Cultural and Social Geography (GeEs 322) - Debre Birhan College of Teachers Education

Debre Birhan College of Teachers Education Department of Social Science Cultural and Social Geography (GeEd 322) Module Credit Hours: 3 Sept. 2024 Debre Birhan...

Debre Birhan College of Teachers Education Department of Social Science Cultural and Social Geography (GeEd 322) Module Credit Hours: 3 Sept. 2024 Debre Birhan i  Table of Contents Contents Page Course Introduction………………………………………………………………………… iv Course Objectives…………………………………………………………………………... iv Unit One: Introduction……………………………………………………………………. 1 1.1 Definition and Scope of Cultural and Social Geography………………………………. 1 1.2 Basic Themes in Cultural and Social Geography……………………………………….. 2 1.2.1 Cultural Region………………………………………………………………………. 2 1.2.2 Cultural Diffusion……………………………………………………………………. 5 1.2.3 Cultural Ecology……………………………………………………………………… 8 1.2.4 Cultural Integration………………………………………………………………….. 10 1.2.5 Cultural Landscape……………………………………………………………………. 11 Unit Summary………………………………………………………………………………. 11 Self-test exercises…………………………………………………………………………… 12 Unit Two: The Development of Human Culture………………………………………… 14 2.1Types of Society…………………………………………………………………………. 14 2.2The Evolution of Humankind………………………………………………………….... 19 2.3 Human Dispersal……………………………………………………………………….. 20 2.4 Agricultural Origins and Dispersal……………………………………………………... 21 2.5 Industrial Origins and Dispersal………………………………………………………… 26 2.6 Evolution of Settlement Patterns……………………………………………………….. 32 Unit Summary………………………………………………………………………………. 34 Self-test exercise……………………………………………………………………………. 35 Unit Three: Geography of Language, Religion and Ethnicity………………………….. 36 3.1The Geography of Language…………………………………………………………….. 37 3.2The Geography of Religion……………………………………………………………… 46 3.3The Geography of Ethnicity……………………………………………………………... 50 3.4The Spatial Mirage of Race……………………………………………………………… 53 Unit Summary………………………………………………………………………………. 55 Self-test exercise……………………………………………………………………………. 56 Unit Four: Culture and Social Changes…………………………………………………. 57 4.1Meaning of Social Change……………………………………………………………..... 57 4.2Sources of Social Change………………………………………..………..………..……. 58 4.3Technology and Social Change…………………………………………………………. 61 Unit Summary………………………………………………………………………………. 63 Self-test exercise……………………………………………………………………………. 64 Unit Five: Globalization and Culture…………………………………………………….. 65 5.1Definition of Globalization……………………………………………………………… 65 5.2 Cultural Impacts of Globalization………………………………………………………. 66 Unit Summary………………………………………………………………………………. 67 Self-test exercise……………………………………………………………………………. 68 Reference……………………………………………………………………………………. 69 ii Course Introduction Cultural and Social geography is a way of studying how people and their cultures interact with the places where they live. It looks at how people interact with each other, their cultures and the space around them. By studying these connections, we learn more about how societies and cultures change adapt and work together in their physical environments. This module consists of five units. Unit one deals with introduction. Unit two and unit three study about development of human culture and geography of language, religion and ethnicity, respectively. Unit four deals with technology and social change. The last chapter discuses about globalization and culture change. Course Objectives At the end of the course, you will be able to:  Define cultural and social geography.  Understand the basic themes of cultural and social geography.  Understand the evolution of man and human culture, human dispersal and settlement patterns.  Know geographical patterns of the world’s main languages, religions, racial families and their distributions and origin.  Appreciate the sources of social change and the effects of technology and globalization.  Understand the impacts of globalization on culture. iii iv  UNIT ONE INTRODUCTION Dear learner, in this unit you are going to study the meaning of culture, the definition of cultural and social geography, basic themes in the study of cultural and social geography. Hence, this introductory of the module helps you to understand the various aspects of cultural and social geography in the next units. Unit Objectives After the completion of this unit, you are expected to be able to:-  Define cultural and social geography.  Explain the scope of cultural and social geography.  Understand the themes of cultural geography.  Explain the concept of cultural diffusion.  Appreciate cultural ecology.  Elaborate the meaning of cultural integration.  Express cultural landscape. 1.1 Definition and Scope of Cultural and Social Geography Activity 1.1 1. What is culture? 2. Is culture varies from society to society? Why? 3. Define cultural and social geography. 1.1.1 Definition of Culture There is no standard definition given to culture. But, most generally, culture is a specialized behavioral patterns, understandings and adaptations that summarize the way of life of a group of people. It is the sum of shared attitudes, customs and beliefs that distinguishes one group of people from another. Culture is viewed as the configuration of institutions and modes of life. Culture is, therefore, the complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, laws, customs, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by human as member of the society. Culture refers to refined music, art, and literature. From wider perspective, culture is learned collective human behavior, which is socially transmitted such as customs, belief, morals, technology, and art, rather than biologically transmitted. Human learns culture through the process of socialization, enumeration, 1 personal experience and through deliberate indoctrination or teaching. Learning of culture is a lifelong process from birth to death. Cultural elements such as language, religion, ethnicity, race, etc that vary from one culture group to the other. There is a world of cultural differences with respect to religion, technology and medicine, economic and agricultural activity, and modes of architecture and transportation. Cultural communities may differ in their dress, music, food, dance, sport, and other cultural components. Culture is dynamic/changes, but its transformation is gradual, not sudden. Thus, culture is a continuous process of change. Culture continues to give a community a sense of dignity, continuity, security and binds society together. Culture is an invaluable inheritance of uncountable experiences, experiments and endeavors. It is nurtured in the infinite lap of time, age after age. Culture has spatial expression, which is one reason why geographers study it. 1.1.2 Definition of Society The concept of society refers to a relatively large grouping or collectivity of people who share more or less common and distinct culture, occupying a certain geographical locality, with the feeling of identity or belongingness, having all the necessary social arrangements or insinuations to sustain itself. We may add a more revealing definition of society: "A society is an autonomous grouping of people who inhabit a common territory, have a common culture (shared set of values, beliefs, customs and so forth) and are linked to one another through reutilized social interactions and interdependent statuses and roles." Society also may mean a certain population group, a community. On a broader scale, society consists of the people and institutions around us, our shared beliefs, and our cultural ideas. Typically, more advanced societies also share a political authority. 1.1.3 Definition of Cultural and Social Geography Cultural and social geography, thus, is the study of spatial variations or cultural diversity among cultural groups and the spatial functioning of society. It focuses on describing; analyzing and explaining the ways language, religion, ethnicity, economy, government and other cultural components vary or remain constant from one place to another. It, therefore, bridges the social and 2 the earth sciences by seeking an integrative view of humankind in its physical environment. Cultural and social geography is also the study of the impact of human culture on the landscape. Cultural geography key concepts or themes, however, are cultural region, cultural landscape, cultural diffusion, cultural ecology, and cultural interaction/integration with emphasis on language, religion, ethnicity, race, technology and social change. It also treats the origin and evolution of human kind and culture, including agriculture, settlement and human dispersal. 1.2 Definition of Cultural and Social Geography Cultural and social geography are two of the most established and vibrant branches of geography, encompassing a diverse set of issues. Broadly, social geography relates to the spatiality of society and the role of space and place in relation to the interplay of different groups, issues and aspects of daily life, whilst cultural geography relates to the spatiality of culture and the role of space and place in relation to cultural commodities, consumption, expression recognize and historical legacies. Recent years have witnessed a transition in both areas as they have re-invented themselves to incorporate contemporary thought in relation to theory and practice. This transition has led the two areas to become closer and in places to merge. Cultural and social geography, thus, is the study of spatial variations or cultural diversity among cultural groups and the spatial functioning of society. It focuses on describing, analyzing and explaining the ways language, religion, ethnicity, economy, government and other cultural components vary or remain constant from one place to another. It, therefore, bridges the social and the earth sciences by seeking an integrative view of humankind in its physical environment. Cultural and social geography is also the study of the impact of human culture on the landscape. Cultural geography key concepts or themes, however, are cultural region, cultural landscape, cultural diffusion, cultural ecology, and cultural interaction/integration with emphasis on language, religion, ethnicity, race, technology and social change. It also treats the origin and evolution of human kind and culture, including agriculture, settlement and human dispersal. 1.2 Scope of Cultural and Social Geography Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 3  xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx 1.2 Basic Themes in Cultural and Social Geography Activity 1.2 1. Distinguish the themes of cultural and social geography. 2. Mention and define the major components of cultural regions. 3. Clarify the concept of cultural diffusion. There are five basic themes in cultural geography. These are cultural regions, cultural diffusion, cultural ecology, cultural integration and cultural landscape. 