WI: Wetter, Warmer Earth

Back when the board was down, I searched the web looking for an palce to release my AH thoughts. I found http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=ISO-8859-1&group=soc.history.what-if . In the group I found this Intresting Timeline about an wetter warmer earth. Now that I am in contact with the writer who did come up with this let me repost it. So here goes nothing

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INTRODUCTION: THE WORLD OF THE EOCENE

The point of departure for the warmer, wetter earth (WWE) begins in the
Eocene Epoch (which lasted from 54 to 38 million years ago), during the
Early Tertiary Period of the Cenozoic Era , following the demise of the
dinosaurs, pterosaurs, and other dominant life forms of the Mesozoic. In
this essay I will first briefly explore the world of the Eocene, the
point to which this timeline and our timeline agree. Then, I will
discuss the point of departure and why it is important. Next, I will
compare what took place geologically and biologically speaking in our
world, and what could have occurred in this alternate planet. Finally, I
will show some of what this world might have been like at a time
corresponding to our present.

CLIMATE

The Eocene was similar in many ways to the Paleocene that preceded it.
It was a warm, tropical world, with high sea levels. Overall, global
climate ranged from warm to mild. Tropical palms flourished as far north
as the London Basin in Europe, and what would become Tennessee in our
time line was covered in dense rain forest. The fossil record attests to
the fact that
subtropical and warm temperate climates prevailed even farther north
than that, thanks to lemur, alligator, and large land tortoise fossils
from such localities as Wyoming and Nebraska. Though these northerly
rain forests and subtropical conditions were not as warm as the present
day tropics in OTL, they were maintained by greater rainfall amounts
that what occurs today in OTL. Also, there was no pronounced
seasaonality in the distribution of rainfall, and there was an absence
of winter frost.

GEOLOGY:

There were several "island continents," as North and South America were
not connected and India had not yet joined the main Asian landmass.
Africa was not connected with Asia. South America had just separated
from Australia, but Australia and Antarctica were still united.
Antarctica was more or less in its present day position at the South
Pole, but Australia was much
further south than it is in the present, still connected to Antarctica,
the remnants of Gondwanaland.

FAUNA:

Many modern mammal groups first appeared in the Eocene Epoch. The modern
hooved mamals -- Perrisiodactyls and Artiodactyls -- first appeared in
Europe, Asia, and North America. This group included early protohorses
(which had
more than one toe and were browsers rather than grazers), tapirs,
rhinoceroses, camels and several extinct groups such as the pig-like
antracoetheres, horse-like chalicotheres, and the rhino-like
titanotheres. With the exception of the huge titanotheres, most of these
groups remained small at first, often no larger than a modern domestic
cat. Rodents began to replace the ancient multituberclates, egg-laying
mammals around since the days of the dinosaurs, in the small, gnawing
mammal niche, though they did not completely replace them until the
Pliocene in OTL. Bats not unlike modern bats showed up in the fossil
record, as did primitive primates that were the ancestors of today's
lemurs. In effective isolation from the faunas of other continents,
Africa produced the ancestors of elephants, hyraxes, monkeys, and
strange extinct forms such as the rhinoceros like Embrithotheres. The
similar insular fauna of South America was a unique mixture of hoofed
mammals, edentates (a group that includes sloths and
anteaters), and marsupials. The mammals (and fauna in general ) of
Australia and Antarctica are generally unknown from this time, but it is
presumed that they were a mixture of marsupials and monotremes (an
ancient egg-laying group that still survives in OTL in the form of the
platypus and the echidna or spiny ant-eater).

In the oceans the first aquatic mammals, whales and sea cows, appeared.
The whales belonged the extinct group known as Archeocetes, and quickly
grew to huge sizes. Basilosaurus (once known as Zeuglodon), reached
lengths of 25 meters in length.

Several modern bird groups first appeared in the Eocene, such as eagles,
pelicans, quail and vultures. Giant flightless birds such as
Diatryiaformes and in South America the Phoruchusids appeared, their
huge hooked beaks, bipedal stance, and predatory ways evoking the long
vanished theropods of the Mesozoic.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

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THE POINT OF DEPARTURE: THE CIRCUMPOLAR CURRENT AND ANTARCTIC BOTTOM
WATER

In OTL, Australia and Antarctica separate. Antarctica doesn't move, but
Australia breaks off and moves north, continuing to move north even into
the present day. With a gap between Antarctica and the other continents
(and South America also not attached anymore), Antarctica becomes
encircled by the Southern Ocean, which flows for the most part in an
eastward direction. This global movement becomes powerful ocean currents
that circumflow the Antarctic, becoming known in OTL as the Antarctic
Circumpolar Current or simply the Circumpolar Current and forming about
25-35 million years ago. A massive current, it is said to carry 150
times the amount of water that is moved the world's rivers. The
Circumpolar Current is driven by strong westerly winds that circle the
world in the high latitudes. In OTL these powerful winds create some of
the most tempestuous seas in the world, known to sailors as the "roaring
forties," the "furious fifies," and the "screaming sixties." It is rare
in OTL not to encounter at lest one storm when sailing to or from the
southern continent. A shallower, less powerful counter circulation
known as the Eastwind Drift, immediately adjacent to the Antarctic,
moves pack-ice under its influence in a westerly direction.

This massively powerful current obviously serves to isolate Antarctica
from warmer temperate and tropical waters, never able to reach the
continent at all. As a result, the continent became cooler, encouraging
the formation of glaciers. Eventually, nearly all of the continent would
become glaciated in the late Tertiary. The massive ice sheets tied up
much of the world's moisture, and while not leading to an Ice Age, did
aid in global cooling via lowering world sea levels.

A portion of the extremely cold waters of the Southern Ocean, the
coldest and densest water on Earth, becomes Antarctic Bottom Water. It
sinks to the bottom of the sea and spreads out over the world's ocean
floors, causing the much of the deep ocean to be cooled to less than 2
degrees C. This cold water moderates much of the earth's climate,
beginning in earnest about 16 mya, counterbalancing the heat of the
tropics and over the remainder of the Tertiary and into the present led
to a overall global cooling trend.

Later on in the Tertiary, beginning about 15 to 17 mya, the glaciation
trend in Antarctic was enhanced by North Atlantic Deep Water. As North
America and Eurasia moved north and restricted the Arctic Oceans access
to warmer waters, causing ice to form there and a similar deep water
movement process as with Antarctica. This deep water moved south and
helped form snow on the southern continent, as previously it was
starting to lack moisture thanks to the colder but much drier waters
there.

In the WWE timeline, Antarctica and Australia do not separate.
Antarctica remains pretty much where it is in OTL, with Australia, still
attached to it, much further south than its present position. No
Circumpolar Current forms, and warm water is still able to reach
Antarctica and moderate its climate. No massive ice sheets form,
lowering global sea levels, and Antarctic Bottom Water does not become a
factor in world temperatures.

North Atlantic Deep Water will still be a factor perhaps in this ATL,
but as I mentioned before overall warmer temperatures globally may
moderate this. This might result in an increasing cold trend in
Antarctica, but then again it might not.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

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OTL vs ATL:

CLIMATE AND GEOLOGY

In OTL, during the Oligocene Epoch, following the Eocene, the world
started a general cooling trend. Glaciers started to form for the first
time in Antarctica during the Cenozoic, a trend that continued unabated
to produce the nearly completely ice covered continent we have today. As
Antarctica was now isolated from Australia (and South America), the
Antarctic Circumpolar Current, which really got going so to speak in the
Miocene, significantly reduced the mixing of warmer tropical waters and
colder polar waters, and further led to the buildup of the Antarctic ice
cap.

The increase in ice sheets lead to a fall in global sea levels,
contributing to lower rain fall worldwide and a decline in tropical
climes. Rain forests and subtropical areas pulled further south and from
the interior of some continents (such as North America), and were
replaced by cooler woodlands and grasslands. Although there was a slight
warming trend in the late Oligocene, the cooling trend continued,
culminating in the Ice Ages of the Pleistocene.

During the Miocene, the island continent of India slammed into Asia,
pushing up the Himalayas and triggering a global cooling that was to
culminate in the Pleistocene Ice Ages. In North America the Rockies rose
in height, creating a rain shadow effect in the interior of the
continent and further favoring grasslands. The Andes rose at this time
as well, and had a similar though less pronounced effect in South
America. North America and Asia join and begin a faunal interchange.

Africa during the Miocene also encountered some tectonic movement,
including rifting in East Africa and the union of the African-Arabian
plate with Eurasia. Associated with this rifting, a major uplift in
East Africa created a rain shadow effect between the wet Central-West
Africa and dry East Africa. The union of the continents of Africa and
Eurasia caused interruption and contraction of the Tethys Sea, thereby
depleting the primary source of atmospheric moisture in that area. Thus
rainfall was
significantly reduced, as were the moderating effects of sea temperature
on the neighboring land climates. However, this union
enabled more vigorous exchanges of flora and fauna between Africa and
Eurasia.

In the Pliocene, a shift in the Caribbean tectonic plate brought about
the joining of North and South America, forming a land bridge for
mammals and other life forms to migrate across. The Mediterranean Sea,
the last remnant of the ancient Tethys Sea, dried out, and remained dry
plains, desert, and grassland for several million years. The Himalayas
continued to rise and accelerated global cooling. With the lower sea
levels cutting of the connection to the Atlantic (and crustal movements
obliterating the Indian Ocean connection), the sea dries out. With vast
amounts of salt locked up by the sea's evaporation, overall ocean
salinity is lowered, allowing sea ice to form further south (in the case
of the Arctic) and north (in the case of the Antarctic). Oceans overall
become colder as well, with colder air masses over them and less
rainfall as well on land.

During the entire Tertiary following the breakup of Antarctica and
Australia, Australia becomes increasing arid as it moves north.
Grasslands and then deserts, particularly starting in the Miocene,
become dominant over forest and jungle. The number of rainforests began
to decrease, to be replaced by dry forests and woodlands. The vegetation
began to shift from closed broad-leaved forests to more open, drier
forests as well as grasslands and deserts.

The late Cenozoic saw the rise of the Himalayas, as has been mentioned,
thanks to India joining Asia. The 2 km uplift of the Tibetan Plateau
blocked mid-latitude airflow in the Northern Hemisphere. Although still
subject to debate, it is likely that this factor may have been the
trigger or a trigger for the Pleistocene Ice Ages, though it seems
likely that the Ice Ages
required other events to occur as well along with it (such as colder
oceans and the like).

In the WWE, with Australia and Antarctica remaining connected and the
Antarctic Circumpolar Current not forming, glaciers do not form on the
southernmost continent. Antarctica remains as it was, a land of tundra
at is center surrounded by coniferous taiga, perhaps on the coast some
patches of hardwood forests. Antarctica is not isolated, and the cooler
polar waters mix freely with warmer tropical waters thanks to the
Australian connection. Australia, much further south than today, remains
moist and forested for the most part, with much smaller deserts and
grasslands than in OTL.

While India joined Asia and new mountain ranges rose (or in the case of
the Rockies old ones rose again), the changes they produced were much
less pronounced. The world of the ATL was as hot as the Eocene, not the
cooler world of our Miocene. While grasslands now start to form to a
limited extent, they are much less expansive then in our timeline, and
for the most part mild to tropical conditions prevail over the earth. It
is also possible that still much moisture earth could have moderate the
rain shadow effects in Africa produced by rifting there. While some rain
shadow effects would still occur, they would not be as pronounced, and
savanna and desert would not be as prevalent in Africa as they are
today.

North and South America and North America and Asia still join and the
Mediterranean Sea does not dry out as the connection between the virtual
inland sea and the Indian and Atlantic Oceans remains open. The reason
connections with the Atlantic were severed was because sea levels
dropped due to Antarctica ice sheet formation; this does not occur in
this timeline
(though the Indian Ocean connection still disappears). Large scale
evaporation does not occur, and the ocean's overall salinity is
unaffected, resulting in no net change in sea ice.

The rise of the Tibetan Plateau does not serve as a trigger to global
ice ages, though it may result in some cooling.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

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OTL vs ATL (continued):

FLORA:

In OTL the vegetation of the higher latitudes of Europe, Asia, and North
America changed with the global cooling and more arid conditions (as
compared with the Eocene). What had once been essentially broad-leaved
evergreen forest changed to temperate deciduous woodland of evergreen
and broad-leaved trees. The type of woodland once dominant in Eocene can
be seen in OTL only in a few isolated patches, such as the North Island
of New Zealand and the tip of the South Africa Cape. Grasses, which
first appeared in any great number in the Eocene, primarily as plants of
water margins, spread. As open habitats appear, they become more common
and thrive.

In the Miocene grasslands truly become a major ecosystem, and along with
savanna becoming major biomes on earth, with plants and animals adapting
and exploiting it. Following a cooling the Miocene, tropical forests
began to really retreat and more of the world experienced increased
seasonality. This change encouraged a diversification of modern
graminoids, especially grasses and sedges. This group of plants includes
our primary crop plants, such as corn, rice, wheat, barely, and sugar
cane, all of which appeared, expanded, and diversified with the spread
of grasslands.

In the WWE, the temperate woodland does not grow to become dominant, and
grasslands are more of a marginal environment. Though new grass species
do appear over the next few million years, they do not become as common
nor as varied as they do in OTL. With the rise of the Andes, Rockies,
and India joining Asia some grasslands start to appear in the Miocene,
but are nothing compared to what could be found in the Miocene of OTL.
Jungle and forest are still dominant ecosystems on land. While certain
that some of the grass and sedge species still appear, they have fewer
chances to become as diverse and common. Possibly one or more of the
modern grass crops does not evolve.

FAUNA:

In OTL, several groups of animals disappeared at the end of the Eocene,
such as the Dinocerata, the Archeoceti, while other groups become
greatly diminished in terms of species, such as the Titanotheres and the
creodonts. New mammals appeared and evolved to fill these gaps in the
Oligocene Epoch, such as the ancient ancestors of dogs, cats,
rhinoceroses (including small
slender running types and hippo-like semi-aquatic forms), and horses
(which were still out multi-toed forest browsers rather than grazers).

Probably the most important transition among terrestrial mammals
involved the artiodactyls (the even-toed ungulates) replacing to a large
degree the perrissodactyls at the dominant medium-sized herbivores.
These included the most common animals of the time, the sheep-like
oredoonts, which flourished in huge numbers. During the Oligocene
advanced forms of artiodactlys (the
first camels) developed a rumen, a complex fore-stomach that aided in
the digestion of cellulose. A great advantage in dealing with a fibrous
diet, this was an important evolutionary development in a world that was
become drier, cooler, and grassier. Grass is also very tough and
abrasive material, and herbivores like horses evolved very high-crowned
teeth to cope with the
wear.

As grasslands spread and become dominant in the Miocene, many animals
adapted to them. Horses became plains type animals as large as ponies.
The relatively slow and clumsy creodonts, perhaps better adapted to the
jungle, became replaced by the swift and intelligent cat and dog types
as the dominant predators. In the Miocene there were new species of
camels, rhinoceroses, anthropoid apes, and the appearance of mastodons,
raccoons, weasels, deer, and giraffe for the first time.

In the ATL, some of the groups will likely still diminish in importance
at least to a degree, such as the Archeoceti, as the evolutionary
pressures and advances that dictated their demise still likely exist.
However it is quite possible that there are much fewer or maybe no
extinctions at the end of the Eocene in the WWE, and niches aren't open
to be filled by rhinos and horses.
Certainly grasslands aren't forming to the degree they did in OTL for
them to exploit. Additionally, it is possible that rumens don't develop
in artiodactyls, nor do they become dominant as group, as grasslands are
not as common and don't encourage such evolutionary developments. If
grasslands do develop, they will develop much later on, perhaps in the
Miocene or
Pliocene, as those are the beginnings of the first grasslands in WWE
(whereas in OTL they are a dominant biome by that time). Likely some
grassland do form with the rise of the Rockies and the Andes.
Resultingly, such evolutionary features as rumens and high-crowned
teeth, if they do develop, appear much later in this world. Creodonts
manage to remain dominant predators for a much longer period of time,
but are still eventually replaced largely by modern carnivores, though
never become completely extinct as they do in OTL.

The later Tertiary of the ATL is dominated by primitive forms longer, in
some cases surviving to what corresponds to our present. Titanotheres
don't die out, as the global cooling and grassland formation that pushed
them into extinction doesn't occur to the degree that it did in OTL.
Horses never really develop into plains animals, though the Holocene of
this world does
see the first steps into that biome for this type of creature. Creodonts
remain a more powerful force in the ecosystem longer, and are only
gradually replaced by carnivores; in the present creodonts can still be
found. As carnivores were slow to develop, large predatory flightless
birds lasted a great deal longer as well, and can be found in wider
areas than in OTL. As rodents weren't able to expand with grasslands to
the degree that they did in OTL, multituberculates can still be found as
well. Ruminants appear much later in this ATL, and even by the present
time are still not as common as the older forms. Elephants did not
radiate or spread to the degree that they did in OTL, in some cases
finding their potential niches still filled by Titanotheres. Finally, as
Antarctica is a land of tundra and taiga rather than barren glacier, it
is home to a thriving terrestrial fauna. Large wombats, similar to the
Diprotodon of our world (which was a rhino-sized herbivore of
Pleistocene Australia) became big and woolly to cope with the cold.
Large migratory herds of kangaroos bound across the tundra, moving with
the seasons.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

ahh good stuff. See if you can make some more episodes of it.

Impressive.

Here is parts 4 and 5

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In this post I wish to explore the climate, gelogy, and to an extent the
flora of the warmer, wetter Earth in a time corresponding to our present
day. Part V will explore the fauna and flora of warmer, wetter Earth in
greater detail. Part VI will detail the intelligent species of this ATL.
I wish to thanks Douglas Muir, who has been extremely helpful in fleshing
out this ATL.

ANTARCTICA:

Antarctica, still connected to Australia in the “present†of this ATL, is
not a bit like it is in OTL. While a cold continent, it is not a land of
eternal ice, but more akin to northern Canada or Alaska. Along the coast, it
is mostly taiga forest, a belt of coniferous forest similar to what is found
in the mid-latitudes of the Canada of OTL. Some areas along the coast have
some mixed hardwood and evergreen forest, localized due to variations in
regional climate and rainfall.
South of the taiga belt and more towards the South Pole one finds seemingly
endless tundra, much like what is found in northern Alaska and Canada. A
land of lichen and moss, those few trees that grow here are stunted and
twisted. Permafrost lies beneath the ground, never completely thawing even
in summer. Summers are short, but frenetic with life ranging from thick
clouds of insects to birds and mammals.
On the South Pole itself, as well as along such mountain ranges as the
Transantarctic Mountains one can find glaciers, the largest masses of land
ice on the planet. The icecap is small and does not move north, though will
likely never melt owing to what cooling has occurred since the Eocene (a
principal factor in its formation likely being the North Atlantic Bottom
Water, albeit less strong thanks to a warmer Arctic Ocean).

AUSTRALIA:

Tasmania does not exist as an island, but is part of the Isthmus, the land
bridge between the continents of Australia and Antarctica. In OTL this
Isthmus is represented by the submarine ridge known as the Tasman Rise and
the Macquaurie and Balleny Islands, but here in this ATL it a major land
feature. Running slightly west of the modern Tasman Rise, it connects with
Antarctica around 165 east latitude. A stormy and very wet land, it has a
cold current running north along its west coast and a warm current running
south along its east coast.
The Isthmus, also known as the Balleny-Tasmania Isthmus, brings cooler
weather and rain to southwestern Australia. The Nullabor plain is a mixture
of light forest and savanna, with a mild climate. Overall Australia remains
cool, wet, and forested, cold temperate in the south shading off into
temperate and then warm temperate. Grasslands do occur in the center, and in
the very center, some small deserts, though by no means anywhere near as
large as the vast deserts of the Australia of OTL.

