Arboreal

[Sven]

The grove game

I tried to imagine what Arboreal culture and recreation would be like, and I ended up designing a lemur sport. I don't know what to call it, so I'll just refer to it as "the grove game."

The premise of the grove game is conceptually similar to basketball or soccer, in that it involves two teams attempting to score on goals on opposite sides of the field of play. However, as distinct from these human sports, the grove game is not played on a flat field or court, but on a "grove" of vertical posts (layout diagrammed below, shown from above), and players jump from post to post to advance toward a single goalpost at either end of the grove (the red dots in the diagram). Points are scored by striking a marked section of the goalpost with a short stick or baton of cane bamboo. The baton may be tossed or handed from player to player, and goals can be scored by either throwing the baton at the marked section, or jumping to the goalpost and tapping the marked section with the baton, with the latter being worth more points.

A unique characteristic of the grove game is the style of movement: players are not allowed to drop to the ground. Only discreet movements between posts are allowed, which makes the tactics of the game similar, in many ways, to the tactics of board games such as chess and checkers. Only two players can occupy a single post at a single time, and a variable set of rules determines how these players can interact, and determines which of the two can jump off the post first. The defense stops the offense and gains possession of the baton by occupying the same post as the baton carrier. The defense can also score points by trapping the baton carrier in a manner similar to "checkmate" in chess (by occupying all adjacent posts the carrier could jump to).

The grove game is played by several ring-tailed lemur cultures of Madagascar and Mozambique. The skills of jumping, climbing and throwing originate in the ancient hunting traditions of several primitive cultures, which used throwing sticks and tactical positioning along tree corridors as part of an arboreal ambush hunting style. Similar tactics were used in training and in warfare, and were eventually adapted for recreation.

 

[Sven]

What about moss too. No need to hit the ground, might be useful in many ways

Agreed. I'm not sure how edible mosses are, though. I know several types of lichen are called "edible moss," but that's the extent of my knowledge on the subject. I found a link on the Wikipedia article on "moss" that says the Finns used to make bread with peat moss in times of famine, but that's not much information to go on.

If indeed edible, moss could easily fill the role I imagined for vines, because it grows well in shade, and doesn't actually parasitize its host tree (moss have no roots). Of course, it will have an entirely different nutritional and culinary profile from the vines.

 

[Ganesha]

I tried to imagine what Arboreal culture and recreation would be like, and I ended up designing a lemur sport. I don't know what to call it, so I'll just refer to it as "the grove game."

The premise of the grove game is conceptually similar to basketball or soccer, in that it involves two teams attempting to score on goals on opposite sides of the field of play. However, as distinct from these human sports, the grove game is not played on a flat field or court, but on a "grove" of vertical posts (layout diagrammed below, shown from above), and players jump from post to post to advance toward a single goalpost at either end of the grove (the red dots in the diagram). Points are scored by striking a marked section of the goalpost with a short stick or baton of cane bamboo. The baton may be tossed or handed from player to player, and goals can be scored by either throwing the baton at the marked section, or jumping to the goalpost and tapping the marked section with the baton, with the latter begin worth more points.

A unique characteristic of the grove game is the style of movement: players are not allowed to drop to the ground. Only discreet movements between posts are allowed, which makes the tactics of the game similar, in many ways, to the tactics of board games such as chess and checkers. Only two players can occupy a single post at a single time, and a variable set of rules determines how these players can interact, and determines which of the two can jump off the post first. The defense stops the offense and gains possession of the baton by occupying the same post as the baton carrier. The defense can also score points by trapping the baton carrier in a manner similar to "checkmate" in chess (by occupying all adjacent posts the carrier could jump to).

The grove game is played by several ring-tailed lemur cultures of Madagascar and Mozambique. The skills of jumping, climbing and throwing originate in the ancient hunting traditions of several primitive cultures, which used throwing sticks and tactical positioning along tree corridors as part of an arboreal ambush hunting style. Similar tactics were used in training and in warfare, and were eventually adapted for recreation.

Sven, this is really well thought out and very interesting. Great work, and I'd actually love to see this sport played. In the future, with uplifted monkeys, it could actually work.

Here's another thought to throw into the mix: domesticated hawks and eagles. Raptor's like the Cooper's Hawk and the Philippine Eagle hunt in forests, swooping among the trees and grabbing birds, squirrels, and even sometimes small monkeys from the branches as the main part of their diet.