1.2.1. Cultural Region A cultural region is the area within which a particular culture system prevails. It is marked by all the attributes of a culture. A specific territory inhabited by population following a particular culture system forms a cultural region. A cultural region is, then, a geographical unit that has common cultural elements such as language, religion, ethnicity, race, technology, etc. It is a portion of the earth’s surface occupied by people sharing identifiable and unique cultural characteristics or culture system that summarize their collective attributes or activities. For example, Sidama, Gurage or Tigray in Ethiopia. A group of related cultural regions showing related cultural systems and landscapes is called cultural world or cultural realm. United States and Canada form culture realm, who are Christians speaking English with strong economy, whereas Mexico belongs to a Latin American culture realm, speaking Spanish. However, one can find French speakers in Quebec, Canada and different sects of religions in both United States and Canada. Cultural world may be too broad to be useful and casts generalizations upon large groups of people that may not be true. It is necessary, therefore ,to study the concept of cultural region which delineates and explains parts of the earth that have common cultural elements as well as it compares and contrasts areas that are culturally different. Identifying and mapping culture regions are significant tasks in geography because they show us where particular culture traits or cultural communities are located. Maps of culture regions provide answers to the most fundamental geographical question. 4 Culture region has three major components. These are culture trait, culture complex and culture system. In order to understand cultural region and answer why culture region is the key concept of cultural geography, let us define and describe these terms. 1. Cultural trait The smallest unit of a culture is termed a cultural trait. It is a single attribute of a culture or the smallest distinctive and fundamental element of culture. There are three forms of culture traits. I. Artifacts, also called material/technological object, are those aspects of culture that have a material basis in group behavior. Pots and pans, types of clothing and bodily adornment, housing tools and implements, the layout of cities and farm fields, forms of transportation, and other tangible evidence of human behavior are among the examples. II. Socio – facts are also called sociological or behavioral regularities. Socio – facts pertain to those aspects of culture that place people in society. Socio-facts include the link of individuals in a family and kinship groups, interpersonal relationships in educational, political and religious institutions. It also includes structures and organizations in economic exchanges, legal sanctions, social custom, and all other associations that are found in society. III. Menti – facts or ideological: for instance, abstract ideas, religious beliefs, ideologies, legends, folklore, magic, attitudes toward natural, and views of the universe. Artistic ideas and styles are part of human menti – facts. 2. Cultural complex Related single cultural traits that go together in practice form a cultural complex. It is a separate combination of traits exhibited by a particular culture such as keeping cattle for different purposes. Milking the cattle, drinking milk and making and consuming butter, yogurt, and cheese is a small but distinctive culture complex. Eating beef, using cattle to poll plows and wagons, and wearing tanned cowhide as a shoes and garments is a cultural complex with regard to keeping cattle. Cultural complex it is a group of culture traits that are functionally interrelated. A large assemblage of cultural complexes fit together into a cultural system. 3. Culture system The term cultural system is very broad and all inclusive one. It is culture complexes with traits in common that can be grouped together such as ethnicity, language, religion, and other cultural elements. In other word, it is shared, identifying traits uniting two or more culture complexes. 5 Types of Cultural Regions A cultural region is a geographical unit based on characteristics and functions of culture. There are three types of cultural regions which are recognized by geographers. These are formal, functional and vernacular regions. i. Formal culture region: is an area inhabited by people who have one or more cultural traits in common, such as language, religion or system of livelihood. It is an area that is relatively homogeneous with regard to one or more cultural traits that are dominant. The cultural geographer who identifies a formal culture region must locate cultural borders. Because cultures overlap and mix, such boundaries are rarely sharp, even if only a single cultural trait is mapped. For this reason, we find cultural border zones rather than lines. These zones broaden with each additional cultural trait that is considered, because no two traits have the same spatial distribution. As a result, instead of having clear borders, formal culture regions reveal a center or core where the defining traits are all present. Away from the central core, the characteristics weaken and disappear. Thus, many formal culture regions display a core-periphery pattern. The hallmark of a formal culture region is cultural homogeneity, which is abstract rather than concrete. ii. Functional culture region: this type of region need not be culturally homogeneous. Instead, it is an area that has been organized to function politically, socially, or economically as one unit. Functional region is thus an area tied together by a coordinating system such as law, monetary system, roads, etc. A City, an independent state, a trade area or a farm is a functional culture region. Functional cultural region have the following characteristics a) They have nodes or central points where the functions are directed b) They have core periphery configurations. For example, the scene is in the city’s Central Business District where individual buildings are nodes of activities linked to other buildings and places. In this sense, functional regions also possess a core- periphery configuration, in common with formal culture regions. Many functional regions have clearly defined borders that include all land under the jurisdiction of a particular urban government; clearly delineated on a regional map by a line distinguishing between one jurisdiction and another. 6 iii. Vernacular cultural region is also called “popular” or “perceptual” regions. Vernacular cultural regions are those perceived to exist by their inhabitants, as evidenced by the widespread acceptance and use of a special regional name. Vernacular regions generally lack sharp borders. Vernacular region is an area that ordinary people or non-geographers recognize as a region. For instance, the Great Somalia which includes the people of Somali in Ethiopia, Kenya and Djibouti. It can be based on many different things such as physical environment, economic, political, historical aspects, and often created by publicity campaigns. Often they lack the organization and they frequently do not display cultural homogeneity. 1.2.2. Cultural Diffusion Activity 1.3 1. What does cultural diffusion mean? 2. What are the differences between the major types of diffusions? 3. What is the difference between expansion diffusion and relocation diffusion? Cultural diffusion is the spatial spread of learned ideas, innovations and attitudes. It is the spread of culture and the factors that account for it such as migration, communications, trade and commerce. Almost all cultures of the world, probably with the exceptions of those few cultural groups who are completely (if there are any) isolated, are products of innovations that spread from locations of origin to another. In general, cultural region describes the location of cultural traits or cultural communities; cultural diffusion helps explain how they got there. Two general concepts you must take into account in the gradual development of regional world cultures during the early human occupation of the earth. The first is independent invention, and second is the process of diffusion. The concept of total isolations of group carrying independent inventions without outside influence is challenged. These two processes, invention and diffusion are responsible for human culture in any particular regional or group form. Cultural diffusion is the process of spreading and adoption of a cultural element, from its place of origin across a wide area. The process of dissemination, the spreading of an idea or an innovation from its source are to other cultures, is known as the process of cultural diffusion. The process of borrowing, copying, or taking over from another is the essence of diffusion. Diffusion occurs through the movement of people, goods or ideas. 7 Types of cultural diffusion There are two broad categories of diffusion processes. 1. Expansion diffusion 2. Relocation diffusion 1. Expansion Diffusion refers to the spread of an idea or item from one place to another. The innovation or idea develops in a core or source area and remains strong and spreads out ward. The expansions of ideas and/or innovations diffuse in three forms. i. Contagious diffusion: where some item of culture is spread through a local population by contact from person to person. It is a wavelike diffusion. Ideas spread through a group of people or an area equally without regard to social class, economic position or position of power or hierarchies, in the manner of contagious disease. ii. Hierarchical diffusion: where ideas are transmitted through leapfrog from one node to another temporarily bypassing some within the pre-existing hierarchical structures. It is the spread of an idea through an established structure usually from people or areas of power down to other people or areas. An idea or innovation spreads by trickling down from larger to smaller adaption units. For example, the Christian faith in Europe speed from Rome as the principal center to provincial capitals & then to smaller Roman settlements in largely pagan occupied territory iii. Stimulus diffusion: a process where an idea or innovation is not readily adopted by a population but results in local experimentation and eventual changes in the way of doing things. The idea or innovation is gradually being accepted when the population is convinced of its values. 2. Relocation Diffusion This type of diffusion involves the actual movement of individuals who have already adopted the idea or innovation & who carry it to a new, perhaps distant local where they precede to disseminate it. In relocation diffusion the innovation or idea is physically carried to new areas by migrating individuals or populations that possess it. Example, Christian Europeans brought their faiths to areas of colonization or economic penetration throughout the world as in Latin America and Africa. Barriers of Cultural Diffusion Activity 1.4 1. How cultural diffusion can be hindered? 8  2. What are the factors that can accelerate or retard cultural diffusion? Cultural diffusion can be hindered by different factors that affect the flow of information or the movement of people and thus retard or prevent the acceptance of an innovation. There are some forces that limit diffusion are discussed as follows. i. Time and distance decay as barriers: All things being equal, the amount of interaction decreases as the distance between two areas increase. Distance is an absorbing barrier halting the spread of an innovation. ii. Physical environment as barriers: This refers to the barrier of physical environment such as isolation by ocean, mountains, climate etc. For example, the Atlantic Ocean was a physical barrier that prevented the westward spread of European culture for many centuries. Physical barriers no longer hinder people's movement and the resultant spread of cultural ideas. Expansion diffusion has recently played a role in the new spread of cultural values and as products and people is now moving around frequently because of the today's ease of travel. iii. Cultures as barriers: Certain ideas, practices or innovations are not acceptable or adoptable in particular cultures because of some attitude or even taboos. Examples include difference in language, religion, race and ethnicity, and a history of conflict between specific cultural communities. Islam, for instance, nowadays acts as a cultural barrier in Afghanistan by discouraging adoption of certain styles of western dress, alcohol and music. In addition, Catholics are not allowed to use contraceptives and Orthodox Church in Ethiopia prohibits eating pork. For much of human history, therefore, barrier effects tended to isolate cultural communities from each other, inhibiting their ability to share cultural characteristics. Today, however, traditional barrier effects are being overwhelmed by modern means of communication. Cultural characteristics are diffusing as never before. What are the factors that accelerate cultural diffusion? There are factors that can accelerate diffusion. The cultural receptivity to diffusion increases if two people in different areas have nearly the same culture, i.e. the same language, same religion etc and the necessary infrastructure, affluence to purchase the ideas and goods invented in other areas. 