Those wattles are so useful! Does anyone in Aururia run emus in non-agricultural areas, perhaps among wattles that are unpalatable to humans, but will grow in places other Aururian crops won't?
Not on a large scale. The problem is that emus are much harder to run on open country than, say, cattle. Cattle tend to herd and be capable of being grouped together. Emus... aren't. They tolerate each other's presence fine if there's enough food around, but they don't flock together or anything, but rather they run every which way.
Emus don't have quite the top speed of a horse (up to 50km/hour), but they can do a special trick with their wings where they raise one and lower the other, which means that they can do a U-turn
still at top speed and keep going, while things chasing them have their momentum keep going for a while, but which time the emu is far away.
So in short, having an emu out in the open means that you will probably have no more emu. You could hobble them, potentially, but this leaves them vulnerable to predators (dingos), so it's not a great solution.
I'm really glad that you're still updating this TL. I don't visit the forum much these days but whenever I do, I take the time to read through this thread. It has had a profound effect on the way I look at the environment around me and has even pervaded my dreams!
Glad you like it. Updates are far fewer these days due to various other commitments, both life and one other timeline, but they're not completely stalled.
So the time between heavy reliance on the red yam (signifying the beginner of the hunter-gardening period?) and the rise of full agriculture with the rest of the normal package being 1000 years, that has me thinking...in isolation from any sort of outside tropical crop, but with the lesser yam having taken form earlier, how long would a tropical package take to fully coalesce around it?
Not as long as the initial domestication of the red yam took to be followed by full agriculture. This is partly because more tropically-suited wattles had started to be domesticated more or less as soon as the first agriculturalists reached NE NSW / SE QLD, even before the red yam appeared. Also, it is partly because this time people have the idea of farming, and more precisely of cultivating relatives of existing domesticates, and so the process is quicker than the largely "unconscious" process which happened the first time around. So still several hundred years, but much less than 1000.
Further, considering that it would certainly be sufficient for no more than hunter-gardening in the early days, what would be the odds that whatever numbers actually resettled in the tropics (Not many, initially? It's a big lifestyle change for the Gunnagalic agriculturalists.) would fail to enact demographic displacement of the locally indigenous hunter gatherers, instead seeing that very population (likely larger than the settlers) adopt the same hunter-gardener lifestyle, and become the primary engine of domestication in the region?
That could go either way. Whether hunter-gatherer populations adopted farming or were displaced varied a lot around the world, and it seemed to be partly luck and partly just the preferences of the relevant peoples. European pre-agricultural populations were more or less wiped out, for instance, and there were large-scale (but not full) population replacements over much of sub-Saharan Africa when farming spread. On the other hand, the spread of farming did not lead to the same level of displacement in, say, India or much of the Middle East.
On balance, I expect that at most one or two groups would adopt farming or precursors to farming, which would in turn allow them to displace many of the existing hunter-gatherers. So, not necessarily Gunnagalic farmers, but a reduction in cultural and linguistic diversity.
I just spent a big chunk of my time reading this and it was well spent.
Glad you liked it.
1) What was the first Nangu/Nuttana voyage to Europe like?
A distinctive clash of cultures, with some countries being more open than others. The Dutch were the most tolerant from a religious perspective, the French the most tolerant from a trade perspective.
I may write this up in more detail at some point.
2) Are there any Auruian animals that woukd make good fur trade sources? The even higher death toll in the Americas will make getting a supply harder.
Koalas and platypuses at least make good fur trade sources; they were used as such in OTL. Both species were brought to near-extinction as a result.
Brushtail possums were widely used too, and and were introduced into New Zealand for the purposes of starting a fur trade there (whoops). The possum fur trade continues this day, using New Zealand possums and to a lesser degree those in Tasmania (possums are protected in mainland Australia). But I'm not sure whether this is a reflection of their quality vis a vis other furs, or just better availability and sustainability.
More generally, the spread of farming in Aururia also means less habitat for such creatures relative to OTL - although the population decline from the Old World plagues may lead to recolonisation of some abandoned farming areas.
Rather unlikely, at least in terms of 'fur coat' furs. Furs are usually trapped in the winter, to get the thick winter coats of the animals. There are exceptions - Persian lamb, and sheepskin coats use domestic animals.
From what I can find, koala and platypus furs were used mostly for other purposes besides fur cloaks, but they were used widely. Estimates of the number of koala pelts collected around around 8+ million over the course of several decades. The volume of platypus hides collected was lower, but still significant.
Possum-skin cloaks catch on in Europe?
'Twould be amusing, although I'm not sure how viable it would be. Possum-skin cloaks needed a
lot of possums.
IIRC there is a sort of dog-wool grown in Aururia, unless I'm totally confused ATM. But yeah, Australian animals aren't known for having good fur, at least to my knowledge. Speaking of possums though, is there much potential for them to become major pests similar to OTL New Zealand? The little bastards seem pretty adaptable, and a big brushtale is reasonably formidable to the point that I wouldn't fancy most small predators chances at taking one unscathed.
Possums are subject to a variety of predators in Australia: owls, snakes, goannas, dingos, even quolls kill some of them (though I'm not sure about adults). They also don't breed all that fast. They could potentially become a problem in some regions, but overall they're probably not that much of a threat to anywhere which has a decent selection of predators.
Platypi Skin Hats
.
Platypus were used for rugs.
Koala-pelts were used for hats, amongst other things.
The Fur Trade is certainaly something the Nuttana may get involved in while in Californa.
It's a possibility. There's also the prospect that they may introduce possums to California, too. I'm not sure how well the possums would do, although if they introduce gum trees too (much as in OTL), the possums might do very well indeed.
A thought: given the great capacity of Aururian forestry to supply charcoal, is it used in any significant capacity for soil amendment?
I've wondered about this. Terra preta was a godsend in OTL for the local Amazonian population, and continues to produce self-sustaining good soils until today. Whether anyone in Aururia would stumble across the necessary combination of charcoal, bone and manure... I'm not sure. Maybe.
I do know, though, that Aururians use charcoal for a wide variety of other purposes, some more and less obvious than others. It is a significant source of fuel for their existing iron production. The production of charcoal is also linked to widespread smoking of meat as a preservative and flavouring - something which will persist in Aururian cuisine down to modern times.
Platypodes would be correct if you were trying for a Latinate plural. "Platypuses" is the least bad plural.
You are etymologically correct, but it's linguistically impossible to fight analogy in the long run.
Both platypuses and platypi are in colloquial usage in Australia, at least. Platypodes seems to be most commonly used by insistent wikipedia editors.