NORTH AMERICA:

Overall, the physical contours of the continent aren’t altogether
unfamiliar to those from OTL. Florida is not a single peninsula but is
instead an island chain that merges with the isles of the Caribbean. Many of
the islands of the Caribbean in OTL do not exist per se, such as the
Bahamas, but similar islands take their place. The mountainous island of
Cuba actually forms several smaller islands in a chain all its own. In some
ways it is quite comparable to the Indonesia of OTL, particularly in its
very tropical climate. The Mississippi is a river as large as the Amazon in
OTL, and what corresponds to Louisiana in our world is more like Bangladesh,
a massive delta dense with swamps and jungle.
The Appalachian Mountains (and associated ranges such as the Blue Ridge
Mountains and the Great Smokey Mountains) pretty much do not exist. Much
higher rainfalls of this world since its Eocene have eroded them to
virtually nothing, at best producing rolling hills. A similar though less
pronounced effect had made the southern Rockies, the Cascades, and the
Sierra Nevada in what corresponds to the United States lower in elevation.
To an even less extent this holds true for the mountains of Central America,
though the difference between the timelines is not a huge one.
A rain shadow was still produced by the rise in the Tertiary of the
Rockies, Cascades, and Sierra Nevada, but owing to overall wetter conditions
and the fact that the blocking mountains eroded faster for the most part,
the plains and deserts of the interior are less pronounced. Some deserts do
still exist though, such as Death Valley and the Mojave Desert, but overall
the Southwestern United and northern Mexico is a great deal less arid. What
corresponds to our Great Plains in climate and flora would be the areas
enclosed by the two Dakotas and southern Manitoba/ and Saskatchewan; south
of that one can find savanna rather than true grassland, though mostly in
Nebraska and Kansas. South of that in Oklahoma and Texas one finds forest,
first subtropical, then Amazonian.
What might be said to correspond to the Great Salt Lake in OTL is a virtual
inland sea, even larger than Lake Bonneville which in our world existed
between 32,000 and 14,000 years ago. A freshwater lake covers most of the
eastern Great Basin and is over 20,000 square miles in size, covering
western Utah and smaller portions of what could be said to be eastern Nevada
and southern Idaho. It is over 330 miles long and 140 miles wide, and at its
deepest is over 1,000 feet deep. Several island groups actually exist,
corresponding to the mountains of OTL’s western Utah.
As there were no vast advancing ice sheets of the Pleistocene of this
world, the Great Lakes for the most part did not form (as they were formed
by massive glaciers in OTL), though there is a large lake corresponding to
the deepest portion of our Lake Superior. Several North America mountain
ranges that are lower in OTL thanks to glaciers, such as the Canadian
Rockies, are higher in elevation. Indeed, Canada and the northeastern United
States is almost unrecognizable as there is no Hudson Bay, no Hudson Valley,
and no Hudson River. Cape Cod and Long Island do not form, and since no
glaciers reached the sea during the Pleistocene, the Maine, New Brunswick,
Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland coastlines are as smooth as Florida’s,
completely lacking the fjords that are famous in OTL.
Not only did New England never see the Ice Ages, but is warm temperate in
this ATL, more like the Carolinas, with some cool winters on occasion but
overall quite warm, hot in the summer. Further south along the Mid Atlantic
it becomes warmer, with subtropical forests in Virginia, North Carolina, and
Tennessee, stretching west. South of that along the Gulf Coast, from Georgia
through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana it is Amazonian rainforest,
south to southern South America.
As North America and Asia did move north in this timeline, cutting
circulation of Arctic Ocean waters with those of the Atlantic and Pacific,
the sea is a cold one, and is partially and intermittently covered with pack
ice. However, there is a very small permanent ice cap, and the sea is not
nearly as cold as in OTL. Greenland has some glaciation, particularly in the
northern reaches, but it is mostly tundra with some taiga at its southern
shores. In fact the only real tundra in the northern hemisphere is in
Greenland.
The north coasts of North America are taiga (also known as boreal forest).
Hardwood forests stretch north to central Alaska, the Yukon, and northern
Quebec. The south coast of Alaska is temperate, and is comparable to
northern California in OTL. Northern California and Oregon are more
subtropical rain forest in the WWE, warmer but with all the rain.
Owing to the mountains of the region, the Isthmus of Panama is still above
water, though it is narrower than in OTL and very rugged, mostly a region of
jungle-clad mountains. The relatively low lying Yucatan forms a shallow sea
of its own, an appendage to a much larger Gulf of Mexico.
Coral reefs are found north from Florida up to the Chesapeake Bay and the
Delmarva Peninsula. A Great Barrier Reef of sorts can found in North
American waters, stretching along the eastern Florida coast up towards North
Carolina.

SOUTH AMERICA:

The Amazon rain forest is the most dominant feature of the continent, much
like it is OTL, but larger, rainier, and with a bigger Amazon River.
Less glaciation - though alpine glaciers do exist – result in at least the
southern Andes being even higher in elevation As a result southern South
America is even drier, forming true desert rather than grasslands as found
in OTL’s Patagonia and Pampas thanks to an enhanced rain shadow.
Conversely, the Humboldt Current moving north from the southern continents
is not as cold, and does not produce the hyper arid deserts of western South
America. In OTL the cold air produces one of the driest places on earth,
particularly the Atacama Desert of Chile; some spots experience rain only
two to four times a century. As the water coming north from Antarctica is
not as cool, this region of the continent gets much more moisture. Instead
along the western fringe of the continent one can instead find grassland and
light forest.

EUROPE:

Many of the coastal nations of OTL are under the elevated seas of this
world, particularly Denmark, the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania, and
Estonia), the Netherlands, and parts of Belgium.
The Alps are even higher in elevation than in OTL, and are positively
massive. Though they do have some alpine glaciers owing to their heights,
these glaciers are much smaller and overall ice sheets performed less of a
carving job on them. The Caucasus Mountains though are lower in elevation
thanks to increased erosion from higher levels of rainfall, though this is
partly counteracted by that that this world’s Caucasus were not glaciated
during the Pleistocene.
The southern shores of Europe are part of a vast hardwood forest that
connects with the woodlands of the Middle East. They are warmer and wetter
than the forest of our timeline, and stretch further north, well into
Scandinavia and covering Scotland completely.
Just as North America never saw vast sheets of ice, nor did Europe in the
Cenozoic. The coast of Scotland is as smooth as that of England, and Norway
does not have its famous fjords. Scotland also lacks if infamous lochs as
well. Finland is more mountainous, not the low-lying land of bogs, lakes,
and forest of our world.
Owing to overall warmer temperatures worldwide, coral reefs are much more
common in the Mediterranean, though not in the eastern portion. The eastern
end of the sea is cloudy with the silt, as well as less saline, owing to the
massive discharges of water from a much larger Nile River. Smaller amounts
of coral can be found along the southern shores of the North Sea, even along
the south coast of England. The Bay of Biscay is nearly as choked with coral
reefs and even atolls as is the Mediterranean.

ASIA:

Asia overall is warmer and wetter, with a vast hardwood forest stretching
along Asia’s Mediterranean Coast all the way to India, interrupted by some
savanna in Iran and western Pakistan. India, southeast Asia, and southern
China are dense tropical rain forest. The exception is the Empty Quarter of
the Arabian Peninsula, which remains a harsh and inhospitable desert.
Increased rainfall results in a much larger Caspian Sea, one that is linked
to the Mediterranean by way of the Black Sea. In OTL the Caspian and the
Black Sea were connected up till about 12 million years ago, and briefly
again about 2 million years ago. In OTL, 2 million years the connection
reformed thanks to huge influxes of glacial meltwater; in this timeline, the
link is maintained thanks to much higher rainfall amounts in the region. For
similar reasons the Aral Sea is slightly larger as well, though the interior
of Asia remains comparatively arid. Lake Baikal is unchanged.
The north coasts of Asia are completely taiga, without any tundra at all.

AFRICA:

North Africa is hardwood forest along the Mediterranean coast, stretching
from Morocco to the Sinai Peninsula. The Sahara itself with mostly grassland
with some patches of forest, very little actual desert, and even that
perhaps classified as “semi-desert†as it gets more rainfall than in OTL’s
Sahara.
Today, Lake Chad is a handful of lakes bordering the Sahara, located the
junction of the nations of Chad, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. Though the
fourth largest lake in Africa and the 17th largest lake in the world, in OTL
Lake Chad was once huge. Two million years ago the Paleochadian Sea
encompassed more than 100,000 square miles (260,000 square kilometers) of
central Africa; the current lake in OTL is 90% smaller. In this world the
lake is still an immense one, perhaps even larger.
South of that, Africa has a much larger rain forest, with much reduced
savanna to be bound in East Africa. The cold-created Namib Desert still
exists in a sense, but the warmer currents in this timeline create only
grassland instead. Similarly, the Kalahari is grassland and light forest as
well, rather than desert, owing to higher global rainfall and the Benguela
Current generated from Australia-Antarctica being not as cold. In effect,
Africa’s great savannas are much further south in this world.

*******

In this section, I wish to show you in some detail the animals that inhabit
the present of this warmer, wetter Earth. Originally I had wanted to show
the fauna of each continent, but have decided instead to discuss entire
groups of animals, with notes to their global distribution. Obviously, this
is highly speculative, and some of my predictions may not be the most likely
outcome given the POD I have established, the non-separation of Australia
and Antarctica, and all that entails. I haven’t included every group of
animals, as many are unchanged, such as most bird species, fish, reptiles,
small primates, etc. though one may infer from the different climates of
this ATL that their ranges are different. For example New World monkeys are
not found north of Central America in our world, but in this WWE they range
well into North America thanks to favorable flora and climate. Others are
difficult for me to reach a decision on and I have not included in this
post. As I have found analyzing this ATL, the further back you go in time
the harder it is make to make predictions, and it is fascinating to see how
truly intertwined geology, climate, and plant and animal evolution truly is,
though that also makes these specualtions difficult.


BOVINES:

Bovids, animals with four-chambered stomachs and high-crowned teeth like
our cattle, bison, and antelope, first evolved in our Eurasia in the
Miocene. They evolved much later in the ATL as grasslands really didn’t
appear till much later on. Whereas our Earth, as mentioned previously, began
a drying trend that encourage the spread of grasslands in the late Eocene,
grasslands in this timeline first start to really appear in the Miocene.
While in OTL by the Miocene grasslands were a major biome, here they just
began at that time thanks to some encouragement by the rise of the Himalayas
and rifting in Africa. Just as the first bovids in OTL were likely
small-sized ruminants with simple horns, not unlike the pronghorns of North
America, so too are the bovids of this timeline. They have yet to radiate
into such diverse forms as hartebeests, gazelles, bison, ibex, and mountain
goats. Not only are grasslands still not quite the major biome in this ATL,
but in order to spread they would have to compete with long established
non-bovines. On the warmer, wetter Earth, early vaguely pronghorn like
mammals can be found in the grasslands of the interior of Asia, largely in
the savannas of western China, Russia, and Central Asia. They are quite
numerous and may soon prove a dominant mammal in Asia ecology, but have yet
to spread to Europe or any other land. They have not spread to North
America (which has no mountain goats, bison, bighorn sheep, or pronghorns)
or Africa (which then has no gnus, Cape buffalo, gazelles, or antelope).

CAMELS:

Camels evolved probably in the late Eocene, and spread in the Miocene
mainly across North America. Later on they reached Asia, Africa, and South
America via land connections from the Pliocene onwards. The early camels
into Miocene times were rabbit to sheep-sized, but with the spread of
grasslands developed longer necks and legs.
In this ATL they become the dominant animal of the reduced grasslands of
central North America, as well as sharing the savannas with multi-toed
horses and titanotheres. In this world they were the best equipped to
exploit those grassland that first really started to develop in the Miocene.
They have spread to Asia, where they share the central plains and mountains
with the first ruminants there, but have not made their way into South
America or any other continent.

CARNIVORES:

This diverse group, which includes bears, cats, dogs, raccoons, and many
other predatory mammals, is not altogether different than how they appear in
OTL. They were slower to replace the older, more primitive creodonts, in
part because the later development of grasslands in this world did not aid
the carnivores, who were better able to cope with the fast moving prey of
these open areas. Though some of the faster cat species such as cheetah
never evolved, most of the others did, though exact species will be
different. Seals, sea lions, and walruses, which returned to the sea in OTL
in Miocene times, did so in this world as well.

CHALICOTHERES:

The bizarre Chalicotheres still exist in North America, Asia, and Africa,
though are not very common (and apparently never were in OTL either). Very
odd perissodactyls, their forelimbs are distinctly longer than their hind,
giving them a sloping appearance like a hyena. Their feet are three-toed,
and carry not hoofs but large cat-like retractable claws. The Chalicotheres
live a mostly solitary existence in the great forests of this world.

EDENTATES:

Edentates are a relatively primitive group of mammals that includes in OTL
the modern tree sloths and armadillos and the extinct ground sloths (some of
which were over 20 feet in length) and the tank-like glyptodonts. In our
world, they were long dominant in South America and when the Panamanian
Isthmus formed in the Pliocene, except for the tree sloths, spread into
North America, where they died out about 15,000 years ago.
In this ATL not only do all four groups still thrive in South America, they
thrive in North America. The warm, wet, jungle conditions of much of North
America are ideal for them. Another factor in their success if the lack of
competition from the ruminant Bovids.

ELEPHANTS:

The first elephants appeared in OTL in the Eocene of Egypt. The primitive
Moeritherium lived a hippo-like existence in the swamps along the shores of
the Tethys Sea. Elephants later in the Miocene developed longer legs,
tusks, and trunks and became terrestrial creatures. Their history in this
world is not much different, in that recognizable elephant species evolved
(though not exactly the same as they are on our world), and spread
throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, where they can still be found. They
attempted to spread into North America but the Titanotheres were too well
established, so they gained no more than a toehold in the taiga forests of
the Western Hemisphere.

HORSES:

Horses first appeared in the Eocene in North America and were first
browsers. Though growing from the size of small dogs, they remained
forest-dwelling browsers of leaves rather than grazers of grass until the
advent of Mercychippus in the late Miocene in OTL. Taking advantage of the
spread of grasslands, these new horse species had high-crowned teeth better
able to cope with a diet of tough grasses and longer legs, better able to
reach high speeds and avoid the co-evolving felids and dogs.
In this ATL, horses continue to be found as forest dwelling browsers. In
OTL the three-toed forest horse Hipparion still existed into the Pliocene,
while grazing horses spread throughout North America, Europe, Asia, and
Africa. Here they didn’t evolve as grasslands didn’t appear as early or as
widespread as in OTL. Though these forest horses have become in some cases
as large as our horses, they are not as fast and can’t be seen roaming the
plains and savannas of this world in large numbers. Some types of horses
have adapted to live life in the savannas of North America, but they are
still largely browsers.

LITOPTERNS:

Litopterns are in OTL an extinct ungulate mammal order of Cenozoic South
America. They possessed hoof feet and evolved into two primary groups, the
Proterotheriidae, sometimes called psuedo-horses in that they so closely
resembled them, even down to have single toes, and the unusual
Macraucheniidae. The latter group persisted into the Pleistocene, and stood
as high as camel, had three-toed feet, and a long-snouted skull, the trunk
somewhere between that of a tapir and an elephant in size. In our world the
pseudo-horses likely became extinct with the influx of true horses from
North America, and the Macracheniidae became extinct in the Pleistocene for
the reasons that are less than clear.
In this ATL the psuedo-horses still vanish, but the Macracheniidae still
survive.

MARSUPIALS and monotremes:

The Australia of our world developed a truly fascinating array of animals,
only a fraction of which survive into the present. Though kangaroos,
wallabies, wombats, platypuses, echidnas, and numbats are interesting
enough, still stranger forms existed into the Pleistocene, perhaps even
historic times in our world. Once Diprotodon was an enormous hippo-like
creature, in some ways essentially a giant wombat, that was known to 10 to
11 feet in length and 7 feet in height. Giant kangaroos like Sthenurus
towered 10 or more feet in height. Palorchestes was a bull-sized herbivore
with great clawed feet and a trunk not unlike that of an elephant.
Thylacoleo was a large, predatory, lion-like marsupial that may have hunted
from trees in the forests of Australia. Zaglossus was an echidna (or spiny
anteater if you prefer) that was the size of a large sheep. Zygomaturus was
another large herbivore that appears to have had rhino-like horns. Though
the increasingly arid climate of Australia may have been a factor, it
appears that most of these forms became extinct due to the arrival of
humans.
All of these forms thrive in Australia and Antarctica of this ATL. In
addition, new forms have developed, forms with insulating layers of fat and
dense fur to cope with the cold climes of Antarctica, connected of course as
it is to Australia. Diprotodon has even larger relatives that are woolly,
able to deal with the harsh climate of the far south. Some types of
kangaroos are herd animals, migrating to the tundra ever summer to breed in
huge colonies, then like the caribou of OTL moving away to warmer and better
pastures once breeding is and the young are old enough to move with the
adults.

NOTOUNGULATES:

In OTL the notoungulates were an extinct order of hoofed mammals that
flourished in South America throughout the Cenozoic. They were quite
diverse, and included the massive rhino (or bull) like toxodonts, the
rodent-like typotheres, and the rabbit-like hegetotheres. Most of the
notoungulates perished with the formation of the Panamanian Isthmus as more
advanced carnivorous and herbivores came south and forced them into
extinction.
In this ATL the rodent and rabbit analogues still die out, but the
toxodonts survive, some reaching huge sizes of 10 to 15 feet or more. Not
only is the Isthmus less of an aid to animal migrations, there are no bovids
or elephants to compete with the toxodonts.

TITANOTHERES:

The largest land animals of North America are the Titanotheres or
Brontotheres, large rhino-like animals that reach 10 feet or more in height
and are characterized by paired horns at the top of the nose. A browsing
species that lives in small herds throughout the vast warm temperate and
tropical forests of the continent, its extinction never occurred in this ATL
chiefly because the warm, wet conditions of the Eocene continued, grasslands
did not spread as much on this continent, and more advanced mammals did not
prove to be rivals. Not facing competition from ruminant animals, they have
speciated into several groups. Examples including the Savanna Brontothere
(which feeds on the leaves of cottonwoods and other similar trees of
watercourses in the American Savannas of Nebraska and Kansas, and the Great
Western Bronthothere, which feeds around the rich watercourses around the
Bonneville Sea. Other varieties inhabit mostly forest, from cool temperate
to tropical.


WHALES:

As noted earlier, prior to the POD primitive toothed whales had evolved; the
archeocetes, which included the rather large Basilosaurus, as well as
toothed whales (odontocetes), a group that appeared in the late Eocene and
that would one day include dolphins, porpoises, and the sperm whale. In OTL
baleen whales (mysticetes), the huge plankton eating whales like the blue
and humpback whale, evolved in Oligocene. As the first fossils were found in
New Zealand, paleotologists have specualted that the appearance of baleen
whales corresponds to the development of the Antarctic Circumpolar Current;
that this continent, along with overall global climatic cooling, led to an
increase in the quantity of plankton in the icy waters and therefore the
evolution of baleen whales, which appeared to take advantage of this bounty.
In the WWE timeline of course the Circumpolar Current does not form and
what cooling does occur happens much later and is slighter. Baleen whales
have not evolved, though whales are still the largest mammals in the sea as
the sperm whale exists. The only whale group that remains is the
odontocetes, as they still drove the more primitive archeocetes into
extinction.

Magnificant stuff you've got there

Thanks Straha for the support, Heres Part Six

********

OK, so I thought of more fauna to explore, hope you all don't mind. On
second thought (and after further reading) I decided that the rhinos,
penguins, and especially the monkeys were worthy of further exploration in
the warmer wetter Earth. The monkeys especially are quite different,
producing many new species not seen on our Earth, thanks to the continuing
tropical conditions in North America, the higher sea levels during the
Oligocene, and the late development of bovids in this timeline. Also I
wanted to share a note about penguins, which I found to my surprise would
exist in this ATL.


