Advanced Australian Aboriginal Ran States?

[X_X]

Could it ever be possible that the Australian Aboriginals could develop and run advanced governments, akin to those developed in Precolumbian America? Or is Australia simply too resource-poor for such a feat? It's a huge island, with an incredibly diverse set of ecosystems, and a lot of it is arable away from the deserts, so I see no reason why this couldn't have occurred under the right circumstances.

Which parts of Australia would've been the most likely to see civilization arise? The Southeast around the Murray–Darling basin seems the most likely, though I'd be curious if you think more remote areas could ever house such places?

And yes, I have seen the genius, excellent book "Lands of Red and Gold" by @Jared based on this premise.

 

[Mitchell Hundred]

An Aztec, Maya or Inca level civilization in Australia would have been something.

 

[Plateosaurus]

Land of Red and Gold is your friend for this AHC.

 

[SunKing105]

Land of Red and Gold is your friend for this AHC.

Just because one potential version/path for this POD to go down has been excellently dealt with in the last detail, that doesn't mean that we have to restrict the discussion to one persons' specific ideas, and keep pinpointing to a TL instead of continuing to engage in this topic in a constructive manner.

 

[Gabingston]

Australia has a lot working against it when it comes to civilizations. The only food source that has been domesticated in Australia as far as I know are macademia nuts, which pales in comparison to the numerous crops domesticated in the old and new worlds. Australia, as with the new world (sans The Andes) lack any sort of domesticable livestock, which was the main reason that both the Aboriginals and Amerindians neither had immunity to old world diseases nor had diseases of their own to send back to the old world (the exception being syphilis). Another reason Australia was never able to develop an indigenous civilization is just how dang isolated it is. The most habitable parts of Australia in the Southeast are thousands of miles away from the nearest civilization in Southeast Asia, and even though the Macassans in Sulawesi did trade with the Aboriginals in the Northern Territory, it was never extensive enough for a civilization to develop in the Top End. If Australia had better luck, I think it could've developed, but that just wasn't the case.

 

[X_X]

Australia, as with the new world (sans The Andes) lack any sort of domesticable livestock,

I've always liked the idea of Australia's extinct megafauna becoming domesticated. Extremely unlikely if not impossible, but who can't admit that the idea of using giant wombats as horses isn't awesome?

Australian megafauna - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[X_X]

Domesticated megalania? No thanks. Australia is deadly enough without us having our own Komodo Dragon.

But think of the omletes!

 

[Count of Crisco]

But think of the omletes!

Won't someone think of the omletes!!

On the serious side of things many civilizations developed around rivers which frequently flooded. The annual floods filling fields with good minerals for the years harvest.

Does Australia have any rivers suitable for such a culture to develop? It's not the only way of course. But it's fairly common.

 

[ramones1986]

Alongside the well-known "Lands of Red and Gold", how about involving the proto-Papuans migrating and settling OTL tropical Queensland, adjusting their agricultural package as they intermixed with indigenous Australian tribe/clans who were living there.

 

[Arkenfolm]

LORAG is nice, but the northern parts of Australia never get a lot of discussion even though it's literally right next door to New Guinea where agriculture has been occurring for about 9,000 years. Even if New Guinea's terrain is very rough and varied, it did eventually spread to the coast and spread further south isn't implausible, especially since there was plenty of contact between Australia and New Guinea as mediated by the Torres Strait Islanders.

Maybe the Austronesians could be involved as well.

 

[Mort the Reaper]

What do you think of this idea suggested in a different thread?

Lands of Rice and Gold-a tropical spin on "Lands of Red and Gold" where Australian rice is domesticated in OTL's coastal Queensland, at a similar antiquity to LoRaG but with the civilization's location resulting in the indigenous Australian civilizations becoming more maritime-focused and reaching contact with (proto?)Polynesians and Asia earlier.

 

[twovultures]

LORAG is nice, but the northern parts of Australia never get a lot of discussion even though it's literally right next door to New Guinea where agriculture has been occurring for about 9,000 years. Even if New Guinea's terrain is very rough and varied, it did eventually spread to the coast and spread further south isn't implausible, especially since there was plenty of contact between Australia and New Guinea as mediated by the Torres Strait Islanders.

Maybe the Austronesians could be involved as well.

