today the farmers have many agricultural problems in the area and the Mayans are considered to be more skilled. Even though the south gets more rainfall there is water issues there as well. The lens of freshwater lies under the peninsula and surface elevation is higher in the north which means that the land surface is higher in the south, to high above the water table. In the north, the water was supplied by digged water wells or which could be up to 75feet deep. In the south, the water was too hard to reach because of the surface elevation.The civilizations build are although not found next to rivers, but on promontories in rolling uplands. They digged and plugged up leaks by plastering the foundation and in that way collected rain to spare for dry season. For example, the city of Tinkal, had a water reserve that would last for 18 months supplying 10  000 people. In Coba, they built dikes round a lake to raise the water level. These reserves could supply the inhabitants with water but could not help the fact that grains needed rain water that was more than the reservoirs could offer. Diamond, 2005) Corn was 70% of and the basis of the Mayan diet, other domestic animals was dog, turkey and Muscovy duck. Other meat sources were wild meat and fish. There was low meat available and t was really only luxury food for the elite. The agriculture technique was long thought to be a slash and burn technique, but later scientists have realized that the Mayans must have used something else because the production was larger than what slash and burn methods could supply. Methods they were using was for example terracing hill slopes to maintain moist soil, arranging water channels and draining or raising fields.As is many societies the Mayan agriculture system could be split in two, those who produce and those who don’t but the Mayan only produced twice their own families’ needs. Food sources where limited as corn has little protein and there was a limitation of other crops. Not being able to store, because of the humid climate was also a problem; corn could only be kept for 1 year. All work done in the Mayan society was done by human power, because there was no animal big or strong enough to do the job. This did not only affect the agriculture sector, but also the military campaigns and transport sector.For example, to transport food, the person walking would eat more than he could transport. This is also believed to be one of the reasons the Mayans where not unified to a greater community but stayed in smaller kingdoms. (Diamond, 2005) The archeological sites were rediscovered in 1839 by John Stephens and Frederick Catherwood, who had heard rumors of ruins hidden in the area. They ended up finding 44 different locations of Mayan ruin towns. One thing surprising them was that the remains they found were from a high civilization and not just primitive leavings that they expected to find. Diamond, 2005) Typical for the Mesoamerica region the Mayans had a Native American culture and a very well developed society. Pottery was important and the Mayans are also famous for their writings. But all preserved ancient writings are about kings and nobles, nothing about the commoners. The scripts were written on bark paper coated in plaster. The Mayans hade many writings but there is only 4 surviving manuscripts, one of them being the well-known Long Count Calendar, since the Spanish Bishop Diego de Landa ordered all of them to be burned to eliminate paganism.