Patterns of Geographical Variation - Assignment Example

According to geologists, between 280-225 million years ago, previously, the separate land areas of the earth became fused into a landmass known as Pangaea. They believe that this landmass started separating roughly 120 million years back and as this happened; there was the formation of the Atlantic Ocean, which separated the Americas from Eurasia and Africa. In both Afro-Eurasia and the Americas, biological evolution trailed along individual paths during the next several million years thereby leading to the creation of two principally distinct biological worlds. Nevertheless, in October 1492 when Christopher Columbus together with his team docked in the Bahamas, the two long-separated worlds: Afro-Eurasia and the Americas were rejoined. Together with the various voyages that ensued, Christopher Columbus’ voyage led to a great disruption of much of the biological separation that the continental drift caused. Following Christopher Columbus’ arrival in the Americas, these two worlds’ plant, animal, as well as bacterial life started mixing. This process is known as the Columbian Exchange. It reunited formerly biologically distinct landmasses and had lasting and dramatic impacts on the world (McNeill 1&2). This paper describes the Columbian exchange in its four aspects namely biological, demographic, cultural and economic aspects as well as its impacts on Europe, Asia, the New World and Africa. Introduction For a long time, the prevailing pattern of biological growth on the globe has been one of geographical variation dictated by the clear fact of the separateness of continents. Rather than identical, organisms have had the tendency of becoming more dissimilar, even in the Amazon, Congo basins among others where climates have been similar. This is owing to the fact that they had little or no contact with one another. People have gone to and lived, or at least spent time the world over. They always carry with them their weeds as well as disease organisms unintentionally, and their crops and domesticated animals knowingly. Because of this, humans have overturned, in the very most recent tick of time, the ancient trend of geographical bio-diversification. The Columbian Exchange was appreciably an extensive swap of fauna, flora, transmissible diseases, customs and ideas between the Western and Eastern hemispheres. It was, in the entire human history, one of the most important events with reference to traditions, the natural environment and farming. Christopher Columbus, who was the first to take a voyage to the Americas in 1492, instigated the period of large-scale between the ancient world and the modern one. This period culminated into this green uprising, hence the name ‘Columbian’ Exchange (Columbian Exchange 1). Woods explains that the Columbian Exchange is the name given to the period where domestic animals, farm products and cultural influences’ transmission between the Eastern and Western Hemispheres came about. Communities in both hemispheres were not only new products’ beneficiaries but they also suffered from new diseases stemming from the Columbian Exchange (1). He adds that the Columbian Exchange era was also a time of cultural movement. During the period franked by the years 1492 and 1539, the Spaniards’ movement to the Americas was primarily from the Andalusia region of Spain. People felt the influence of this in the arts, language and architecture of the areas where they settled (6). All through the Columbian Exchange, both the New and the Old World engaged in a huge transfer of thoughts and persons. While the former received white people and black people, the latter received potatoes, tomatoes and maize. Local people left the Caribbean became marginalized on the mainland and accepted ecologically isolated regions including the Guatemalan as well as the Peruvian highlands. This notwithstanding, the native populations did not vanish utterly but they genetically persisted in the numerically prevalent mestizo populace of much of Latin America (Khan 3). According to Crosby, when Europeans initially touched the Americas’ shoreline, ancient World crops including rice, wheat, turnips and barley had not reached West through the Atlantic. In the same way, new world crops such as white and sweet potatoes, maize and manioc had not gone east to Europe. In the Americas, there were no animals of ancient World origin such as sheep and goats, horses and cattle. The llama, alpaca, dogs, guinea pigs and a few fowls were the only exception. The New World neither had equals to the domesticated animals related to the Old World nor the disease-causing organisms associated with the Old World’s human intense populations, as well as related creatures such as black rats, chicken and cattle. Along with these were germs that transmitted yellow fever, smallpox, chickenpox, malaria, measles and influenza (2). In addition, the spread of an extensive range of new crops and farm animals, which aided population increases in both hemispheres, was aggravated by the Columbus exchange. For example, prior to the Columbian Exchange, there were no potatoes grown outside the Americas. Explorers went back to Europe with potatoes, tomatoes and maize, crops that by the 18th century became very important in Eurasia. In a few centuries, potatoes became one of Ireland’s staple foods. Potatoes also became an essential constituent for Russian vodka, which became the nation’s chief export (Woods 2). The Europeans also introduced to tropical Southeast Asia and West Africa such crops as manioc and peanuts, which did very well here, supporting increase in populations on soils that would otherwise not yield much. According to McNeill, the spread of these and other crops led to a considerable change in the Americas’ economy. He adds that these new crops however supported the European colonist societies together with their African slave systems, making the Native Americans to prefer their own foods. The Portuguese also took maize, peanuts among other crops to Africa and areas such as southern Africa supported these resilient plants. Earlier, these areas could not support agricultural cultivation. Some historians associate