1.2.3 Cultural Ecology Activity1.5 9  1. What is cultural ecology? 2. What is the relationship between culture and ecology? 3. Distinguish between environmental determinism and environmental possiblism. The science of ecology is the study of a two-way relationship between human and its physical environment. Cultural ecology is thus, defined as the multiple interactions and relationships between a culture and its natural environment. Under the term cultural ecology, cultural geographers have long been interested in the relationship between a given society and its natural environment, the life –forms and ecosystems that support its life ways. Cultural ecology discusses human-environment relationships. It claims that this relationship is reciprocal and mutually constitutive, that is, it is a two –way street. As a result, it attempts to study the human interaction with ecosystem to determine how nature influences and is influenced by human social organization and culture. Cultural ecology is based on the assertion that culture is the human method of meeting physical environmental challenges. In other words, people adapt the environment in which they live-in through culture in that culture facilitate long-term, successful, non- genetic human adaptations to nature and environmental change. Culture is, thus, an adaptive strategy mainly, but not entirely limited to humans, involving learned, cooperative behavior and major environmental modifications that provides necessities of life such as food, clothing, shelter, defense etc. Two major schools of thought are developed by cultural geographers on cultural ecology or on the interaction between humans and physical environment. These are environmental determinism and Possiblism. A. Environmental determinism Environmental determinism is the belief that the environment, most notably its physical factors such as landforms and/or climate, determines the patterns of human culture and societal development and shapes humans actions and thoughts. Environmental determinists believe that it is these environmental factors alone that are responsible for human cultures and individual decisions. Nonetheless, they see that social conditions or human beings have virtually no impact on cultural development. For them, human kind is essentially a passive product of the physical environment. 10 The main argument of environmental determinism states that an area’s physical characteristics have a strong impact on the psychological outlook of its inhabitants. These varied outlooks then spread throughout a population and help define the overall behavior and culture of a society. For instance, it was said that areas in the tropics were less developed than higher latitudes because the continuously warm weather there made it easier to survive and thus, people living there did not work as hard to ensure their survival. Another example of environmental determinism is that dark human skin was caused by the climate of Sub-Saharan Africa. B. Possiblism Possiblism is a school of thought that people, not the environment, is the dynamic forces of culture development. The needs , traditions, and technological level of culture affect how that culture assess the possibilities of an environment and shapes the choices it makes regarding then. It stated that the physical environment sets limitations for cultural development but it does not completely define culture, instead is defined by the opportunities and decisions that humans make in response to dealing with such limitations. Unlike environmental determinism, possiblism claims that people are the primary architects of culture. Physical environment offers numerous ways for a culture to develop. Nonetheless, people make culture trait choices from the possibilities offered by their environment to satisfy their needs. The other saying is that possiblism is the scientific philosophy that the environment does not determine elements of culture, but it does set bounds on the possible or probable forms that culture will take. It declares that natural environments offer opportunities and constraints from which culture groups must choose, based on their knowledge and internal power relations. The choices that a society makes depend on the people’s requirements and the technology available to them to satisfy their needs. High technology societies are less influenced by physical environment. 1.2.4. Cultural Integration Activity 1.6 1. What does cultural integration mean? 2. Does culture has implications on the landscape? 11 Cultural integration could mean the interactions of different elements of culture in creating a whole system. All facets of culture are systematically and spatially intertwined and integrated. Cultures are complex wholes rather than series of unrelated traits. They form integrated systems in which the parts fit together causally. All aspects of culture are functionally interdependent on one another. The theme of cultural integration addresses this complexity. Cultural integration recognizes that a change in one element of culture requires an accommodating change in others. The distribution of one facet of culture cannot be understood without studying the variations in other facets, in order to see how they are interrelated and integrated casually with one another. Culture is a holistic and integrated whole system. Cultures are integrated systems in which each part (trait) is functionally linked to all of the others and all cultural aspects fit together causally. It is to mean that if one part of the culture changes, this necessitates change in all other related parts. Changing one cultural trait requires an accommodating change in others. Cultural integration is also focus on the relationships that often exist among cultural components that characterize a given community. When geographers seek to explain why a particular culture trait which is found in a particular area, they often discover that the answer lies in another trait possessed by that same cultural community. Moreover, cultural integration can explain the presence and the absence of particular traits in particular areas. This demonstrates that cultural components are interrelated. 1.2.5 Cultural Landscape Cultural landscape consists of material aspects of culture that characterize earth’s surface including buildings, shrines, sports and recreational facilities, economic and agricultural structures, crops and agricultural fields, transportation systems, and other physical things. Cultural landscape is the visible, material landscape that cultural groups create in inhabiting the Earth. Cultural landscape is the human imprint cultures leave on the Earth’s surface. All humanized landscapes bear cultural meaning. Landscape can serve as a means to study nonmaterial aspects of culture. Landscapes are mirror of culture. One can read a landscape like a book. All cultures change over time though at different rates. As a result, the cultural landscape of a given locale may look much different today than in the past. For example, the skyline of Addis Ababa City is much taller today than it used to be. Similarly, large areas of Addis Ababa have seen the 12 transformation of farmland to suburbs. Typically, cultural landscapes change in bits and pieces. As a result, the cultural landscape may be a tool for understanding the history and status of a given area, as well as current trends. Unit Summary Cultural Geography is an academic discipline, which studies the spatial variations among cultural groups and the spatial functioning of society. It focuses on describing and analyzing cultural phenomena such as language, religion, economy, government, and other phenomena that vary or remain constant from one place to another and explaining how humans function spatially. Cultural geography is, at heart, recognition of human cultural diversity. The concept of culture is defined as the totality of human experience, acquired through time and its effect on the natural environment and its reciprocal relationship emphasized. Our study of cultures will be organized around five concepts or themes. These are culture region, cultural diffusion, cultural ecology, cultural integration, and cultural land scope. Cultural diffusion refers to is the process of speeding and adoption of a cultural element from its place of origin across a wide area. The process of dissemination, the spreading of an idea or an innovation from its source area to other cultures is known as the source of cultural diffusion. The process of borrowing copying or taking over from another is the essence of diffusion. Cultural diffusion occurs through the movement of people, goods or ideas. Diffusion process is classified in to 2 broad categories. These are expansion diffusion and relocation diffusion. There are forces that work against diffusion and the adoption of ideas and innovations. This include time and distance, physical environments and culture. On the other hand, there are factors that can accelerate diffusion. These are having nearly the same culture, i.e. the same language, same religion etc… and the necessary infrastructure, affluence to purchase the ideas and goods invented in other areas. Acculturation is a slow process for many immigrant individuals and groups and the parent tongue as a matter of choice or necessity be even after fashions or dress, food, & customary behavior have been substantially altered in the new environment. Assimilation is a process by which minorities gradually a adopt pattern of the dominant cultures. Activity 13 Give Short answers to the following questions. 1. Define the following terms. a. Contagious diffusion b. Expansion diffusion c. Stimulus diffusion d. Relocation diffusion 2. What are the parts or components of culture? 3. List and explain the major components of cultural regions. 4. Explain the types of cultural regions. 5. Explain the basic difference between environmental possibilism and environmental determinism. UNIT TWO THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN CULTURE Dear learner, in this chapter you will be introduced with the basic concepts of human culture. First, you will understand the types of society and evolution of humankind as a cultural phenomenon. Second, you will describe the human dispersals. It will provide a brief catalog of agricultural origins and dispersals. At last, you will be focus on the evolution of settlement patterns. Unit Objectives At the end of this unit, you will be able to: 14   Explain the development of human culture  Identify different types of society with the features of each  Describe the origins of agriculture  Explain the diffusion of agriculture  Differentiate the different types of settlements  Distinguish the origin and morphology of human settlement 2.1 Types of Society Activity 2.1 1. What is a society? 