What economic activities developed in various regions?

That's a question that requires an entire book for an answer, and you're in luck. Jared Diamond's Nobel Prize-winning Guns, Germs and Steel answers the question in detail, and with great authority.

In short, societies developed according to the agricultural and mineral resources available; resources alone determined technological advances. This is why European nations came to dominate the world, not because Europeans were inherently evil and intent on exploiting others, but because other societies lacked the resources to do so first; all of those other societies also exhibited the same human proclivity to dominate those within their spheres of influence who had lesser resources.