Alternate Australia

[Nabongo Mumia II]

Australia is a disadvantaged continent. The continent lacked any animals or plants worthy of domestication, the continent was very difficult to cultivate and it had no contact with the rest of the world for nearly 50,000 years. What if this was different? What if the landscape was more varied, with rainforests, grasslands and highlands with good crops and animals for taming with contact with the rest of the world?

Humans migrated into Australia during the mid Stone Age, about 50,000 years ago. During this long duration very little changed within the lives of the inhabitants of Australia. This Alternate Australia would develop agriculture some time after the end of the Ice Age, and the native Australian crops allow complex civilizations to develop. These civilizations have contact with the rest of the world, and external technologies are brought in. I think that thinking of what these animals and crops would look like, or how these civilizations would look like is unnecessary, what's important is how these things would influence this Alternate Australia and the rest of the world in TTL (This Time Line)

 

[Jared]

I've made a short attempt to explore the possibility of an *Australia with indigenous crops in Lands of Red and Gold. The first timeline thread is here, and the continuation thread is here.

 

[Practical Lobster]

I've made a short attempt to explore the possibility of an *Australia with indigenous crops in Lands of Red and Gold. The first timeline thread is here, and the continuation thread is here.

"Short attempt"

(Brilliant attempt)

That said, @Nabongo Mumia II - I'm afraid that any questions about changing the climate of Australia belong in a different forum.

It's a fascinating question, in any case.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Lands of Red and Gold might as well be the canonical answer to this question.

The other answer is what if we can get intensive agriculture in the tropical parts of Australia, perhaps imported from Papua? The Torres Strait Islanders, with their mixed Papuan-Australian heritage, could be intermediaries (I'm not sure why they weren't so much OTL when they had links with the people of the Fly River delta). I guess it could go both ways, with some indigenous agriculture (it's been a while since I checked, but there are possible crops in tropical Australia which could be more intensely exploited) in Northern Australia which leads to more contacts with New Guinea and then swapping of technology and culture--I believe the isolation of the Aboriginals is a big part of why their culture advanced so slowly, compared to, say, the American Indians. This would hopefully lead to expansion of cultures, maybe some links with Austronesian peoples, maybe some southern expansion and later domestication of those crops, etc.

 

[twovultures]

Australia is a disadvantaged continent. The continent lacked any animals or plants worthy of domestication, the continent was very difficult to cultivate and it had no contact with the rest of the world for nearly 50,000 years. What if this was different? What if the landscape was more varied, with rainforests, grasslands and highlands with good crops and animals for taming with contact with the rest of the world?

Humans migrated into Australia during the mid Stone Age, about 50,000 years ago. During this long duration very little changed within the lives of the inhabitants of Australia. This Alternate Australia would develop agriculture some time after the end of the Ice Age, and the native Australian crops allow complex civilizations to develop. These civilizations have contact with the rest of the world, and external technologies are brought in.

I think that Australian civilizations potentially can reach out to the outside world, but most likely will be isolated for most of human history. The areas of Australia which have the potential to be most populated will be quite isolated from Indonesia, so any trade that does develop is liable to be quite indirect for centuries.

How the *Australian civilizations influence the rest of the world depend on the context in which they do come into contact with the rest of the world. It's unlikely, but very early contact with Indonesia as it becomes influenced by Hinduism, Buddhism and later Islam could spark some very interesting religious and philosophical movements as *Australian philosophies interact with, adapt, and change these foreign and (to varying degrees) evangelical religions. An *Australia which remains isolated until European marauders of the age of the sail come in is quite liable to be looted by colonialists; however, its isolation may help it avoid becoming a destination for settlement colonialism particularly if combined with some military victories against Europeans. I'd say the fate of the *Australian civilizations could lie anywhere from pulling a Tonga to suffering from a genocide on the scale or greater than what they suffered IOTL, except they would leave behind more monuments and material remains which European settlers may understand and admire better than the verbal, ritual cultures IOTL.

Of course, 'the rest of the world' is not just Eurasia. An Australian civilization could produce a rich material culture that could draw neighboring islands-New Guinea, the Solomons, maybe even New Caledonia-into its orbit.

