Flora in the Middle East and the Americas

Diamond would say that the three most important aspects of flora in the Fertile Crescent are that they were easy to plant, store, and provided a lot more calories then the plants of New Guinea. The plants of New Guinea took a lot of time and energy to grow, they could not be stored because it would rot within a couple of days and it didn't provide the same amount if calories or protein as the cereal plants of the Fertile Crescent. Those three aspects encouraged domestication. If the plant was easy to plant, that meant they could grown more food to feed more people. If it could be stored for a long period of time, then people would had longer lasting food supply. If it provided more energy, then people could be able to do more. These three aspects led to the advancement of the Middle East a lot quicker then in New Guinea or any other part of the world.

If these aspects were to be true in Mesoamerica, domestication would only exist in one area of the American continent (not all of it). The reason for this would be because of the north-south longitude. The northern part of the Americas could not grow the same foods as those in the southern parts of the Americas because they had a radically different climate. Overall, the doestication of plants and farming would happened in the Americas at different times and with different plants.

Floras impact in the Fertile Crescent

The three aspects that gave the Fertile Crescent such a large advantage over so many other areas in terms of plant domestication were its climate, its availability of domestic able plants, and the fact that the domestic able plants able to self-pollinate.

The climate of the Fertile Crescent is a Mediterranean zone, with wet winters and hot dry summers. The plants of the Fertile Crescent adapted to the weather and due to this adaptation they produce large edible seeds, rather than use energy trying to create fibrous or wood stems (136). The fact that the seeds remain dormant until the winter is also very important, because it encouraged people to start farming and cultivating these plants for their seeds, which eventually led to a sedentary lifestyle as opposed to the hunter gather lifestyle.

The second aspect is that the Fertile Crescent had such an abundance of domestic able plants compared to other areas. A possible reason as to the Fertile Crescents abundance in plants is the fact that it has the largest zone of Mediterranean climate in the world; this larger landmass also means a higher diversity of plants and animals available for domestication. (138) Not only was there an abundance of domestic able plants but these plants were very useful. They had a large return rate of energy for the amount of hours put into planting them; they also had large seeds unlike the seeds of North American plants such as Goosefoot, knotweed, little barely, and maygrass which had tiny seeds (151). Although those North American plants had a lot of nutritional value their small seeds made them undesirable to the North American people. Obviously such was not the case with the plants in the Fertile Crescent due to their large size.

Lastly the fact that Fertile Crescent contains a large percentage of hermaphrodic plants played a big role in the fertile crescents advantage over other Mediterranean climates. These plants were capable of pollinating themselves, however on occasion they could cross pollinate. The reason that this was so important was that once a favorable mutation in a plant was acquired it would not be lost due to cross pollination in the next generation; instead that mutant plant would reproduce itself leaving the mutation untouched. This meant that the favorable mutation could then be reproduced and a crop could be formed, with time.

Had these same aspects been present in Mesoamerica It is likely that agriculture would have risen there much earlier and it would have been much more productive. Agriculture would have spread throughout all of Mesoamerica. However, it would not have spread throughout the rest of the Americas due to the geographical barriers such as deserts, mountains, and tropical jungles.

It's all about location, location, location!

Let's pretend you are a realtor trying to sell a house. Part of your job is obviously selling houses, but a very important aspect is also realizing when a house will be too difficult to sell. Why is this? Well sometimes the house will need a lot of work done to make it into a product that is worth buying. But the biggest problem you will face will be location. It takes a mere minute for someone to decide if they want a house based simply on location. Likewise plants thousands of years ago prospered in certain areas because of location. In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Jared Diamond makes a great arguement for why location is very important when thinking about our past and why certain areas prospered more than others. The Fertile Crescent is a very important place not only because it is the first birth place of plants, but because it was the perfect location for plant domestication. The reason this location was perfect was simply because of it's climate, natural biodiversity, and topographical variety.

Part of having a perfect location is also having a perfect climate. The main reason why plant domestication was made so easy in the Fertile Crescent was because of the climate. Diamond states, "One advantage of the Fertile Crescent is that it lies within a zone of so-called Mediterranean climate, a climate characterized by mild, wet winters and long, hot, dry summers.(Diamond,136)" While the differentiating climate may not sound good, the fact is that this change in climate is great for plants. This climate helped plants develope genes to last the dry summer and then continue to grow when the rains picked up. Therefore all these changes within the plants genes allowed them to become more useful to humans thousands of years ago. These plants are annual plants, that conserve lots of energy to make huge seeds edible by humans. Once humans saw the fortune that layed in eating seeds, they began to domesticate them.

Another important reason why this certain area was the first birthplace of plant domestication was because of the biology of the plants themselves. Diamond informs us," A third advantage of the Fertile Crescent flora is that it includes a high percentage of hermaphroditic "selfers"-that is, plants that usually pollinate themselves but that are occasionally cross-pollinated.(Diamond, 137)" Plants in this area were able to reproduce on their on without the help of a second plant. This is extremely beneficial because this allowed plants to keep their useful inherited traits. That is when plants got a useful mutation, when farmers tried to domesticate that plant, the trait was often lost in cross-breeding. However, because these plants were able to breed themselves those mutations were never lost, and when farmers tried domesticating the plant they got a plant with a biology that was very helpful.

The last reason why this location encouraged domestication was because of its topographical variety. That is the area was very diverse in its landscape. This allowed many different plants the ability to survive in this area. Diamond explains, "A third advantage of the Fertile Crescent's Mediterranean zone is that it provides a wide range of altitudes and topographies within a short distance.(Diamond, 140)" While this concept is very simple, it had a great impact. The reason why plant domestication was much more favorable in this area was because it had a variety of environments from which different plants could prosper. This gave the hunter gathers a variety of areas that they could use to domesticate plants.

If all this were true of the flora in Mesoamerica, then it might have been much more advanced before being "discovered" by Colombus. This might have changed the course of history. Mesoamerica could have been the leader in a sophisticated civilization for the Americas. If Mesoamerica had just the right climate, biodiversity, and a varying topography, it would be a perfect land. However, this is not true. Mesoamerica didn't have all these factors that encouraged hunter gathers to domesticate plants. However, one must realize that this was obviously not because of the humans themselves it was all about location.