Historically, the Nile River Valley, Mesopotamia, Mesoamerica, Ancient Peru, the Indus Valley, and the Yellow River Valley were the main "cradles of civilization" but what other areas could have become "cradles of civilization" and why? What would civilizations arising from said "cradles of civilization" look like? How would their culture develop?
Alternate "Cradles of Civilization"
- Thread starter Whiteshore
- Start date
there are regions that had the potential for that and are all very fertile
It depends on the initial starting conditions. Historically, agriculture emerged independently in several locations: the Fertile Crescent, the Indus valley, China, and Mesoamerica. The problem with choosing another area is it raises questions, like 'Are you proposing that the crops that enabled agriculture somehow appeared in other regions of the world?'
If yes, that's likely a geological PoD which may need to happen as far back as the last Ice Age. If no, then one wonders how those regions would work as a cradle of civilisation. For example, if I were to pick Morocco as a cradle of civilisation, there are a number of problems: it's far away from the Fertile Crescent (where wheat first evolved, which is a key requirement for agriculture), and is relatively isolated from other cultures by geography, which is a disadvantage because a high mix of different cultures helps the spread of new ideas. Although other cradles of civilisation had different crops (rice in China, maize in Mesoamerica, wheat and lentils in the Indus), I'm not sure there is any special kind of crop in any other part of the world that could form the basis of an agricultural civilisation.
Perhaps the Rhine could function as the basis of an early civilisation, although I'm not sure the weather is favourable enough to spur the development of an early culture, given it's so far north.
Part of the success of the Fertile Crescent is that the area is geographically important as the "bridge" between Africa and Eurasia, which has allowed it to retain a greater amount of biodiversity than either Europe or North Africa, where climate changes during the Ice Age led to repeated extinction events when ecosystems became squeezed against the waters of the Mediterranean Sea. The Saharan pump theory posits that this Middle Eastern land bridge was extremely important to the modern distribution of Old World flora and fauna, including the spread of humanity.
The area has borne the brunt of the tectonic divergence between the African and Arabian plates and the converging Arabian and Eurasian plates, which has made the region a very diverse zone of high snow-covered mountains.
The Fertile Crescent had many diverse climates, and major climatic changes encouraged the evolution of many "r" type annual plants, which produce more edible seeds than "K" type perennial plants. The region's dramatic variety in elevation gave rise to many species of edible plants for early experiments in cultivation. Most importantly, the Fertile Crescent was home to the eight Neolithic founder crops important in early agriculture (i.e., wild progenitors to emmer wheat, einkorn, barley, flax, chick pea, pea, lentil, bitter vetch), and four of the five most important species of domesticated animals—cows, goats, sheep, and pigs; the fifth species, the horse, lived nearby. The Fertile Crescent flora comprises a high percentage of plants that can self-pollinate, but may also be cross-pollinated. These plants, called "selfers", were one of the geographical advantages of the area because they did not depend on other plants for reproduction.
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Mississippi-Missouri-Ohio-Tennessee Rivers - This is OTL to some degree--see the Eastern Agricultural Complex, Cahokia, but it could've been a northern equivalent to the more complex civilisations of the Andes and Mesoamerica. It has perfect land, perfect resources, good river trade routes, and with some refinement, perfect crops for that land. They'd basically be a more complex version of the OTL Mississippians. They could be very powerful and influential indeed given the carrying capacity of the land--a mature civilisation here could be like an Amerindian China or India.
Pacific Northwest - A more complex version of the OTL cultures there. I'm thinking they'd be an independent development perhaps based on (more) intensive wapato cultivation (and other water plants), but also (more) intensive camas cultivation in the temperate areas. They'd have domesticated caribou and mountain goats (although moose might be interchangeable there). This culture would likely start somewhere in modern British Columbia and spread along the coast so would have a strong maritime tradition. Given time, they'd influence lands as far south as Baja California and as far west as Japan (perhaps even importing the wheel from there, plus crops like millet, buckwheat, and maybe even rice). They'd have influences from Mesoamerica and the Eastern Woodlands as well. They'd be a fantastic candidate for an Amerindian Bronze Age, since tin and copper appear in close proximity in Alaska, in addition to importing such metalworking from East Asia if possible. Maybe a good candidate for an Amerindian "Europe"--the topography makes it so independent states and local rulers can thrive, yet a strong ruler can conquer a lot of land using the Columbia and Fraser Rivers. Plus (alternative versions of) the Haida and Tlingit as "Vikings".