MONKEYS

Monkeys thrive throughout the world in this timeline. The lemurs were known
from our world in North and possibly South America, but went extinct in the
north in the Oligocene through climatic change (forests changing to
grasslands) and in the South America with the arrival of more modern monkeys
in the Oligocene, the forerunners of the New World monkeys. At one time
monkeys were found in Europe, but in OTL they became confined largely to
tropical and warm temperate areas of Africa, Asia, and South America, with
few exceptions. Lemurs for the most part are confined to the island of
Madagascar, but several relatives can be found in Africa and Asia, mostly
living a nocturnal existence.
In this ATL the lemurs are the dominant primate in both North and South
America. They did not go extinct, at least in North America, because the
cooling, drying trend that began in the Oligocene never occurred, but
survive in both continents also because New World monkeys never evolved.
Also called platyrrhine, the New World monkeys first rafted over from Africa
to South America in the Oligocene, in large part thanks to reduced sea
levels. In this ATL sea levels never went down (as among other things
Antarctica didn’t form large ice sheets), so they never arrived. Such types
as spider monkeys, squirrel monkeys, and howler monkeys never evolved.
While the Americas lack the familiar monkeys of our world, they hardly lack
for primates. Common Eocene primates of North America such as Cantius,
Notharctus, and Shosonius gave rise to a gamut of primates that inhabit the
subtropical forests and jungles of the western hemisphere from the deltas of
the Columbia River and New England south to southern South America. Just as
the lemurs did in our Madgascar (and do in the Madgascar of this world as
well), the evovled to fill a variety of arboreal and terrestrial niches,
with diets ranging from primarily insectivorous to frugivores to folivores,
and including both nocturnal and diurnal (daytime) species. Just as the
lemurs (also known by the way as prosimians) evolved to fill niches very
similar to sloths, gorillas, and baboons, there was similar evolution among
the primates of the Americas. Species that never existed in OTL thrive on
the two continents, from troops of fruit eaters screeching on the steamy
banks of the Potomac to furtive black nocturnal species that hunt for
insects in the jungles of Texas to large ground dwelling, ape-like species
that forage in small groups in the savannas of Kansas.
The monkeys of the Asia and Africa of OTL still exist, though they can be
found thriving in Europe as well. In OTL Mesopithecus could be found in
Turkey and Greece of the Late Miocene, and was the forerunner of the modern
langurs. Adapted for both a terrestrial and arboreal existence, it may have
perished thanks to a drying and cooling climatic trend in the world. It is
possible that the last real monkeys in Europe died out when the brutal ice
sheets moved south, converting most of the biomes in the landmass to
relatively inhospitable tundra and taiga. In our world Mesopithecus, which
eventually ranged from southern and central Europe out to Afghanistan, died
out in the Pliocene.
In this ATL Mesopithecus and others did not go extinct but continued to
survive in Europe, with the warmer weather being found as far south as
England and southern Scandinavia, having arrived there on rafts of
vegetation washed into the North Sea by the massive Rhine River in this ATL.
The langur group in general, particularly among the leaf monkeys and
related species of OTL, are highly unusual in one respect. Their stomachs
are large and multi-chambered, with the forestomach supporting bacteria
with cellulose digesting capabilities. This capability allows these monkeys
to fed upon the tough plant fibers of the leaves they favor. In this ATL,
the langurs compete with the bovids to consume the grasslands that first
started to appear in the Miocene. Small troops of grass-eating monkeys can
be found in the savanna and grassland areas of Asia from Iran through Russia
and western China. Some species have become vaguely baboon-like, living in
troops defended by large threatening males, while others have become quite
fleet-footed and almost gazelle like in the niche they exploit. While bovids
are evolving now, the langurs are already there to exploit the new grassland
resource.
While some langurs have become dedicated grass-eaters, their teeth becoming
adapted for consuming grass, other northern relatives in northern
Scandinavia and northern Siberia have adapted to consuming pine needles and
other pine products. Huge animals, almost round with legs thanks to the
enormous bellies they have to support the forestomachs to digest their food,
they are also mostly a ground species. With a few exceptions, only the young
are able to scamper up the trees to safety. As moose, deer, and elk have not
evolved on this world, they are filling a vacant niche.

PENGUINS

In OTL penguins are first known from Eocene and Oligocene deposits in New
Zealand and the South Orkneys and Miocene deposits from Patagonia. Roughly
similar to modern types, their wings and legs were longer in proportion to
their bodies and in some cases they were much larger than modern species.
The plant and invertebrate fossils found with them indicate that these
ancestral penguins lived under warm, perhaps subtropical conditions.
In the ATL penguins then are already an established group before the POD,
the non-breakup of Antarctica and Australia. Though there is no isolated,
predator free Antarctica for them to settle, they still manage to do well in
New Zealand and several southern island groups, some island groups off the
coast of Australia-Antarctica. Though not forming the vast colonies of OTL,
they still can produce large rookeries at breeding time on many islands of
this alternate world


RHINOCEROSES

In OTL the rhino first appeared in the Eocene of North America and Asia.
They produced three groups. The first are known as the hyracodontids, and
were common in the Eocene and Oligocene of North American and Asia. Similar
to the early forest browsing horses, they remained relatively small running
types, dying out at the end of the Oligocene without leaving any
descendents. The amynodontids lived in both Europe and North America, and
were hornless, short-legged, and amphibious, and also perished without
descendents at the end of the Oligocene. The third group was the
rhinocerotids (or true rhinoceroses). They soon spread during the Oligocene
and afterwards to North America, Eurasia, and Africa. They gave rise to all
subsequent rhino species of the Cenozoic, including the gigantic
indrioctheres (which reached heights of 18 feet or more), the hippo-like
teleoceratines which thrived in Miocene North America, Europe, and Africa,
the modern African and Asian rhinos, and the woolly rhinoceros of the
Pleistocene. Rhinos in North America died out in the Pliocene, and in the
Pleistocene died out in Europe and much of Asia.
In this ATL warmer, wetter conditions prevailed as has been mentioned.
Hyracodontids still perish as horses out compete them for the same niche.
Amynodontids still survive though, as the swamp conditions they favor
continue to be quite common in North America, where they survive to this
day, some reaching huge sizes in the vast malarial deltas of the Columbia
and Mississippi Rivers. When the Panamanian Land Bridge formed they moved to
South America and filled the “hippo niche†in the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers.
The rhinocerotids still appeared and gave rise to the indricotheres, which
continue to thrive in the Indian subcontinent and Bangladesh, and the
teleoeratines, which happily wallow in the vast deltas of the Danube River.
A similar species to the African black and white rhinos did evolve in
Africa, but no equivalent to the Sumatran, Javan, or Indian rhino appeared
in Asia.

Part Seven

(This is a combination of two separate posts. First raising the
question, then answering.)

In the warmer, wetter Earth, I see it as possible that man could still
evolve. In part, this derives from the recent discoveries in Ethiopia of
Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba, a bipedal hominid between 5.6 and 5.8
million years old. About four feet tall, its discoverers have shown that
it was clearly bipedal thanks to several hand and foot bones they have
found, and that it was an hominid and not an ape was demonstrated by the
partial lower jaw and associated teeth that were discovered. The
clincher for me though, at least as far as the speculative timeline
goes, stems from where it was found. It has been long maintained within
paleontology and anthropology circles that the fact that a drying
Africa, changing over to open forests, savannas, and grasslands,
encouraged humanity's ancestors to come down from the trees and walk
upright. Not only lacking the arboreal environment which they favored,
the open areas presented new food sources, but one that encouraged
bipedalism, for among other reasons to see over the tall grasses to spot
predators and for cooing reasons, to offer a smaller target to the sun
but a larger target for cooilng breezes.

However, A. r. kadabba was found in a well forested environment, based
on analysis of the associated fossilized fauna and flora, as well as the
chemistry of the ancient soil. This also appears to be the case with
other hominid ancestors such as Ardipithecus ramidus ramidus and Orrorin
tugenensis. They achieved a bipedal stance for other reasons,
apparently not having to do with trying to adapt to or exploit
grasslands or an otherwise open environment. Personally, I don't know
that if their
discoveries all hold true after further study and later finds, what this
means for the role that savannas and grasslands played in human
evolution, and that if we are in fact "Children of the Ice." Is it
possible that the drying of Africa, producing the grasslands, had no
real effect on human evolution?

I am very interested in hearing what others have to say on this subject,
but when I do further work on this timeline, I am going to have
sentience evolve along this line. Whether A. r. kadabba and its
successors become Homo sapiens sapiens in this timeline, well, I don't
know yet.

A very interesting thing to consider is the Australopithecus line, a
side branch of hominids that died out about one million BC. Clearly
intelligent bipeds, they were adapted largely for a vegetation diet.
They had larger molars, strongly built skulls and jaws, with massive
bone ridges that served to anchor the powerful chewing muscles that
their diet required. Their canines and incisors though were smaller than
the hominids in the Homo line, and appear to have not been used as much
for meat. It is not entirely clear why they went extinct in OTL, but it
appears to have been from competition. One the one hand they were
finding themselves overtaken by more efficient herbivores, particularly
the bovids mentioned earlier in this series of posts, such as the
gazelle, oryx, and so forth. And on the other hand they faced
competition from the more skilled omnivorous Homo line, which
incorporated meat into their diet to a much larger degree.

However, I have established so far that bovids evolved late in this ATL,
and have not yet reached Africa. Largely the grasslands that have
started to from since this world's Miocene are not as well exploited as
in OTL. Just as the langur monkeys in Asia with their four-chambered
stomachs have taken advantage of the late arrival and relative lack of
speciation among the bovids, so too might have the Australopithecus
species. Although the Homo species might still have forced it into
extinction, perhaps not? Certainly the lack of efficient bovids is the
removal of a considerable source of pressure? Possibly either 1)
Australopithecus species survive into whatever passes for historic times
on this world or 2) continue to survive into the present of this world.

CONCLUSION

First of all I have concluded that Homo sapiens sapiens would likely
have evolved. Given the butterfly effect of course as well as the
differences between this ATL and OTL it wouldn’t be our species
exactly, but close enough I suppose for our purposes. Perhaps we can dub
him Homo sapiens verde.

The reasons I conclude Homo sapiens did evolve I mentioned in an earlier
post, with some additional reasons, which I sum up now. First,
bipedalism among our earliest ancestors appears to have arisen about 6
million years ago, and taken place in a forest environment. Many
theorists have speculated that bipedalism is a natural product of a
grasslands or savanna environment,
and this appears to have not been the case. Therefore, the more wooded
Africa of this ATL is not a factor. Given that apes are still here,
hominids still appear in forests that are not that different for our
purposes. In both OTL and this ATL, bipedal hominids that are our
ancestors appear in a forested environment in eastern Africa.

Second, in so far as savannas and light forest are needed for the
development of our species (and subspecies), they still exist in the
Africa of the warmer, wetter Earth. Though the savannas of east Africa
are less extensive, they are still there as rifting
did occur in Africa and the Arctic Ocean has cooled somewhat, both of
which led to some growth of savannas and a decline of woodland in
Africa. Further, in southern Africa the savannas remain longer and are
more extensive, as the Benguela Current coming off Antarctica is not as
cold and dry, and produces instead of the Kalahari and Namib Deserts the
Kalahari and Namib grasslands.

Third, while the fauna of Africa is quite different in this ATL, as
while there are elephants for instance, there are no bovids and
therefore no gazelles, oryxes, antelope, gnus, wildebeests, or zebras
for man to hunt for protein and to hone social cooperation and mental
faculties, an extensive fauna still exists. The fauna may be somewhat
improverished when compared to the fauna of OTL, at least in some ways,
but is still rich with a variety of elephants, rhinos, hippos,
chalicotheres, monkeys, ostriches, and so forth. Though the savannas of
this Africa lacks the vast herds of dedicated grazers of OTL, there is
more than enough wildlife to hunt. In addition, the wider expanses of
forests have wildlife comparable to what might be found in our Africa,
and in larger numbers overall.

As far as I can determine, the process of hominids becoming Homo sapiens
is much the same in this ATL, with some changes obviously. Ardipithecus
ramidus kadabba and his ancestors still give rise to a line of
Australopithecus species, including A. africanus, that eventually
becomes Homo habilis about 2.3 million years, then into Homo erectus
about 1.6 million years ago, and finally Homo sapiens about 100,000
years ago. Hominids become more omnivorous, better adapted for a bipedal
life, and more intelligent with each "step up" in evolution. Homo
habilis, needing protein to fuel the growth of their bigger brain but
lacking the innate hunting skills of a leopard or a lion, still develops
the first real tools as well as more developed social structures.
Later, Homo erectus developed more advanced tools, including such items
as intricately flaked hand axes, and discovered the use of fire and
built twig huts.

In reality, scientists have considerable disagreement over many aspects
of human evolution. In OTL Homo erectus migrated into Europe and Asia,
and there many scientists agree, but not much after that. Did Homo
erectus populations in Eurasia and Africa evolve separately into Homo
sapiens in some sort of grand parallel evolution, each group become Homo
sapiens? Did various isolated Homo erectus populations develop into
various archaic Homo sapiens species or subspecies (such as Neanderthals
in Europe), with a stay-at-home population in Africa becoming modern
Homo sapiens and emerging in a second diaspora from Africa, replacing
this archaic Homos? Perhaps the closely related Homo ergaster, which
lived only in Africa, gave rise to Homo
sapiens, not Homo erectus which did not produce any surviving ancestors?

Personally, I think it probably matters little for this ATL. The only
significant differences to me are twofold. It is possible that
Neanderthals never develop, at least as they existed in OTL, as the
Europe they knew, one of the Ice Ages, simply does not exist here.
Second, humans would not early on reach Australia. Australia is still
connected to Antarctica, which is itself more or less in the position
straddling the South Pole as it is in OTL. Further, sea levels did not
drop during an Ice Age that never happened; in OTL many Indonesian
islands were connected to the mainland, forming a land bridge that added
human migration. That didn't happen in this world. So it is my belief
that humans didn’t reach Australia-Antarctica for millennia,
certainly longer after they did in OTL. Australian Aborigines as we know
them don't exist. If any human group settled the joined continents, more
likely than not it would have been Polynesians, given how they settled
New Zealand, Easter Island, and virtually every other far flung island
in the Pacific.

So in closing for this post (sorry for the length, I will try to break
them up), I conclude Homo sapiens exists.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

Part eight: Neolemuric evolution

The following of course is highly, highly speculative, and perhaps for
some makes the warmer, wetter Earth timeline too much in the zone of
science fiction, for that I apologize. However, I would like to try to
examine the possiblity of intelligence evolving not only in Africa into
Homo sapiens, as discussed in my last post, but also in North America
via a completely different method. Comments greatly appreciated.

As mentioned previoulsy, a variety of lemurs (or prosimians) exist
through North and South America. In OTL they were common place in both
continents until the Oligocene (roughly 38 - 25 mya), dying out in North
America due to the drier and cooler temperatures that began to prevail
there. As these primates thrive on a constant supply of leaves, fruits,
and/or insects (in
varying proportions and depending upon the species), as a whole they
could not survive in anything less than a subtropical or tropical
forest, perhaps a savanna with a fair number of trees. Those lemurs in
South America became extinct thanks to an influx of more advanced
primates from Africa, which became the ancestors of the New World or
platyrrhine monkys. They are thought to have rafted over on vegeation
and survived the passage as sea levels were lower in the Oligocene, in
large part thanks to the massive glaciation that was taking place in
Antractica in OTL.

In this ATL monkeys continue to thrive in North America as the cooling
trend that began in the Oligocene never took place, and more advanced
primates did not spread into the Americas as they never arrived from
Africa. They continued to thrive as far north as southern British
Columbia and New England, and were extremely common from the Gulf Coast
states and Texas south through Brazil. They remained arboreal, almost
constantly in the trees, often in large noisy troops, looking for
insects, fruit, leaves, or whatever their diet demanded. Just as some
lemurs species in Madgascar do today (such as the famous ring-tailed
lemur), some species spent a fair amount of time on the ground, though
took to the trees for refuge and the food found in them still formed a
major portion of their diet.

Starting in the Miocene Epoch (roughly 25 to 5 mya) in this ATL, the
Rocky Mountains, the Sierra Nevada, and the Cascade ranges appeared. The
latter two ranges were new to the world, and the though the Rockies had
been around since the Mesozoic, they had eroded considerably in the
millions of years that had passed since then, rising much higher in the
Miocene. As the world is warmer and wetter, the rain shadow they create
is reduced. Most of the western and southwestern United States and
northern Mexico does not become arid desert and semi-desert as it does
in OTL, though the dicates of geography and climate maintain that some
true deserts do form, such as the infamous Death Valley and in
particular the Mojave Desert (found in OTL in southern California and
northwestern Arizona, much the same in the ATL). For those interested in
deserts, a much smaller portion of the Sonoran Desert forms in southern
California, Arizona, and part of northern Mexico. The Chihuahan desert
never forms, though for a time savanna and grassland form in an area
roughly corresponding to it (though by the present of this ATL it is
once again rain forest). The Great Basin desert of Nevada and western
Utah becomes largely grassland, moister than found in OTL, rather than
the sage desert of our world. In part the Great Basin is less arid
because of the large lakes in the area, particularly the Bonneville Sea,
as well as snowpack meltoff from the mountains in the area.

In OTL the higher elevations in desert regions are often moister and
cooler. They often are able to support much lusher plant growth than the
valley floors and in the deserts themselves, and under some conditions
can even serve partially through elevation and partially through
moisture evaporation from plantlife to generate thunderstorms, which in
turn provide additional moisture. In our world, some of the hottest and
driest of our deserts have relatively abundant plant life on the
mountains and plateuas that surround them, where even forests can grow
surrounded below by parched sand, rock, or cactus. One such area in the
American West can be found in Utah, a large part of which is preserved
in Bryce Canyon National Park. There, the
Paunsaugunt Plateau is heavily forested. In our world, while in the
canyon and valley of the park are bare rock, desert winds, scrubland,
and lonely coyote wails, on the moister plateau, often mother of
towering thunderheads in the summer, one can find mule deer, rabbits,
and dark, shady forests of spruce and fir.

As the Great Basin Desert and Colorado Plateau Semi-Desert that
encompases Utah are wetter, they do not become the arid (and relatively
cool in the case of the Great Basin) deserts that they do in OTL.
Existing in an overall moister climate, they become more grassland than
anything else. The moister climate permits pockets of tropical forest to
survive atop some mountains and plateuas, such as the Paunsaugunt
Plateau. Isolated jungle "islands" exist, some a few square miles in
area, some much more extensive, dotting the mountains and plateaus of
western and southern Utah. This phenomenon is not totally unlike the
isolated spruce-fir forests found in the highest elevations of the Great
Smokey and Blue Ridge Mountains; though that type of forest is
predominant in Main and southern Canada, thanks to elevation in the
Appalachians can be found atop mountains as far south as northern
Georgia. Similiary, our Rockies preserve tundra from when it was much
more extensive in the American West during our Ice Ages.

The islands preserve tropical flora and fauna where otherwise they would
perish. Some islands prove too small to hold much in the way of
anything, but others are large enough to continue to support tropical
creatures such as parrots, possums, tree sloths, and lemurs. These
species become isolated from one another, and just as organisms on
oceanic islands do, started to speciate. Slight differences start to
form among the various populations, forming first subspecies and later
full fledged species. Many differ only in terms of coloration or some
other physical feature, as do many of the mountain sloth species. Others
change a bit more.

Some lemur troops perish as their sky islands are just too small to
support a viable breeding population. Others manage to adapt. Lemurs to
begin with, though often said to be less intelligent than other primates
such as langurs or baboons, are intelligent enough to cope with a
variety of circumstances. Any species that relies particulary on fruits
- frugivores - has to have the mental faculities to be in the right
place of the forest at the right time to harvest the fruits they desire,
whether it is a grove of trees or individual trees in their vast
territories. Further, they have to be able to coordinate breeding and
troop movements with the production of fruit. When fruit is not as
readily available they have to be able to adapt to conditions, to
supplement their diet with leaves, insects, even bird eggs or small
vertebrates. Combined with the necessary mental faculities to cope with
binocular vision and arboreal movement, as well as non-specialized limbs
and a fairly "generalized" body form (not specialized for instance in
the form of claws, hoofs, etc), they provide a good seedbed for
evolution into sapience. Though I am sure I have explained it less than
perfectly, primates in Africa possessed the necessary prerequistes to
evolve eventually into you and I.

The larger troops of the Paunsaugunt Plateau of south-central Utah are
one of those troops that adapts to changing conditions. Able to adapt to
the new sky island forest, which had undergone some floral changes in
the succeeding million years, their burgeoning population forced the
lemur troops to become more and more resourceful. The species of lemur
that inhabits the plateua had evolved into Lemur paunsauguntii, more
omnivorous, able to survive on a much wider diet of fruits, leaves, and
increasingly meat. Lacking the fangs and claws of dedicated carnviores,
increasingly the lemurs had evolved cooperative techniques and even
traps of a sort to hunt prey, nothing physical, but an increased use of
cunning and even understanding of the life habits of such prey as birds,
possums, and rodents. Throughout the Pliocene, L. paunsauguntii became
more and more intelligent, fully able to exploit all the plant and
animal resources of their "sky island."

However, troop rivalry between various groups of L. paunsauguntii, as
well as an increasing population, forced some groups off the plateau.
Like the ring-tailed lemur, they were able to move decently along the
ground, and more resourceful than their predecessors, did not
immediately starve once they reached the grasslands and open forests of
southern and western Utah.
While some groups made their way up other montane forests throughout
Utah, others, unable to find new homes in the increasingly crowded
islands (from either fellow L. paunsauguntii or other, more primitive
lemurs), remained as troops on the grasslands. They became better and
better adapted to a life on the ground, used less and less to life in
the trees, and fully able to
exploit mentally and nutrionally the resources before them. Hunting
techniques honed in the sky island forests served them well to exploit
on grassland birds, rodents, rabbits, lizards, snakes, and in rare cases
the camels and small horses found in the region. Though they suffered
some from carnivores such as various felid species, they soon learned to
adopt sentries and find escape routes in case of such danger.