I could see an arboreal species of primate domesticating and training these birds to be full-time hunters, snatching and retrieving food for the intelligent trainer. They would also make effective war animals - flocks of eagles swooping down in an attack from above, perhaps as skirmishers.

What do you think? Is it plausible, or even possible?

Cheers,
Ganesha

 

[Sven]

Sven, this is really well thought out and very interesting. Great work, and I'd actually love to see this sport played. In the future, with uplifted monkeys, it could actually work.

Thanks!

Here's another thought to throw into the mix: domesticated hawks and eagles. Raptor's like the Cooper's Hawk and the Philippine Eagle hunt in forests, swooping among the trees and grabbing birds, squirrels, and even sometimes small monkeys from the branches as the main part of their diet.

I could see an arboreal species of primate domesticating and training these birds to be full-time hunters, snatching and retrieving food for the intelligent trainer. They would also make effective war animals - flocks of eagles swooping down in an attack from above, perhaps as skirmishers.

What do you think? Is it plausible, or even possible?

My knee-jerk reaction is to shy away from falconry, given that hawks and eagles are potential predators of the Arboreal sapients, but it's probably plausible anyway. Kestrels and falcons probably pose little danger to Arboreal sapients, so those, at least, are feasible; these may be like a "gateway drug" to hawks and eagles.

Using them in warfare is an intriguing idea. Forest raptors are already specifically adapted to hunting in the trees, so it woudn't take much training to make them attack. The real trick would be getting them to recognize your enemies and your friends. Maybe soldiers could take to wearing some kind of mark or emblem, which the eagles could be trained to recognize as friendly. I also wonder how they might interact with the gibbons' ornithopters.

Now that you've brought up war beasts, what do you think we're looking at with animal domestication by Arboreals? Being forest animals, they'll have evolved in regions of particularly high animal diversity and abundance, so maybe they'd learn to associate with and exploit that biodiversity more than humans do. Maybe a wider range of domestication paradigms, including specialist domestications like war beasts, would gain traction with Arboreals than with humans?

 

[chr92]

Love the grove game! All sorts of politics and wars will be won on the playing groves of *Eton.

May I suggest that parrots, being pretty smart themselves, will notice how much of the neighbourhood's food is in your sapients' living areas. At the least, I'd think they'd set up their quarters nearby. How much further it would parallel human and dog must vary, depending both on the sapient and chance.

Too, I admit I'm attracted by the idea of these peoples setting up close relationships with any of the termites or ants to be found in the tropics. But the fact that no human society (I think) has done this, suggests it isn't as easy as it sounds; and it doesn't sound easy.

 

[Sven]

Love the grove game! All sorts of politics and wars will be won on the playing groves of *Eton.

Eton?

May I suggest that parrots, being pretty smart themselves, will notice how much of the neighbourhood's food is in your sapients' living areas. At the least, I'd think they'd set up their quarters nearby. How much further it would parallel human and dog must vary, depending both on the sapient and chance.

Parrot-dogs? There is an certain appeal there. Maybe they could self-domesticate as fruit scavengers, kind of like dogs did with humans. There would be differences, though: parrots probably wouldn't be useful for hunting, but they could be very useful as a predator-warning system. And the novelty of companionship and imitating speech would be side benefits.

Oh, dear: speech! I haven't given any thought at all to my Arboreals' language! (sigh) More to do.

Anyway, parrots. I've been having difficulty coming up with ideas for spider monkey culture, so maybe I'll write in parrots there. I'm kind of partial to macaws myself, but that's a whole lot of bird to deal with, and they can live in huge flocks.

Too, I admit I'm attracted by the idea of these peoples setting up close relationships with any of the termites or ants to be found in the tropics. But the fact that no human society (I think) has done this, suggests it isn't as easy as it sounds; and it doesn't sound easy.

There are human societies that make extensive use of termites and ants. It's just that, for most human societies, bugs take a lot of work to harvest for a relatively small amount of food.

Living in the rainforest is going to make it virtually impossible to not associate with ants. I bet the semi-nomadic "Treeherder" types could easily incorporate termite and ant nests into their foraging cycles.

 

[mosodake]

Hi, Mosodrake: thanks for the helpful criticisms.

You're welcome I figured since this (well, plants in general) is what I study at university, I could contribute something.

I didn't know that: can you tell me more, or link me to a site where I could read more? What kinds of trees do they manage this way? Is it just a gathering paradigm, or do they actually promote, protect and/or cultivate some of these trees?