La Plata's problem seems to have been that it was influenced most by peoples with tropical agriculture, and also peoples who got that agriculture late. So the Charrua (who lived at the mouth of the La Plata basin) never adopted much agriculture, unlike the Guarani to the north of them. I did a thread about this a bit ago. Seems like a key problem was that agriculture in the area spread rather slowly, hence why that although many Southern Cone peoples had agriculture (like the Mapuche, the Diaguita, etc.), they got it late, and their populations never had (relatively) much time to work with it. This I find ironic since the potato was domesticated on Chiloe, well within the temperate zone, and quinoa is a very nutritious grain which has been successfully grown as far north as Alaska. Or sweet potatoes, which thrive in warm weather with mild winters, just like in much of Argentina. It seems like there was endless amounts of lost opportunity there which could have produced civilisations comparable to the Mississippians or pre-Inca Andeans all over the place. Argentina and Uruguay might have been almost as Mestizo as other parts of Latin America.
Now, these are all crops domesticated elsewhere, so this wouldn't count as an independent "cradle of civilisation", but the La Plata Basin and by extension, the entire Southern Cone, seems like an obvious place for a major civilisation to arise where it never did.
A Lowland New Guinea/Australian agricultural civilisation would be very, very cool, although agriculture there was mostly in the highlands. I think a major Australian civilisation would be the product of foreign "intervention", probably Papuan or even Austronesia. The Torres Strait Islanders would serve as nice conduits. With the basis in place combined with what already existed, you'd have some real domestication of various Australian plants and probably incorporation of Australia into that cultural region. Perhaps it would be so successful that the states of the area would be at the far end of the space trade, and thus introduced to the same cultural influences Indonesia had.
Pacific Northwest - A more complex version of the OTL cultures there. I'm thinking they'd be an independent development perhaps based on (more) intensive wapato cultivation (and other water plants), but also (more) intensive camas cultivation in the temperate areas. They'd have domesticated caribou and mountain goats (although moose might be interchangeable there). This culture would likely start somewhere in modern British Columbia and spread along the coast so would have a strong maritime tradition. Given time, they'd influence lands as far south as Baja California and as far west as Japan (perhaps even importing the wheel from there, plus crops like millet, buckwheat, and maybe even rice). They'd have influences from Mesoamerica and the Eastern Woodlands as well. They'd be a fantastic candidate for an Amerindian Bronze Age, since tin and copper appear in close proximity in Alaska, in addition to importing such metalworking from East Asia if possible. Maybe a good candidate for an Amerindian "Europe"--the topography makes it so independent states and local rulers can thrive, yet a strong ruler can conquer a lot of land using the Columbia and Fraser Rivers. Plus (alternative versions of) the Haida and Tlingit as "Vikings".
La Plata's problem seems to have been that it was influenced most by peoples with tropical agriculture, and also peoples who got that agriculture late. So the Charrua (who lived at the mouth of the La Plata basin) never adopted much agriculture, unlike the Guarani to the north of them. I did a thread about this a bit ago. Seems like a key problem was that agriculture in the area spread rather slowly, hence why that although many Southern Cone peoples had agriculture (like the Mapuche, the Diaguita, etc.), they got it late, and their populations never had (relatively) much time to work with it. This I find ironic since the potato was domesticated on Chiloe, well within the temperate zone, and quinoa is a very nutritious grain which has been successfully grown as far north as Alaska. Or sweet potatoes, which thrive in warm weather with mild winters, just like in much of Argentina. It seems like there was endless amounts of lost opportunity there which could have produced civilisations comparable to the Mississippians or pre-Inca Andeans all over the place. Argentina and Uruguay might have been almost as Mestizo as other parts of Latin America.
Now, these are all crops domesticated elsewhere, so this wouldn't count as an independent "cradle of civilisation", but the La Plata Basin and by extension, the entire Southern Cone, seems like an obvious place for a major civilisation to arise where it never did.