By the beginning of the Pleistocene 2 million years ago, small troops of
bipedal lemurs roam throughout the plains and savannas of North America,
west to Nevada and southern California, north to Saskatchewan and
Manitoba, south to Kansas. Many such tribes can found along the shores
of the massive Bonneville Sea, a vast watering hole that supports a
varied fauna of horses,
camels, titanotheres, and numerous other animals, particulary vast
flocks of birds and numerous fish species. Some resourceful groups had
adapted to supplementing their diet with fish and aquatic life,
including shellfish.

These new lemurs, Neolemur erectus, have retained their fur, though it
is light colored with stripes and shading, the better to hide them in
the tall grass of the savannans and grasslands of the interior of North
America, and much lighter, the better to keep cool. Their tails, once
key to balance (though not prehensile) have reduced greatly, though they
still serve a useful function in communicating with fellow neolemurs in
the vast plains. Though smaller, they have become much brighter; one
side, brownish-tan, the better to remain concealed, while the other side
a brilliant black and white, an important coloration, as the neolemurs
move their tails in complicated set motions during courtship, fights, in
communication with distant members across the plains and so forth.

Though still not truly sentient perhaps, or as smart as Homo sapiens at
least, they have greatly enhanced their repetoire of vocalizations. Use
of it is still largely confined to use in hunting and to a limited
degree in courtship and with regards to parental duties, the vocabularly
and the ability to use it is expanding.

By 1.5 million years ago Neolemur cephalus, is fully bipedal and has
achieved a primitive level of sentience. This ever adaptable species is
now tool-using, finding numerous useful rock types in the Rocky
Mountains and along many stream and river banks and beds. Using flint,
chert, obisidian, bone, and/or wood tools, as well as superior hunting
techniques, cunning, and intelligence, are now able to claim the biggest
game, even the massive titanotheres in the forests and savannas and the
amynodontid rhinos of the swamp and delta regions. Spreading beyond
grassland and savanna, the ever resourceful N. cephalus can be found
throughout North America, from the boreal forests of northern Canada
south into Amazaonian Mexico, and spreading with every millenia further
and further into South America. They are still hunters and gatherers,
local groups varying their diet by what is available.

TIM MARTIN

Part Nine and ten: Fauna Revisted/ Neolumric Civilization

I hope it doesn't seem like I am backtracking here, but I believe it
important to redress some issues of the alterante zoology of this world.
Chiefly, I found that I needed more animals suitable for domestication.
I have, as detailed in part V camels, horses, and primitve bovids (or
ruminants), but I need to introduce pigs to provide more options for man
and neolemur. Relating to some converstaions with Logan, I thought I
would delve into a few other issues while I was at it, not directly
relavent to the
issues of man and neolemur civilizations, but still of interest. In this
post I address in addition to pigs, hippos, sharks, and tapirs. Another
post on fauna may follow at a later date, as I am still looking into
issues of carnivore, bird, and marine life evolution in the Cenozoic.

PIGS

Pigs are artiodactyls, members of a group of even-toed ungulates that
includes in OTL camels, deer, giraffe, cattle, antelope, and gazelles.
Artiodactyls arose from a group known as condylarths in the early
Eocene, before the POD of this ATL. They aren't rumiants, and appeared
before the rise of grasslands during our Miocene, and so their evolution
was not brought about by the rise and spread of that particular biome.
The first true pigs (or suids) have been traced back to the early
Oligocene of
Eurasia. The ominvorious pig still appears in this ATL, largely as a
forest speices, and has spread (and specatied) throughout Europe, Asia,
Africa, and a number of islands of Southeast Asia. When a land bridge
opened up between North American and Eurasia in this ATL due to
continental drift, the pigs of this ATL spread into the Americas where
they gave rise to the peccaries.
Pigs, along with rhinos, tapirs, camels, elephants, horses, titanothers,
and hippos, form the principal herbivores in this ATL.

HIPPOPOTAMUSES

Hippos are a suine artiodactyl, and related to pigs. They first appeared
in the Mioceen of eastern Africa in OTL, and apparently were always
aquatic animals. In this ATL they still arise in Africa, and have spread
to Asia, but have not made inroads into Europe, as the teleoeratine
rhinos there are too well established.

SHARKS

In our world, there was a giant swimming the seas of the Miocene and
Pliocene Seas. First appearing during the early Miocene period and dying
out about 1.5 million years ago at the end of the Pliocene Epoch, the
shark known as Carcharodon megalodon, a close relative of the great
white shark, was a terror of the deep. It was around 15 meters (or
around 60 feet) in
length, over three times the size of a great white, and probably weighed
in the neighborhood of 20 to 25 tons. Its teeth were as long as 20
centimeters. Known worldwide, it likely preyed upon a variety of fishes
and especially whales. It died out in OTL probably as a result of
climatic changes at the end of the Pliocene, as the coming Ice Ages
greatly reduced the amount of
warm ocean it could swim in. Further, the whales that formed the primary
part of its diet retreated to colder waters, where it could not follow.
Futher, competion from killer whales probably helped it into extinction.
In this ATL, while megalodon lacks the baleen whales to feed upon, it
doesn't lack for toothed whales. The fossil records show that megalodon
certainly fed upon toothed whales, such as dolphins, and therefore
evolved in this ATL. As the oceans never cool as there are no
Pleistocene Ice Ages, megalodon never dies out.

TAPIRS

Tapirs are the most primitive living perissodactlys, in OTL now confined
to southeastern Asian and Central and South America. They have a short
proboscis, browse on forest vegetation, and live from sealevel to
heights of about 15,000 feet. Their limbs are short and stubby, they
have three toes on their hindfeet and four on their forefeet, each toe
possessing a hoof and a pad. The earliest tapir appeared in the
Ogliocene of Europe and North America, and was known as Protapirus. In
both timelines tapirs spread throughout Europe, Asia, and the Americas,
though in this ATL they survive to the present, as their ideal climate
and terrain is commonplace.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

*******

This is my early, provisional timeline for neolemur civilization in
the Americas. Please comment, trash, nitpick away. I am still working on
the various human civilizations in the Old World. I may or may not have
a Nile Valley civilization, but I will have urban civiliations arise in
Mesopotamia, China, the Indus Valley, and possibly later with the
Polynesians (stay tuned).

If you will recall, part VIII detailed the rise of the neolemurs to
sentience. We left them in the lower or middle Paleolithic, having
spread as hunter-gather groups to most of North America, Central
America, and much of South America. Within a few thousands years -
300,000 years ago from the arbitrary present of this ATL - they have
completely settled both continents, from the taiga forests of northern
Canada to the deserts and mountains of southernmost South America. They
have yet to settle the numerous islands of the Caribbean (a few of those
islands of course the equivalent of our Florida). As there was no land
bridge between North America and Asia, they did not spread to the
eastern hemisphere.

While some of earlier, other relatives of Homo sapiens linger on in
Africa and Asia, the more arcahic relatives of the neolemur become
extinct due to geological activity. The Yellowstone region of Idaho and
Wyoming, as in OTL, is quite active. Though today in our world known for
bubbling hot springs and geysers, among them Old Faithful, in the past
of both worlds it produced some titantic volcanic eruptions 10 million
years ago, 1.2 million years ago, and 600,000 years ago. The first
eruption 10 million years was the largest, coating areas a far east as
Nebraska in vast fields of ash, enveloping entire herds of animals and
poisoning waterholes. The nascent neolemurs of the mountain forest "sky
islands" of Utah very nearly perished in the catastrophe, but through
accidents of geography, topograhy, and just plain luck managed to
survive. When the second major eruptoin occurred,
modern neolemurs, Neolemur cephalus, were already widespread across much
of the Americas. Older species, such as various branches of Neolemur
erectus and archaic Neolemur cephalus were decimated in the second
eruption, and what populations had survived went extinct 600,000 years
ago.

By 300,000 years ago neolemurs was a dedicated user of stone tools,
had the use of fire, and among many groups were able to construct simple
structures, often what amounted to twig huts. As time progressed, the
stone tools became more intricate and specialized, some adapted as
knives, others as axes, still others as spear points for specific types
of animal, whether game birds or big game. These tools are supplemented
by bone, ivory, and wood implements as well, particularly to make such
items as pins and fish hooks. The neolemurs had a bountfiul supply of
game to hunt, from herds of camels and savanna multitoed horses across
the interior of North America and the Great Basin to huge multi-ton
titanotheres browsing in the dense woodlands to giant sloths to
peccaries and monkeys and more. Depending upon local conditions, many
neolemur groups had learned to fish, bringing in such food items as
catifsh, bass, bluegill, crappie, as well as other aquatic life such as
turtles, muskrats, and frogs. Birds formed an important part of the diet
as well, particulary geese, ducks, quail, doves, parrots, and turkeys.
To aid this hunting neolemur tribes in savannas of North America develop
the first bow about 70,000 years ago, its use quickly spreading.

Starting about 100,000 years ago the first sedentary and
semi-sedentary groups of neolemurs form, starting small settlements
where abudant game, forage, and water permit. Small settlements spread
throughout the Americas, but appear most common along the eastern and
southeastern coast of North America, the Ohio Valley, along the
Bonneville Sea, the highlands of Mexico,
and in parts of southern South America. Most groups though remain
nomadic, following the vast herds of game across the savannas and
plains, hunting mostly the very common camel but also the savanna
multi-toed horses, the plains titanotheres, and several baboon-like
groups of plains dwelling lemur, only distantly related to Neolemur
cephalus. Other groups hunt and
forage in the forests and rain forests, taking smaller game that doesn't
congreate in large herds, such as tapirs, the many species of forest
horse, possums, and so forth.

Supplementing the wild game are a variety of plants, such as wild
grains, seeds, fruits, nuts, as well as mushrooms. Teosinte, pigweed,
and amaranth, as well as the ancestors of various types of beans, prove
popular among some neolemur groups in Mexico, particularly in the
highlands of Mexico. Starting about 12,000 years ago amaranth in
particular begins to be cultiaved, at first in the highlands of Mexico,
is use spread north into North America. It proves popular and well
adapted to the area around the vast freshwater Bonneville Sea that
dominates northeastern Utah, southern Wyoming, and western Colorado.
Growth of it along it shores, supplementing hunting and especially
fishing of the rich waters of the huge lake sees the first urban
civilization form in Americas along the Bonneville Sea, beginning in
earnest about 6000 years ago.

This civilization, named Chontune after its first real city, is
found on the Sea's northern shores. Though the climate is not as arid as
it is in OTL, being mostly one of savanna and grassland, irrigation is
practiced to grow crops of amaranth, along with supplementing crops of
beans and other minor plants. As the region doesn't have a great deal in
the way of timber for builidng or tool use, a member of the honeysuckle
family, Viburnum acerifolium, is cultivated for arrows, the young
straight shoots ideal for arrow production (known as arrow wood
sometimes in OTL, though not cultivated as such). Indeed, several
species of the Caprifoliaceae or honeysuckle family, a group of woody
vines and shrubs, are cultivated (in OTL the elderberry is cultiavted
for its fruit for elderberry jams and preserves). Many of the
honeysuckle species specation from the sky island phase of the evolution
of life in western North America, present and quite common in the west
during the Eocene, when the region was moist, tropical, and largely
swamp, rain forest, and lake. Unlike the amber waves of grain or verdant
green rice paddies of Eurasian agriculture, Chontune agriculture is
typified by vast fields of flowers.

Thanks to agriculture, irrigation, and centralized management
Chontune grows in size in the following hundreds of years. Game starts
to disappear as a major portion of the diet as local herds are thinned
out by overhunting, though fishing and farming more than make up the
difference. About 8000 years ago the first camels are domesticated.
These camels, a common herd animal of the plains and savannas of North
America, are not like the humped dromedary and bactrian camels of our
Asia, but somewhat more akin to llamas, though adapted for open ground
existence and more fleet of foot. At first raised primarily for food, it
is not long beofre the camel is put to work as a mount and a beast of
burden. Use of the camel as a mount especially spreads among the nomadic
groups of the region, and by 7000 years ago many nomadic tribes
throughout the Great Basin and interior of North America make use of
them, the camel supplying transporation and among some groups food,
though others continue to hunt wild camels, horses, etc. Many also use
the camel for milk.

I had envisioned the neolemurs of the highlands of Mexico and of the
Ohio Valley staring their own urban civilization. I had thoughts of the
Ohio Valley ones domesticating the forest horse and/or the tapir.
Thoughts and suggestions?

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

This is fascinating stuff. I've known about continental drift and long-term climate change for a long time, but this really brings home how much something like the positioning of the seas and continents can effect the overall changes of climate.

So basically we might have a warmer, wetter world with a somewhat greater variety of different types of mammals, due to less drastic climate changes and less transmigration back and forth between the 2 American continents and Eurasia. Statistically the odds would seem to be very heavily against 2 intelligent tool-using species developing at the same time, but the scenario you suggest here seems as likely a possibility as any.

I especially like the large, round, needle-eating monkies of the taiga forests in the far north, and the giant herds of big kangaroos that migrate through the taiga and tundra of Antarctica.

Part Eleven and Twelve: Neolemuric Civilizations cont./ Weired Australian Wildlife

Thanks Paul for the reply.

**********

, first I would like to note a correction or two, bear with me.

First, I have noticed that I noted the Bonneville Sea in two different
locations. In Part IV: Exploring the Land, I cite statistics describing the
massive Lake Bonneville that existed between 32,000 and 14,000 years ago in
OTL, covering much of western Utah and smaller portions of eastern Nevada
and southern Idaho. Recently, in Part X: Neolemur Civilization (and possbily
in other posts), I noted the Bonneville Sea being east of that, covering
eastern Utah, northwestern Colorado, and southern Wyoming; the reason I
placed the Bonneville Sea in that area was based on some information on the
freshwater and alkaline lakes, evidence of which is preserved in the Green
River formation of the Eocene (chiefly 50 million years ago Lake Gosiute,
Lake Uinta, and Fossil Lake), which showed that a series of lakes could be
found in the latter location. I wish to amend the TL, and have the
Bonneville Sea be a compromise, most of it being in an area corresponding to
the Green River location, but stretching much further west, encompassing
territory of OTL's Lake Bonneville.

A site by the way to see what the ancient lakes of Eocene were like is:
http://www.nps.gov/fobu/expanded/fos.htm

Second, I noted teosinte as being a crop in the last post, a
grass-related crop that many experts believed to have given rise to maize in
Mexico/Central America thousands of years ago. I have since decided that
teosinte did not evolve, considering that the environment it appears to have
evovled (a scrubby, semi-arid Mexico) simply does not exist.

Now, with that out of the way, here is my attempt at creating a neolemur
civlization. I don't know how far I will go with this, your responses will
likely determine that, but more and more I am thinking that they might in
some ways be quite alien (as this whole world is becoming):

Chontune thrives a city-state for many centuries (beginning roughly 6000
years ago from the present of this ATL, roughly corresponding with our
present). Established on the north shore of the Bonneville Sea in what would
we would call Wymoing, it is soon a bustling city. Crops are not cereal or
grain based, but instead are flowers (such as amaranth and various members
of the honeysuckle family) and perennials, including various types of trees.
Though most of the region around Bonneville Sea, particularly into Utah,
became savanna, grassland, with some open forest, many of the tropical
plants that formerly covered the region continued to exist. Some adapted to
life outside the rain forest, others adapted to the shores of the Bonneville
Sea, while others specation in the many "arks" that were the montane forests
of Utah.
One of these plants is Salix bonnevilliei, a member of the willow
family. Related to Salix nigra, the tree became domesticated in the early
centures of the Chontune civilization, about 5200 years ago, though there is
some dispute about this among scholars. The Salix nigra of OTL was a
versatile plant; the Patowatomi Indians made a fine scarlet dye from the
roots of this tree, a tea was brewed from the roots and bark was used as a
substitute for quinine by the pioneers. Even today in OTL, willow charcoal
is frequently used for manufacturing gunpowder, and as it is soft, light,
and weak but highly resistant to splintering and splitting, it is used for
crates and artificial limbs. The Chontune neolemurs cultivated this plant,
enhancing its qualities tremendously. A lengthy process considering how long
it takes for trees to grow, but even within the short span of roughly 800
years had managed to enhance the various products derived from it. In
addition to the fields of flowers that bloom so beautifully in the fields of
Chontune (twice a year as more than one crop is still possible in the
irrigated fields of this warm clime), the many channels and irrgiation
ditches are lined by magnificent, picturesque "weeping" willows, a hallmark
of the civilization that will become celebrated in its art and song. Though
much admired in Chontune culture, the willows, which have a desultory
appearence, appearing to hang over the wateways and shores of the Bonneville
Sea, swaying in the breeze, caused some nomadic groups of the Great Basin to
deride the Chontunai as "weak as willows," apt to "bend before any breeze,"
though the Chontune saw the giving tree as a source of tremendous strength.
Pottery actually predates the Chontune civilization, probably by some
1500-2000 years, likely made from the rich clays and muds along the
Bonneville Sea by pre-Chontune sedentary communities, though among the
neolemurs it has an independent genesis among the Ohio-Michigan River
communities and elsewhere. At any rate, by the start of this civilization
approximately 6000 years ago pottery use is quite common, and its superior
quality much appreciated by neolemurs outside of the city-state. For
centuries the ubiquitious willow pattern on the pottery, dyed red or black
from willow pigment, would be found as far away as the Pacific Ocean in the
west and the jungles of Georgia in the east amongst various groups.
Early on the Chontunai work with obsidian. Approximately 2.5 million
years ago in OTL, volcanic eruptions in the Black Spring area of the Black
Rock Desert in western Utah spewed out the volcanic rocks rhyolite, pumice,
and obsidian. In this ATL there is no Black Rock Desert as such, but it a
rocky area on the savanna, not far from the southern shores of the inland
sea. The obisidian, usually black but including brown, red, and snowflake
varieties, is a mainstay for use in Chontune arrowheads, cutting tools, and
to a lesser extent for jewelry (generally snowflake obsidian, which is a
black obsidian with whitish-gray spots -spherulites- of radiating
needle-shaped cristobalite - high-temperature quartz - crystals). Most
pieces in the region are between 1/2 inches and 6 inches in diameter, and
prove ideal for the Chontune.
Though nature has been harsh in some ways in the region, as it in the
past it was quite geologically active, it has provide also a rich mineral
wealth. Though lacking many of the ubiqutious sandstones of our Utah, buried
under vegetation and soil or weathered away, the southeastern shores of the
Bonneville Sea abut a rich resource of limestone, a good building material
for the civilization. This resource was formed approximately 58 to 66
million years ago (Paleocene epoch), by a large body of water known as Lake
Flagstaff covered parts of northeastern and central Utah. This lake
deposited a sequence of sediments that formed rocks known as the Flagstaff
Formation. The rock, commonly called a "marble" by building stone users in
OTL though a limestone, are rich in algal ball structures commonly known as
"birdseyes." These birdseye features were formed by algae that grew around
snail shells, twigs, or other debris. The algae used these objects as a
nucleus, forming into unusual, elongated, concentric shapes.
Commonly quarried through backbreaking labor for some of the larger
buildings in Chontune, such as the royal palace and the various temples, the
birdseyes gave rise to a curious form of divination among the high priests.
The dominant religion among the Chontune is a pantheon - indeed, the only
officially allowed one. Head of the pantheon is Skabaros, the Watcher.
Represented by a great bird of prey, likely worship of Skabaros began from
worship of the lazy flying, long-legged, more terrestrial than aerial
vultures of the Bonneville Sea. Descended from Neocathartes, a huge
vulturine bird of Eocene Wyoming (it went extinct in OTL), these birds of
the shores and plains of the Bonneville Sea were said to be servatns of
Skabaros. The Chontune literally saw the birdseyes of the Flagstaff
limestone as messages from their chief deity. On important occasions, the
high priests would break open a birdseye and examine the contents; just as
the ancient Romans interpreted signs and portents from the god by watching
the flight of flocks of birds or examining the entrails of slaughtered
livestock, so could the high priests "know" the will of their god.