Well, there's this whole idea that the Amazonian tribes are purely hunter-gatherers, which is incorrect. Any one species of tree in the rainforest strives to grow as far away from any other ones of the same species as it can due to pest and disease pressure, yet where humans have been living for a while, fruit-bearing trees like pejibaye, brazil nuts and acai grow relatively dense groups. They are actively tended and sometimes planted by the natives. There is one chapter towards the end of Charles Mann's 1493 that describes some of the indigenous farming practices of Amazonia. One village might have a number of acai groves, for example, that they tend to and harvest from, but to a person accustomed to traditional farms, a patch of forest being farmed in the Amazonian way might look identical to a patch of untouched rainforest. Julia Morton's Fruits of Warm Climates (the book is available for free online) is a good overview of tropical fruits ranging from the very common to the obscure. There may be some potentially useful information in there.

Do you think this is because vines make inherently poor domesticates? Or is it because human agricultural paradigms are generally incompatible with climbing plant forms? Personally, I have to believe that the viability of vine and epiphyte cultivation would be higher for Arboreal sapients than for humans, just because of the habitat they live in.
This is also a broad generalization . For example, grapes and kiwifruit grow as perennial, tree-climbing lianas in the wild.

Well, it depends on the vine. Kiwifruit and grapes are not tropical and do not follow the same ecology as tropical vines. Grapes, for instance, are one of the earliest domesticated crops, while kiwifruit was largely undomesticated until it was introduced into New Zealand from China. One problem with long-lived vines is the same as with trees: a prolonged juvenile period before it beings bearing fruit. Kiwis can take upwards of a decade to begin bearing fruit from seed. Another problem is that vines are not usually self-supporting. To bear an amount of fruit equivalent to a tree, a vine would need a similar sized canopy. That canopy would have to be supported by something, whereas a tree would be free standing. Also, relatively few tropical vines bear edible fruit. The most important commercially today are the cucurbits and passionfruits, both of which are short lived and require constant replanting: every year for cucurbits and at least once a decade for passionfruits. This constant replanting requires having enough cleared land for the vines to get enough sun. Evolutionarily, they developed to take advantage of gaps in the forest after a tree falls and before new trees fill it in. There are also a number of tropical legumes that are used for food, but they also behave the same way. One thing to bear in mind is that while vines can cover large areas of the rainforest canopy, they are rooted in the ground and must start life on the ground. Not all vines can begin life in the deep shade of the understory; some need sunlight to reach the canopy. A vine that provides fruit and is long lived wouldn't be ideal for an arboreal society if it requires full sunlight to germinate and grow, because that would involve cutting down a tree every time a new vine is planted.

Epiphytes, on the other hand, pose a different set of problems. They have evolved to grow on tree branches, and as a result, their seed is usually spread either by wind or by birds. Wind-born seed is useless as food (though apparently some people do use the swollen stems of some orchids as food), and plants that use birds often have small fruit. That in itself is not a huge problem as many domesticated berries were originally spread by birds, but the nature of an epiphyte means that it cannot grow too large, otherwise it risks getting pulled off the branch by its own weight. You would have problems with getting enough food produced to justify the work.

Arboreal societies that are thinning the forests and erecting bamboo frameworks (i.e., my gibbons) will probably be more likely to cultivate vines on their bamboo frames. So, perhaps the spider monkeys, in the denser Neotropical rainforests will be less successful with vines. Of course, the relative paucity of bamboo and relative abundance of lianas in the Neotropics might make lianas an attractive option for spider monkey bonsai-style construction.

So maybe that will be my way to reconcile it: the Indomalayan gibbons will grow some fruiting vines, but mostly after they've developed bamboo construction techniques, while the Neotropical spider monkeys will rely mostly on tree fruits and use lianas for structural purposes. Do you think this will work?

Yeah, I think it's a great idea. There are a number of New World bamboos, but I don't think any of them are tropical. Strangler figs would also be a candidate for a living building material. They are ubiquitous throughout the tropics and have edible fruit. There is a tribe in Meghalaya that uses strangler figs to "grow" bridges across rivers.
This is what they end up looking like:

 

[Sven]

You're welcome

I figured since this (well, plants in general) is what I study at university, I could contribute something.

I figured you must be a biologist. I'm an animal ecologist, so it's good to have a plant person to straighten me out: such a wealth of new information!

Any one species of tree in the rainforest strives to grow as far away from any other ones of the same species as it can due to pest and disease pressure...