A Lowland New Guinea/Australian agricultural civilisation would be very, very cool, although agriculture there was mostly in the highlands. I think a major Australian civilisation would be the product of foreign "intervention", probably Papuan or even Austronesia. The Torres Strait Islanders would serve as nice conduits. With the basis in place combined with what already existed, you'd have some real domestication of various Australian plants and probably incorporation of Australia into that cultural region. Perhaps it would be so successful that the states of the area would be at the far end of the space trade, and thus introduced to the same cultural influences Indonesia had.
There was a small TL here where that region had domesticated the mesquite tree, which is pretty interesting since the mesquite is exceptionally hardy (it's a notorious invasive species), produces a nice wood (for fuel/charcoal), and also can make a lot of seeds (the food portion of the tree). But otherwise they're more peripheral, since they'd be very influenced by Mesoamerica. I doubt they'd ever be an independent development as much as they'd be a very successful culture in their own right.
FillyofDelphi
Banned
The Colorado region has no buffer to survive a drought, though. Dry-farming, low intensity crops took root (no pun intend) there for a reason; given the inconsistent rainfall and geography unsuited for large scale irrigation, they keep the burden of agriculture on your precious water supply at the cost of your total possible output. This will make it hard to get a critical mass of people to develop urban civilization without becoming victims of their own success and outrunning their ability to consitantly support those populations and produce a rolling series of collapses.
The Darling is too dry and irregular to serve as much more than a transport route. It even dries up entirely on occasions. Not to mention that when it floods, it can be so prodigious that areas are underwater for six months. Not the most promising of places to start building cities.
If nypa were an annual instead of a perennial, it could help solve that problem as it was an extremely drought-tolerant plant that could be irrigated with saltwater. Combined with the also-salt-tolerant tepary bean, you have the beginnings of a pretty decent package.
I would think the easiest way to get here would be a wild rice domestication event in the Great Lakes that spawns a civilization that moves south, eventually occupying the entirety of the Mississippi and St Lawrence basins and absorbs the EAC the same way that the millet package in China was absorbed by rice farmers. The resultant civilization would end up being China on whatever Barry Bonds was on, seeing how flat, interconnected by rivers and good for agriculture that area is.
An interesting theory (Curcumscription Theory by Robert Carneiro, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumscription_theory) states that developed civilities rise where there is a place rich of resources but territorially limited, with a hostile environment around. This should lead to major conflicts to control land and forced people to create an organization to administrate it: a proto-state. An organizated society means organizated culture, religion, traditions, institutions,... He made comparison between Perú, when Incas Civilty developed in the limited territory between Pacific Ocean and Ande Mountains, and Rio delle Amazzoni Basin, a territory richer then often arid Perú but where great extension allowed to tribes to live quietly in their villages for centuries. All other examples can work: Nile River Valley (Desert), Mesopotamia (Desert), Mesoamerica (Mountains and Desert), Ancient Peru (Mountains), Indus Valley (Mountains and Desert). So you have to find a rich place but territorially limited: I can see Rio Grande, Dakar River, Niger Valley, Tago River, two rivers of Aral Sea Basin, maybe some Siberian rivers as candidates for new civilities' home.
It's harsh land, but with mesquites, salt-tolerant crops as noted above, and domesticated mountain goats (or bighorn sheep, but mountain goats seem to have more suitable social structures for human domestication), it could be like Mesopotamia or West Africa. Complex civilisation can survive given these conditions.
The Zizania in the Great Lakes is a separate species than the Zizania in the South, but probably compatible. The Eastern Agricultural Complex had some nice plants which provide good nutrients. This is especially important since the Americas lacks in domesticatible animals--the best large animals, caribou and moose (especially nice for the marshy fields wild rice will grow in)--are vulnerable to diseases carried by deer. They'd probably need to domesticate said deer.
That very Wikipedia link lists some nice criticism--why isn't this the case with civilisations like the peoples of the Pacific Northwest (i.e. the Tlingit, who have a land of plenty in between the ocean and a massive mountain range--such geography is similar in other Pacific Northwest peoples) or the Southern Cone (southern Chile, nice land between the Andes and the Pacific)?
If the Eastern woodland natives managed to domesticate both moose and WTD, then North America could become the continent of cervids where they fulfill most of the same roles that bovines do in the Old World.
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I said that it's an interesting theory, as I found it so when I studied it at university, not the Bible. In some cases it works, in others not. Maybe we could say that, if not Carneiro-type places developed an organized civilty, all organized civilities developed in a Carneiro-type places?