Diamond's Argument that Agriculture Is Connected to Government Essay

Diamond's Argument that Agriculture Is Connected to Government - Essay Example As there is not a historically accurate record of regions such as Africa, the insinuation of beliefs upon those societies that are known to have existed can put into question the assumptions that have been made by modern archeological conclusions. It is likely; however, that as human history has shown a certain consistency that the emergence and existence of agriculture has been associated with the development of government. The argument that Diamond puts forth about the relationship of government to agriculture is more than likely an accurate assessment of the development of the agricultural sciences in prehistoric city-states. The growth of agriculture in areas that were highly populated can be described through a series of common sense assumptions. The first assumption that one might make is that because there were a larger than common gathering of people, the need for food production was such that larger forms were needed to accommodate all of the population. Therefore, small exa mples of growing food or creating a harvest of some sort were expanded to create a larger form of food production. Need drove the development of the production of food. ... lowed for more interactive innovations for tools and agricultural knowledge, the inhabitants of larger cities would have a greater capacity for developing more technologically advanced agricultural practices than less populated regions of the world. Mesopotamia experienced the first rise of a city in Uruk where intellectual development advanced the knowledge that existed through innovation and thought with evidence of writing and art lends credence to the development of sophistication in the region. Agriculture benefited from controlled methods of sowing and the development of the plow which was pulled by oxen. The description of Mesopotamian agriculture is not that different from that of North America in the 17th century as the emergence of a new population was provided for through historic knowledge of growing methods. The development of irrigation methods supported the needs of the plants to grow, the control over the environment supporting the needed application of nature to inte ntion so that crops were controlled and the desired amount of food could be relatively depended upon.1 When comparing the Mesopotamian emergence of agricultural control to that of the Mesoamerican emergence of crops, one can see that the development of technology was a made a distinct difference. The institution of trade and the need for civilizations to develop a way in which to distribute resources to minimize the impact of the unpredictability of local resources provided stimulation for the development of higher levels of technology to facilitate that need.2 In creating an economy in which distribution is at the core, there is a need to create a unique enough resource with which to create a trade. It may be that agriculture was developed in Mesoamerica created advancements in their