Although native Africans domesticated some plants in the Sahel and in Ethiopia and in tropical West Africa, they acquired valuable domestic animals only later, from the north.

F. 2005 Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed. PMID 3762700.

Originally trained in physiology Diamond's work is known for drawing from a variety of fields including anthropology ecology geography and evolutionary biology. He is currently Professor of Geography at the University of California Los Angeles.