Geographic luck

Today in honors human geo we continued to watch guns germs and steel.  In this portion of the video, Diamond went into further detail of the places in the world that could farm other than the middle east.  These places include north, central, and South America, where they grew corn, beans, and squash, China, where they grew rice, and Africa where they grew Sorghum, Millet, and yams.  Another place that has been farming almost as long as the middle east is the highlanders of Papua new guinea although their civilization has not taken off like the civilization in other parts of the world has.  This is because the crops that they grow here are not nearly as productive as things like wheat, corn or any other crops.  Their crops spoil easily and are not very nutritious, this meant that they could not build up a food surplus in order to advance their civilization.  This meansthat most of the reason that Civilization took off in some places is because of geographic luck.