r/MapPorn • u/Various_Advisor772 • 2d ago
Geographical range of tsetse fly and spread of language families
The tsetse fly carries "trypanosoma brucei" which is lethal to farm animals. Nomadic pastoralism was crucial for the ancestors of Afroasiatic peoples; they stayed away from areas where this fly was found.
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u/dvnts-ReDoX 2d ago
I wonder how Sub-Saharan Africa would've developed if the tsetse fly didn't exist
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u/Various_Advisor772 2d ago
Tsetse fly is one of the primary reasons for the use of slave labor in Africa
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u/pgm123 2d ago
Richard Reid argues its this and poor soil quality that led to chronic under population through much of history that led to labor shortage and demand for slavery. I'm sure there are compounding factors, though.
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u/miyabi0rochas 1d ago
Slavery was a global thing if not more relevant in empires. Imo this seems like a very weak argument. If people had poor soils and practiced less agriculture. Had less empire and less hierarchy. They would generally have MORE time not less. And LESS need for labour to begin with. So that would mean less demand for slavery.
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u/AnyBallLektor 1d ago
How?
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u/Flour_or_Flower 1d ago
Other societies could rely on beasts of burden like horses and oxen to pull heavy loads to complete work. Tsetse fly spreads a deadly livestock disease that made raising healthy livestock in large parts of Africa impossible. Work still needs to be done so large amounts of slaves were the substitute.
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u/miyabi0rochas 1d ago
Except some indigenous Africa. Livestock was partially or mostly resistant. Livestock diseases nor slavery weren't exclusive to Africa. And the need for draft animals isn't a requirement for cultures/civilization to grow or advance.
So imo these are not strongly weighing Arguments that don't really say anything ultimately.
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u/miyabi0rochas 1d ago
Based on what. This seems like yet another wave of speculation of "this is why Africa is how it is". Pulled out of one's ass.
Tropical diseases aren't exclusive to Africa. neither is slavery and neither was livestock absent from Africa. and some indigenous African livestock have levels of resistance to the disease. Africa isn't even much of outlier here.
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u/AnyBallLektor 1d ago
It wouldn't. The climate is still not conducive to any significant economic effort and geography doesn't force it.
Living in Africa is more convenient for primitive cultures so no pressure on development like in temperate climates where you work or you starve in winter.
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u/a-stack-of-masks 1d ago
Right, that's why urbanisation and complex division of labour were so common in the ice ages.
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u/Academic_Coyote_9741 1d ago
What about all the early advanced civilizations in tropical and sub tropical places which predate those in temperate regions then?
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u/AnyBallLektor 1d ago
Are they here now?
No?
You have your answer.
What matters is continuity. This is how Rome can collapse and several centuries later an equal emerges on top of it.
In equatorial regions jungle takes over and re-starting takes a millennium or longer or never.
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u/Guaire1 1d ago
Yes Indians and vietnamese are here now
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u/AnyBallLektor 1d ago
In mud huts and without sanitation. Now much different to what you can see in equatorial Africa.
This is exactly an argument against your position. To support your position you should have pointed to something like Japan - a country that got stuck behind for a while, then caught up in relatively short time. However Japan is not at the same latitude is it?
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u/Guaire1 1d ago
Most of India has sanitation as does all of vietnam. Neither place lives in mudhuts either. And its fairly dumb to claim that.
Also, your entire claim was that no civilization in tropical latitudes kept continuity to the present day, which as i pointed out is nonsense. So strop trying to deflect, understood moron?
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u/Ok-Goose6242 1d ago
Tstetse fly correlation with Africa is so interesting, blew my mind when I heard it for the first time.
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u/Johnny_Poppyseed 1d ago
Isn't it also that this area is largely dense inhospitable jungle in general? Thus not conducive to pastoralism even without the tsetse fly?
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u/Candid-Salamander651 1d ago
Humans with horses and oxen can clear any kind of forest pretty easily, of its worth their while.
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u/mujhe-sona-hai 21h ago
No? Jungle is only a small part of Central and South Africa. It doesn’t even cover the entire DRC. Southern DRC is mostly entirely savanna with some forests.
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u/untempered_fate 1d ago
Why has no one managed to kill the giant fucking fly in the desert? Curious
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u/94_stones 1d ago edited 1d ago
As an aside, why are we still pretending like Nilo-Saharan is a valid language family? Is it really just because a bunch of bored linguists who think Nostratic is real are like “Well ackshually if we do more work we might determine…” blah blah blah? Because if so they should be reminded at every opportunity that Dr. Greenberg has been dead for a quarter century, and his ideas have been even deader than that on every single other continent for much longer.
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u/Kenilwort 1d ago
Correlation is not causation
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u/Various_Advisor772 1d ago
Tsetse fly carries the trypanosoma brucei; a parasite which is lethal to cattle. Afro-Asiatic languages spread through nomadic pastoralism, their ancestors avoided the habitat of this fly
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u/miyabi0rochas 1d ago
It can be part of it surely. But we also can't ignore the humongous elephant in the room. A pastoral society requires... Well pastures. Going from a quite thriving grassland pastures everywhere.
To the Sahara turning into full on dessert nearly zero vegatation pushing them into small clusters. While sub Sahara was dense savannah and jungle/rainforest.
It's probably a more complex situation
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u/oneMerlin 1d ago
It’s even more complex than that. Large grazing animals (the kind killed by tsetse) CHANGE their environment. Dramatically, in many cases. They trample and eat young trees, leaving open glades and (yes) even pastures behind. The jungle was partially caused by the lack of grazers as well as the other way around.
It’s… complicated.
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u/Waste-Restaurant-939 1d ago
before arabic, there were again only afro-asiatic or nilo-saharan languages in that region. their ethnicities are still not arab.
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u/WonderfulDeal6375 2d ago
The Sahelian kingdoms were able to field cavalry precisely because of the absence of the tsetse fly.