I suppose pests and diseases would be a lot worse in the Tropics: I hadn't actually considered that yet. This probably makes my idea of domesticating bats and swallows for pest control a bit more plausible, but it probably also reinforces the small-scale agricultural paradigm, which is going to put limits on populations and on social development.

One village might have a number of acai groves, for example, that they tend to and harvest from, but to a person accustomed to traditional farms, a patch of forest being farmed in the Amazonian way might look identical to a patch of untouched rainforest.

Interesting. Do you think this is sort of the endpoint or climax for this sort of societal development, or could it transition into a more intensive land-management system that could support an advanced society?

Also, is there any evidence that the activity of the Amazonian tribes is having negative effects on biodiversity? Would it be possible for a "treeherder" society to intensively manage the rainforest without perpetrating a mass extinction?

A vine that provides fruit and is long lived wouldn't be ideal for an arboreal society if it requires full sunlight to germinate and grow, because that would involve cutting down a tree every time a new vine is planted.

Okay, so it looks like they'll need at least partial clearings in the rainforest to utilize vines, and they'll be limited in diversity. Maybe if they're cultivating many types of ground-dwelling crops in addition to tree crops and vine crops, they might have these clearings already between harvests. Otherwise, it's going to be problematic. How about living bamboo groves? From what I've seen, they seem to be less shady: could they be used for vine growth? Maybe vines could be grown just around the edges of a community's bamboo timber stands.

Also, I've been basing my ideas off several papers on the diets of spider monkeys and gibbons. After a second, more careful read, it turns out that most of the things labeled "vine fruits" are actually "liana fruits," so I overestimated the importance of vines to these animals. Liana cultivation is interesting, though, because it creates a number of challenges in addition to its benefits: they would have to manage for a balance between tree and liana, such that the liana doesn't negatively impact the tree, but still provides the resources the sapients want. On the plus side though, liana cultivation (like the awesome bridges you showed me) provides a very good segue into the "bonsai architecture" discussed upthread.

Are most rainforest annuals going to be treefall specialists? If so, the prospects for annual plants don't seem to be very promising, which I think is going to be a major concern. Without annuals, the flexibility and expansion potential of these Arboreal societies is going to go way down. The only niche I see for annuals is upon settlement or development of a new area, when the tribe arrives, clears out a bunch of undesirable trees, and begins to build up. They could then utilize the new area for annual crops until the canopy closes again (or, they could try to prevent canopy closure and utilize bamboo frameworks, but that may be a bigger task than I anticipated). But, slash-and-burn isn't really going to be practical for tree-dwellers.

There are a number of New World bamboos, but I don't think any of them are tropical.

Just reading online, there is at least one major one: Guadua, from the Amazon basin. Wikipedia says the Amazonians used to use it for building material. So, I assume that the spider monkeys would have at least some access to bamboo. I don't think the forests or the spider monkey lifestyle are particularly suited for extensive bamboo frameworks, though.

Epiphytes, on the other hand, pose a different set of problems. They have evolved to grow on tree branches, and as a result, their seed is usually spread either by wind or by birds. Wind-born seed is useless as food (though apparently some people do use the swollen stems of some orchids as food), and plants that use birds often have small fruit. That in itself is not a huge problem as many domesticated berries were originally spread by birds, but the nature of an epiphyte means that it cannot grow too large, otherwise it risks getting pulled off the branch by its own weight. You would have problems with getting enough food produced to justify the work.

Botanically, they do seem pretty poor candidates, don't they? Slow-growing, parasitic, and marginally productive. Again, I've been mostly going off dietary work with gibbons and spider monkeys: apparently, several types of liana and epiphyte fruit are specifically sought out and highly preferred, despite being less available than tree fruits. From this, I justified the idea that Arboreal sapients would want to cultivate epiphytes (specifically, Loranthus mistletoe was what I was thinking of). Of course, it may have to be a rare, special-occasion commodity.

-----

Sorry for all the questions: you don't have to answer them all, if you have better things to spend your time on (most of my time is spent on behavioral experiments, so I'm usually just sitting around, bored, waiting for the next trial observation). But, thanks for all the new information: this has been very helpful so far.

 

[Simreeve]

The vines that need sunlight, your arboreals could grow along riverbanks where -- presuming that the rivers are wide enough -- there would obviously be natural (& lengthy) breaks in the canopy anyway.

 

[Sven]

The vines that need sunlight, your arboreals could grow along riverbanks where -- presuming that the rivers are wide enough -- there would obviously be natural (& lengthy) breaks in the canopy anyway.

Oh, you're right! I'd forgotten about rivers, too.