An *Austronesian/New Guinean crop package could do well along the east coast. Looking at where bananas are grown IOTL, I'd say that the package could support an urban civilization from Cape York as far south as Coff's Harbor in New South Wales. If it somehow acquired sweet potatoes, this culture could expand even further south but I imagine that setting up the requisite trade links with New Zealand or Central Polynesia could be difficult. In the little timeline I did toying with the idea I had the Aboriginal agriculturalists also move inland into the Darling Downs region where they used irrigation to maintain their agriculture, but TBH I don't know if the crop package could take the climate west of the Great Dividing Range. Given lack of fertility and unpredictable flooding along the Darling River, I figure that moving any further inland would be impossible for this crop package.

While most of the land around the Gulf of Carpentaria doesn't seem to support any sort of agriculture, the Top End has had banana farms in patchwork from Elcho Island to as far west as Kununurra (though as my links show, agriculture in that region is particularly challenging due to cyclones, so I don't know if it could support a Maya-like civilization there).

 

[Arkenfolm]

What do you think of this idea suggested in a different thread?

It could work and is certainly interesting, although I'm not sure you'd get a maritime civilisation out of it. The Torres Strait Islanders (or a group south of them on Cape York Peninsula) seem to be a more likely candidate for a maritime civilisation because of potential Austronesian influence. All of the Australian wild rice species seem to be one of those crops where if domesticated will have huge repercussions globally. They're all drought tolerant species that grow on fairly poor soil and are relatively tolerant toward salinity. Imagine the effects that would have in the Middle East, the Sahel, the Southwestern US, etc. Obviously modern day plant scientists are interested given the continuing research into these species.

My guess is you'd probably have groups relying on a mix of emu pastoralism and cultivating what wild rice they could with the little rain they get all over the Australian outback. The southern parts of Australia remain exclusively emu pastoralists (due to potential issues with cold tolerance) although they might end up farming as well assuming any local plants get domesticated or just as likely, contact with the Maori leads to a mixed society that farms sweet potato using the same methods practiced in the cooler parts of New Zealand. There'd definitely be raising of pigs/hunting of wild pigs. Sweet potatoes should grow in any part of Australia that is well-watered (aside from most of Tasmania), even if you don't get the best harvest in the cooler parts. The dominant civilisation would be located on the Queensland coast, exporting gold and local spices (which presumably join the list of exotic spices of the Indies TTL). Top End and Kimberley would host a clearly related civilisation, but likely resemble an extremely "Australianised" Austronesian society akin to those of Timor or Sumba Island--they would export sandalwood.

An *Austronesian/New Guinean crop package could do well along the east coast. Looking at where bananas are grown IOTL, I'd say that the package could support an urban civilization from Cape York as far south as Coff's Harbor in New South Wales. If it somehow acquired sweet potatoes, this culture could expand even further south but I imagine that setting up the requisite trade links with New Zealand or Central Polynesia could be difficult. In the little timeline I did toying with the idea I had the Aboriginal agriculturalists also move inland into the Darling Downs region where they used irrigation to maintain their agriculture, but TBH I don't know if the crop package could take the climate west of the Great Dividing Range. Given lack of fertility and unpredictable flooding along the Darling River, I figure that moving any further inland would be impossible for this crop package.

I think the challenge is setting up a Torres Strait Islander POD where they're even more maritime-oriented and truly facilitate (more) contact between Australia and New Guinea. If this happens, you might get enough contact with New Zealand to introduce sweet potato. I think they'd have some experience at irrigation given Australia's droughts and the need for at least some flood control on the dangerous rivers of Queensland and NSW. But it would definitely be a marginal area if they never domesticated any local plants.

While most of the land around the Gulf of Carpentaria doesn't seem to support any sort of agriculture, the Top End has had banana farms in patchwork from Elcho Island to as far west as Kununurra (though as my links show, agriculture in that region is particularly challenging due to cyclones, so I don't know if it could support a Maya-like civilization there).

I think the issue there is more irrigation rather than cyclones. The Taino on Hispaniola and the various Florida natives with their city-states would be proof tropical cyclones aren't an existential threat.

