User talk:Iggypoprocket

The Morris quote actually reads: "Geography then dictated that there were only a few regions on the planet where farming was possible, because only they had the kinds of climate and landscape which allowed the evolution of wild plants and animals that could potentially be domesticated.

The densest concentrations of these plants and animals lay towards the western end of Eurasia, around the headwaters of the Euphrates, Tigris, and Jordan Rivers in what we now call south-west Asia. It was therefore here, around 9000 BC, that farming began, spreading outwards across Europe."

Morris goes on to say: "Farming also started independently in other areas, from China to Mexico; but because plants and animals that could be domesticated were somewhat less common in these zones than in the West, the process took thousands of years longer to get going. These other zones of complex agricultural societies also expanded, but the West long retained its early lead, producing the world's first cities, states, and empires."

In an inset by Morris on the same web page, titled "What is the West," Morris writes: "Distinctive ways of life began emerging in different parts of the world 11,000 years ago, when the first farmers created more complex societies. Great civilizations grew out of the original agricultural cores (in what we now call southwest Asia, China, Pakistan, Mexico, and Peru), all of which steadily expanded as population grew.

The westernmost of the Old World's agricultural cores, in southwest Asia, was the foundation of what we now call Western Civilization."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11721671

Morris' odd claim that the West produced "the world's first cities, states, and empires" (Morris) is now known to be incorrect. The world's first cities flourished in Mesopotamia, or the Middle East. "Sumeria:  World's first civilization, dating from before 3000 BC in S Mesopotamia. The Sumerians are credited with inventing cuneiform writing, the first basic socio‐political institutions, and a money‐based economy. Major cities were Ur, Kish and Lagash. During the third millennium BC Sumeria developed into an imperial power." (Oxford Reference Online) http://www.oxfordreference.com.ezproxy.uwindsor.ca/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t142.e11191&category=>