2. What are the major types of societies? In your understanding of the characteristics of each type of society, which one would you say the Ethiopian society belongs? Give reasons for your answer. Society can be defined as an organized group of people living together in a territory. However, a simple collection of individuals may not be sufficient to be called society. That means a group to become a society; it should fulfill at least the following major elements. a) The group of people should live together for a long period of. This is because the groups of people to be a society should develop their own affairs & protect their territory. They can develop sense of belongings, it they live together for long period of time. b) The group of people should share common culture relations, and life styles, c) The group of people should process common values and interests etc. this means that society should share similar moral values that the society develop through long period and they should also share interests. The above elements imply that, society involves different groups of people sharing common value, interest objectives and making interactions. Sociologist Gerhard Lenski (1924) defined societies in terms of their technological sophistication. As a society advances, so does its use of technology. Societies with rudimentary technology depend on the fluctuations of their environment, while industrialized societies have more control over the impact of their surroundings and thus develop different cultural features. This distinction is so important that sociologists generally classify societies along a spectrum of their level of industrialization, from preindustrial to industrial to postindustrial. 15 2.1.1. Pre-industrial Societies Before the Industrial Revolution and the widespread use of machines, societies were small, rural, and dependent largely on local resources. Economic production was limited to the amount of labor a human being could provide, and there were few specialized occupations. The very first occupation was that of hunter-gatherer. Hunter-Gatherer Hunter-gatherer societies demonstrate the strongest dependence on the environment of the various types of preindustrial societies. As the basic structure of human society until about 10, 000-12,000 years ago, these groups were based around kinship or tribes. Hunter-gatherers relied on their surroundings for survival they hunted wild animals and foraged for uncultivated plants for food. When resources became scarce, the group moved to a new area to find sustenance, meaning they were nomadic. These societies were common until several hundred years ago, but today only a few hundred remain in existence, such as indigenous Australian tribes sometimes referred to as aborigines, or the Bambuti, a group of pygmy hunter-gatherers residing in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Hunter-gatherer groups are quickly disappearing as the world's population growing rapidly. Pastoral Changing conditions and adaptations led some societies to rely on the domestication of animals where circumstances permitted. Roughly 7,500 years ago, human societies began to recognize their ability to tame and breed animals and to grow and cultivate their own plants. Pastoral societies rely on the domestication of animals as a resource for survival. Unlike earlier hunter-gatherers who depended entirely on existing resources to stay alive, pastoral groups were able to breed livestock for food, clothing, and transportation, creating a surplus of goods. Herding, or pastoral, societies remained nomadic because they were forced to follow their animals to fresh feeding grounds. Around the time that pastoral societies emerged, specialized occupations began to develop, and societies commenced trading with local groups. Horticultural Around the same time that pastoral societies were on the rise, another type of society developed, based on the newly developed capacity for people to grow and cultivate plants. Previously, the depletion of a region's crops or water supply forced pastoral societies to relocate in search of food sources for their livestock. 16 Horticultural societies formed in areas where rainfall and other conditions allowed them to grow stable crops. They were similar to hunter-gatherers in that they largely depended on the environment for survival, but since they didn't have to abandon their location to follow resources, they were able to start permanent settlements. This created more stability and more material goods and became the basis for the first revolution in human survival. Agricultural While pastoral and horticultural societies used small, temporary tools such as digging sticks or hoes, agricultural societies relied on permanent tools for survival. Around 3000 B.C.E., an explosion of new technology known as the Agricultural Revolution made farming possible and portable. Farmers learned to rotate the types of crops grown on their fields and to reuse waste products such as fertilizer, leading to better harvests and bigger surpluses of food. New tools for digging and harvesting were made of metal, making them more effective and longer lasting. Human settlements grew into towns and cities, and particularly bountiful regions became centers of trade and commerce. This is also the age in which people had the time and comfort to engage in more contemplative and thoughtful activities, such as music, poetry, and philosophy. This period became referred to as the “dawn of civilization” by some because of the development of leisure and humanities. Craftspeople were able to support themselves through the production of creative, decorative, or thought-provoking aesthetic objects and writings. As resources became more plentiful, social classes became more divisive. Those who had more resources could afford better living and developed into a class of nobility. Difference in social standing between men and women increased. As cities expanded, ownership and preservation of resources became a pressing concern. Feudal The ninth century gave rise to feudal societies. These societies contained a strict hierarchical system of power based around land ownership and protection. The nobility, known as lords, placed vassals in charge of pieces of land. In return for the resources that the land provided, vassals promised to fight for their lords. These individual pieces of land, known as fiefdoms, were cultivated by the lower class. In return for maintaining the land, peasants were guaranteed a place to live and protection from outside enemies. Power was handed down through family lines, with peasant families serving lords 17 for generations and generations. Ultimately, the social and economic system of feudalism would fail, replaced by capitalism and the technological advances of the industrial era. 2.1.2 Industrial Society In the 18th century, Europe experienced a dramatic rise in technological invention, ushering in an era known as the Industrial Revolution. What made this period remarkable was the number of new inventions that influenced people's daily lives. Within a generation, tasks that had until this point required months of labor became achievable in a matter of days. Before the Industrial Revolution, work was largely person- or animal-based, relying on human workers or horses to power mills and drive pumps. In 1782, James Watt and Matthew Bolton created a steam engine that could do the work of 12 horses by itself. Steam power began appearing everywhere. Instead of paying artisans to painstakingly spin wool and weave it into cloth, people turned to textile mills that produced fabric quickly at a better price, and often with better quality. Rather than planting and harvesting fields by hand, farmers were able to purchase mechanical seeders and threshing machines that caused agricultural productivity to soar. Products such as paper and glass became available to the average person and the quality and accessibility of education and health care soared. Gas lights allowed increased visibility in the dark, and towns and cities developed nightlife. One of the results of increased productivity and technology was the rise of urban centers. Workers flocked to factories for jobs, and the populations of cities became increasingly diverse. The new generation became less preoccupied with maintaining family land and traditions, and more focused on acquiring wealth and achieving upward mobility for themselves and their family. People wanted their children and their children's children to continue to rise to the top, and as capitalism increased, so did social mobility. It was during the 18th and 19th centuries of the Industrial Revolution that sociology was born. Life was changing quickly and the long-established traditions of the agricultural eras did not apply to life in the larger cities. Masses of people were moving to new environments and often found themselves faced with horrendous conditions of filth, overcrowding, and poverty. Social scientists emerged to study the relationship between the individual members of society and society as a whole. It was during this time that power moved from the hands of the aristocracy and old money to business 18 savvy newcomers who amassed fortunes in their lifetimes. Families such as the Rockefeller’s and the Vanderbilt’s became the new power players, using their influence in business to control aspects of government as well. Eventually, concerns over the exploitation of workers led to the formation of labor unions and laws that set mandatory conditions for employees. Although the introduction of new technology at the end of the 19th century ended the industrial age, much of our social structure and social ideas like family, childhood, and time standardization have a basis in industrial society. 2.1.3 Postindustrial Society Information societies, sometimes known as postindustrial or digital societies, are a recent development. Unlike industrial societies that are rooted in the production of material goods, information societies are based on the production of information and services. Digital technology is the steam engine of information societies. Since the economy of information societies is driven by knowledge and not material goods, power lies with those in charge of storing and distributing information. Members of a postindustrial society are likely to be employed as sellers of services, software programmers or business consultants, for example instead of producers of goods. Social classes are divided by access to education, since without technical skills, people in an information society lack the means for success. To sum up societies are classified according to their development and use of technology. For most of human history, people lived in preindustrial societies characterized by limited technology and low production of goods. After the Industrial Revolution, many societies based their economies around mechanized labor, leading to greater profits and a trend toward greater social mobility. At the turn of the new millennium, a new type of society emerged. This postindustrial, or information society is built on digital technology and nonmaterial goods. 2.2. The Evolution of Humankind Activity 2.2 1. What do you know about human evolution? 