That's it for now. Pretty alien? Too outlandish? Should I stick with
examining human culture, which will be more recognizable, though owing to
the massive butterflies (to say the least) possibly ultiamtely as divergent
and unrecognizable?

******

In this post I leave the world of the neolemurs for a bit and take a
trip to the land Down Under, and explore the wildlife of a very
different Australia and Antarctica. If you will recall from previous
installments in this ATL, the two continents are connected, with
Antarctica more or less in the same position it is in OTL, though with
Australia considerably farther to the
south. Instead of being almost completely glaciated, Antarctica has a
small permanent ice cap, and aside from some alpine glaciers, is mostly
ice-free, at least in the summer months (except for permafrost in many
areas), covered mostly in tundra in the center, surrounded by taiga
towards the coast and more northerly, growing into a hardwood forest
mixture the further north one
goes, up the Isthmus, and into Australia. Australia itself is largely
forest, cool temperate in the south, along with open forest and some
grassland, shading off into warmer temperate in the north. In the center
of the continent one can find fairly large grasslands and a little
desert, but nowhere to the degree that one finds in OTL.

A driving factor of Australian evolution has been the increasing aridity
of the continent. Perhaps a function of a worldwide decline in rainfall
throughout the Cenozoic, this aridity has been enhanced by the fact that
Australia has been steadily moving north throughout the entire Cenozoic.
The further north it has moved, thanks to worldwide climatic zones and
ocean currents, the increasingly arid it has become. Even lacking any
huge mountains to produce a rain shadow, much of the interior of the
continent has become desert. In this ATL, Australia remains moist and
relatively cool. Obviously all native life of Antarctica became extinct
when the continent became covered in ice in OTL.

I won't detail all the wildlife of this alternate Australia and
Antarctica in this installment, merely a few of the more unusual
species. The continent may be examined again later, but for now here are
some highlight species.

The most common large animal or megafauna of the Antarctic tundra is the
massive Tundra Beast, Euryzygoma austrialis. A large (up to four meter),
cow-like marsupial, it is related to wombats and is a diprodontid.
Diprodotids, rhino-sized giant marsupial herbivores are common in many
areas to the north, are larger and even more common in the south. In OTL
a species
known as the Bluff Downs Euryzygoma (Euryzgoma dunense) appeared about 4
mya in the early Pliocene. A distinguishing feature of the species were
large flaring cheekbones, a mystery that some said might have stored
food, acted as resonating chamber for its voice, or a display to impress
other Euryzygomas. In this ATL, the Tundra Beast is a massive wooly
herbivore,
staying warm and toasty in the harsh, bitter Antarctic winter thanks to
rolls of fat and and a woolly coat. As Antarctica is at the bottom of
the world and part of it see virtually perpetual darkness for almot half
the year, the tundra can be pitch black. While the roaring winds might
carry away scents of other animals in the herds, the Tundra Beast is
able to keep in touch with fellow members of their herds by huge
resonating calls that echo eerily over the empty tundra, made thanks to
the even further enhanced flared cheekbones, more elaborate than the
Bluff Downs species. In a strange parallel to the hadrosaurs of the
Mesozoic, who also traveled in herds in the darkness and used their
bizarre snouts and nasal cavaities to generate such sounds, the Tundra
Beast do the same in the gloom, warning herd members of danger or for
bulls to remain dominant over other bulls. These tremendous voices are
also used in mating displays, which are postively defeaning. The mating
season, which takes place in complete darkness, is a cacophonous affair,
a time the locals call the "Long Night of Thunder."

The neoplatypus is a descendent of the platypus of old. In OTL these
unusual monotremes (egg laying mammals with roots going back to the time
of the dinosaurs), live in quiet forest pools and streams. Dating back
to at least the early Miocene, they used electric sensors in their
extremely senstive bills to find underwater prey, such as insect
larvare, fish, and crustaceans, sometimes frogs. The earlier platypuses
(such as the Riversleigh Platypus, Obdurodon dicksoni), had teeth,
though the modern
platypus has none. In OTL Australia lacks major river systems or large
permanent lakes, certainly nothing as large as one might find in North
America or Africa. Lacking tall mountains, no real snowpack run off, and
overall being quite arid, there never was a freshwater habitat that was
truly extensive for platypuses to colonize and radiate out into. Our
platypus is a innocous, relatively small inhabitant of quiet waters,
never have given rise to any other relatives or descendents.

In this ATL, a number of very large rivers course through the two
continents. In paticular the Isthmus, the land bridge between the two
continents, is quite stormy and wet, and is the source of several rivers
and home to several large lakes. Having a much large freshwater biome to
speciate in, the platypuses of this ATL developed a number of species.
Relatively free from crocodile predation in the cooler waters of
southern Australia and Antarctica (though certainly living in warmer
parts of Australia as well), a number of new species of platypus
developed over the Tertiary Period. Some species became like the modern
platypus, relatively small and and feeding mainly on smaller aquatic
life. Others became quite a bit bigger, and became dedicated fish
eaters. Retaining their teeth, they used their highly adapted electrical
sensors to find fish even in the darkness of the long winter. As time
progressed the platypus became more and more adapted to its watery
environment, with one species giving rise to a
completely aquatic line, the neoplatypus. The webbed feet of the
playtpus became flippers, and the species became even better adapted to
holding its breath for long periods of time and surving greater water
pressures. By the Pliocene epoch the neoplatypus had arrived,
resembling, thanks to the process of converget evolution, seals more
than anything else, though
retaining the extremely specialized and highly effective bill. Though
still scrambling ashore to lay its eggs, the neoplatypus had otherwise
become a completely water-dwelling species. After that, it wasn't long
before the species exploited brackish estauaries and then the sea
itself. New species appearing in its marine environment, the primarly
fish-eating early neoplatypuses gave rise to several species; some large
ones that fed only on fish, while smaller ones quite similiar to the
modern platypus, feeding mainly on crustaceans and marine
invertebrates. Though seals and sea lions had already evolved, the
neoplatypuses proved quite competitive, and were able to carve out a
niche for themselves, largely a nocturnal one thanks their usage of
their electrical sensors. Today the rocky islands and sandbars that
surround the two continents see no only penguins scrambling ashore to
lay their eggs in raucous colonies, but the neoplaytpus too.

The finally species I would like to take a look at on this warmer,
wetter Earth is Tree Crocodile, descended from the Ridge-headed
Crocodile (Trilophosuchus rackhami) of the early to middle Miocene
(25-10 mya). The Ridge-headed crocodile, a 1.5 meter long predator from
head to tail, appeas to have been adatped to a largely terrestrial.
Mainly hunting on the rainforest floor, these short-headed, large-eyed
reptiles appear to have climbed tree trunks in their search for food.
They have even been nicknamed the "Drop Croc" in OTL because it may have
climbed trees and dropped onto animals passing below. Staring in the
Miocene of OTL Australia reallly began to become arid, with forests
receding all over the continent. In this ATL, no such drying trend
occurs, and the habitat for the Ridge-headed Crocodile was secure.
Becoming even better adapted to an arboreal lifestyle, they developed
better claws to climb trees, shorter more agile tails perfect for
balance, large eyes for vision at night and in under heavy forest
canopies, and binocuolar vision, the better able to not only hunt prey
but to better gauge jumping from tree to tree in pursuit of sugar
gliders, possums, birds, and insects. Though becoming smaller in size,
the ancestors of the Tree
Crocodile retained the tooth-filled jaws of its more coventional kin.
Climbing high in trees to catch the sun's rays - particularly high trees
may be graced with a dozen or more Tree Crocodiles basking in them -
these animals descend through the leaves below to seek their prey. They
have even adapted to building large, ungainly nests large trees, keeping
the young safe from predation below.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

Part Thirteen and Fourteen: Polynesian Intro/Virtual Eden

In this installment of the warmer, wetter earth series, we go a little
further afield and explore the Polynesians of this ATL. First, a few details
of what they were like in our world. The Polynesian culture developed from
an older culture, known as the Lapita (or Lapita people). There seems to be
some disagreement as to exactly where they originated from, either New
Guinea or some other island group nearby, perhaps New Caledonia. A slight
problem in this ATL is that New Guinea was not settled in the same wave of
Homo sapiens sapiens colonization as it was in OTL, chiefly because, as it
is part of the same plate that Australia is on, it is much further to the
south. As some experts have postulated that the Lapita people came from an
island group, I will too. Obviously, as sea levels are higher and overall
geology has had some significant changes, the exact same island groups don't
always exist, though for our purposes there is an Oceania to settle and
islands for the Lapita to have originated from.

In OTL the Lapita people were fairly early on highly mobile, seaborne
explorers and colonists, already establishing themselves in the Bismark
Archipelago (northeast of our New Guinea) by 2000 BC. Beginning about 1600
BC they had spread to the Solomon Islands, had reached Fiji, Tonga, and the
rest of western Polynesia by 1000 BC, and had dispersed to Micronesia by 500
BC (the principal era of colonization apperas to have been between 1600 and
500 BC, a time in which in one of the most remarkable periods of human
history people settled an area of around 10 million square miles). Around
300 AD they reached Easter Island in the far southeastern Pacific Ocean, and
around 400 AD reached the Hawaiian Islands. It wasn't until 1000 AD that
they reached New Zealand (Aotearoa), where they gave rise to the Maori. The
early Lapita culture and civilization was marked by among other things the
domestication of pigs and a distinctive style of pottery, which had a great
deal in common with later Polynesian culture (which developed in earnest out
of Lapita colonizations of Tonga and Samoa, the start of the "true"
Polynesians). By the time they had colonized Fiji and other islands around
1000 BC they were already accomplished navigators and canoe builders.

The Polynesians' massive migration is all the more remarkable when once
considers that they did it in canoes built with stone, bone, and coral
tools, navigated by observations of the sea, sky, and wildlife, and from
mental maps. These vessels, normally sailed with cloth woved from coconut or
pandanus leaves, had to be paddled when there was no wind, and had to make
journeys of up to 2000 miles or more (the distance between Hawaii and
Tahiti).

In OTL the Polynesians were accomplished agriculturalists, and at least from
around 1000 BC or so on (from the colonization of the Cook and Society
islands and afterwards), had domesticated and made extensive use of (and
brought with them to new islands they colonized) taro, breadfruit, sugar
cane, bamboo, ti, yam, bananas, 'awa, paper mulberry, kukui, hau, coconuts,
gourds, sweet potatos, moutain apples, pigs, dogs, chickens, and rats (among
others). Taro is a staple food of the Pacific, a bog plant grown for its
large, nutritious tubers. Its most common use is in the form of poi, which
is made by boiling or steaming the taro root and pounding it into a paste.
The ti plant, also known as ti and Hawaiian good-luck-plant, is technically
classified as Cordyline terminalis and is a member of the agave family and
is a flower, with several uses. 'Awa is a plant grown for its roots, which
are processed through an elaborate process for potent ceremonial and
medicinal drinks. Paper mulberry, also known as wauke, is a fast growing
small to medium sized tree used by Polynesians for kapa (or tapa, a cloth
rendered from the bark; barkcloth) and for rope production. Kukui or
Candlenut Tree is a tree, often of mountainous regions in the Pacific, that
is a member of the spurge family and was grown for a variety of reasons,
including for lighting (kukui nut oil was used in stone lamps and ti leaf
sheath torches, or the nuts were used as candles themselves), leis,
medicinal purposes (bark, flower, sap, and nuts), food (the nuts), dye (the
inner bark, used in tapa cloth, while the soot of the burned nuts provided
dyes for tatooting and canoes as well as use in cloth), strenghtening cloth
(the gum), and many other uses. Hau was a softwood highly valued for
construction of canoes, baskets, and fishing floats. Finally, the rat in
question is the kiore or Pacific Rat (Rattus exulans), the world's third
most distributed rat species and widely used as food by the Polynesians.

For those interested in these "canoe plants," I highly suggest:
http://www.hawaii-nation.org/canoe/index.html

In OTL the Polynesians were generally known to settle in small communities,
living off fishing, gathering, and a slash-and-burn type of agriculture. In
some areas, such as the fertile delta region of southeast Viti Levu in the
Fiji islands, however, they formed large concentrations of populations,
settlements that were based on intensive taro cultivation using complex
irrigation systems, protected by massive ring-ditch forts. Thanks to the
discovery of Lapita pottery and other items it appears there there was an
extensive canoe trade between various islands and island groups, not only in
pottery but also in volcanic glass (obsidian).

In this ATL, I propose that the Polynesians start out much like they did in
OTL, colonizing between many of the islands of the Pacific between 3600 and
2500 years ago. Island groups that are further out - Hawaii, New Zealand,
and the joined Australia-Antarctica continet, aren't reached until later on,
in this ATL I say a bit earlier, respectively 1800, 1400, and 1200 years
ago. The settlement and culture of most of the islands of the Pacific,
including the Hawaiian Islands and New Zealand, won't be that much different
from that in OTL; the climate is the same, the fauna and flora are the same,
etc. But what will they do when the first Polynesians reach the massive
landmass at the southernmost extremes of the earth?

In our world, the only large land mass the Polynesians settled were the
islands of New Zealand, though some of the Hawaiian Islands were fairly
large. How would the Polynesias react to such a huge land area, completely
uninhabited? It posssess a wide range of environments, from warm temperate
woodlands to grasslands to mountains to taiga to tundra. Huge rushing
rivers, swamps, even glaciers are there. While our (and in this ATL too) New
Zealand had similiarly varied terrains, the amount of each terrain is much,
much larger. Further, they face a highly unusual fauna, one of giant
marsupial herbivores (including tapir and rhino analogues as well as the
aforementioned diprodontids), giant flightless birds (in addition to emus
there was Genyornis, a 2 meter tall flightless bird, and Dromornis, a 3
meter tall carnivours bird), gigantic carnivorous lizards (Megalania, a 7
meter Komodo Dragon relative), tree crocodiles, marsupial "lions" and
"wolves," neoplatypuses, and other bizarre creatures. I think the history of
the Maori provides the best example for use in deciding what happens to
Polynesian culture and the natural history of Australia-Antarctica:

1. A large amount of the initial forest cover of the islands were removed,
either through use of lumber or burning for agricultural reasons. This
burning of forests is not without precedent in our own Australia; "firestick
farming" has been practiced for thousands of years by the Aborigines,
working to keep grasslands and open forests the dominant biome, which
favored the fauna they hunted.
2. Within 1000 years of initial settlement, it appears that the megafauna of
New Zealand were exterminated, chielfy being the moas, the huge flightless
birds that once domainted the two islands. A number of other unique birds
also perished, many flightless or poor fliers. The reason for this
extirpation appears to have been overhunting, habitate destruction, and
competition with introduced species (dogs, pigs, and the rat in paritcular -
deveastating as except for bats and seals New Zealand had no native mammals
prior to initial colonization).
3. The early Maori shifted from hunting and fishing to fishing and farming
as their main sources of food.
4. Warfare existed between the various Maori groups, as populations grew,
politics dictated, and natural food resources declined.

What do the Polynesians do upon encountering this vast land mass, a virtual
Eden? Will be it be a major new world for them to conquer? Will they develop
true urban cultures? Will new cultures emerge as they adapt to larger
grasslands, deserts, even tundra? Will the megafauna perish, or will only
some species become extinct? Will new species be domesticated?

Tim

********

In this post I continue my look at the question as to what the
Polynesian explorers and colonists do with a joined Antarctica and
Australia, how they settled and where might live there. I don't claim to be
an expert on Australian or Antarctic geology, but here is my attempt to
discuss, in greater detail, the climate and geography of the joined
continents. Before pursuing how and why they settle, it is important to take
a more indepth look at the land.
As I am sure many of you know Australia is one of the most arid lands on
our world, with a huge desert and large sections of dry grassland dominating
the interior of the continent. A simple glance at the map shows such places
as the Great Sandy Desert, the Great Victoria Desert, Gibson Desert, and
Tanami Desert sprawling over the map. There are also many temporary lakes
out in the Outback, from massive Lake Eyre (has been filled completely only
twice since its discovery in 1840) and poetically named Lake Disappointment.
Most of the forests of the continent can be found along the coast,
particularly on the west coast, the north coast, and along the eastern
coast. The forests vary from jungle and swampland in Arnhem Land and in
northern Queenslands to temperate forests in the southeast. The island of
Tasmania is also forested. Australia is not a land of huge rivers, certainly
nothing as large as our Amazon, Mississippi, or Nile. The largest rivers are
in the southeast, the Murray-Darling system that runs down from the Great
Dividing Range along the eastern coast and drains much of southeastern
Australia, with small rivers such as the Flinders draining north into the
Gulf of Carpentaria, several rivers off the Kimberley Plateau in
northwestern Australia, and in the west and southwest several small rivers
such as the Ashburton and Murchison.
As far as Antarctica, in OTL the majority of it is ice covered, with
some relatively ice-free areas here and there, many along the Antarctic
Peninsula which stretches like a bony finger towards South America.
What are the two lands like in this ATL? In my view, there is a vast
forest stretching up and down the coast from northwestern Australia (the
Kimberley Plateau region) east along the Gulf of Carpentaria, down the
Queensland coast, south to southeastern Australia (past where Sydney would
be in OTL), and encompassing the Isthmus (the land bridge that would be
Tasmania, linking the two continents), shading off into mixed than
coniferous forest as the Isthmus joins Antarctica. The northerly reaches of
the forest are warm temperate, becoming temperate about halfway down the
eastern coast of Australia. This forest, unlike in OTL, stretches quite far
inland, as far west as Lake Eyre. Basically then entire eastern half of
Australia is forested, warm temperate in the north, temperate to the south,
shading off into taiga around Antarctica.
The western interior of the continent has some large grasslands, very
roughly corresponding to the Great Sandy Desert, the Gibson Desert, and the
western portion of the Great Victoria Desert. Mount Olga and Ayers Rock
still rise impressively into the sky, but do so admist vast sweeping
grasslands and herds of herbivores.
Much like in our Australia, the west coast is forested, though moister
and more extensive.
This alternate Australia can boast some impressive bodies of freshwater.
As in our Australia, there are numerous depressions in the west and center
of the continent, though in this world they remain permenantely filled. Lake
Eyre is a massive lake dominating the southern central interior, a water
hole to thriving herds of diprodontids and kangaroos, home to vast flocks of
waterfowl, flamingos, and crocodiles. South of that there are several other
large lakes, similar to our Lake Gairdner and Lake Torrens but much larger.
This region of Australia is not unlike the famous Great Lakes of the Rift
Valley in east Africa. A number of smaller lakes dot western Australia, some
tiny, other many miles across. Many are found on Australia's great plains.
Though a few can go almost dry during summer droughts, most remained filled
permanently and provide valuable wetland habitat.
Though western and northern Australia still have relatively short rivers
(albeit much larger in volume, as well as being steady in flow year-round),
eastern Australia has a massive river system. A much larger Murray-Flinders
system, almost Mississippian, drains the eastern half of the continent,
forming a delta system of swamps and bayous near our Adelaide. The river
branches off into much of the interior of the continent, and is navigable
for many hundreds of miles upstream. The Isthumus, narrow and rocky, is
thickly vegetated and home to many small rushing rivers, carving deep stony
canyons in their headlong rush to the sea. As the region is an uneasy border
between warm and cold weather systems, it is extremely stormy and thus very
rainy. It is home to many unique plants and animals, unique even in
Australia, some of which have ranges of only a few miles in the Isthmus, as
varied as weather might be from one valley or mountain range to the next.
The canyons carved by the rushing rivers had severed to make travel along
the Isthmus difficult, at least along the coast, and have further encouraged
speciation among the plants and animals there.
Wildlife of the land has been discussed several times before. In short,
it is a rich land the Polynesians find. Large herds of giant wombat-like
diprodontids swarm like buffalo across the western plains, while smaller
groups or more solitary species can be found in the forests and swamps of
the country. One species has adopted the "hippo niche," becoming
semi-aquatic in the great Murray River, its huge teeth and powerful jaws as
well as its large bulk helping it compete with the region's large
crocodiles. In the tundra far to the south, the bizarre tundra beasts call
to each other in the land's long winter night. Marsupial tapir analogues
browse quietly in the forests, while rhino analogues live solitary lives in
the plains and open forests. Kangaroos are as common as every, ranging from
small wallabies to towering browsing species, larger than men. Preying upon
the rich widlife bounty are marsupial wolf and lion analogues and many
species of crocodiles, including the endemic Tree Crocodiles. A host of
smaller animals can be found as well, including a great many species of
snakes, lizards, turtles, possums, parrots, waterfowl, and birds of prey.
Many famous animals, like kookaburras, galahs, black swans, and
sulfur-crested cockatoos can still be found in this ATL.
In what manner do the Polynesians colonize this vast landscape? What
sort of civilization do they found?
Some possibilities for now:
-The Polynesians settle the north coast, its overall climate not
unfamiliar and favorable to the crops they rely on. Perhaps unaware of the
vastness of the land, they form large communities, even urban communities,
thanks to intensive taro cultivation.
-Different waves of Polynesians colonize the land, resulting in small
differences in culture among varous communities, eventually magnfiying in
difference as the groups grow in size and become entrenched.
-As later Polynesians explore the coast, more communites are founded,
dotting the west coast and all up and down the east coast.
-Using their considerable navigational skills, they start to explore the
Murray River system, going further and further upland. Requirng new skills,
they nevertheless readily adapt to it, and Polynesians open up the eastern
interior to colonization.
-The plains and open grasslands of the western and central interior are
the last to be settled. Perhaps hundreds of years pass, maybe longer. They
aren't prone to explore it initially as it can't be reached by canoe, their
favored crops can't grow there in many cases. Perhaps it takes population
pressures from the coastal cities to force groups there? Or warfare, or
relgious reasons? What would a Polynesian culture on the grassland be like?
Would they attempt to irrigate lands aroudn the many lakes and grow
traditional crops? Would they suddenly become primarily hunters and hunt
with enthusias the great herds of marsupials?

