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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Nellisir" data-source="post: 2456064" data-attributes="member: 70">"Guns, Germs, and Steel" by Jared Diamond covers all this.  China and Egypt are both decent examples. Many advances that became widespread in Europe began in China, gunpowder and the printing press for example. The difference between China and Europe? China was essentially monopolitical. It was possible for one person (the Emporer) to stifle technological advancement in a particular area. Other regions have different reasons for not inventing what we see as necessities. Why don't Australian Aborigines have indoor plumbing? Because they're essentially nomadic hunter/gatherers, not settled farmers. Why aren't they farmers? Because there aren't any domesticable crops in Australia, and the only domesticated animal is the dog. The nearest farming population to Australia was the highlands of New Guinea, and the crops grown there weren't transferrable to the lowlands of northern Australia. The Fertile Crescent region lucked out on domesticable animals and crops. Mesoamerica had some crops, but no large animals; the llama never successfully made the trip from the highlands of South America, through the disease-bearing mosquito-infested jungles of Central America to Mesoamerica, where the wheel had been invented -- for a toy. Southern Africa also had a dearth of domesticable animals -- it took thousands of years for cattle, sheep, & goats to make it south of the Equator. And indoor plumbing has been around for thousands of years. They're called chamber pots. CheersNell.</blockquote>

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