BLOG #9: CHAPTER 6 - COMMONALITIES AND VARIATIONS

Chapter 6 was cool, I thought that the continental comparisons was a neat part of the beginning of the Chapter. I liked how they pointed out how Eurasia took up 85% of the world population at the time, Africa 10%, The Americas 5%, and Oceana less than 1%. I also learned that there weren't any animals available in the Americas at this time, so there weren't animals walking around pulling carts or pulling plows. I figured it must have been very different in the Americas compared to Eurasia at this time, also in Africa as well because they lacked just as many animals as the Americas lacked until of course the animals were domesticated. I also thought it was crazy how the Americas weren't as developed as Africa and Eurasia, because today the Americas are a lot more developed than a huge chunk of the world. Also, the text mentioned that Eurasia and Africa had access to iron tools and weapons but did not mention the Americas, so that was news to me too. It's crazy to think how undeveloped the America's were because we now live in a society that is so technology based, we have cars, we have phone, public transportation, etc. and just how different it is from back then compared to now. They literally started from the bottom. I learned a few more things from this part of the chapter, I knew already that North Africa was basically a part of the Roman Empire but I didn't think twice about them producing wheat and olives. I also learned that the Nubian Kingdom of Kush conquered Egypt at some point of time. I found that rather more surprising because like.... Egypt is Egypt....but then I found they only ruled over Egypt for about a century. I also think it’s cool to find out why civilizations declined and the Meroe Kingdom declined because deforestation, which I'm convinced was the problem with a lot of civilizations come to think of it they didn't have their heads wrapped around the fact that deforestation would happen but I'm pretty sure at this time they didn't know what deforestation was, they were probably like omg no more trees. Later in the reading I saw that the Americas developed the most “elaborate writing system” and that this system used pictographs and phonetic/syllabic elements. Boy, was I happy to read this, Eurasia +3, The Americas +1! Towards the middle of that paragraph I read that these writings were either carved in stone or written on bark paper. The carved-on stone I understood because kind of caveman kind of not, mostly not. But I had no idea what bark paper was, but then I looked up the definition and images of it and it all made sense, so I basically knew what bark paper was I just never knew the name of the paper I have been seeing around all my life LOL. Reading onto the Maya Civilization I thought it was dope how they had “state shamans” that were able to mediate between humankind and the supernatural because during the time of St. Augustine they looked at the bishop as they messenger between heaven and earth or something like that. Also, back home on Guam we have what people think of them as witchdoctors, and they are actually called Suruhanus or Suruhanas, and they are “the gifted” back home where they can see, speak to, and communicate with the spirits back home in which we call taotaomona’s, the Suruhanus/Suruhanas back home could “see your soul” and they didn’t do what people call today “black magic” they were healers and meant good when communicating with the spirits. Usually we would go to them when we got sick from the spirits and they would give us medicine (which does not taste that great what so ever) but it cleansed out our body.

OCTOBER 14, 2017: (ADD ON TO BLOGS; MIDTERM STUDYING; READING OVER PEERS BLOGS)
- POPULATION SPREAD OUT
- RISE/DECLINE
- NOT EMPIRES
- DISTRIBUTION GEOGRAPHICALLY