I think that thinking of what these animals and crops would look like, or how these civilizations would look like is unnecessary, what's important is how these things would influence this Alternate Australia and the rest of the world in TTL (This Time Line)

With all due respect I disagree that this is not important though I sympathize with your attempt to avoid getting bogged down in descriptions of biology. However, the types of plants and animals that form the basis of domestication will very much shape *Australian civilization and its interactions with the outside world.

The civilizations fed by @Jared 's yams have a different ability to adapt and spread over Australia than a civilization fed by *Australian rice domesticated in the wet refugia during times of climate crisis which will in turn look very different from a coastal *Queensland civilization fed on bananas, taro and pigs adopted from a Melanesian or Austronesian incursion.

 

[Sam R.]

Out of date. Time to read dark emu and the book on European reception of aboriginal cultures land use as a parkland. People were cultivating eels, grass lands and edibles.

Sorry,
Yours,
Sam R.

 

[twovultures]

Out of date. Time to read dark emu and the book on European reception of aboriginal cultures land use as a parkland. People were cultivating eels, grass lands and edibles.

OP clearly meant agriculture in the Mesoamerican, European, and Asian senses of the words rather than the Aboriginal or Native Californian sense-i.e. a main carbohydrate intensely cultivated with hoe or plow supplemented by other crops and feeding a large, centralized population as opposed to managing the environment to encourage the natural growth of edible wild plants feeding decentralized societies.

 

[Sam R.]

OP clearly meant agriculture in the Mesoamerican, European, and Asian senses of the words rather than the Aboriginal or Native Californian sense-i.e. a main carbohydrate intensely cultivated with hoe or plow supplemented by other crops and feeding a large, centralized population as opposed to managing the environment to encourage the natural growth of edible wild plants feeding decentralized societies.

The natural POD other than Jareds are about social crises in aboriginal culture or land management that lead to cereal dependence. The issue being that since Jareds speculation the historical and anthropological information has improved leading to the question: why would people bother in Australia. Shit was a non stop BBQ. Admittedly with vigorous birth management.

Yours,
Sam R.

 

[Jared]

The natural POD other than Jareds are about social crises in aboriginal culture or land management that lead to cereal dependence. The issue being that since Jareds speculation the historical and anthropological information has improved leading to the question: why would people bother in Australia. Shit was a non stop BBQ. Admittedly with vigorous birth management.

We certainly have better information nowadays about the land management and systems to know that food availability was, generally, good. However, there's still possibilities in that cultivation and more specifically food storage gradually develops as a supplement - as is likely to have been the case in the evolution of agriculture in the Mid East and possibly elsewhere. Then the food storage becomes something which is relied on due to higher (local) population density and so agriculture becomes a necessity because of the higher population.

Not a probable chain of events, but not impossible.

 

[Riain]

What about if the Aborigines don't arrive ~45-50,000years ago but much later, like ~15-20,000 years ago, so their arrival doesn't coincide with the particular other circumstance that lead to the extinction of the megafauna?

Maybe a late arrival would arrive with domesticated dogs and perhaps a plant or two and coexist with diprotodon, thylacoleo and the like and perhaps kill them off in different circumstances.

 

[Sam R.]

I read recently that silos have been uncovered. But dependence rather than supplementation didn't seem to happen in that community. Or maybe it did and the community failed.

Yours,
Sam R.

 

[Nabongo Mumia II]

That said, @Nabongo Mumia II - I'm afraid that any questions about changing the climate of Australia belong in a different forum.

It's a fascinating question, in any case.

I think that questions about changing the climate of Australia do belong in this forum. This Alternate Australia does have a different climate, that's the only way for it to work. I think that having and Australia with more grassland and rainforest would help crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Hunter Gatherer Australians did forage for yams, these could have been cultivated with a milder climate more suitable for farming, don't forget the fictional crops in this Alternate Timeline.