2. What are the classifications of Australopithecus afarnesis? There are two theories of the origin of human kind. These are the creationist view and the scientific view: 19  a) Creationist view – this view believed that God created the universe and people of the globe. According to this theory Adam and Eve were the first to be created and that all humans originated from them. This is written in the Old Testament. b) Scientific view – it explains that human beings developed from lower beings through a gradual and natural process of change. This scientific work described evolution and natural selection as a theoretical explanation for the evolutionary philosophy. It was first presented in a systematized form by an English man named Charles Darwin in his book on “The origin of species of natural selection” published in 1859. In his book he arrived the following major conclusions: All related organisms are descending from common ancestors through long period of evolution He described the evolution of life as a process of natural selection, thus all organisms have different character according to their species & environment All organisms have competitive struggle against nature to survive in this struggle and the fittest will survive and save their species while others will lose their ancestors. According human evolutionary theory, human beings evolved through Australopithecus, Homo- habilis and Homo erectus, and Homo sapiens. a) Australopithecus – our earliest ancestors  Unlike the previous primates they were bipedal, they walked up right  They have been found throughout eastern & Southern Africa  Fossil evidence of this species has been dated more than 3.5 million years age. b) Homo habilis  It occurred about 3 million years ago  Is the first representative of the line leading to modern man  Both Australopithecus and Home habilis were lived by hunting small animals & gathering plants  Homo habilis had a large brain  Tool making was a major technological advance c) Homo erectus  It appeared at about 1.8million years ago  It had larger brain size than Home hablis d) Homo sapiens sapiens – modern humans  It was evolved from Home erectus at some 400,000 years ago. 20   It was similar to modern humans  Evolved in a single place most probably Arica, south of the Sahara before 100,000 years ago. 2.3 Human Dispersal Activity 2.3 1. Where did modern humans evolve from? 2. Why did modern humans spread across the earth? According to evolutionary view, modern humans evolved in a single place most probably Africa, south of the Sahara before 100,000 years ago. Modern humans settled much of Africa, Asia and Europe and reached Australia 40,000 years ago and America perhaps 25,000 years but certainly more than 15,000 years. These movements of humans were of course associated with the glacial and interglacial periods. Modern humans began to evolve and spread across the earth during a period of harsh climate. Evidence suggests that favored locations were at the boundaries of geographic regions where the first permanent settlements appeared about 12,000 years ago. Migration to previously unsettled areas enlarged the overall resource based and allowed slow but steady increase in human populations Migration can be either voluntary or force. Generally, the push factors are the key factor since a basic dissatisfaction with the home land is prerequisite to voluntary immigration. The most important factors promoting migration throughout the thousands of years of human existence is economic. More often than not, migrating people seek a greater prosperity through better access to resources, especially land. 21 Fig 2.1 Routes of human migration 2.4 Agricultural Origins and Dispersal Activity 2.4 1. What is agriculture? What makes it different from other economic activities? 2. Where agriculture started? 3. How agricultural diffusion takes place? Agriculture is the growing of crops and the rearing of livestock whether for the subsistence of the producers or for exchange or sale. The cultural landscape over much of the Earth’s surface is largely agricultural. Peoples living in different environments developed new farming methods creating numerous spatial variations. Agriculture has been the principal enterprise of humankind throughout human history. Even today, agriculture remains by far the most important economic activity in the world, occupying the greater part of land area and employing about half of the world population. In some parts of Africa and Asia, it employs as high as 80 percent of the labor force. However, in Europe’s and North American, it is on the decline. In North America, for example, only less than 2 percent of the population is agriculturalists. 22 The long road from ancient weeds to modern cultivated plants and from wild to domesticated animals leads through many thousands of years and through unclear lines of dispersal from places of origin. It should be noted that domestication involves the alternation of plants and animals by selection, hybridization, and other methods. In the early days this domestication and alternation was casual or even accidental, whereas today it is highly organized, scientific, and quite complicated. Although cultivated plants and domesticated animals are often closely associated, it is simpler, at first, to discuss them separately. The Origin and Diffusion of Plant Domestication The domestication of plants means the deliberate planting, raising, and storing of the seeds, roots, or shoots of selected stock by humans. The domesticated plants are genetically different from their wild ancestors because of deliberate improvement through selective breeding by agriculturists. They are also bigger in size, producing larger, more abundant fruit or grain than wild species. In general, the domestication of plants marked a great step forward in man’s use of the earth. The domestication of plants enabled man to produce much more food from a given area and to insure a supply of food that was steadier than that gained from hunting, gathering, and fishing. In some cases plant domestication also led to greater leisure for the new agriculturalists, some of which could be used in collecting, selecting, and improving the plants with which they were already familiar. A number of cultural and environmental preconditions were necessary for the domestication of plants. First of all, it assumed sedentary residence to protect the planted areas from animal, insect, and human predators as well as to follow up the planting from season to season and from year to year in order to develop a successful transplant from a wild species. In addition, it was necessary to have a favorable climate so that domestication could be accomplished without danger from excessive frost or drought. It has been hypothesized that plant domestication was a widely adopted strategy for coping with the critical population pressures encountered nearly simultaneously throughout the world. In each case, domestication focused on plant species selected apparently for their capability of providing large quantities of storable calories or protein. The domestication of plants appears to have occurred independently in more than one area of settlement between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago. Though the evidence was not complete, it would 23 seem logical to suppose that cultivation began in several places on the earth’s surface because of the wide distribution of peoples at that time. Certainly, a most striking fact about early agriculture is the universality of its development or adoption within a very short span of human history. Some 10,000 years ago, virtually all of human kind was supported by hunting and gathering; by 2000 years ago, the vast majority lived by farming. Nonetheless, recognizable areas of “invention” of agriculture have been identified. From them, there was rapid diffusion of food types, production techniques, and new modes of economic and social organization. Source Regions of Plant Domestication/agriculture Source regions of agriculture are also known as areas of ancient civilizations. They developed along river valleys. I. Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia: possibly the oldest, was in present-day Iraq and Iran. The existing evidences indicate that most of the cultivated plants and the idea of domestication itself occurred in the Fertile Crescent in the Middle East and northeastern Africa, which gave the world the great bread grains such as wheat, barley, sorghum, cowpeas, rye, and oats-as well as grapes, apples, olives, and many others. 24 Fig. 2.2 Civilization areas of the World II. Southeastern Asia: where some forms of grains such as rice, bananas, yams, taro and sugarcane. In china, some varieties of barley and millet originated. III. The New World, encompassing the Andean region of South America, Central America, and the mid-latitude regions of North America. In South America on the high Andean plateau, when the area was discovered by Europeans, a number of crops originated, including the white potato, the sweet potato, the peanut, the pineapple, manioc (cassava), tobacco and cacao. In the higher plateaus of Mexico and Central America a number of crops, such as maize squash, tomatoes, peppers, and avocados were being grown at the time of the European conquest. The various agricultural regions result from cultural diffusion. Agriculture and its many components are inventions that arose as innovations in certain source areas and diffused to other parts of the world. Many of the crops have reached their greatest commercial importance outside their homelands. Coffee, for example, originated in Ethiopia, but most of it is grown in Brazil. Rubber is also native of South America but it succeeds in southeastern Asia. The shift from homeland to commercial region, therefore, is no accident. The diffusion of domesticated plants did not end in the distant past. Even today, crop farming continues to spread in areas such as the Amazon Basin, extending the diffusion begun may millennia ago. Introduction of the lemon, orange, grapes, and the date palm by Spanish missionaries in eighteenth-century Californian, where no agriculture existed in the American Indian era, provided a recent example of agricultural diffusion. The introduction of European crops that accompanied the mass emigration from Europe to the Americas, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa was part of a larger diffusion. Origin and Distribution of Domestic Animals Like plants, the major domesticated animals were introduced slowly and gradually to the agricultural economy. A domesticated animal differs from wild species in physical appearance and behavior due to controlled breeding and frequent contact with humans. Animal domestication began during the Mesolithic epoch, occurred later than the planting of crops and developed independently in several world regions. It was formerly thought that animals were domesticated by hunters who captured young animals, brought them into hunting camps, and 25 gradually found uses for them. However, it seems more likely, as Sauer suggests that the principal herd animals could not have been tamed by hunters because the domestication of animals required a sedentary group which had both leisure and plenty of food, since hungry people would have eaten the young animals before there was time for them to become domesticated. Probably, the domestication of both household and herd animals came about when agriculturalists, encountering the young of wild animals, brought them into the home site either for the purpose of entertainment or for some religious ceremony. Undoubtedly, the animals were kept at first not for economic reason. Gradually, however, as the production of milk became important, there was further domestication and further selection and development of animals in order to find the ones that would furnish the most milk as well as the ones that could be