Again Seapole, from Thande's base map version of Chris Wayan's world.
This is beginning to sound like an overproduced movie...
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The harsh, striking deserts of Indochina created the first farmers of Seapole. With the population increasing, hunter gatherers began to more intensively manage plants and animals for food. By -2000, true agriculture had begun to be practiced in the valleys of the Mekong, the Irrawady, and the Chao Praya rivers. Here early farmers cultivated
tsemet, an early grain like (biology is... different) plant;
lun, a starchy tuber; and a large variety of other plants. Beyond Otter-Dogs, a small chicken like animal was domesticated, a waterfowl (sort of, it's a monotreme), and most importantly a very large grazing bird capable of plowing.
Why Indochina first? Areas with fertile valleys in a desert seem like prime areas for the invention of agriculture (Mesopotamia, the Andes coast, Yellow River etc.); and Indochina in Seapole was not only that, but also at a confluence of diverse ecological reasons, from the altiplan of Tibet, to the forested mountains of the Himalayas.
A similar series of events transpires across the world, in the desert valley of the Mackenzie in Gringolia. Here, experiments with agriculture domesticated a small marsupial cat like animal, and a hoofed ungulate of the Yukon plain.
Ndispe, best described as a purplish wheat grown in water, became the major crop, allong with a millet like plant. a It was not long before the agricultural techniques pioneered there began to spread, northward along the vast island chains of Gringolia's west coast, and eventually to Greenland, Iceland, and Eastern Europe (Scandinavia, Britain); and southwards across the great veldt of the Rockies and to the south coast of Gringolia, eventually reaching Kamchatka as well. Thousands of years passed to fully make the transition to the different climates availible in these areas, particularly the Northern Jungles where a large series of new crops were developed. Along the vast Mississippi and laurentian rivers, northern agriculture also spread, creating small villages throughout Gringolia.
The Rainforest's of Seapole gained crops through Gringolia (and not say, Asia or Africa) because of the geography of the world. Only in Gringolia did the large maritime jungles existed, so important for the devlopment of dense peoples in our world. Compare the interior of the Congo to Indonesia, or (if you believe in the recent research) the villages around the shores of the Amazon. In Asia, India faded somewhat into jungle, bu the bulk of the mountainous Persia and Anatolia prevented the full crossover.
Indochinese crops adapted to temperate climes, spreading southwards into Indonesia , and eventually to China and Roo by the year 3000. In the north, in the high mountains of Anatolia, which rose above the jungles of Europe and the plains of Arabia, agriculture developed (like in OTL's Ethiopia and New Guinea). The Alps may have invented agriculture independently, or been inspired by Anatolia, it's unclear. Either way, very soon in the future the littoral regions of Europe will be farmed by Gringolian spread technologies, while high above Alpine farmers will live in their own seperate world, unreachable by the littoral peoples. spices and Chocolate will come from here (as well as Greenland), and it will not be long before the great voyages set sail from China to find the mythical islands of *cinnamon and *pepper: Great Britain.
Again, we journey northwards across the vast inland sea, to the rift valley of Africa where * humanity has once again invented agriculture. Spreading out from their mountain base, farmers also penetrated deep along the valleys of the three Niles (this is Seapole) and towards the Mediterranean coast of Mozambique. On the opposite side of the world, in Amazonia, the many rivers of the Upper Basin have created another civilization, which slowly spreads it's technologies deep into the Andes and along the great Southern Coast.
Pastoralism is new on Seapole, there's less great savannas then on our world. There are two major creatures that have been domesticated and are now ridden across the high plains, both ungulates: a larger, shaggier one with horns (let's call them Elkwos, from a portmanteau of Elk and the proto-Indo-European root for horse) in Afirca and Arabia; and a creature much more like OTL's horse (we'll just call them *horses), although the enormous prehensile tongue and three cloved hoof would be rather obvious, in Mongolia. The Asian pastoralists are older, but Africa will soon have the larger herds, with hoofs stomping from Uganda to beyond lake Chad. Generally though, there's less grazing land then our world.
In total then, Seapolians (Seapolites? Seapolitians? Which one seems best to you all?) have invented agriculture 5 (6?) times, a bit less then our world. But unlike in our world, they're not quite finished. The great vastness of Ornithia has yet to be settled (Patagonia to Ross is longer then you might think), and it beckons to the brave of Amazonia...
Thanks.