I was reading that Aboriginal Australians might have had contact with Indonesia, so in this Alternate Australia the peoples living on the northern part of Australia would have contact with South East Asia and maybe other parts of the world, and would also trade with the peoples on the southern part of the Continent. This Alternate Australia would most likely be influenced by the peoples they are in contact with, and external contact would influence their culture similar to how Arab culture influenced African culture. It is possible that this Australia would be colonised early on, probably by an Asian civilization, but I doubt that the entire Continent would be conquered, probably only a little land. This Australia would have a much higher population than it did in our timeline, so I doubt that it would be completely colonised.

It is possible, however, that some advanced kingdoms could expand into the pacific, what do you think about that?

This Australia would participate in the trans Indian Ocean trade between India, Persia, Arabia, East Africa, China and South East Asia. These Australians would most likely also have contact with the Polynesians who would act as intermediaries between Australia and the new world.

This Australia could have been colonized by European countries early on, like the Americas, that would mean a large amount of the Native population would die out, and the majority of the population would be European or a mixture, or maybe colonised later on in a Berlin conference like style. Slaves would most likely not be taken from this Australia, because a large number of them would die out, wait a minute, maybe they wouldn't die out. Yes, since they have contact with the rest of the world, they have immunity to the old world diseases that wiped out the American Indians. Since they would have contact with the Americas, they could also be immune, which would be a whole different world.

I think that the Americas and Australia would be much like Africa and India, colonized by European countries but the majority of the population native. I think that Australia wouldn't be a unified country, but divided into different countries by different countries. I think that these Australian and American colonies would eventually become independent, causing a whole new world dynamic. I think that in simple terms, the world would be less white. The extremely low populations of Native Australians and Americans led to a sharp increase of the European population. I think that this world would be less polarized by Caucasoid, Negroid and Mongoloid races, anyway, it's a whole new world.

 

[Practical Lobster]

(I'm sorry, to clarify there is another subforum on this where climate-related Divergences belong. That said, this is fascinating and I'd love to read more.)

 

[Arkenfolm]

I think that questions about changing the climate of Australia do belong in this forum. This Alternate Australia does have a different climate, that's the only way for it to work. I think that having and Australia with more grassland and rainforest would help crop cultivation and animal husbandry. Hunter Gatherer Australians did forage for yams, these could have been cultivated with a milder climate more suitable for farming, don't forget the fictional crops in this Alternate Timeline.

It doesn't, unless humans are ones changing the climate/geography. Which to be fair, they basically did in OTL prehistoric Australia. But if we're talking about making the climate more conducive for the sort of agriculture that makes complex civilisations, I don't see how they could do that.

I was reading that Aboriginal Australians might have had contact with Indonesia, so in this Alternate Australia the peoples living on the northern part of Australia would have contact with South East Asia and maybe other parts of the world, and would also trade with the peoples on the southern part of the Continent. This Alternate Australia would most likely be influenced by the peoples they are in contact with, and external contact would influence their culture similar to how Arab culture influenced African culture. It is possible that this Australia would be colonised early on, probably by an Asian civilization, but I doubt that the entire Continent would be conquered, probably only a little land. This Australia would have a much higher population than it did in our timeline, so I doubt that it would be completely colonised.

No colonisation, but its undeniable that this Australia would have a very "Indonesian" mindset. They probably would be Hindu-Buddhist with heavy amounts of folk religion, like Indonesia, and be treated as part of Indonesia (as "Java Major" or something).

This Australia could have been colonized by European countries early on, like the Americas, that would mean a large amount of the Native population would die out, and the majority of the population would be European or a mixture, or maybe colonised later on in a Berlin conference like style. Slaves would most likely not be taken from this Australia, because a large number of them would die out, wait a minute, maybe they wouldn't die out. Yes, since they have contact with the rest of the world, they have immunity to the old world diseases that wiped out the American Indians. Since they would have contact with the Americas, they could also be immune, which would be a whole different world.

One problem is that unlike India and most of Africa, Australia has quite a bit of land conducive to Europeans and their agriculture. Especially if we have a tropical Australian civilisation and not a temperate one, the temperate areas will be more sparsely populated (though more populated than OTL and also won't suffer catastrophic losses from diseases) and could be colonised successfully. So we could have the Europeans who colonised South Africa on the way to the Indies sail across to Western Australia and use that as a stopover point, meaning whichever civilisation is in the Southwest Australia ever will be very important to Europeans and probably the first to be colonised.