used for meat animals, riding animals, or draft animals. It is likely that these, young animals were nursed by the women and then cared for by the children, led out to graze, tethered, and thus brought into an adjustment with the household. The ceremonial use of cattle gradually developed into the use of them as draft animals; cattle were probably the first plow animals to be used extensively. For many centuries the use of cattle for milk or for meat purposes was decidedly minor. More recently, in Europe, in East Africa, and then in many other parts of the world, beef has become an important food of man. In general, man’s choice of which animals were to be domesticated throws a very interesting light on man’s agricultural origins. Recently, dated fossils from Iraq indicted that dogs had been domesticated before goats, sheep, cattle, pigs and horse. The farmers in the Middle East combined domesticated plants and animals into an integrated system for the first time. These people began animal drawn plough, a revolutionary invention that greatly increased the land under cultivation. They also began setting aside a portion of the harvest as livestock feed. Similarly, the American Indian remained rather unsuccessful in domesticating animals such as cattle, sheep, goats etc perhaps in part because of the absence of such animals. Nonetheless, they domesticated the llama, alpaca, guinea pig, and turkey. As the grain-herd livestock farming system continued to expand, particularly in the Fertile Crescent area, tillers entered marginal lands where crop cultivation proved difficult or impossible. Population pressure forced people into these hard lands, and they abandoned crop farming. They began wandering with their herds so as not to exhaust local forage. In this manner, nomadic herding probably developed on the margins of the Fertile Crescent. 26 2.5 Industrial Origins and Dispersal Activity 2.5 1. Where and when the industrial revolution began? 2. What social and economic changes have brought the industrial revolution? The Industrial World It is the rapid economic and social changes in agriculture and manufacturing that followed the introduction of the factory system to the textile industry of England in the last quarter of the 18th century. The Industrial Revolution that began in England in the 1730 is and spread to mainland Europe during the 19th century established Western and Central Europe as a premier manufacturing region and the source area for the diffusion of industrialization across the globe. By 1900, Europe accounted for 90% of the world’s industrial output though, of course, its relative position has since eroded, particularly after World War II. The first steps in the Industrial Revolution were not so revolutionary for the larger spinning and weaving machines that were built were driven by the old source of power: water running downslope. However, James Watt and others who were trying to develop a steam-driven engine succeeded (1765- 1788), and this new invention was adapted for various uses. It is this revolution, which is to change the life of primarily Europeans, then North America, Australia, Asia and finally Africa. The world has never been the same since then. The world today is divided into north and south referring to the industrially advanced and developing states respectively. Industrial Revolution Since the first appearance of human – beings, two revolutions have taken place. These are agricultural and industrial revolutions. The Industrial Revolution, which began in England, has immensely raised the productive power of humankind. Following this human inventiveness resulted in population explosion, remodeling of the natural environment, changes of settlement patterns, fast urbanizations, population explosion, communications etc. 27 The industrial revolution, which began in the eighteenth century, released for the second time undreamed-of human productive powers. Suddenly, whole societies could engage in the seemingly limitless multiplication of goods and services. Rapid bursts of human inventiveness followed, as did gigantic population increases, and a massive, often unsettling remodeling of the environment. Today, the Industrial Revolution, with its churning of whole populations and its restructuring of ancient cultural traditional into popular forms, is still running its course. Few lands remain largely untouched by its machines, factories, transportation devices, and communication techniques. Western nations, where this revolution has been under way the longest, still feel it’s sometimes painful, sometimes invigorating effects. Every object and every event in human’s life is affected, if not actually created, by the Industrial Revolution. The Industrial Revolution arose among backcountry English cottage craftspeople in the early 1700s and fundamentally restructured secondary industry. Machines in the fashioning of finished products, rendering the word manufacturing (“made by hand”) technology obsolete, replaced first, human hands. No longer would the weaver sit at a handloom and painstakingly produce each piece of cloth. Instead, large mechanical looms were invented to do the job faster and more economically (though not necessarily better). A lot more is known about Industrial Revolution than about the beginning of agriculture. The industrial revolution is a matter of recorded history. Within a century and a half of its beginnings this economic revolution had greatly altered the first three sectors of industrial activity. Since the Industrial Revolution, distances measured between places in hours taken to cover have diminished. Communication has so changed that nearly all parts of the Earth is made accessible. Five types of industrial activities are recognized. These are primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and quinary. The levels of developments of these industrial types vary with the history of industrial movements in a given state. Industrialization has raised living standards of the population but it is not without its negative impact on the environment. Two great economic “revolutions” occurred in the development of culture. The first of these, the domestication of plants and animals, occurred in our dim prehistory. This agricultural revolution resulted in a hung increase in human population, a greatly accelerated modification of the Physical 28 environment, and major cultural readjustments. The second of these upheavals, the industrial revolution, is still taking place, and it involves a series of interrelated inventions leading to the use of machines and inanimate power in the manufacturing process and transportation. One lives today at a pivotal point in the destiny of ones species, and witnesses to this second revolution with its many attendant changes. Industrial Regions Five types of industrial activity, each occupying culture regions, can be distinguished. These industries are - primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary and quinary. Primary industries are those involved in extracting both renewable and non-renewable natural resources from the Earth. Fishing, hunting, lumbering, oil wells, and mining provide example of primary industries. Renewable resources are those that can be used without being permanently depleted, such as forests, water, fishing grounds, and agricultural land. Unfortunately, overexploitations of renewable resources cause depletion in all too many cases, as the demand for the products of pimary industries increases. The 1990s for example witnessed a worldwide crisis in the oceanic fishing industry as a result of over fishing. Non-renewable resources are depleted when used, as for example, minerals and petroleum. Secondary Industry Most of the world’s industrial activity has traditionally been found in the developed countries of the mid-latitude Northern Hemisphere, especially in parts of Anglo-America, Europe, Russia, and Japan. This is particularly true of manufacturing. Many different types of manufacturing exist within these major regions. Industrial regions usually consist of several zones, each dominated by a particular kind of industry. Iron and steel manufacture is concentrated in one of these zones, coal mining in another, and textiles in a third. This regional specialization arose with the industrial revolution in the 1770s, causing manufacturing to take on a heightened geographical character. 29 Core-Periphery : Reflecting the heightened regionalism that accompanied the industrial revolution was the development of the economic core/periphery pattern. The evolving industrial core consisted of the developed countries, with their collective manufacturing regions, while the periphery had non- industrial and weakly industrialized lands. Resources extracted from the increasingly impoverished peripheries flowed to the core. The resultant geographical pattern is one of the fundamental realities of our age-often referred to as uneven development or great regional disparity. Opinions differ concerning whether this industrial manifestation of the core/periphery concept is a correctable or inherent geographical feature of the world economy. Uneven development has proved to be increasingly and unyieldingly present. Although the manufacturing dominance of the developed countries of the core persists, a major geographical shift is currently underway in secondary industry. In virtually every country, much of the secondary sector is in marked decline especially traditional mass-production industries such as steel making and other similar types of manufacturing that require a minimally skilled, blue-collar workforce. In such districts, factories are closing, blue-collar unemployment rated stand at the highest level since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and a “deskilling” of the work force proceeds. The manufacturing industries surviving and now booming in the core countries are mainly those requiring a highly skilled or artisans’ workforce, such as “high-tech” firms and companies producing quality consumer goods. Because the blue-collar workforce has proved largely unable to acquire the new skills needed in such industries, many old manufacturing districts lapse into deep economic depression. Moreover, the high-tech manufacturer employs far fewer workers than the former heavy industries, and they tend to be geographically concentrated in very small districts, sometimes called techno poles. Techno pole is a center of high-tech manufacturing and information-based quaternary industry. The word deindustrialization describes the decline and fall of once-prosperous factory and mining areas, such as the American Manufacturing Belt, now often called the “rust belt”. Dis- industrialization brings demoralization and erosion of the spirit of place - the vital energy and pride that makes places livable, viable, and renewable. The affected countries reacted to the problem of dis- industrialization in different ways. The western part of Germany, for example, maintained an unusually high proportion of its workforce in manufacturing by reinvesting for high productivity, offering high wages specializing in expensive export-oriented products, and protecting the high level of labor skill through a well-developed apprenticeship system. 