The meaning of history

Credit: Laika ac

Previously posted on February 28, 2022 under a different title. 

So I tried to read "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Earth History" (2018) by Lewis Dartnell. It was hard, and after a while, I started skimming some chapters rather than reading them in detail. This boring tome must be the ultimate nerd book! Think geology, plate tectonics, meteorology, palentology...you get the picture. But OK, I did glean some interesting facts from it. And if you are a nerd, well, you know what to do... 

The book is a "deeper" version of Jared Diamond´s popular "Guns, Germs and Steel" (1997). Unless I´m mistaken (I haven´t re-read Diamond for years), that book dealt with the impact of post-Ice Age geography on human history (and some of the pre-history). Dartnell takes us all the way back to the formation of the Earth about four billion years ago, and discusses how humanity, including modern civilization, is profoundly shaped by geological events that took place hundreds of millions of years ago. If they had been different, so would our civilization, or even our species! Perhaps we wouldn´t have existed at all...

The most obvious example is that the Industrial Revolution is dependent on the existence of abundant fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. All three were formed by very specific geological processes. The coal deposits were mostly formed during the Carboniferous (hence its name), while the oil and gas is from the "Age of the Dinosaurs". The geology, the climate and the chemistry were exactly right during these periods, and (mostly) wrong during other eons. The abundance of iron ore is also the result of mostly unique mechanisms during a specific geological period. Without iron, the Iron Age would have been impossible. Iron is of course important for our industrial civilization, too. 

The climate is heavily influenced by the so-called Milankovic cycles, which are "cosmic" in nature, but also by plate tectonics. The short story is that our present geological epoch, the Quarternary, is an "ice age" during which temperatures on average are lower than usual during Earth history. Periods of glaciation and dry conditions alternate with interglacials when the ice recedes and leave room for an abundance of animals and plants (and rainfall), but still not at too high temperatures. We are at present in one such interglacial, the Holocene. Due to plate tectonics (more land on the northern hemisphere than on the southern), the climate has been unusually stable during the past 11,000 years, creating conditions for agriculture and civilization-building, which didn´t exist before that time. Plate tectonics also cause certain regions to have better arable land (and larger rivers) than others. Unfortunately, they are often volcanic regions, as well! Which explains why humans often settle uncomfortably close to volcanoes...

Geography and climate explains why Eurasia has been split (until the early modern period) between nomadic peoples at the great steppes of the hinterland, and agricultural ditto (and their high cultures) at the "periphery". Constant wars between these two groups raged for millennia. One of many reasons for the decline and fall of the West Roman Empire (and the contretemps of the Eastern one) were climatic changes in Inner Asia, which forced the Huns to leave their original territory for literally greener pastures, leading to a huge chain reaction, as the Huns were forcing the Germanic tribes to move even further west, eventually all colliding with the Romans. It´s also interesting to note that the horse evolved in North America, and migrated to Eurasia thanks to the same land bridge humans used to get in the opposite direction, the land bridge being the result of the "last Ice Age". Horses then died out in America, but have played a central role in Eurasian history... 

Other intriguing questions answered by geography, climate and geology include the longevity and relative stability of Egyptian civilization, why the Egyptians usually didn´t attempt to create vast empires, or why they were land-lubbers. The author also points out that the European distribution of varieties of Christianity to a great extent follow the Roman borders, which in turn are geographical. Danube functioned as a de facto natural border between the West and East Roman Empires, and its interesting to note that Catholicism is dominant in the west, and Orthodoxy in the east. Protestantism primarily exists north of the Danube and beyond the Rhine - areas usually outside Roman control.  

At times, the author probably goes too far (capitalism supposedly emerged in the Netherlands because of the area´s geology) or seems to have forgotten certain salient facts of history (you know, like Tenochtitlan being much larger than most European cities, or Cortes needing the support of thousands of Native troops). And what about the Barbary States? Didn´t they thrive on the southern shores of the Mediterranean? Dartnell believes in fusion power (sic) and seems to think that somehow this exotic form of energy (which is, ahem, geologically impossible) can save us from man-made climate change! 

That being said, I did get some personal insights from "Origins". For instance, the cold or unstable climate during "the last Ice Age" probably made it impossible to create a high culture during that period (which must be based either on agriculture or an abundant and stable hunter-gatherer food base). Goodbye to Atlantis and Lemuria! The author believes that it was easier to sail to America from the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands than from the Portuguese-controlled Azores, due to wind and sea currents, which probably means that Columbus really did reach America before the Portuguese (although I suppose it´s still possible that the latter could have sailed to Newfoundland through a northern route). 

But above all, the book is profoundly humbling. It shows that our species, and its fantastic modern civilization (only about 300 years old), need not have existed at all. Yes, we are "ingenious", we have "progress", and so forth, but the preconditions for these things are geological processes which, for all we know, could have been different. Our technological progress could have come to a grinding halt 300 years ago. The horse might not have existed. Agriculture might not have been possible. All Earth could have been a gigantic hot swampland inhabited by really bizarre creatures (but no humans). Or our planet could have belonged to archeobacteria, or experienced *constant* mass extinction events, or...

Dartnell claims that, paradoxically, man-made climate change might actually be a good thing, since it has cancelled the next Ice Age, if we could only get those fusion reactors online! However, I suspect what will really happen (if current climate models are correct) is that global warming will destroy modern civilization, and when the climate cycle reverts to normal, a new Ice Age will wipe out the reminder of the human race, except maybe some peculiar tribe in a refugium, which could perhaps prepare the next origins...