But outside of temperate areas, I think European colonialism in Australia is likely to resemble that of Indonesia.

Economically, I think they'd be focused on Tasmannia pepperbushes which would be associated as yet another spice of the Orient. Not sure if you can massive plantations of slaves/peons. The other resource is of course Australia's gold.

 

[Nabongo Mumia II]

The other resource is of course Australia's gold.

You know, I was thinking about the possibility of the Australian Civilizations mining for gold. I think that this Alternate Australia would be involved with the trans oceanic trade between East Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, South East Asia and China. The gold in Australia could be an important trade item if exploited by the by the people of the continent, and would get it the attention of colonial powers. I was also thinking about how there could be something similar to the Swahili coast with cities and intermarrying between locals and foreigners. However, please note that on the Swahili coast there were no centralized states before the arrival of foreigners, just decentralized communities(the word tribe is considered deragatory by many) such as the Mijikenda and Zaramo, so I don't think it would hurt much to have this 'Australian Swahili coast' in a place with no formal states, or have these Australian kingdoms and empires use gold as a trade item to grow wealthy. What are your thoughts on that?

 

[Prism]

What would definitely help Australia out is Indonesian fauna such as water buffaloes,pigs,tigers and others rafting over early and becoming part of the ecosystem. Water buffaloes and pigs are domesticable,so that helps out the Aborigines. Frequent contact between Indonesians and Maori would also help out.

 

[Arkenfolm]

You know, I was thinking about the possibility of the Australian Civilizations mining for gold. I think that this Alternate Australia would be involved with the trans oceanic trade between East Africa, Arabia, Persia, India, South East Asia and China. The gold in Australia could be an important trade item if exploited by the by the people of the continent, and would get it the attention of colonial powers. I was also thinking about how there could be something similar to the Swahili coast with cities and intermarrying between locals and foreigners. However, please note that on the Swahili coast there were no centralized states before the arrival of foreigners, just decentralized communities(the word tribe is considered deragatory by many) such as the Mijikenda and Zaramo, so I don't think it would hurt much to have this 'Australian Swahili coast' in a place with no formal states, or have these Australian kingdoms and empires use gold as a trade item to grow wealthy. What are your thoughts on that?

They definitely would use their gold well, since *Queensland has plenty of gold as seen OTL. Although a lot of the gold in Australia is in New South Wales and Victoria, out of range of a tropical Australian civilisation. But regardless, I believe that Australia would have a particular reputation as a land full of gold (and those Tasmannia peppers) on the periphery of Indonesian civilisation.

What would definitely help Australia out is Indonesian fauna such as water buffaloes,pigs,tigers and others rafting over early and becoming part of the ecosystem. Water buffaloes and pigs are domesticable,so that helps out the Aborigines. Frequent contact between Indonesians and Maori would also help out.

Definitely, which is why somehow getting early Indonesian settlement there with domesticated pigs and water buffalo would be huge--that's probably the best way to introduce water buffalo and pigs. Unfortunately, I think the Indonesians would form a ruling caste, who in turn would be submissive to greater Indonesian kingdoms like Srivijaya and such. Incidentally, this would also be good for the Maori, who didn't have pigs. The biggest loser is of course the native plants and other wildlife. It would also be nice to get camels, since they'd be transformative for the same reason horses were on the Great Plains in North America. That would obvious be a bit harder, and be the result of sustained links between Australia and the outside world.

Tigers? No. Cuts into emu/kangaroo population which is bad. Also, I believe lions would be the best for Australia in terms of big cats, but you don't want any of them there because they cut into the population of larger animals (in addition to attacks on humans, of course).

 

[Nabongo Mumia II]

What would definitely help Australia out is Indonesian fauna such as water buffaloes,pigs,tigers and others rafting over early and becoming part of the ecosystem. Water buffaloes and pigs are domesticable,so that helps out the Aborigines. Frequent contact between Indonesians and Maori would also help out.

Yeah, I wonder how the animals from Indonesia would interact with the Alternate Fauna of Australia.

Besides gold, what else do you think would be an item worthy of trade in this Alternate Australia? Should we introduce some trade items that are non present in OTL Australia?