30 Manufacturing industries lost by the core countries relocate in newly industrializing lands of the periphery. South Korea, Taiwan, India, Singapore, Brazil, Mexico, Guangdong province in coastal South China, have experienced a major expansion of manufacturing, a movement that continues and now involves many other peripheral countries. Global Corporations. The ongoing locational shift in manufacturing regions is largely the work of global corporations, also called multinationals or transnationals. One can no longer think of decisions on market location, labor supply, or other aspects of industrial planning within framework of a single plant controlled by a single owner. Instead, we now deal with a highly complex international corporate structure that plans on a gargantuan scale. Working through great corporation that straddle the Earth, people for the first time utilize world resources with efficiency more completely dictated by the merciless logic of profit. Globalization, as this phenomenon is often called, is many things. It is footloose corporations taking investments where labor is most productive. It is the daily flow across borders of more than $1.5 trillion and an erosion of national sovereignty. It is “boom” in favored and “bust” in those that lose industry. Today, the size of corporate conglomeration is breathtaking. The total sales of global corporations are greater than the gross national product of virtually every country. These corporate giants based mainly in the United States, Europe, and Japan, have sweeping control over international communications networks, the latest advances in modern technology, and large amount of investment capital. They effectively control the economic structures of many underdeveloped states of the world. The decline of primary and secondary industries in the older developed core, or de-industrialization, has ushered in an era widely referred to as the post-industrial phase. The three service sectors- tertiary, quaternary, and quinary-achieve dominance in the post-industrial phase. Both the United States and Canada can now be regarded as having entered the post-industrial era, as have most of Europe and Japan. Tertiary industry They are part of both the industrial and post-industrial phases, includes transportation, communication, and utility services. Highways, railroads, airlines, pipelines, telephones, radios, television, and the Internet all belong to the tertiary sector of industry. All facilitate the distribution of goods, services, and information. 31 Modern industries require well-developed transport systems, and a network of such facilities serves every industrial district. Major regional differences exist in the relative importance of the various modes of transport. In Russia and Ukraine, for example, highways have less than average industrial significance railroads, and to less extent waterways, carry much of the transport load. Russia still lacks a transcontinental highway. In the United States, on the other hand, highways reign supreme, while the railroad system has declined. Western European nations rely heavily on a greater balance between rail, highway, and waterway transport. Beyond the industrialized regions, transport systems are much less developed. Quaternary industry Quaternary industries are those services mainly required by producers, such as trade, insurance, legal services, banking, advertising, wholesaling, retailing, consulting, information generation, and real estate transactions. Such activities represent one of the major and growth sectors in post-industrial economies, and a geographical segregation seems to be developing in which manufacturing is increasingly shunted to the peripheries while corporate headquarters, markets and the producer- related service activities remain in the core. An inherent problem in this spatial arrangement is multiplier leakage: global corporations invest in secondary industry in the peripheries, but profits flow back to the core, where the corporate headquarters are located. As early as 1965, American-based corporations took, on the average, about four -fifths of their net profits out of Latin America in this way. As a result of multiplier leakage, the industrialization of less developed countries actually increases the power of the world’s established industrial nations. In fact, while industrial technology has spread everywhere, today one faces a world in which the basic industrial power of the planet is more centralized than ever. The global corporations are headquartered mainly in quaternary areas where the industrial revolution took root earlier-the mid-latitude countries of the Northern Hemisphere. Similarly, loans for industrial development come from banking institutions in Europe, Japan, and the United States, with the result that interest payments drain away from the poor to the rich countries. Increasingly important in the quaternary sector is the collection, generation, storage, retrieval, and processing of computerized knowledge and information, including research, publishing, consulting, and forecasting. Post-industrial society is organized around knowledge and innovation, which are used to acquire profits and exert social control. The impact of computers is changing the world 32 dramatically, a process that has accelerated since about 1970, with implications for the spatial organization of all human activities and each of the five industrial sectors. This leads to new ways of doing things and to new products and services. Many quaternary industries depend on a highly skilled, intelligent, creative, and imaginative labor force, and as such are elitist. While focused geographically in the old industrial core, the distribution of information-generating activity, if viewed on a more local scale, can be seen to coalesce in techno – poles around major universities and research centers. The presence of Stanford and the University of California at Berkeley, for example, helped make the San Francisco Bay area a major center of such industry, and similar techno – poles have developed near Harvard and MIT in New England and the trio-university Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill “Research Triangle” of North Carolina. These high- tech corridors, or “silicon Landscapes,” as some have dubbed them, occupy relatively little area. In other words, the information economy is highly focused geographically, contributing to and heightening uneven development spatially. In Europe, for example, the emerging core of quaternary industry is even more confined geographically than the earlier concentration of manufacturing. Quinary Industry Quinary industry mainly involves consumer-related services, such as education, government, recreation/tourism, and health/medicine. Even such mundane activities as housecleaning and lawn service belong in the quinary sector. One of the most rapidly expanding quinary activities is tourism. Already by 1990, this industry accounted for 5.5 percent of the world’s economy, generated $2.5 trillion income, and employed 112 million workers-more than any other single industrial activity and amounting to 1 of every 15 workers in the world. Just two years later, the total has risen to $3 trillion and tourism employed 1 of every 14 workers. Like all other forms of industry, the impotence of tourism varies greatly one region or country to another. Some countries, particularly those in tropical island locations depend principally upon tourism to support their national economies. One advantage of tourism is that it is disproportionately focused in the industrial peripheries rather than the core, somewhat alleviating the problem of uneven development, though multiplier leakage typically drains most of the profits back to the core. 2.6 Evolution of Settlement Patterns 33  Activity 2.6 1. What is settlement? 2. How was the settlements originated? 3. What are the different types of settlements? How each type of settlement differs from the other? Settlement refers to the grouping of peoples and houses into hamlets, villages, towns and cities. A settlement is a place where people live close together. It is a unit or organized group of people inhabiting a certain geographical area and making a living out of their surrounding environment. A settlement can also be defined as a group of buildings (houses) in specified area with people living in them. Settlements differ in their size, complexity and stage of development. While some settlements are extremely large with diversified socio-economic conditions, others are very small and less diversified. Settlements range from a little collection of single buildings to megalopolises. 2.6.1Origin of Settlement There is abundant evidence that Neanderthals regularly occupied the mouths of caves and rock shelters in Europe and Southwest Asia. There is relationship between the spacing or density of houses and the intensity of crop production. Dispersed settlement does not always show that land is extensively cultivated. In Java, Indonesia, the settlement pattern is nucleated. In the Paleolithic, people did normally live in shelters that were built of perishable materials subject to collapse and rapid decay. In the Neolithic, mud brick houses started appearing that were coated with plaster. Humans have a great capacity for altering their habitats by various methods such as through irrigation, urban planning, construction, transport, manufacturing goods, deforestation and desertification. 2.6.2 Settlement Types and Morphology Although each type of settlement is unique, settlements fall into distinct groups. They are identified differently based on the criteria considered, such as form, size, function, etc. Based upon form and function, two great subdivisions of settlements may be recognized: A. Dispersed or isolated. These are settlements established by one family or a few family residences scattered about in isolated places. They are separated from one another by physical barriers. Life in this kind of settlement is simple, quiet, and much the same all the year round. There is little 34 opportunity for social gatherings. Dispersed settlements are typically found in the tropical rainforests and scrub lands in Africa and Australia. Dispersed settlements are mostly found in rural areas for instance, it is common in many part of rural Ethiopia where individual houses were built out in the fields, giving the village a more fragmented appearance B. Nucleated (or grouped or compact) type indicating a grouping around a central nucleus, which there is a collection of several or many family residences, together with other types of buildings. Nucleated settlements are designated by various names according to their size and the complexity of their functions, i.e., hamlets, villages, towns, and cities. In all of them, however, the two most visually conspicuous features are always the buildings and the streets. Nevertheless, it is the human beings and who developed the buildings and the streets to serve their needs, and who function as social and economic units that are the dynamic element within the settlement. Settlements are also divided into rural and urban categories. The primary bases of this distinction are dominant economic activity and population density. Urban settlements are developed in areas with non-agricultural economic activities. In contrast, rural settlements develop in areas where agriculture forms the base of the economy. Smaller settlements are usually in rural areas, and larger settlements are associated with urban environments. 