Eager to hear what others think. How do you envision Polynesians settling
two continents, the joined lands bigger by far than the United States? Could
they develop cultures as varied as that of Europe and Asia? What would their
cities be like?

Tim

Part Seventeen, Eighteen, and Nineteen: Africa Geography and wildlife/Europe

(Following the last post there was something of a down time while Tim
tried to figure out how to move forward with the Pacific cultures.
Eventually he decided to turn back to WWE with new spirit, and the
spirit got me interested more as well. I started to work on fleshing
out Africa.)

Concerning the Geography, Flora and Fauna of Africa

The African continent contains the same general shape and geography
that we are familiar with. Despite a rise in world-wide sea levels the
coastal outline of Africa is relatively unaffected. For the most part
the coast is changed by just a few miles inland from the Sinai Peninsula
down East Africa, Southern Africa, and up to the west of the Gulf of
Guinea. Several areas are exactly as they are now due to mountainous
terrain, such as along the Red Sea and Morocco. The major areas that
are different due to higher sea levels are West Africa and a section of
North Africa.

The Atlantic Ocean is about 200 miles further inland in an area
stretching from the Anti Atlas Mountains in southern Morocco south to
the Fouta Djalon in Guinea. The extent of this ‘bight’ into West Africa
varies widely, from a few tens of miles if any in the far north to close
to 400 miles just north of 20 degrees in the Western Sahara. The other
area of large difference is Libya, which is a wide shallow sea
stretching around 400 miles inland from just west of 20 degrees to
almost exactly 30 degrees. The sea is fairly shallow, opening out into
the Mediterranean in a much wider Gulf of Sidra and going south of a
huge ‘arm,’ a range of higher terrain that forms Cyrenaica. In this
world this is known as the Cyrenaica Peninsula, with the Mediterranean
Sea proper to the north and the Libya Sea to the south.

The Cyrenaica Peninsula is a dry place; it is scrubby grassland,
home to several endemic species, including large colonies of the
Mediterranean monk seal. In the rest of the northern edge of the North
African coast along the Mediterranean there exists a hardwood forest
stretching from Morocco to the Sinai Peninsula, with scattered patches
of similar forests spread across the Sahara. Receiving more rainfall
than the Sahara of OTL, the stretch of land south of these hardwood
forests is mostly grassland. An arm of this Saharan grassland stretches
in the west into the rain shadow of the Atlas Mountains, which is a
dense forest; a rainy tropical area akin to Costa Rica, also possessing
many endemic species.

In the Eastern Mediterranean the Nile River, by far larger,
discharges huge amounts of water and creates a large amount of silt, but
less saline, with more or less fresh water found many miles out to sea
in an area that has a lack of coral reefs when compared to the rest of
the Mediterranean. The Nile itself is a giant of a river, with the
yearly floods that coat the surrounding lands with fertile silt. Beyond
the reaches of the Nile the fertile Sahara is home to the grasslands
described above. Many oceanic species have not only learned to adapt in
the huge mixture of fresh and salt water but actually learned to thrive
in it, with several species of sharks and dolphins having adapted to
life in the Nile; the Nile Dolphin is found as far south as Nubia, and
some bull sharks have been rumored to be found even further south.

There is, at the very southern edge of this Sahara, a mighty lake
that is more than 100,000 square miles in size, about the same area of
Wyoming. The Chadian Sea is almost 600 ft deep in most places,
stretching almost 800 miles north to south and over 850 miles east to
west at its widest extents, and empties into the Atlantic by way of the
Benue-Niger River. A huge freshwater body covering most of the nation
of Chad along with southeast Niger, northeastern and eastern Nigeria and
northern Cameroon, it supports a complex ecosystem similar to those
found in other great African freshwater bodies like Lake Victoria and
Lake Tanganyika. There is a small chain of islands within the southern
expanses of the Chadian Sea about 100 miles long stretching from north
to south, some of them as much as 50 miles across.

At times the lake can expand even beyond this immense region thanks
to seasonal floods, much of it from the Adamaoua Plateau. Swamps occupy
the margins of the lake and dense floating vegetation covers the waters,
chiefly the floating plant Nile lettuce (Pistia stratiotes). This lake
provides a vital refuge for migrant palearctic birds and other animals,
including vast numbers of local waders and waterfowl. Other local
species fo note include several species of otter, shovel-tusker
elephants that roam in huge herds in the shallower margins of the lake,
hippos, and crocodiles.

South of this great lake and the great grassland is a large rain
forest that stretches from West Africa to the very edge of East Africa.
This thick and dense rain forest, larger than that which we are familiar
with, is bordered in East Africa by a very reduced savanna. Under this
tropical canopy lives a remnant of earlier hominid evolution, a species
that will be discussed at a later time. In East Africa the small
savannah serves as a corridor from North Africa to Southern Africa that
is free, for the most part, of the dangers of the rain forest: flora,
fauna, hominid, and disease.

The cold-created Namib Desert is altered, the warmer currents have
created a mild grassland that stretches into the Kalahari, which is a
grassland populated by sparse forests due to the higher global rainfall
and the warmer Benguela current. The Namib-Kalahari grassland is huge,
older than the Saharan to the north and connected to it through the
above-mentioned corridor. During the formation of the Saharan evolution
utilized animals already in the Saharan, and from the nearby rain forest
to the south, so that the Sahara and the Namib-Kalahari share few
similarities in fauna.

Africa is without its famous gnus, Cape buffalo, gazelles, and
antelopes. In the southern grasslands of the Namib-Kalahari older
species of rhinos, and elephants live, huge beasts that are dependent on
their size, not speed, for survival. Hunting such giants are equally
larger than OTL lions and the not extinct in this world saber-toothed
cat. Another species is the ostrich, the remaining survivor in Africa
of the many large flightless birds of an earlier period. Although there
are elephants and rhinos species in the East African savanna, the
formation of the Sahara was an advantage to the forest dwelling animals
in the North of Africa, and there are several new species that have
evolved for the grasslands.

Like the Namib-Kalahari the survival of many species rests on size,
not speed. This strategy has been utilized by many species in the
Sahara, forcing many predators to either grow in size also or hunt in
packs to compensate for the size of their prey. The great rain forest
to the south of the Sahara, and the hardwood forests of the North, are
home to forest species of elephants, chalicotheres, and pigs. All three
have evolved grassland species that inhabit the Sahara. There are some
rhino species in the Sahara, a long limbed relative of the rest of the
family that only vaguely resembles its cousins due to the horn, and a
small marsh pygmy rhino that lives along Lake Chad and nearby rivers.
The elephant is very common in a multitude of forms in the Sahara, and
in combination to the several species in the rain forest and the
Namib-Kalahari is perhaps the dominant herbivore of the continent.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

*******

Concerning the Geography, Flora and Fauna of Europe

Compared to Africa, Europe has changed drastically by the alternate
climate of this history. The lack of the Ice Age is a fundamental
difference from our history, but increased water levels and alternate
climate zones also play a large part in changing Europe. For the most
part the coast of Europe is completely different and large bodies of
water like the Caspian Sea and Black Sea have become connected as even
larger bodies. Across much of Northern Europe the Green Sea covers has
submerged the coast and created several large offshore island. And the
change in climate and the type of ecosystem found in Europe has played a
large role in creating several alternate species.

The coast has expanded deep into Europe with large parts of Northern
and Western France, Denmark, Southern Sweden, Northern Germany and
Poland, the Baltic States, and some of England and Ireland all below
water. Some of the largest islands are located in the former Brittany
peninsula, one southeast of modern Nantes, another stretching from Vice
in the West to Chartes in the east, an archipelago east of the Seine and
southwest of Ameins, and another archipelago around Gdnask in Poland.

Around this great Northern Sea the land has been changed by the lack
of glaciers and there is a significant lack of fjords and other rocky
coastlines characteristics of Scotland and other areas. There are no
lochs either, fewer bogs and other fingerprints of gigantic sheets of
ice carving the landscape. This is also true in the Alps, where the
lack of glaciers has allowed for the mountain change to remain at
heights above our history. Elsewhere the more important aspect of
change has been the increased amount of rainfall, something that plays a
major role in reducing the height of the Caucasus Mountains.

In the South the Mediterranean is much larger due not only to higher
water levels but also the increased flow of water from major rivers like
the Nile. The great amount of water rushing out of the Nile has a major
impact on the salinity of the water in the eastern Mediterranean and is
the cause for the distinct lack of coral reefs found elsewhere in the
Sea. Increased runoff from the Alps and higher water levels play a part
in submerging parts of the Po River, geographically cutting Italy off
from the rest of Europe by way of the gigantic Alps and then a large
swampland area around the Po.

Finland, without the period of glaciers beating down the land to its
low status today, remains mountainous and above the great flooding found
elsewhere. Elsewhere the Iberian Peninsula remains above water, as do
the smaller but still moderately large islands of Corsica and Sardinia.
Mountainous areas like the Balkans are secure in being above ground, and
to the south the Aegean Sea still is similar to the collection of rocky
islands from our history with Greece still containing several
mountainous areas that would be above water.

Connected to the Mediterranean is the Black-Caspian Sea, a large
body of water known as the Pontian Sea.
http://www.grid.unep.ch/bsein/images/bs_geo_3.gif The Volga, Danube,
Don, Ural, and other rivers all flow into this gigantic body of water.
Aquatic species are very diverse, with sturgeon still playing a large
role. The lower Caucasus Mountains aid in creating the Pontian Sea and
also serve to create various islands and peninsulas with Azerbaijan all
but covered in water and Georgia having its lowland areas flooded by a
the shallow sea. The northern Caucasus Mountains and the lowland of
Southern Ukraine and Russia are flooded to a point that connects the
Black and Caspian Seas, and in doing so creates a large peninsula with
several island chains off the coast in the area of the Georgia and
Southern Russia.

All across Europe the dominant ecosystem is a hardwood forest that
is part of a gigantic range stretching from North Africa to Scandinavia,
Spain to the Middle East. This hardwood forest and alternate climates
elsewhere serve to change the biodiversity of this Europe into something
very different than our Europe. There is a complete and total lack of
bovid species for the most part as they have yet to move from the
grasslands of the Asian interior into Europe. The hardwood forests are
home to specially adapted species of elephant and forest dwelling horses
that are similar to deer in their lifestyle. Species of pigs and tapirs
are found in Europe, with creatures similar to the boar having evolved.
Various monkey species that have survived without the Ice Age are found
throughout the forests, some as far north as England and Scandinavia.

Overall the forests of Europe are more continuous than those found
in Northern Africa and the Middle East. Some areas, such as central
Spain, do show a level of rainfall lower than the rest of the continent
and there are patches of grasslands in the sea of forests. But when
compared to the grasslands of the Sahara and those found in the Middle
East into Central Asia there is a clear amount of continuity in the
forest. It is perfectly plausible for a monkey in Portugal to swing
tree-to-tree all the way to the Balkans.

Logan Ferree

*********

Though perhaps less eye-catching and certainly often less noticed,
there are a number of unusual small and medium sized animals found in
the Africa of the Warmer, Wetter Earth but not in ours. While the
smaller animals more closely resembles that of our world, there are
still some surprises in store.

The warm hardwood forests of northern Africa are home to large
troops of apes, descendents of the Miocene _Dryopithecus_. The Oak Ape,
are relatively small and gibbon-like, spending most of their time high
in the trees, consistuting some of the largest groups of primates
outside rain forests. The Silver Ape is much larger and has evolved into
a sort of gorilla niche, and also lives in in troops. These troops are
smaller and quite territorial, as groups compete for the reduced food
resources of the unbroken virgin forests; unlike in the rain forest belt
to the south, there aren't the same degree of plants fruiting and
animals breeding all year, and overall lower species diversity and often
number in the deep forest away from the edges. The Silver Apes mark the
edges of their territory aggresively from all comers, often challenging
even big cats, and unlike most apes eat a fair amount of meat in their
diet, often from birds, monkeys, the smaller Oak Ape, and even
sivatheriums.

The hyaenas have done well in Africa, and can be found in most
environments throughout the continent. In addition to the species
similiar to our hyaenas known from our world, there is the unusual
Bat-eater, one adapted to make its way in the dark and over slippery
guana-covered underground areas to feast on bats. As many bats make
their lairs in the Atlas Mountain, often ranging far out in the Sahara
each night to feed on the clouds of insects that in turn feed on the
massive heribvores there, the
Bat-eater is ideally adapted for its role in life. It has unusually
large eyes to see in the dark, as well as extremely keen hearing. Its
sense of smell is tremendously atrophied though, in order to cope with
the stench of bat roosts; it has enough of one to detect the scent of
such a roost from some distance. In order that its legs do not become
infested with the vermin or the bat dung of such caves they are
essentially bare, not unlike the heads of vultures. Finally, they are
small and wiry in order to negotiate
tight spaces, and are excellent leapers in order to catch bats on the
roofs of caves.

Fulfilling a tapir-like niche in the African rain forests is the
bizarre Bunjee. Descendent from the Palaeotheres, early representatives
of the horse group that were common in Eocene and Oligocene Europe
especially, the European Palaeotheres pursued a very un-horselike
evolutionary path, devloping into fairly large, heavily built animals,
at least in comparsion with the small forest horses of the era, along
with low-crowned teeth and a small flexible trunk. A strange animal, the
Bunjee is the last known species of its type in Africa, found well away
from areas where elephants predominate.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

Part Twenty and Twenty One :The Esua and The !Ku

Concerning the Esau [FN1]

In OTL the hominid family tree had many branches, one of which lead
to you and I, _Homo sapiens_. Though still poorly known, as hominid
fossils are among the rarest and most precious of fossils, it is widely
believed that several lines of distant cousins and other relatives - as
it were – shared at least a time this earth with us. Some were branches
on our family tree that became us, such as _Homo habilis_ and _Homo
erectus_, perhaps not so much as becoming extinct as simply developing
into more developed or "advanced" forms. Others, such as
_Paranthropus_, appear to have died out entirely, leaving no descendents
whatsoever, and represent different possible paths that hominid
evolution might have and was for a time taking.

_Paranthropus_ was in OTL close in appearance to _Australopithecus_
and was contemporaneous with that genus. Unlike _Australopithecus_
however, _Paranthropus_ was a strict vegetarian. They were relatively
small-brained and possessed massive, heavy jaws, powerful jaw
musculature, and huge molar teeth. Burly, barrel-chested hominids, they
were big-boned with slightly pushed-in faces, belting brow ridges, and
were equipped for a diet primarily of plant materials, apparently well
adapted to chewing tough, fibrous foods. From what is known about
_Paranthropus_ in OTL, it never developed the use of tools, and its
intelligence - even thought it was clearly bipedal - was probably no
greater than that of a gorilla. Though a fairly long-lived genus by
hominid standards, in the end it probable that competition from the
greatly expanding ruminant herbivores of Africa as well as even more
likely other hominids did them end.

In this ATL, the genus did not die out. With less competition from
herbivores - which have yet to spread to Africa - these hominids have
less competition for their particular ecological niche. Similar to the
gorilla its niche is found in the large forest through Central Africa
that all but cuts the continent in half. Unlike the gorilla it was very
adaptable and could be found throughout the jungle. Over time simple
tool use, mostly the use of sticks and rocks for protection and the
gather of food, developed in the species. It remained, however, a
strict vegetarian and this may have played a part in its lack of
development of fire, more advanced tools, and other signs of
civilization common to humanity.

The social structure of the Esau, however, parallels greatly that of
humanity. Male dominance and a basic unit that resembles in size the
tribe is the basic pattern. The Esau is not very aggressive save for
defending their own territory, there is little warfare between the
tribes save for the occasional conflict. Most conflict is inside the
tribe and occurs due to the conflict over mates and leadership in the
tribe. Young males are often thrown out of the tribe, some are however
able to successfully challenger the dominate male. Throughout the area
of the Esau there are multiple all male bands that are formed for
protection by the young that are cast out of the tribe.

The Esau did, however, develop a wide range of knowledge of the
jungle ecosystem. In the West African forest the kola nut is highly
prized and is used as a stimulant by the Esau, and in many communities
the Esau have taken to basic agriculture in their quest for the nut.
But the kola nut is not along in the list of plants used by the Esau.
Many plants that have mild toxins or other chemicals are used for their
antibacterial properties, especially for parasitic infections that
frequently plague the Esau. Their hide, a dark red usually, is often
covered by green algae similar to that found on the tree sloth. Not
only does it not harm the Esau, but also it provides valuable
camouflage. Overall the Esau does not have the technological tools of
humanity but instead biological tools taken from nature.

It is difficult to say if the Esau has a religion, up to humanity’s
standards at least. In ways similar to early humans they do burry their
dead and often with flowers and other plants. They do have a language
although it is difficult for humans to approximate any of the sounds
made by them. And although there appears to be no clear shaman role in
the family unit, there is a wide spread use of hallucinogenic plants
that often produce states that human shaman use in connecting to the
spirit world.

[FN1] The name Esau for this species comes from twin-brother of Jacob in
the Bible. It was selected to highlight the close relationship between
this species of Paranthropus and Homo sapiens. The hairy skin of Esau
parallels the equally, if not more, hairy skin of the species and so the
name was decided as a fitting one, despite the implausibility of Judaism
arising in this history.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

*******

Concerning the !Ku [FN1]

It is an interesting coincident that perhaps the purest
representation of our original human ancestors survives in the continent
of our original evolution and lives alongside, in a geographical sense,
a remnant of earlier and parallel hominid evolution. The people of
Sub-Saharan Africa inhabiting the grasslands that stretch from the
Namib-Kalahari in the south to the foothills of southern Ethiopia live
very much like the earliest humans did, speaking a common language that
includes odd clicks unknown in the rest of the world, and sharing a
culture that is both simplistic and complex. To the north and west is
the great jungle of Central Africa, home to the Esau who resemble man
more so than any other species.

Humans would never be able to compete one on one with the other
predators of the grasslands; we do not have size on our side nor are we
armed with sharp teeth or claws. But our social nature allows us to
hunt in packs, our arms are free to be used for throwing objects and
eventually the use of tools, and the bi-pedal structure of our body
allows us to give off more heat and hunt during the mid-day, a time when
most other predators are escaping to the shade. Add in our intelligence
and we are a very effective hunter on the African battlefield.

The lifestyle of these hunter-gatherers is marked by a division of
labor between the sexes. Almost 80% of the diet of the !Ku comes from
plants and other foods gathered by the females, while only 20% of the
diet is made up of meat that is brought in by the male hunters. Despite
this meat is the most desired of the foods, and although men bring back
nothing after hunting most days the act of hunting is considered
important as a status symbol. Only after a boy makes his first kill of
a large animal does his father perform the rite of the first kill, which
marks his passage from adolescence to manhood and allows for him to
marry.

Across the !Ku cultural spectrum there is a correlation between the
amount of time spent hunting and the degree of extramarital affairs. In
some tribes the men spend only a small amount of time hunting, often
hunting through the use of minor traps and snares to bring back a steady
amount of smaller animals with a minimum amount of time spent. Other
tribes have the men spend great amounts of time hunting larger prey,
most of the time coming back without anything but every now and then
bringing back a large animal with an abundance of meat. Linked to this
is that in the tribes with only a small amount of time hunting there are
few extramarital affairs, while in the tribes where hunting takes most
of the time of the males those successful hunters enjoy a large amount
of extramarital affairs.