So, now we've got niches for riverside cultures, deep-forest cultures, open-forest cultures, and possibly even savannah cultures. This seems like a good, diverse socioeconomic climate to generate plenty of trade and competition.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Pineapples are epihytes, no? They get pretty big.

 

[Sven]

Pineapples are epihytes, no? They get pretty big.

Pineapples are bromeliads. Many bromeliads are epiphytes, but pineapples aren't. There are some bromeliads which could potentially be useful, though.

 

[mosodake]

I figured you must be a biologist. I'm an animal ecologist, so it's good to have a plant person to straighten me out: such a wealth of new information!

I'm glad to help

I suppose pests and diseases would be a lot worse in the Tropics: I hadn't actually considered that yet. This probably makes my idea of domesticating bats and swallows for pest control a bit more plausible, but it probably also reinforces the small-scale agricultural paradigm, which is going to put limits on populations and on social development.

They are much, much more of a factor than most of us are used to in temperate climates. That is why tropical trees expend so much of their energy and resources in making sure their offspring get dispersed as far away from the parent as possible. While a very diverse temperate forest might have 10-15 different tree species per hundred square kilometers, in a tropical rainforest, you can easily have a thousand. Part of that diversity is the higher overall number of species in the tropics, but a major cause of that is because each individual of a species of tree is thinly spread out over a vast area. Though I haven't read anything specific about it, I would guess that one reason why slash and burn farmers have to move around so much is that besides the depletion of nutrients, insects and diseases probably build up to levels high enough that crops can't be grown. The same thing definitely happens in conventional farms elsewhere in the world.

Interesting. Do you think this is sort of the endpoint or climax for this sort of societal development, or could it transition into a more intensive land-management system that could support an advanced society?

IIRC, there is evidence of what used to be enormous civilizations in the Amazon. Vast areas of soil show the evidence of being used for agricultural purposes in a way that not only prevented the loss of nutrients from the soil but even added fertility. I think what we see today is a sad remnant of what used to be a much more extensive agrarian culture.

Also, is there any evidence that the activity of the Amazonian tribes is having negative effects on biodiversity? Would it be possible for a "treeherder" society to intensively manage the rainforest without perpetrating a mass extinction?

Well, that would be hard to say for sure, but there are some species in the Amazon and the rest of tropical America that relied on now extinct megafauna to disperse their seeds. Trees like cherimoya, avocado, papaya etc now rely solely on humans that found them tasty enough to be worth cultivating for dispersal of seeds. In the case of those species, human activity may have saved them from extinction. On the other hand, useful species might be cultivated at the expense of other, less useful but just as important ones.

Okay, so it looks like they'll need at least partial clearings in the rainforest to utilize vines, and they'll be limited in diversity. Maybe if they're cultivating many types of ground-dwelling crops in addition to tree crops and vine crops, they might have these clearings already between harvests. Otherwise, it's going to be problematic. How about living bamboo groves? From what I've seen, they seem to be less shady: could they be used for vine growth? Maybe vines could be grown just around the edges of a community's bamboo timber stands.

I don't know very much about the New World bamboos, but in general, the more open grove-forming bamboos (which are mostly the "running" kinds) are subtropical to temperate species, while the "clumping" species most widespread in the tropics are much denser, though spaces in between clumps can be used for farming. My knowledge of American bamboos stops at Chusquea and Otatea, both of which are fairly open clumping species, but are too small to be used for large dwellings.

Also, I've been basing my ideas off several papers on the diets of spider monkeys and gibbons. After a second, more careful read, it turns out that most of the things labeled "vine fruits" are actually "liana fruits," so I overestimated the importance of vines to these animals. Liana cultivation is interesting, though, because it creates a number of challenges in addition to its benefits: they would have to manage for a balance between tree and liana, such that the liana doesn't negatively impact the tree, but still provides the resources the sapients want. On the plus side though, liana cultivation (like the awesome bridges you showed me) provides a very good segue into the "bonsai architecture" discussed upthread.

Well, vines and lianas are essentially the same thing. Monkeys may well be able to use more species of vines than humans can. I was saying that there would be a limited number of potentially useful species from a human standpoint. Woody vines would make awesome dwellings though. The bridges are actually fig tree roots, but there are also bridges made with living vines in Japan.

