Shape of continents and human behaviour

I have mentioned anthropologist Jared Diamond before at this blog (here). Nowadays, in my isolation time I am reading a book, "Atomic Habits". It is a very mediocre book but it mentioned an interesting theory of Jared Diamond about shapes of continents and human behavior.

"Continents that are spread out in an east-west direction, such as Eurasia, had a developmental advantage because of the ease with which crops, animals, ideas and technologies could spread between areas of similar latitude. Continents that spread out in a north-south direction, such as the Americas, had an inherent climatic disadvantage. Any crops, animals, ideas and technologies had to travel through dramatically changing climatic conditions to spread from one extreme to the other. .....................Technologies such as gunpowder were able to migrate 6,500 thousand miles from China, where they originated, to Western Europe, where they reached their apogee, in a matter of centuries. The wheel, on the other hand, developed in southern Mexico, never even managed the 500-mile journey south to the Andes."

You can read the whole article here. https://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/continents.html