At first glance the hunter-gatherer cultures seem to ignore the laws
of economics, playing by a rule of limited wants and unlimited means.
The minimum of food and other necessities can be produced with only a
small amount of work, most members of the tribe need only to work for
about six hours a day to support herself or himself and dependents.
However with this lifestyle comes a requirement for periodic movement
and therefore a need for mobility. There is an overabundance of natural
resources in the area of the !Ku that would provide for great amounts of
material wealth, but the prerequisites of mobility means that the wants
of the !Ku are limited. A sign of wealth is not to have a great amount
of material objects for that would hinder mobility, in fact that would
be a threat to one’s survival. Instead mobility has become its own sort
of goal that is superior to wealth and property.

The importance of mobility spreads in a dark way to population
control. Infanticide and senilicide are well known to the !Ku as a
normal part of life. These devices are due to an inability not to feed
them, but an inability to carry them. The people eliminated are those
who cannot transport themselves and would hinder the movement of the
tribe. Mobility keeps a cap not only on material possessions but also
the population. This not only aids the tribes in mobility but also
indirectly means that it is difficult for the tribes to grow too large
and overwhelm the natural resources available to them in an area. There
is a natural balance maintained in the !Ku, even if by ways that seem
cruel to the reader.

Although sleeping makes up the bulk of the leisure time of the !Ku
there are other activities that vary from tribe to tribe. In some
tribes men spend a large amount of time gambling with each other, while
in others dancing is a common activity. Production of material items is
not a common activity other than to replace broken weapons and other
needed items. Cultural activities like dancing, singing, story telling,
and even rock painting are deemed more important. Without writing
memory is very important to the !Ku, observers would note that there is
a wealth of cultural inheritance in each tribe dating back for unknown
years.

One universal, or nearly universal, trait in all of the tribes is a
form of ritualistic warfare that appears to be followed by all tribes as
if some type of set of rules governed their behavior. Each tribe lives
in what amounts to a state of constant readiness for war with other
tribes. Most of the time if a tribe does not bother another they return
the favor and avoid fighting each other. But many of the !Ku also
attempt to be unpredictable and will launch raids against other tribes
for not other reason than to make sure that the other tribes do not
believe that they have grown soft. And in return tribes are expected to
retaliate with raids of their own. This ritualistic style of constant
war serves to maintain relationships with other tribes, as it is
customary to have a reconciliation celebration after the other tribe has
retaliated and often arrange for marriages between the two tribes.

Aside from the cultural differences from tribe to tribe involving
extramarital affairs, the importance of hunting, and how people spend
their leisure time, there is one other key factor that changes from
tribe to tribe. There is a gap between two major categories of the
tribes, those with immediate-return systems that obtain a direct and
immediate return from their labor and delayed-return systems that are
characterized by a larger amount of material wealth such as boats, nets,
food storage devices, and wild herds and plants that shown early signs
of selective breeding. Still hunter-gatherers, the delayed-return
systems show signs of the development of agriculture and pastoralism.

Most of the delayed-return systems are found outside of the !Ku
cultural sphere, but along the coast in areas of rich fishing
communities there are some signs of increased hierarchy, establishment
of property, and signs of early agriculture in !Ku tribes. Extramarital
affairs are more likely to be based on which males have an abundance of
the tangible material assets such as nets or food storage devices, and
hierarchy and an uneven distribution of power are more pronounced. Most
of these tribes however retain enough of their hunter-gatherer
background to be classified as members of that group instead of being
pastoral or agricultural. [FN2]

[FN1] The word !Ku is taken from the etymology of the Khoisan languages
from Merritt Ruhlen’s “On the Origin of Languages.†It, or words like
it, means Man in many of the Khoisan languages, including /Kham, !Kung,
!’O-!Kung and Tati. In this alternate world !Ku is used to signify the
various hunter-gatherer cultures of Sub-Saharan Africa that share a
similar lifestyle, culture, and language. This is an indication that
the !Ku are based on the Khosian of our history because they live in the
same area and it is therefore plausible that their lifestyle will be
similar, but that the !Ku are not the exact same as the Khosian because
of the POD being long before human evolution.

[FN2] For most of their history the !Ku have been unchanging in their
lifestyle, the above description would be true for most of the period of
history from the spread of humans out of Africa to the rise of
civilizations outside of the !Ku. Because of this the dating of the
above is any time period up to the point where outside factors, such as
the Bantu expansion of our history, change the !Ku lifestyle or change
the pattern of settlement in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Part Twenty Two and Twenty Three: Migration and European Fauna

Out of Africa

While the exact dates dividing the Paleolithic period fluctuates
based on the newest discovery, the emergence in Africa of Homo sapiens
was an event of great importance and is a floating event to date the
start of the Upper Paleolithic. Around 100,000 years ago the first
modern humans began to move out of Africa into the Near East and this
area became a staging ground for further expansion across the globe.
This migration was very small in scale, perhaps no more than 2,000 at
the beginning, but over the years this initial migration would become an
ever-growing wave of humanity across the Eurasia continent.

It does not appear that these explorers of the human race were
equipped any more than the hunter-gatherers that remained in Africa. In
terms of lifestyle it is a sound assumption to say that they were
similar to the !Ku and that early in the history of humanity most
members lived in a society similar to this Sub-Saharan group. Without
any approximation of rudimentary rafts, and the Straits of Gibraltar
being a deep channel without any land bridge in human history, the
migration into the Near East across Sinai was the only possible land
route out of Africa.

From the Near East the human explorers of our history slowly spread
into Europe, where the Neanderthals appear to have been successful in
delaying the full settlement of Europe until 50,000 years ago. There is
still controversy of if Homo sapiens and Homo erectus ever overlapped in
Asia, but it does seem secure that Homo neanderthalensis occupied Europe
at the same time Homo sapiens was spreading into Europe. Without the
Ice Ages of this history it is plausible that Homo neanderthalensis
never evolves, and it seems that there is a strong possibility that Homo
erectus died out in Asia before the spread of Homo sapiens. With these
two observations in mind it does not come as a surprise that Homo
sapiens in this alternate history did not encounter any resistance while
moving into Europe. The settlement of Europe by hunter-gatherers occurs
almost 50,000 years earlier than our history.

North Africa is home to a hardwood forest stretching from Morocco to
the Sinai Peninsula, which in turn spreads into the Mediterranean Coast
of Asia and onward to India with only slight interruptions of savanna in
Iran and western Pakistan. This savanna is similar to the Saharan in
being home to several patches of hardwood forest and few areas of actual
desert. In Europe the hardwood forest spreads along the southern coast,
stretching far into the interior to Scotland and Scandinavia. With such
geography similar to that of the Homo sapiens in Africa the expansion
moved quickly into this new land.

In our history the migration along the Arabian, Persian, and
Pakistani coasts into the areas south of the great mountain ranges of
Central Asia and finally into Southeast Asia also resulted in the
settlement of Australia. With changes in the location of islands and
Australia in particular the humans of this world are blocked from moving
into Australia and the Pacific in general until more recently as
outlined in other posts.

Geography not only moves to block human expansion in the Pacific,
but also in the great expanse of land across Northern Asia. Although
the tundra has been turned into taiga, and increased rainfall has
connected the Caspian Sea to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean, the
interior for the most part is dry and a change to the humans looking to
move into new areas from Southern Asia. Settlement of this land running
from the Ukraine to Mongolia occurred earlier than our history because
of it being more hospitable than our world, but hunting bands still did
not occur until 45,000 years ago on the taiga as bands from across
Southern Asia learn to adapt to the new climate. This group would also
later cross into Japan around 20,000 years ago.

A short summary of this human wave would begin with an original
movement out of Africa 100,000 years ago. From the Near East humanity
spread in divergent pathways into Europe and Southern Asia. The
settlement of Europe occurred almost 50,000 years earlier than our
settlement, while the wave in Southern Asia crashes into the Pacific
Ocean and was unable to settle Australia as early as our history.
Slowly these groups of humans adapted to the more hostile climate to
their north and hunting bands eventually spread across the taiga of
Northern Asia. Here the lack of a land bridge to America prevented
human settlement of the Americas, leaving it to the neolemurs.

Logan Ferree

********

The Wildlife of Europe

The fauna of the Europe of the WWE is almost unrecognizable, at
least to those not versed in paleontology of OTL. Absent are many of the
distinct animals of pre-industrial Europe; the wisenet or European
bison; the auroch; red deer (elk to those in North America); fallow
deer; ibexes. Present instead is a diverse fauna of animals more often
associated with other continents than generally with Europe, while
others are more like something out of OTL's myths and legends.

One of the most prevalent animals of the dense, often steamy,
European forests is the pig. Omnivorous members of this group are one of
the dominant species of the forests of Eurasia and Africa (though in the
latter continent face much competition from other organisms, such as the
forest rhinos, the giraffoids, and others). A species very similar to
OTL's wild boar is one of the larger animals of the deep virgin forests,
eating a varied diet of plant and animal materials. As in OTL the wild
boar is generally a solitary animal, occupying large territories that
may contain several lairs.

A larger one, the Tusked Ork, has filled the wisenet and auroch
niche, ranging in small herds throughout the continent. The Tusked Ork
is a particularly odd creature, in that the male's tusks or canines are
ridiculously elongated, so much so that it is almost impossible for the
male to open its mouth. These tremendous tusks, somewhat comparable to
elephant tusks, are quite effective to keep away rival Orks, as well as
predators, but make the males reliant on the females for food; the
female, not totally unlike as is the case with lions, are the ones to
secure the food for a herd. The male's harem then feed him,
regurgitating food into his mouth in order that he may eat. Only one
adult male is present in the herd at one time; immature males are sent
out in the woods to get their own harems, their tusks not growing until
the presence of female hormones are overwhelming.

Tapirs, in OTL confined to southern Asia and the tropical Americas,
are present in the more southerly and central regions of Europe, living
a lifestyle not unlike those found in our world. The Gallic Tapir is the
most common species, and is very similar in appearance to OTL's American
tapir. A longer necked species, the False Giraffe, exists to browse
higher vegetation on trees, an example of convergent evolution with the
giraffes of Africa and the _Macrachenia_ of South America. They are
particularly fond of bromeliads and epiphytes (non-parasitic plants
growing on tree branches high off of the forest floor, common in OTL's
tropical rain forests of the Americas).

Monkeys are a common part of the arboreal fauna, descendents of
_Mesopithecus_, which in this timeline did not go extinct with the
Pleistocene glaciations (which of course did not occur). Most are not
unlike monkeys you would in OTL's African forests, troops of creatures
that feed on a varied diet of fruits, leaves, and insects, supplemented
occasionally by eggs and small vertebrates.

One noticeably different primate is the Pixie, an aquatic one that
inhabits the forested and marshy shores of the Green Sea. They fulfill a
niche somewhere between that of sea otters, seals, and true monkeys,
ranging in small swimming troops throughout the sheltered, shallow
waters of the Green Sea. Excellent swimmers, they dive for fish,
mollusks, crustaceans, and anything else edible. As they haven't lost
the ability to climb, some troops spend time in the trees, usually on
small islands that lake any permanent primate population. Troops vary as
to where they raise their young; while all give birth on land, some
raise their young in the trees for safety, the male and female
alternating trips to the sea or the forest for food, while other groups
instead bring the young ones with them into the water, the swimming
troop keeping them safe from predators in the center of the raft. It is
not known if each troop is a "subculture," not unlike how in OTL some
Killer Whale pods feed exclusively on fish while other pods feed mainly
on seals, or this represents early speciation among the Pixies.

Another different primate is the Grendel, a langur descendent that
is adapted to feed on pine needles and other pine products. Found mainly
in the northern, misty coniferous forests of Scandinavia and northern
Siberia, they are enormous bipedal animals, with huge legst hat support
enormous bellies that contain their four stomachs, needed to digest
their food. Too large to climb trees, only the young - not unlike some
bear species - scamper up trees. Fulfilling the moose (or as elk as it
is called in OTL's Europe) niche, they are tough customers; while a
moose might be aggressive if cornered, the slow moving, towering
Grendels have powerful forearms, generally used to bring down branches,
that can smash any would-be predator. Generally solitary or found in
small family groups, the young spend several years with them.

In the vast swampy deltas of the Danube, as well those marshlands
bordering the Green Sea one can find the hippo-like teleoceratine rhinos
known as Growlers. Their horns are small, and though the mouths are
smaller, in general appearance and habits they are similar to the hippos
of Africa (of both OTL and this ATL).

Elephants are present in the WWE Europe, similar to the
straight-tusked elephants of OTL's Europe. Like them they range as
family groups through the forests in very large territories.

Forest dwelling three-toed horses, related to the _Hipparion_ of
OTL, abound in the dense deep forests of Europe, from the north to the
south. They haven't adapted to live a life off of grass and are still
confined to the forests, though they are quite common, with several
species adapted to live throughout the continent.

The many islands of the Green Sea, particularly on its western
extremes, have produced some odd animals. The Giant Pochard is descended
from ducks, and indeed is essentially a duck. Five or six times the size
of any duck in OTL, it is essentially flightless, the young able to fly
for short distances to avoid predators but as the birds increase in size
relying on their large size and ability to stay in the water to avoid at
least most land predators. They roam in large flocks, sometimes several
thousand or more strong, throughout the Green Sea, not unlike herds of
bison in OTL's North American plains, grazing huge rafts of floating
vegetation or the land plants on the coasts of many islands, then moving
on. Largely marine, they can move slowly and with great purpose on solid
land. It is not known how far the Giant Pochard flocks drift; they have
been seen as far north as Scotland and as far south as Spain, and have
been known to range well into the Baltic Sea. It is rumored that one
species or subspecies even lives in the central Atlantic, feeding on
sargassum, but this rumor has not been proven. If true it would raise
questions as to where the birds rear their young.

Following the great flocks, not unlike the Giant Pochard, is the
Bloodgrebe, a descendent of the Great Crested Grebe (_Podiceps
cristatus_) of OTL. Completely confined to water, these diving birds
with lobed feet have adapted a highly predatory lifestyle, preying upon
weak, sick, injured, or young Giant Pochards. Their sharp bills and
ability to work in groups (and attack from beneath a herd like a U-boat
attacking a merchant convoy from OTL) have served them well.
Bloodgrebes aren't the only followers of the Giant Pochard; known
predators include whales of various species, sharks, and occasionally
eagles. On land wolves, foxes, and bears have been known to take them
and their young.

A less malicious follower of the Giant Pochard is the Duck Grebe, a
seemingly odd and useless name. A very small grebe the size of some of
the smaller grebes of OTL (such North America's Pied-billed Grebe), they
thrive by following the great floating
flocks, eating those invertebrates and fish disturbed by the Giant
Pochards and it is thought feeding on parasites that plague the great
birds. It is rumored that they even sleep or even nest on the Giant
Pochards, but this is unsubstantiated.

The island of Nantes has produced an unusual amphibian, the
Basilisk. Related to the Fire and Alpine Salamanders of OTL, both of
genus _Salamandra_, which have poison-glands under their skin, the
Basilisk is a deadly predator. OTL's salamanders use their poison
(coupled with bright coloration) to keep predators at bay; the Basilisk,
which is protectively colored, uses a toxin to hunt food. Immune to its
own poisons, it can secrete enough toxins to bring down prey items many
times it size. Though to have evolved on the island in lieu of any
poisonous snakes, it has a major prescence on the island.

Some might think Europe was the land of slugs, so common are they in
the branches of its many trees. Tree slugs feed on a rich variety of
epiphytes, bromeliads, funguses, leaves, pollen, and other substances,
dozens of species specializing on certain substances; there is even one
that specializes on monkey dung. Some are fantastically poisonous and
thus extremely brightly colored or even bioluminescent, thanks to
light-producing bacteria in their skin, to warn off potential predators.
Others are large and rare but primarily predatory on the other tree
slugs that thrive in the moist forests. Still others have symbiotic
relationships with tree-dwelling ant species, secreting edible
substances to feed the ants, the ants in turn keeping the slugs safe and
sound from all predators.

There are indeed predators on the tree slugs. Several gecko species
have specialized in hunting the tree slugs, some species being immune to
some of the tree slug's venom. As a still larger gecko often hunts these
geckos - this species known as the Sylvan Dragon - some of the smaller
geckos have adopted the coloration of the more poisonous tree slugs and
even mimicking their body shape, complete with false antennae, in hopes
of fooling the Sylvan Dragon.

Another tree slug predator is the Slug Owl; like the Snail Kite of
OTL's Everglades, this bird has specialized in hunting tree slugs
exclusively for its diet. Not a tremendously great flier, it spends time
more like a woodpecker or the European wall creeper, creeping and racing
up and down branches and tree trunks, even feeding and resting upside
down at times.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

Part Twenty Four and Twenty Five: More European Wildife/ Iceland

More Wildlife of Europe

No one work can properly define the fauna of a region, particularly
one as diverse as that of Europe of the Warmer, Wetter Earth. Here I
detail some of the other interesting, if sometimes rarely seen, life
forms of that continent and its associated islands.

One of the major groups of primates from the early Tertiary of our
world were the plesiadapiforms, an archaic group of primates that some
researchers have in the past not even considered primates at all or at
best more comparable to the more distantly related (to most primates
anyway) tree shrews. Once a diverse group of animals that filled a
variety of niches - mainly arboreal - including those today held by
several insectivores, more derived primates, squirrels (including flying
squirrels), and the colugo of southern Asia. Indeed as many of the
plesiadapiforms are noted for enlarged incisors that are superficially
similar to those of modern rodents, the casual observer may very well
mistake many species of this group for rodents.

In OTL the plesiadapiform primates, once a major group in the
Paleocene and Eocene rain forests, perished towards the end of the
Eocene with the worldwide climatic change that is our POD. Though facing
increased competition - mainly in North America -by the rodents (with
true squirrels arising at the close of the Eocene about 36 million years
ago in North America), it would seem that given the prolonging of the
tropical conditions of the Eocene this group would survive. Indeed
it has thrived. Reaching its greatest diversity in North America
(detailed in an upcoming post on that continent's fauna), a number of
organisms derived from the original plesiadapiform primates haunt the
dense leafy forests of steamy Europe. One group has filled the squirrel
niche, looking a great deal like them, while others have filled the
flying squirrel/colugo niche, gliding from branch to branch high in the
forest canopy. Still others have adapted to a life on the ground not
unlike that of marmots or ground squirrels, though increased competition
from true rodents from Africa are pushing these creatures into more
isolated regions and smaller population sizes. Others are more similar
to modern tarsiers; large-eyed, agile nocturnal creatures, some feeding
on insects, others on fruits or tree slugs.

One specialized group of plesiadapiform primates, the picrodontids
are specialized nectar feeders. An extremely specialized group in fact,
in a manner not unlike the hummingbirds of OTL's neotropical regions
some species have adapted to feed on the nectar of certain flowers, with
the flower evolving in tandem with them. Some species have elongated
heads or longer arms to feed on particularly deep flowers, others
adopted to still other flower types. In fact some species even vaguely
look like the flowers they feed upon; bright colored, often with tufts
or long tendrils of hair that evoke flower petals, it is difficult to
imagine how such brightly colored little animals escape the attention of
predators, though as parrots and other tropical birds show with their
gaudy plumage, often brighter is better.

Another group that has done well is the sirenians. Unlike the
plesiadapiform primates, this group, sometimes called sea cows, in OTL
today they are represented by such animals as the manatee, dugong, and
the now extinct Steller's Sea cow, the latter a
giant herbivore (up to to 26 feet or 8 meters long) that lived in the
Arctic region of the Bering Strait before being hunted to extinction in
1741 (a mere 27 years after their discovery by western man). Sea cows or
sirenians are tropical animals (with the exception of Steller's Sea Cow)
that eat sea grasses and floating vegetation in rivers, estuaries, and
sheltered gulfs and bays. They are sluggish and highly vulnerable
creatures, first having appeared in OTL in the Eocene, most likely in
the now vanished Tethys Sea (the Tethys Sea is an ancient body of water
that once separated Africa-Arabia from the rest of Asia).