Are most rainforest annuals going to be treefall specialists? If so, the prospects for annual plants don't seem to be very promising, which I think is going to be a major concern. Without annuals, the flexibility and expansion potential of these Arboreal societies is going to go way down. The only niche I see for annuals is upon settlement or development of a new area, when the tribe arrives, clears out a bunch of undesirable trees, and begins to build up. They could then utilize the new area for annual crops until the canopy closes again (or, they could try to prevent canopy closure and utilize bamboo frameworks, but that may be a bigger task than I anticipated). But, slash-and-burn isn't really going to be practical for tree-dwellers.

Annuals just aren't very common in the wet tropics. The lack of a major dry or cold season means that plants can keep on growing essentially forever. I don't think the lack of annuals is going to pose a significant problem. It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of tropical crops are perennials. Grains are an exception, but many of those also have perennial ancestors. People in the Amazon, Polynesia, and New Guinea traditionally lived off of only perennial crops. While slash-and-burn doesn't allow for long-term fertility, slash-and-smolder might be a good alternative. The charcoal from slowly burning the vegetation locks on to nutrients and keeps them from leaching out. The process was used in the Amazon before the Europeans came and generated large areas of terra preta that are much more fertile than they should be based on the surrounding soils.

Just reading online, there is at least one major one: Guadua, from the Amazon basin. Wikipedia says the Amazonians used to use it for building material. So, I assume that the spider monkeys would have at least some access to bamboo. I don't think the forests or the spider monkey lifestyle are particularly suited for extensive bamboo frameworks, though.



Botanically, they do seem pretty poor candidates, don't they? Slow-growing, parasitic, and marginally productive. Again, I've been mostly going off dietary work with gibbons and spider monkeys: apparently, several types of liana and epiphyte fruit are specifically sought out and highly preferred, despite being less available than tree fruits. From this, I justified the idea that Arboreal sapients would want to cultivate epiphytes (specifically, Loranthus mistletoe was what I was thinking of). Of course, it may have to be a rare, special-occasion commodity.

Again, I was just going off what plants people would be able to use. A different species would be able to use a different range of plants of course. Technically, epiphytes besides rare exceptions like the mistletoes you mentioned are not parasitic, but that's just me being nit-picky
One quasi-epiphytic species that is potentially useful that I didn't think of earlier is Monstera deliciosa, a South American vine that is commonly found languishing in dim living rooms everywhere. While it usually begins life on the forest and climbs up trees, sometimes it germinates on tree branches and quite happily lives on them. It produces an edible (and quite tasty) fruit.

Sorry for all the questions: you don't have to answer them all, if you have better things to spend your time on (most of my time is spent on behavioral experiments, so I'm usually just sitting around, bored, waiting for the next trial observation). But, thanks for all the new information: this has been very helpful so far.

No worries. I'm glad to help. Let me just say that I am by no means a complete expert on everything plant-related so I apologize in advance if there is something I said that is incorrect.

Pineapples are epihytes, no? They get pretty big.

Sven is correct. Pineapples are very firmly terrestrial. I know from first-hand experience: there's nothing a pineapple plant loves more than pigging out on a manure pile.

 

[Sven]

While a very diverse temperate forest might have 10-15 different tree species per hundred square kilometers, in a tropical rainforest, you can easily have a thousand. Part of that diversity is the higher overall number of species in the tropics, but a major cause of that is because each individual of a species of tree is thinly spread out over a vast area.

While reading the handful of primatology papers I was relying on here, I was given the impression that primates had to travel like nomads over several kilometers to reach remote "patches" of fruit. But, in fact, it seems like a typical gibbon family's territory is only about 30 hectares, and the "patches" are individual trees just a couple meters apart. This sounds more like the sapient version would be managing a continuous grove of trees that contains only palatable species. It also seems a lot more conducive to the development of a sedentary lifestyle than I was anticipating.

On the other hand, spider monkeys live in larger groups that may hold a territory of a square kilometer or even much more. This seems more likely to produce the semi-nomadic society that I was thinking of, with each group maintaining several seasonal homes, perhaps with an element of society that is sedentary, to guard and maintain each site while the main group is out foraging. I suspect that "trade routes" between sites within a single group's territory might be a key to societal emergence.

I don't think the lack of annuals is going to pose a significant problem. It is important to keep in mind that the vast majority of tropical crops are perennials. Grains are an exception, but many of those also have perennial ancestors. People in the Amazon, Polynesia, and New Guinea traditionally lived off of only perennial crops.

A couple more questions here. Do root vegetables count as perennials? Doesn't the plant generally have to be killed in order to harvest a root crop?

