According to Diamond, not all places invented food
production (agriculture) on their own. They did not all domesticate their own plants.
Instead, many places simply got plants that were already domesticated from other
people. These plants are what he calls founder crops.
The
importance of founder crops is that they allowed these areas to have agriculture.
Agriculture is the factor that allowed them, eventually, to develop guns, germs, and
steel. This was especially possible in Eurasia because its long east-west axis allowed
for the same founder crops to be used various times in various
places.
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