the introduction of these crops to increased population in the region (Woods 3). McNeill explains that the introduction of new fiber and food crops to Africa and Eurasia by the Columbian Exchange not only led to an improvement in diets but it also promoted the growth of trade in these two continents. Moreover, it greatly expanded the production scope of some popular drugs, introducing to millions of people tobacco, sugar and coffee use’s pleasures and consequences. The results of this exchange re-arranged both regions’ biology in addition to altering the world’s history. As mentioned earlier, the Columbian exchange of crops influenced both the New and the Old Worlds. Amerindian crops that crossed oceans, for instance maize to China and the white potato to Ireland, catalyzed the rise in population in the ancient World. The Pampa plus beef cattle in Texas and Brazil as well as wheat in Kansas are a clear indication that crops and domestic animals of the Old World have had much similar effects in the Americas (Crosby 3). Crosby also indicates that in the New World, the European weeds flourished and that the colonists did not cultivate them – in fact, they preferred uprooting them. Since the English started keeping Cattle in New England, several plants have emerged. These include shepherds purse, dandelion, chickweeds, couch grass groundsel and sow thistle. The Amerindians of New England and Virginia, thinking that one of these, a plantain, would grow solitary where the English have trodden, named it ‘Englishmans Foot’. It was by no means known prior to the coming of the English into that country. As the European settlers deliberately sowed Old World crop seeds, they accidentally contaminated American fields with weed seeds through clearing and burning forests thereby revealing the native small flora to the hooves and teeth of Old World livestock as well as to direct sunlight. The native plants could not put up with the stress. Europeans also had an unplanned negative impact by introducing numerous new diseases that had their origin in Asia. Since they had lived for long among most Afro-Eurasian populations, they had developed resistance to these germs, which decimated the Americas’ whole populations that had built up no immunity to the new germs. Although data for Americas’ pre-Columbian population is uncertain, estimates from historians concerning population losses between 1492 and 1650 indicate that diseases wiped out up to 50-90 percent of some South American civilization. Wave after wave of epidemic struck both children and adults similarly leading to disastrous mortality all over the Americas. In the bigger centers of highland Peru and Mexico, numerous natives died while the Native American population on some Caribbean islands vanished completely. Scholars deem this loss as one of the greatest demographic catastrophes in human history. The Columbian Exchange shook America’s economic and ecological balance through stripping her much of her human population. Ecosystems were in turmoil as the number of previously hunted animals rose and forests re-grew. Economically, the decline in population that the Columbian Exchange caused circuitously led to a drastic shortage in labor throughout the Americas. This eventually led to large-scale establishment of African slavery in the Americas. By the year 1650, the slave trade had brought new diseases including yellow fever and malaria that afflicted Native Americans further (McNeill 4&5). Crouthamel indicates that apparently, infectious diseases had the most impact on the world, after the instigation of contact by Columbus exchange. Disease was indubitably a major effective weapon that Europeans brought to America. The limited intrusion of infectious diseases in addition to biological isolation in America before the year 1492 led to the devastating effect of disease on the Natives. He also indicates that the Europeans did not well identify this weapon of disease and that in the early colonial contacts; they did not deliberately use it (1). Another noteworthy impact of the Columbus exchange was the introduction of livestock from Europe to America. The Spanish introduced horses to the Western Hemisphere and some scholars recognize them as having created a nomadic lifestyle for many Native Amerindian tribes. The Europeans as well brought Cattle thereby permitting people in Texas to rear livestock on land that had been previously too harsh for agriculture (Woods 4). The horse altered many local American tribes’ lives, which lived on the Great Plains by allowing them to change to a nomadic lifestyle based on hunting bison on horseback. While tomato sauce, prepared from New World tomatoes, became an Italian brand, coffee and sugar cane from Africa and Asia respectively became the major crops of many plantations belonging to Latin Americans. An essential part of Indian cooking currently is the chili paprika from South America introduced by the Portuguese (The Columbian Exchange 2). Conclusion Apparently, the Columbian exchange was probably the most significant phenomena in the American history and nearly the entire global society experienced its impact. It led to the transfer of thoughts and persons between the old world and the new world. McNeill explains that the Columbian Exchange goes on into the present world and that as modern transportation continues Christopher Columbus’ pattern, it will certainly go on into the future. It is important to note that despite the negative impacts linked to this exchange as evidenced by new diseases’ introduction and spread that left many suffering, the significance of this exchange cannot be overstated – the exchange of plants and animals along with the introduction of domesticated animals in America transformed the lives of the Americans. Works Cited “Columbian Exchange.” IQ advanced.com. Iscanmyfood. 2010. Web. “The Columbian Exchange.” Iupui.edu. Iupui, n.d. Web. Crosby, Alfred. The Columbian Exchange. 2007. Web. Crouthamel, S.J. The Columbian Exchange. 2003. Web. Khan, Razib. The Post–Columbian Panmictic “Natural Experiment”. 2010. Web. McNeill, J.R. The Columbian Exchange . 2008. Web. Woods, Paul. What is the Columbian Exchange? 2010. Web. Read More