Also, are there any significant ways in which societies with perennials for staple crops differ from societies with annuals for staple crops? I had figured that dependence on perennials would make expansion slower, but this was more in the case of particularly slow-growing perennials, like fruit trees.

It seems that a frontiersman could do a lot better with a garden of annuals than with a garden of perennials, especially if their diet is inherently plant-heavy. It shouldn't be too hard to live off wild forage for the first couple of years if the frontier is still inside the rainforest; but, when the frontier lies outside the forest, it would be much harder.

Woody vines would make awesome dwellings though. The bridges are actually fig tree roots, but there are also bridges made with living vines in Japan.

Are the vines malleable enough that you can just wind them together into a bridge? Or do you have to slowly train them to grow that way over several years?

No worries. I'm glad to help. Let me just say that I am by no means a complete expert on everything plant-related so I apologize in advance if there is something I said that is incorrect.

You might be able to relate to this, but I've found that the biggest lesson to learn in grad school is figuring out how to be comfortable making decisions based on inevitably limited expertise. I should say that, while the final product relying on your advice may still be somewhat misguided, it will be significantly less misguided than before you showed up to help.

And, to be honest, expertise only goes so far, anyway: alternate history always requires a certain amount of arbitrary guesswork, especially when we're dealing with anthropological topics.

 

[mosodake]

While reading the handful of primatology papers I was relying on here, I was given the impression that primates had to travel like nomads over several kilometers to reach remote "patches" of fruit. But, in fact, it seems like a typical gibbon family's territory is only about 30 hectares, and the "patches" are individual trees just a couple meters apart. This sounds more like the sapient version would be managing a continuous grove of trees that contains only palatable species. It also seems a lot more conducive to the development of a sedentary lifestyle than I was anticipating.

On the other hand, spider monkeys live in larger groups that may hold a territory of a square kilometer or even much more. This seems more likely to produce the semi-nomadic society that I was thinking of, with each group maintaining several seasonal homes, perhaps with an element of society that is sedentary, to guard and maintain each site while the main group is out foraging. I suspect that "trade routes" between sites within a single group's territory might be a key to societal emergence.

I don't know how big of a group gibbons and spider monkeys live in, but I would think that one tree could easily produce enough fruit to feed a decently sized group, say somewhere in the 20s, over the weeks or months it is in fruit, not to mention the bugs and stuff living on the tree that could also be eaten. With that in mind, if you take a 30 hectare chunk of rainforest, you might get (I'm totally guessing at numbers here) 2 or 3 fig trees of different species plus another 10 species with edible fruit. Figs tend to crop when other trees are taking a break, so they will tide the group over in leaner times.

A couple more questions here. Do root vegetables count as perennials? Doesn't the plant generally have to be killed in order to harvest a root crop?

Root vegetables are either biennials like carrots and radishes, which bloom and die in their second year, or perennials, like cassava, potatoes, and yams. Perennial root crops are usually vegetatively propagated, so technically the plant doesn't die when it's harvested because clones of it are replanted later.

Also, are there any significant ways in which societies with perennials for staple crops differ from societies with annuals for staple crops? I had figured that dependence on perennials would make expansion slower, but this was more in the case of particularly slow-growing perennials, like fruit trees.

I'm not aware of any significant difference. The Polynesians were certainly able to expand rapidly, and they only had perennials and trees. Many perennials are harvestable after one growing season, and the ones that are not can be planted in a staggered fashion that allows for a harvest every year. Some parts of Ethiopia use both annuals like sorghum and perennials like ensete, a banana relative, and while the ensete are maturing, sorghum is planted in between. Potatoes, for instance, are perennials, and that didn't stop them from becoming a staple food source in parts of Europe.

It seems that a frontiersman could do a lot better with a garden of annuals than with a garden of perennials, especially if their diet is inherently plant-heavy. It shouldn't be too hard to live off wild forage for the first couple of years if the frontier is still inside the rainforest; but, when the frontier lies outside the forest, it would be much harder.

Again, just because a plant is a perennial doesn't mean that generation times are long or that it takes a long time before it can be harvested. Trees and woody vines, of course, are usually an exception, but with those, vegetative propagation can eliminate much of the waiting time.

Are the vines malleable enough that you can just wind them together into a bridge? Or do you have to slowly train them to grow that way over several years?

For the bridges, young fig roots are guided along bamboo tubes and allowed to take root on the other side of the river. Once rooted, they gradually thicken. It takes maybe a decade, but the final product lasts essentially forever.

