GGS - Chapter 15

At last, Diamond has established a strong foundation is now applying it to the entire world in five chapters (this one focuses on New Guinea and Australia).

When New Guinea and Australia diverged with the loss of land bridge, their societies took dramatically different turns. Close to the equator, New Guinea was ripe for food production with taro and sweet potato becoming staples. In fact, it was the smallest population to independently develop food production. But why didn't societies go beyond tribes with big-men? Food production was only limited to th montane highlands, with little area for population expansion and difficult terrain (fragmenting the population). Also, the staple crops were low in protein, limiting the population. They also failed to domesticate animals for manual labor, again impeding further food production and the development of infectious germs to repel invaders. Finally, their isolated geography prevented the exchange of technologies required to advance society.

Australia had a worse fate due to the paucity of domesticatable plant candidates, the extinction of megafauna (during the humans' arrival), the irregular climate (arid and unpredictable southern El Nino) and the relative isolation. This left them in sparse hunter-gatherer tribes and had little interaction with other societies to foster technological and societal advancement. They could not move into food production because of the lack of candidate plants, climate and no large domestic animals.

Why did Europeans settle in Australia and not New Guinea? Germs is the short answer. New Guinea had resistance to tropical diseases like malaria that Europeans did not. Australians had no resistance to diseases due to the arid climate and succumbed to the European germs. Also, European crops and technology faired much better in Australia then New Guinea. This is the answer to the question I had in the beginning. The success of the Europeans in settling Australia is not a difference of quality between the Australian and Europeans method of settlement. Rather, the import of the distant European lifestyle/technology happened to succeed in Australia.