2.6.3 Neighborhood, Community and Residential Units The focus on individuals as members of groups encourages geographers to acknowledge the meanings that different people attach to different locations. It becomes easier to understand the values that people ascribe to a place and the conflicts that can emerge over land use. Urban areas are characterized not only by a number of different land uses but also by distinctive residential areas. Typically, these areas are distinguished on the basis of class, ethnicity, or some other cultural variables. In European and some other cities prior to the industrial revolution, the most distinctive urban residential district was the Jewish district, usually labeled as a ghetto. Ghettos are apart from, rather than a part of, the lager city and are held together by the internal cohesion of the group and the desire of non-group members to resist spatial expansion of the group. The link between society and space is perhaps clearest when neighborhoods are evident. The concept of neighborhood is not formalized, but it does imply a district that reflects social values. Some geographers contend that the best indicator of neighborhood identity is the presence of dependent 35 ghettos has an identity that is negative, and any neighborhood activism aims not to preserve identity but generate change. Unit Summary A human society is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations such as a social status, roles and social networks. Human societies are characterized by patterns of relationships between individuals sharing a distinctive culture and institutions. Societal types are valuable analytical tools that help us to understand societies. Experts tend to classify different societies into three major types namely, pre-industrial, industrial and post-industrial societies. Societies are classified according to their development and use of technology. For most of human history, people lived in pre-industrial societies characterized by limited technology and low production of goods. After the Industrial Revolution, many societies based their economies around mechanized labor, leading to greater profits and a trend toward greater social mobility. At the turn of the new millennium, a new type of society emerged. This postindustrial, or information society is built on digital technology and nonmaterial goods. There are five types of industrial activity, each occupying culture regions, can be distinguished. These industries are - primary, secondary, tertiary, quaternary, and quinary. Settlements differ in their size, complexity and stage of development. While some settlements are extremely large with diversified socio-economic conditions, others are very small and less diversified. Settlements range from a little collection of single buildings to megalopolises. Based upon form and function, two great subdivisions of settlements may be recognized. These are dispersed and nucleated settlements. Activity Give appropriate answer to the following questions 1. What are the characteristics of rural settlement? 2. Distinguish Hom-hablis and Homo-erectus. 3. List and explain the five types of industrial activities. 4. Define the following terms: hamlets, villages, towns, and cities. 36  UNIT THREE GEOGRAPHY OF LANGUAGE, RELIGION AND ETHNICITY Dear learners, in this chapter you will be presented with the basic concepts of language, religion and ethnicity. First, you will appreciate the origin and major world’s languages. Second, you will explain the origin and spread of world’s religions. Next, you will be focus on ethnicity and race. Much human communication involves not words but gestures and body language. In the world as a whole the existence of 5,000 - 6,000, languages have been documented but many are dying out. Language is a system of symbols that allows members of a society to communicate with one another. These symbols take the form of spoken and written words, which are culturally variable and composed of the various alphabets used around the world. Religion is a social institution involving beliefs and practices based upon a conception of the sacred. Sacred is that which is defined as extraordinary, inspiring a sense of awe, reverence, and even fear. Because religion deals with ideas that transcend everyday experience, neither common sense nor any scientific discipline can verify or disprove religious doctrine. There are hundreds of religious organizations in the world. Ethnicity accrues from different combinations of cultural traditions, and racial background, and even physical environment. Ethnicity is a shared cultural heritage. Members of an ethnic category have common ancestors, a language or a religion that, together, confer a distinctive social identity. Race is biological while ethnicity is cultural. Objectives of the Unit After the completion of this unit, you will be able to:  Define the terms like language, religion, ethnicity and race.  Identify major world languages, religions and race.  Understand the geography of the major world languages and religions.  Distinguish the meaning of ethnicity and race. 37 3.1 The Geography of Language Activity 3.1 1. What is language? How it is distributed in the world? 2. How do we classify languages? 3. What are the major language families spoken in the world? 4. How do you see the effect of language on the landscape and the effect of landscape on language? Language is the essence of culture and no culture exists without it. Language is the principal means used by human beings to communicate with one another. Language is primarily spoken, although it can be transferred to other media, such as writing. If the spoken means of communication is unavailable, as may be the case among the deaf, visual means such as sign language can be used. The term language has been defined in various ways. For every changing and evolving, language makes the cooperative efforts, the group understandings, and shared behaviour patterns that distinguish cultural groups. Language generally defined as a systematic means of communicating ideas or feelings by the means of conventionalized signs, gestures, marks, or especially articulate vocal sounds. Words are essentially symbols for the features of a culture. Language is a vital element of culture; no culture exists without it. Language is an important focus for study because it is a central aspect of cultural identity. Without language, cultural accomplishments could not be transmitted from one generation to the next. Among all the culture traits, one of which we are perhaps most immediately made aware is language. The diversity of languages is a cultural characteristic that is largely taken for granted. The heterogeneous collection of languages spoken throughout the world is one of the clearest and most obvious characteristics of cultural diversity. Cultural geographers can use language to identify important differences in the cultural landscape. Studying language is important to understand how people think and feel about the world around them and how their expressions of thought and feeling have helped to shape the world we live in. Language corresponds to, and reflects, the experience of a people, an experience that a people have shared with each other over a period of time. 38 By the words that it contains and the concepts that it can formulate, language is said to determine the attitudes, the understandings, and the responses of the society to which it belongs. Language, therefore, may be both a cause and a symbol of cultural differentiation. A common language fosters unity among people. It promotes a feeling for a region. If it is spoken throughout a country, it fosters nationalism. For this reason, languages often gain political significance and serve as a focus of opposition. A language is a system of communication that persons within a community use to convey ideas and emotions. The study of languages is called linguistics. Sometimes, people who speak (or sign) the same language find it very easy to communicate with each other. Chances are, people who communicate easily speak a very similar version of a language, known as a dialect. On the other hand, dialects can become so different from each other that they border on becoming a different language because they extend past what is called mutual intelligibility. Consider that many speakers of American English find that they cannot understand speakers of Scottish English if their dialect is extreme. Part of the problem is the difference in accent, which refers to the way people pronounce words. For example, the Scottish “roll” their tongues when they pronounce words with the letter R in them and Americans do not. Americans pronounce “to” like “tu” and the Scottish pronounce it like “tae”. A dialect is more than just accent, because it different dialects use different vocabularies and may structure sentences differently than Americans. A Scotsman might use “wee bairn” to describe a small child, where Americans might use “little kid” instead. So different is Scots English that some linguists even consider it a separate language. Classification of language The current estimates indicate that there are about 6,000 languages spoken in the world today. However, many languages with a smaller number of speakers are in danger of being replaced by languages with large numbers of speakers. The 10 most widely spoken languages, with approximate numbers of native speakers, are as follows: Chinese/Mandarine/ 1.1 billion, Spanish 485 million, English 373 million, Arabic 362 million, Hindi 344 million, Bengali 274 million, Portuguese 232 million, Russian 167 million, Japanese 125 million and Lahnda 101 million. If second-language speakers are included in these figures, English is the first most widely spoken language, with 1.4 million speakers and it is followed by Mandarine Chinese with 1.2 million speakers. 39 For the purpose of classification, languages are divided into families, branches and groups. A language family is a collection of individual language believed to be related in their prehistoric origin. Language families are groups of individual tongues that had a common but remote ancestor. A language branch is a collection of languages that possess a definite common origin but have split into individual languages. A language group is collection of several individual languages that are part of a language branch and that shares a common origin in the recent past and has relatively similar grammar and vocabulary. Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italian, Romanian and Catalan are a language group, classified under the Romance branch as part of the Indo-European language family. Language is the very essence of culture and the single most common variable by which cultural groups are identified. A mutually agreed-upon system of symbolic communication, language provides the main means by which learned customs and skills pass from one generation to the next. Language also facilitates cultural diffusion of innovations and even helps shape the way we think or how we perceive our environment. Most cultural groups have their own distinctive form of speech, either a separate language or a dialect. Languages are tongues that cannot be mutually understood. A speaker of one language cannot comprehend the speaker of another. Dialects, by comparison, are variant forms of a language that have not lost mutual comprehension. A speaker of Amharic or Oromo can generally understand the various dialects of those languages, regardless of whether the speaker comes from Gonder, Gojjam, or Wollo in the first case or from Harar, Bale, Shewa or Wollege in the second case. But a dialect is still distinctive enough in vocabulary and pronunciation as to label its speaker. Some five thousand languages and dialects are spoken today. Often when different linguistic groups come into contact, a pidgin language is created. It serves for the purposes of commerce and has a small vocabulary derived from the various groups in contact. For example, the Papua New Guinea pidgin includes Spanish, German, and Papuan words in addition to English and is not readily intelligible to a speaker o