You might be able to relate to this, but I've found that the biggest lesson to learn in grad school is figuring out how to be comfortable making decisions based on inevitably limited expertise. I should say that, while the final product relying on your advice may still be somewhat misguided, it will be significantly less misguided than before you showed up to help.

Yes, that is an important thing to learn. I'm glad to have been of some help

And, to be honest, expertise only goes so far, anyway: alternate history always requires a certain amount of arbitrary guesswork, especially when we're dealing with anthropological topics.

Very true.

 

[Simreeve]

One quasi-epiphytic species that is potentially useful that I didn't think of earlier is Monstera deliciosa, a South American vine that is commonly found languishing in dim living rooms everywhere. While it usually begins life on the forest and climbs up trees, sometimes it germinates on tree branches and quite happily lives on them. It produces an edible (and quite tasty) fruit.

Ah yes, the 'Swiss Cheese Plant'...
But don't those fruits contain crystals of some organic acid, which damage (or at least hurt) the interior of the mouth if more than a few are eaten? I seem to recall seeing this problem mentioned on a label in Kew Gardens.

 

[Sven]

I don't know how big of a group gibbons and spider monkeys live in, but I would think that one tree could easily produce enough fruit to feed a decently sized group, say somewhere in the 20s, over the weeks or months it is in fruit, not to mention the bugs and stuff living on the tree that could also be eaten. With that in mind, if you take a 30 hectare chunk of rainforest, you might get (I'm totally guessing at numbers here) 2 or 3 fig trees of different species plus another 10 species with edible fruit. Figs tend to crop when other trees are taking a break, so they will tide the group over in leaner times.

Spider monkeys live in fission-fusion societies: groups of about 20-30 monkeys live together, but, under certain circumstances, break into smaller groups of 2-5. Gibbons live in family groups, with a mated pair and a few offspring (probably 1-3 at a time).

The conventional wisdom among primatologists seems to be that a group of spider monkeys generally depletes a "patch" of resources completely in a single foraging bout. But, I'm not sure how long a foraging bout is: probably a couple of days or a week.

I read one short report (basically just a dry diet list) in which a family of gibbons on a 40-ha section of forest in Thailand ate from 466 individual plants, including 82 fig trees from 23 different species. I'm not sure how many of the other plants were trees, lianas or other types of plants, and many of them were utilized for flowers, leaves or shoots; but the numbers are still dizzying. I've never seen a report listing the number of trees that primates didn't eat from, but it seems that they are able to utilize a very substantial proportion of the plants in the rainforest.

Root vegetables are either biennials like carrots and radishes, which bloom and die in their second year, or perennials, like cassava, potatoes, and yams. Perennial root crops are usually vegetatively propagated, so technically the plant doesn't die when it's harvested because clones of it are replanted later...

... Again, just because a plant is a perennial doesn't mean that generation times are long or that it takes a long time before it can be harvested. Trees and woody vines, of course, are usually an exception, but with those, vegetative propagation can eliminate much of the waiting time.

That's kind of what I thought. So, from a cultivation standpoint, these "perennials" are functionally annuals: you plant every season, and you get one harvest per planting. This seems to be the general basis of nearly all staple foods in human society. Breadfruit is perhaps the main exception: perhaps that would be a good paradigm for Arboreals. Plantains and sago are another paradigm altogether.

But, I suppose that there will be enough short-term plants available to support a new settlement while the first crop of trees matures. Perhaps it won't be such a restriction on dispersal as I thought.

For the bridges, young fig roots are guided along bamboo tubes and allowed to take root on the other side of the river. Once rooted, they gradually thicken. It takes maybe a decade, but the final product lasts essentially forever.

So, this is true bonsai architecture, then. I'll have to read more into this stuff, because I think it's going to be a real thing for Arboreals.

 

[Pesterfield]

How will increased intelligence impact the young?

Will they still naturally be able to cling to mom, make automatic grabs when falling, and other survival skills soon after being born?

 

[Sven]

How will increased intelligence impact the young?

Will they still naturally be able to cling to mom, make automatic grabs when falling, and other survival skills soon after being born?

Behavioral instincts and child development are another thing I didn't consider.

Whenever an issue like this to come up, I like to see if I can go both ways: for example, maybe spider monkey babies retain their precocial instincts, while gibbon babies become more altricial. What will this mean for family life and for the nomadic lifestyle?

I'm open to suggestions.

 

[Pesterfield]

If you can't safely travel with your baby you either have to develop the trust to leave it with others while you go eat, or rely on others to bring you food.

Could certainly be a driver of social development.