Alternate Cradles of Civilisation?

Or rats: they see periodic population explosions as bamboo comes into seed. So could Man exploit animals that eat rats? Like owls or cats or something?

As verminators, certainly but do you mean as food? It would be more efficient to just eat the rats (which many people have done in the past and continue to do today).

Actually, there's evidence for habitation in South America, by an entirely different group, dating to at least 40KYA, & maybe as much as 60K. (I suspect they were Proto-Polyneisans: recall, sea levels were lower then, so there'd be more Pacific islands.)

Eh...there probably were people in the Americas before the Clovis hunters, but we don't have a lot of proof. I also doubt that if there were people in the Americas at this time that they were Proto-Polynesians, because if they had crossed the Pacific they would have colonized the islands which were uninhabited before the Polynesian expansion.
 
twovultures said:
As verminators, certainly but do you mean as food? It would be more efficient to just eat the rats (which many people have done in the past and continue to do today).
I was thinking both. (I've never heard of people making rats a diet item. It shouldn't surprise me, tho.)
twovultures said:
Eh...there probably were people in the Americas before the Clovis hunters, but we don't have a lot of proof. I also doubt that if there were people in the Americas at this time that they were Proto-Polynesians, because if they had crossed the Pacific they would have colonized the islands which were uninhabited before the Polynesian expansion.
No, just sayin' the Clovis people were probably not first (or only).
 
I was thinking both. (I've never heard of people making rats a diet item. It shouldn't surprise me, tho.)

If you're ever at a Ghanaian restaurant in the US or Europe, ask for "grass cutter". I guarantee you'll get a laugh and maybe an extra helping of plantains.

If you're in Ghana, though, don't ask for it. It's an inferior meat to chicken, IMO.
 
twovultures said:
If you're ever at a Ghanaian restaurant in the US or Europe, ask for "grass cutter". I guarantee you'll get a laugh and maybe an extra helping of plantains.
Noted.;)
twovultures said:
If you're in Ghana, though, don't ask for it. It's an inferior meat to chicken, IMO.
Maybe. If it's more abundant...& judging by the numbers (upwards of 10,000 rats/ha:eek: when the bamboo breeds), it could be a staple, if you're not squeamish. It beats starving because your crops are eaten, for sure.
 
Could the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay serve as a cradle of civilization? I had a geography professor who used to sing its praises and compare it to the Nile and the Yangtze, though I can't remember in what regard.
 
Could the Susquehanna River and Chesapeake Bay serve as a cradle of civilization? I had a geography professor who used to sing its praises and compare it to the Nile and the Yangtze, though I can't remember in what regard.

I don't no much about the Susquehanna River, but does it make the surronding area very fertile?
Does it transport a lot of silt?
If so, it migt be a miniature Nile or Yangtze.
And if so, it might kickstart an agricultural revolution in that area and therefore open up the possibility for a rather advanced civilization.
 

Zirantun

Banned
I want to see a timeline with civilization going at the height of the Eemian Interglacial.


I don't think I have the right POD for this, but someone else could take it up. It really is a very interesting time indeed, with forests as far north as Baffin Island, Scandinavia as an archipelago, and hippos in Britain, yet still not all that warmer than today.
 

katchen

Banned
This was the time in which intermarriage with Neanderthal and Denisovian Man might have happened. And if Eemian civilization goes industrial, perhaps the CO2 aborts the next glaciation and prevents the next ice age.
 

Zirantun

Banned
Would that mean that you want a Neanderthal civilization?


Yes, I'm aware of the time, as it filters into my timeline How a Ptarmigan Changed History, which has a POD 176,000 years ago during the Saalian Glacial Period just before the Warthe Stage. And not necessarily. perhaps a POD that gets modern humans out of Africa earlier, or perhaps one with no neanderthals at all?


This was the time in which intermarriage with Neanderthal and Denisovian Man might have happened. And if Eemian civilization goes industrial, perhaps the CO2 aborts the next glaciation and prevents the next ice age.


If you were to research the global warming hypothesis, you would discover that is rather... hypothetical. There is no definitive proof that man is causing the planet's warming at present, and there are a number of competing hypotheses as to what exactly is going on. Given that we are still learning about how the climate works, it doesn't really seem fair that we can say beyond any shadow of doubt that CO2 emission is what's causing the planet to warm. There are observations of the climate that are underway that require a little bit of time in the North Atlantic that will shed a little bit of light on the subject in a few years. However until then, the Global Warming Hypothesis is just the best funded of several, and the most widely discussed. Especially after famous American and British politicians have made it center pieces of their political platforms.


But in my own opinion, I highly doubt that any civilization that were to go industrial in the Eemian Interglacial would have the power to "prevent" the next glacia maximum. Comparatively speaking, the melt off that we have seen recently when compared to say, the Saalian Glacial Period and its Warthe Stage, is extremely minor.
 
If you were to research the global warming hypothesis, you would discover that is rather... hypothetical. There is no definitive proof that man is causing the planet's warming at present, and there are a number of competing hypotheses as to what exactly is going on. Given that we are still learning about how the climate works, it doesn't really seem fair that we can say beyond any shadow of doubt that CO2 emission is what's causing the planet to warm. There are observations of the climate that are underway that require a little bit of time in the North Atlantic that will shed a little bit of light on the subject in a few years. However until then, the Global Warming Hypothesis is just the best funded of several, and the most widely discussed. Especially after famous American and British politicians have made it center pieces of their political platforms.


But in my own opinion, I highly doubt that any civilization that were to go industrial in the Eemian Interglacial would have the power to "prevent" the next glacia maximum. Comparatively speaking, the melt off that we have seen recently when compared to say, the Saalian Glacial Period and its Warthe Stage, is extremely minor.

Guys

Leaving aside the questions about global warming industrialisation may not be necessary to prevent a new ice age. There are some suggestions that agriculture may have pretty substantial impacts as well. Both in terms of changing the Earth's abiedo [sp] and in methane production, especially for paddy field cultivation of rice and the like. It has been suggested that the disruption of the latter in China [and possibly elsewhere] by the Mongols and/or black death may have been a big factor in the Little Ice Age.

Did 'modern' humans exist in the Eemian Interglacial? I thought we were only about 50-70k old? Or am I remembering it wrongly and that's only when they reached Europe and the Mid-East? Either way I don't know if such a civilization might be Neanderthal as aren't the largely limited to Europe and neighbouring regions?

Steve
 
I remember a while back I was planning a timeline on the wiki which included the alternative rise of human civilization...in and around the Lake Volta region in Africa. I scrapped it due to lack of curiosity, and I want to know if it was even possible for civilization to arise there.
 
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