In this ATL the Tethys Sea is still long gone, but more of the world
is tropical and very well suited to the Sirenian clan. A number of
species, some quite sizeable, range throughout the world and are known
from every continent except Australia-Antarctica. Several are similar to
modern species of OTL or even almost the same species (such as the West
Indian Manatee and the Amazonian Manatee), while others are a bit
different. The Green Sea Manatee of Europe is more of a bottom feeder
than other manatees, able to diver deeper and hold its breath longer
than other species. It is not known if it was forced into this niche by
the Giant Pochard (as researchers are unclear as to which arose first)
or that its ancestors simply exploited a niche that was unoccupied. The
Green Sea Manatee is larger in size than most other sea cows and is very
slow moving. So slow moving is it that the fecund Green Sea has
colonized it; these sea cows are often colonized by algae and seaweed as
well as a host of invertebrates. Upon mating the Green Sea Manatees have
been observed trimming their mates vegeation (they otherwise do not stay
together after mating), and to get rid of some of their passengers they
have been known to travel into freshwater (or vice versa), though many
of the lifeforms that colonize them are able to survive a range of
salinities.Though primarily bottom feeders the Green Sea Manatee does
feed upon surface and floating vegetation as well.

The Pontian Dugong, an inhabitant as the names suggests of the
Pontian Sea, is more distantly related to most Sirenians in that it is
slimmer and more seal like, able to move ashore for periods of time to
graze vegetation on land. More alert and active than most Sirenians,
early scientists misidentified them as seals, though no true Pinniped is
herbivorous. Whether the Pontian Dugong is fulfilling a vacant niche or
an example of the Sirenian responding to predatory pressure is unknown
at this time. It is found in astonishing numbers in the Pontian Sea and
out into the eastern Mediterranean, where it thrives in incredible
numbers off of the Nile Delta. During mating time virtually every
sandbar, mud spit, and barrier island that stays dry at high tide is
covered with these creatures.

The Pontian Dugong has long grown used to predator pressure from
crocodiles and the sleek open-water sharks that feed upon them,
particularly during their breeding season. One species of shark though
continues to do well against them, the Delta Shark. Not named for any
sleek swimming shape, it is instead named for its preferred haunts, the
Nile River delta. In an example of convergent evolution, the strange
Delta Shark resembles a larger, more lethal version of OTL's Ornate
Wobbegong (_Orectolobus ornatus_), an inshore and shallow water feeder
up to 9 feet (3 meters) in length that is found around Papua New Guinea
and Australia. Like the Ornate Wobbegong, the shark is very ornately
camouflaged, both in the pattern of its coloration as well as the shape
of its body. Similar as well to the Sargassum Fish of both timelines,
the shark’s fins trail long, almost filamentous tendrils, making the
shark look like a drifting patch of seaweed more than a deadly predator.
Not a fast mover, the shark prefers to lie in wait, ambush prey items,
or have them come to them, as many hapless Pontian Dugongs are apt to
do. Larger than the Ornate Wobbegong (to which it is distantly related),
the Delta Shark does present a threat to man if he ventures into his
domain.

One of the more unusual species of Europe and its associated
islands, particularly that of Western Europe and the Green Sea, is a
species of land hermit crab, the Nickercrab. While the hermit crabs of
our world either use shells for protection or like the Robber Crab or
Coconut Crab have evolved tougher shells, the Nickercrab has adapted for
its use some of the many floating seed cases and nuts found floating the
largely tropical waters of this world. Feeding upon the contents of
these sea-dispersed floating shells, the Nickercrabs use the seed cases
for protection afterwards. Many use these seed cases to forage along the
shore and sometimes fairly well inland in moist climates, even climbing
trees in search of nuts. Others use these seed cases, with which the
crabs light weight, enable them to float among the waves, dispersing to
new lands.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

*******

Iceland

Iceland is a case unique from the faunas of North America and that
of Europe, though it shares much biologically speaking with both
continents. A relatively young landmass, it first arose about 25 million
years ago and the oldest known rocks on the island have been dated to
about 16 million years ago. From what is known of our Iceland it appears
to have for a time had forests not unlike that of eastern North America,
with maples, birch, oaks, beech, magnolia, spruce, pine, and larch,
declining about 7 million years ago with a cooling climate, becoming
more grassland. During historic times Iceland has had more forest than
in our present; from about 5000 to 2500 years ago it was three-quarter
forested, largely with birch, willow, and sedges, and even as late as
850 years ago it was one-quarter covered in birch and willow. Today it
is only 1% forested.

Few fossils are known from our Iceland, most invertebrate, though
fossilized small deer have been found that date to about 3 to 3.5
million years ago. During historic times the only known native mammal
was the arctic fox, though seals and polar bears do occur as well. The
largest land fauna of Iceland are birds, many of which are really marine
life, as they are sea birds (such as puffins).

The Iceland of the Warmer, Wetter Earth is quite a bit different.
Heavily covered in forest, it teems with life, never having known
glaciers or glaciations. Virtually the entire island is forested, except
for a few rocky outcroppings on mountaintops. The forest is quite dense
in some areas, huge stands of towering oaks, elms, and maples
dominating. Unlike much of the forest of Europe and eastern North
America the forest is deciduous and seasonal, though winters are mild
and there are a number of evergreen trees (so the forests are never
completely bare of leaves).

The dominant large animals on the island descended from sea otters,
an Atlantic species that does not exist in OTL, the Atlantic Otter,
_Enhydra atlanticus_, an animal in this ATL found in the northern
Atlantic and well into Arctic Ocean waters (other researchers think it
descended from an ancestral relative of the modern Atlantic Otter). It
is not known why the marine otters colonized Iceland of the Warmer,
Wetter Earth, though some speculate that they were exploiting the crab
fauna of the island (more on that later). Three species of this group,
the Neolutrines (from the Latin word "lutra," meaning otter) are noted
on the island today. The Speckled Treerunner fills an arboreal niche not
unlike our marten or sable, not a hard adaptation for the original otter
colonizers, as both are members of the family Mustelidae. Looking very
similar to our martens (though with a speckled and spotted pelt, not
unlike a leopard or a genet), the Speckled Treerunner goes after birds
and the various tree crabs. Largely solitary, the Speckled Treerunner
family is generalists, also known to feed upon pine seeds and fruit; it
is thought that they may in the future develop into different species as
various groups specialize on certain food sources.

The Selkies though have kept the sometimes-gregarious habits of
their ancestors, ranging in small packs throughout the interior in a
manner not unlike wolves. Not pure carnivores as are wolves, they are
noted scavengers, have been noted to eat fruits, nuts, and seeds, and
often visit the seashore or even wade into the surf some to get chief
morsels of seafood. However they are now terrestrial animals, not
marine, and have longer legs and more powerful leg muscles, able to move
with speed, agility, and stamina across rugged forested terrain.

However, also unlike wolves the Selkies have kept the dexterous
forepaws of their ancestors and are noted tool users of sorts. They have
been seen to sit on their haunches or even briefly stand on their hind
feet, using long sticks to knock down tree crabs or fruit, or use rocks
to bash open large crabs, and the young have often been seen playing
with pine cones and the like. Whether this represents any nascent
intelligence is unknown.

The largest carnivore is the Fenris Bear, though of course is not a
bear at all but a Neolutrine. With a body plan not unlike the original
Atlantic Otters, it does not have the longer legs and stride of the
Selikes, instead looking like a larger, squatter, more powerful version
of the original marine otters. Largely solitary, they amble through the
forest in powerful though somewhat clumsy strides, feeding on whatever
comes their way.

The otters do not have the lands to themselves, as not unlike our
New Zealand or to an extent our Madagascar large land birds exists as
well, many of them flightless. Relatives of the Giant Pochard from the
Green Sea have given rise to small herds of completely terrestrial land
birds, not unlike our _Diatryma_, walking through the forest in search
of choice vegetation. Actually several species exist, from those that
are pure browsers to dedicated grazers to smaller types that feed upon
nuts, seeds, or fungus. The largest are as much as 10 feet high (much of
that neck), while the smallest are chicken-sized.

The first Nickercrabs to arrive on the shores of WWE Iceland must
have found a land to their liking, for they have produced a huge family
of almost completely terrestrial crabs, only returning to the sea to
spread their eggs. A bewildering variety exist, from tiny brightly
colored ones that pollinate flowers to huge arboreal ones that feed upon
pinecones (and look like them too) to fleet footed forest floor dwellers
that are opportunist feeders. Some types live in the trees; covering
themselves with branches and pinecones, ambush predators on other crabs
or on the occasional unwary bird. Fossil finds indicate that before the
arrival of the birds and otters large and slow moving forms ranged
across the land feeding upon vegetation and others on each other.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

Part Twenty six and Twenty seven: Mesolithic Africa/ North American Geography

The Mesolithic Cultures of Africa

Although the !Ku can be found across Sub-Saharan Africa in a typical
hunter gatherer lifestyle, their brothers to the north in the Sahara
slowly developed a distinct lifestyle starting in the Mesolithic Age.
On the western end of the Sahara around the Chadian Sea a culture
developed that heralded in the Mesolithic Age for Africa, while at the
other end of the Sahara along the Nile in Nubia a group would herald in
the Neolithic Age in Africa with the advent of agriculture.

The Chadian Sea was an inviting area to many Paleolithic hunters in
Africa with its lush green banks inviting several herbivore species and
waterfowl. Over time the establishment of semi-permanent settlements
along its banks by hunters appears to have developed into one of the
great Mesolithic cultures. Evidence for ritualistic development of
ceramic technology dating back to 20,000 years ago shows a simple
mastery of pyrotechnology. It appears that animal and human figurines
were fire-hardened before the development of utilitarian pottery for
ceremonial purposes. Some even appear to have been made in such a way
to encourage them to explode when thrown into the fire, creating huge
bursts of steam and a loud popping noise. This ritual use of ceramics
is similar to the development of prehistoric uses of metal. Copper
appears to have been used 10,000 years ago as an ornamental object and
only 4,000 years ago do we see useful artifacts when looking at our
history.

Various tools used in fishing such as nets and traps are often made
out of materials not easily preserved for later research. But given
that the lifestyle of a hunter-gatherer contains much leisure time, and
this leisure time would be increased because of the fertile location of
the Chadian Sea, it is plausible that the Chadians of the Mesolithic
were constructing simple traps and nets in order to harvest possible
aquatic sources of food.

The domestication of the notohippidae is an event that, while
important for Saharan civilization, is clouded in mystery. Because the
domestication of the notohippidae sparked a large change in the
lifestyle of the members of the Saharan grasslands, shifting their
lifestyle away from being based on foraging to that of pastoral nomads,
some would propose that the domestication occurred in the Sahara by
hunters of the notohippidae that began to attempt to control them in
order to have a more secure source of food. However a study of the
linguistics of the Sahara shows a common language family that seems to
have the highest amount of diversity and probable origin around the
Chadian Sea. What seems probable is that the domestication occurred
around the Chadian Sea, perhaps around 11,000 years ago, and the masters
of the notohippidae spread across the Sahara displacing previous
hunter-gatherer inhabitants.

For the most part the notohippidae does not look like its closet
relative the rhino; instead it is a medium sized animal that has no horn
and long limbs. One from our history would perhaps confuse them with a
zebra or gazelle before guessing their common ancestry with the rhino.
Aside from the plains of the Sahara they are found in the Kalahari-Namib
grassland, where they are a recent arrival.

For the most part the Sahara is very hospitable to the pastoral
lifestyle brought on by the notohippidae. The Cyrenaica Peninsula is a
bit too dry for the notohippidae, while the tropical forest along the
Atlas Mountains is also unwelcoming. And to the south is the massive
rainforest of Central Africa, home to the Esau. Hunter-gatherers pushed
by the Chadians retreat into these areas.

Around 9,000 years ago we see a second Mesolithic culture form along
the banks of the Nile. The Khartoum Mesolithic culture appears to have
applied the ritualistic use of ceramics to the utilitarian technology
known as pottery, and we see this technology spread along the Nile.
Eventually, the spread of notohippidae across the Sahara arrives along
the Nile and we see an introduction of domesticated notohippidae into
the lifestyles of the Khartoum Mesolithic people.

It is easy to see how important the notohippidae are to the
lifestyle of the people across the Sahara. Artwork from the
domestication shows several portrayals of notohippidae, several words
for leader and warrior derive for the word for okapi, the ownership of
the herds becomes the first sign of accumulated wealth and foundation
for the establishment of hierarchy, and so forth and so on. But all of
this is overshadowed by millet; the tiny grass species first
domesticated along the Nile by the Khartoum people. The Neolithic Age
of Africa had begun.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

********

North American Geography

The higher sea levels have affected the world's coastlines and
islands a great deal on the Warmer, Wetter Earth but perhaps nowhere as
dramatically as in North America. While some parts, such as the western
side of the continent, are very similar in outline to OTL's present day
world, other parts, notably the east, are vastly different.

The Gulf of Mexico is noticeable on a map right away as a much
larger feature, and is referred to in this world as the Mexican Sea.
There is no Florida (or Florida Keys at least as we would recognize
them) or Yucatan Peninsula, the higher sea levels rendering these areas
shallow seabed instead. The Mexican Sea's western and southern shores
(except for the Yucatan Peninsula's submerged state) are largely the
same as in OTL. It is the northern shores that are different; eastern
Texas is submerged almost as far north as the Oklahoma border in OTL and
as far west as to where out Dallas is, as are southern portions of
Arkansas, all of Louisiana, central and southern Mississippi, the bottom
half of Alabama north to about Birmingham, and the southern half of
Georgia.

Much like the Gulf of Mexico, the Mexican Sea lacks islands. There
was once a small chain of islands running north to south in the northern
center of the Mexican Sea, formed by OTL's Crowley Ridge, called the
Crowley Archipelago in the relatively recent geologic past, but is now a
series of stranded bits of land of higher elevation than the Mississippi
Delta, engulfed by the steadily spreading Mississippi Delta. The
Mississippi Delta of this world is vast, more comparable to OTL's
Bangladesh than Louisiana, and covers most of eastern Arkansas, northern
Mississippi, western Tennessee (east to where you would expect to find
Nashville in our world) and a small corner of extreme southeastern
Missouri.

The eastern seaboard of what is the United States extends further
inland than in OTL, submerging parts of states or in some cases entire
states. As noted southern and southeastern Georgia are underwater. Also
beneath the sea are much of South Carolina, the eastern third of North
Carolina (including the famous Cape Hatteras), the eastern third of
Virginia, the eastern half of Maryland, Delaware in its entirety, most
of New Jersey, the eastern half of Massachusetts, and southern Maine. As
there was no glaciations or ice age in this world, the coast of Maine
(or points north) lacks the distinctive rocky character and particularly
the famous fjords.

The Appalachian Mountains (and associated ranges such as the Blue
Ridge Mountains and the Great Smokey Mountains) pretty much do not exist
in North America. Much higher rainfalls of this world since its Eocene
have eroded them to virtually nothing, at best producing rolling hills.
A similar though less pronounced effect had made the southern Rockies,
the Cascades, and the Sierra Nevada in what corresponds to the United
States lower in elevation. To an even less extent this holds true for
the mountains of Central America, though the difference between the
timelines is not a huge one.

A rain shadow was still produced by the rise in the Tertiary of the
Rockies, Cascades, and Sierra Nevada, but owing to overall wetter
conditions and the fact that the blocking mountains eroded faster for
the most part, the plains and deserts of the interior are less
pronounced. Some deserts do still exist though, the Mojave Desert, but
overall the Southwestern United and northern Mexico is a great deal less
arid. Strangely though our world's Death Valley is a lake and grassland
area in this world.

What corresponds to our Great Plains in climate and flora would be
the areas enclosed by the two Dakotas and southern Manitoba/ and
Saskatchewan; south of that one can find savanna rather than true
grassland, though mostly in Nebraska and Kansas. South of that in
Oklahoma and Texas one finds forest, first subtropical, then Amazonian.

What might be said to correspond to the Great Salt Lake in OTL (and
to an extent the rivers preserved in the Green River formation of the
Eocene 50 million years ago, namely Lake Gosiute, Lake Uinta, and Fossil
Lake) is a virtual inland sea, even larger than Lake Bonneville which in
our world existed between 32,000 and 14,000 years ago. This immense
freshwater sea covers most of western (and part of northern) Utah and
smaller portions of eastern Nevada, southern Idaho, northwestern
Colorado, and southwestern Wyoming. Covering many tens of thousands of
square miles in size, its greatest depths are over 1000 feet deep.
Several island groups can be found within the Bonneville Sea,
corresponding to the mountains of OTL's western Utah. The region around
the Bonneville is mainly grassland and savanna, more arid to the west.
There are scattered portions of some fairly moist forests, particularly
in the higher elevations to the east of the lake (among them of course
the original homelands of the ancestors of the modern Neolemurs).

As there were no vast advancing ice sheets of the Pleistocene of
this world, the Great Lakes for the most part did not form (as they were
formed by massive glaciers in OTL), though there is a large lake
corresponding to the deepest portion of our Lake Superior. Several North
America mountain ranges that are lower in OTL thanks to glaciers, such
as the Canadian Rockies, are higher in elevation. Indeed, Canada and the
northeastern United States is almost unrecognizable as there is no
Hudson Bay, no Hudson Valley, and no Hudson River. Cape Cod and Long
Island do not form, and since no glaciers reached the sea during the
Pleistocene, the Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland
coastlines are as smooth as Florida’s, completely lacking the fjords
that are famous in OTL.

Not only did New England never see the Ice Ages, but is warm
temperate in this ATL, more like the Carolinas, with some cool winters
on occasion but overall quite warm, hot in the summer. Further south
along the Mid Atlantic it becomes warmer, with subtropical forests in
Virginia, North Carolina, and Tennessee, stretching west. South of that
along the Gulf Coast, from Georgia through Alabama and Mississippi it is
Amazonian rainforest, south to southern South America. Unlike the true
Amazonian forest (to the south in both OTL and this ATL), the forests
along the northern and eastern shores of North America (up to about
Maryland) are largely pine, primarily fast growing species; the coast is
wracked by devastating hurricanes over half the year, many of which
would be classified as Category 5 owing to the far more tropical, humid,
and even conditions in the WWE's Caribbiean and Mexican Seas. Indeed the
native Neolemurs refer to the region as the Storm Lands, a hint as to
how much this devastating phenomenon has shaped local neolemur culture
there. Even across the Atlantic in the seafaring peoples of northwestern
Europe there is some small awareness of this region, of some "Mother of
Storms" that spans terrifying typhoons that roar up and down the
Atlantic as far north as Canada and Greenland.

As North America and Asia did move north in this timeline, cutting
circulation of Arctic Ocean waters with those of the Atlantic and
Pacific, the sea is a cold one, and is partially and intermittently
covered with pack ice. However, there is a very small permanent ice cap,
and the sea is not nearly as cold as in OTL. Greenland has some
glaciers, particularly in the northern reaches, but it is mostly tundra
with some taiga at its southern shores. In fact the only real tundra in
the northern hemisphere is in Greenland. The north coasts of North
America are taiga (also known as boreal forest). Hardwood forests
stretch north to central Alaska, the Yukon, and northern Quebec. The
south coast of Alaska is temperate, and is comparable to northern
California in OTL. Northern California and Oregon are more subtropical
rain forest in the WWE, warmer but with all the rain.

Looking to the south the Caribbean of the Warmer Wetter Earth is
different as well. What we would call Cuba exists but not as one
continuous island but rather a small archipelago. The islands of
Hispaniola and Jamaica are more recognizable; Puerto Rico is a great
deal smaller. For the most part all of the other islands of both the
Greater and Lesser Antilles (including the Bahamas) do not exist as
such, but there are a number of other islands that take their place,
some with a volcanic heritage, others owing their existence to coral
reefs. Indeed several atolls dot the Mexican Sea and the Caribbean Sea.
Owing to the mountains of the region, the Isthmus of Panama is still
above water, though it is narrower than in OTL and very rugged, mostly a
region of jungle-clad mountains. Coral reefs are found throughout North
America up to our Maryland. A Great Barrier Reef of sorts can found in
North American waters, stretching from the Greater Antilles then up the
Georgia coast up towards North Carolina.

TIM MARTIN
LOGAN FERREE

Well thats all the post for the first series in this Timeline. Logan Ferre and me are in the process of revivng this series, watch out for the next intallment it should be coming to you soon. Please feel free to disscuss and give any comments are welcome

very nice TL... its amazing how some of SHWI's finest are coming here with Faelin,you and Kaiser Wilhem III...

One complaint. The hominoid superfamily had not yet evolved by the time of the PoD. EVERY separation of breeding population and evolution into different families has ALWAYS resulted in separate families. No way would hominoids exist here, although I admit that a convergent evolution among the hominoid ancestors is likely. I think you should have called the species Parahomo sapiens, making it clear that they are "quasi-men".