Jared Diamond posits that certain societies had a distinctive advantage based on geography. A first, extremely fortunate aspect of Middle Eastern geography was the existence in the Fertile Crescent of wild varieties of grain that could easily be domesticated. As Diamond states,

the Fertile Crescent's wild wheat and barley evolved into crops with minimal changes and within a few centuries.

This rapid domestication led to advantages in population growth. Larger population growth meant that even if each individual in an agrarian society had equal strength to the individuals in a hunter-gatherer group, sheer numbers allowed the agrarian societies to swamp and eradicate hunter-gatherer rivals.

A geographic advantage for Europe was that although most of the countries in the Fertile Crescent are in what is now known as the Middle East, they were adjacent to Europe. A major advantage Europe had was a lack of geographic barriers between itself and such regions, allowing for the relatively rapid spread of these agricultural innovations and new technologies.

In addition to good fortune in wild grains and lack of geographic barriers, Europeans benefitted by having many animals available that lent themselves to domestication, such as horses and cattle. With the development of agriculture and of domesticated animals, Middle Eastern and European society was able to diversify and develop new technologies, such as metallurgy, which gave it additional advantages.