 

[GameBawesome]

While I can’t see a Aboriginal Australian State with advance buildings, like the Aztecs or Maya of America, I can see happening a confederation of Aboriginal Australian tribes forming a confederation, with a equivalent to king leading it

 

[Riain]

The very start of LORAG talked about improved wetlands, in particular the Condah Swamp which is near my brother's place. Even without agriculture and a foundation crop when the conditions are suitable the Australians did whatever they could to 'civilise' themselves and their environment, some 8,000 people lived in this area maybe 10km north-south and 4km east-west for 9 months of the year. They used the lava stones to build weirs to farm fish and eels, lived in stone-base huts and used hollowed out trees to smoke eels to preserve them them and trade them over long distances. I don't know what sort of 'government' was formed around this area, but with 8,000 people living in reasonably close company but I can't imagine the social structures that worked for semi-nomadic tribal life would have been fully suitable.

One thing I had thought of was that if the Portuguese theory of discovery of Australia is true perhaps the 'Mahogany Ship' and crew get together with the Gunditjimara around the Condah swamp and turbocharge this area for a few hundred years prior to the Hentys arriving in 1834.

 

[Miguel Angel]

I'm not trying to criticise anyone in this thread, and I don't really have much to add. I understand the premise of this thread is to for pre-colonial Australia to have "governments, akin to those developed in Precolumbian America" and it's an idea I find quite interesting, but I wanted to add a reminder that some people may find the suggestion that the Indigenous Australians did not have a "civilisation" somewhat problematic. I am not an Indigenous Australian (I'm not even from Australia, though I currently live there) and I'm sorry if this got too political, but we should be aware that the words we use have power.

Although, their society was generally semi-nomadic rather than static, the style of life and material cultures varied greatly from region to region, and there were permanent settlements and agriculture in some areas. There were incredibly complex relationships within groups and between groups, including what we could call confederations (such as the "Kulin nation" around what is now Melbourne and surrounds). Civilisation doesn't necessarily equal big buildings.

Indigenous Australians most ancient civilisation on Earth, DNA study confirms

Clues left in genes of modern populations in Australian and Papua New Guinea enable scientists to trace remarkable journey made by first human explorers

www.theguardian.com

Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment

National Heritage List inscription date 20 July 2004 Sacred to the Gunditjmara people, the Budj Bim National Heritage Landscape provides evidence of a system of channels and weirs constructed from the abundant local volcanic rock to manage water flows from nearby Lake Condah to exploit eels as a...

www.environment.gov.au

 

[Arkenfolm]

Alternate scenario--what would happen if we have wank a southern Indian state to reach Australia? IIRC there is evidence that in prehistorical times, genetic inflow from India reached Western Australia. Southern Indian states like the Chola Empire were known for their maritime prowess. The ideal scenario would be a Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian state lands in Western Australia, establishes a monastery (I think an Islamic mission might be at a disadvantage thanks to the lack of a monastic tradition and the OTL failure of Indonesians to convert the Yolngu and other Aboriginal peoples they traded with, even if they did incorporate syncretic elements of Islam into their beliefs), and seeks to convert the Aboriginals.

Presumably the community around the monastery and settlement would transmit a few domestic animals, iron tools, and perhaps even elements of agriculture, which would spread across Australia. There would also be innovations in shipbuilding which would be helpful for exploiting maritime resources. Since this could happen well over a millennium before Europeans ever arrive in Australia, there's enough time for the population base, culture, and ideology to develop that permits an Aboriginal-ran state to form.

 

[Gloss]

Alternate scenario--what would happen if we have wank a southern Indian state to reach Australia? IIRC there is evidence that in prehistorical times, genetic inflow from India reached Western Australia. Southern Indian states like the Chola Empire were known for their maritime prowess. The ideal scenario would be a Buddhist, Hindu, or Christian state lands in Western Australia, establishes a monastery (I think an Islamic mission might be at a disadvantage thanks to the lack of a monastic tradition and the OTL failure of Indonesians to convert the Yolngu and other Aboriginal peoples they traded with, even if they did incorporate syncretic elements of Islam into their beliefs), and seeks to convert the Aboriginals.

Presumably the community around the monastery and settlement would transmit a few domestic animals, iron tools, and perhaps even elements of agriculture, which would spread across Australia. There would also be innovations in shipbuilding which would be helpful for exploiting maritime resources. Since this could happen well over a millennium before Europeans ever arrive in Australia, there's enough time for the population base, culture, and ideology to develop that permits an Aboriginal-ran state to form.

Why wouldn't Indianized Austronesians go with the Indians and become dominant there?