Australian Aboriginal Horses

So this is an interesting thought, what if horses were in Australia before European colonization?

In other words, Aboriginal Horses. You can theorize how horses got their but what if the Aborigines had horses. Could Aborigines have had a better society? More advanced then in our timeline. Would Aboriginal Australia actually have had Kingdoms and Republics because of having an animal that could more easily move resources? Ect.

What would change in this Australia?

Can't wait to see the comments.
 

ben0628

Banned
Biological/ Geological Stuff goes in ASB.

I don't believe this counts as biological or geological stuff.

The person is just asking if horses can get imported to Australia pre European contact (certainly not asb).

As to the Op's question, horses could either make it there earlier through trade with Southeast Asia or conquest by Southeast Asia. To do this however, Australia needs to be perceived as more valuable during that time period in otl.

As for how Australian civilization develops, I really don't have a clue, maybe Natives become nomadic similar to plains Indians in North America
 
That seems likely to me. Even with the horse they'll still be lacking good agricultural crops.

What about on the coast? I completely get most of Australia would be nomadic but would Australian possibly be able to form civilization on the Tasman coast line? The land there is good for farming.
 
As to the Op's question, horses could either make it there earlier through trade with Southeast Asia or conquest by Southeast Asia. To do this however, Australia needs to be perceived as more valuable during that time period in otl.

As for how Australian civilization develops, I really don't have a clue, maybe Natives become nomadic similar to plains Indians in North America

Okay same question as above but also, what if the horses don't even get there through trade but through a ship wreck. After all realistically no one is going to be looking for Australia, even the Europeans found it by accident.

Or I was thinking if during the migration out of Africa is there anyway early horses could have come along with the soon to be Aborigines.
 
Well, if you mean "horses spread to Australia from Asia once Aborigines are already there", it's good here. I thought you meant "somehow have a hose-like creature evolve in Australia". The latter's ASB, the former isn't.

Ah no, I meant horses coming to Australia through Asia. Maybe through trade or early migration when water levels were a lot lower off of Northern Australia.
 
Indonesia has quite a few horse breeds actually. They descend primarily from Mongolian horses. The Sumbawa, Sandalwood and Java ponies are the most important for an early introduction of the horse to Australia IMO. The island of Sumbawa has extensive enough savannas to support horses OTL and the Java pony has adapted well to the tropical climate of Indonesia.

Perhaps find a way to have an earlier and more prosperous Makasser? Or pretty much any Sulawesi and Maluku polity will do. The islands in this part of Indonesia became famously wealthy by selling spices. Encourage this trade earlier somehow and eventually horses can make their way to the archipelago from China or India (and Arabia too, a POD there could prevent or delay any Europeans from showing up).

These earlier polities could then create the trade in sea cucumbers earlier and contact Australia like the Makassans of OTL. Then have a local trepanger who has traded with the Australians find himself the ruler of dynasty that controls Sulawesi and Sumbawa. With fabulous wealth from the spice trade and nothing better to do, he commissions a few expeditions to the strange land to the south he visited in his youth. Not finding much, the expeditions fail and the ponies escape into the savannas of north Australia. They may even fall into the hands of the Yolngu (or an ATL group) who, while acting as guides keep the horses for themselves.

It will take a while for horses to reach southern Australia, but as others have mentioned where the horse becomes numerous enough there will be mounted Aboriginal nomads who can travel further, faster, and carry more than they could before. In places where riding isn't known, the horse could be strictly hunted as a source of meat.

This would be a very small initial population of horses mind, and after a failed expedition there's likely to be no more horses coming to Australia any time soon unless a very valuable trade good makes its way to courts in Sulawesi and the rest of Indonesia.
 
Most likely a pre-European introduction of horses to Australia would see the Aboriginals hunt the horses to extinction, similar to what happened in North America. But, in the case it doesn't, Australia could be very fertile land for a steppe nomad type civilisation. I actually mentioned it in a college paper on the Plains Indians, once.:oops:

The main issue is is that with horses you are limited to certain regions of the continent compared to with camels, which can range anywhere. The quality of Indonesian horses might be an issue, although going by the Comanche example, any Australian horse civilisation will rapidly learn how to breed better horses.

That seems likely to me. Even with the horse they'll still be lacking good agricultural crops.

They don't need crops, the Plains Indians were either not farmers or had abandoned farming. At worst, they might need someone to supplement their calories with once they put too much pressure on the kangaroo and emu (as with the Plains Indians)--the Murray River area had many semi-agricultural groups with intensive (but not agricultural) yam harvesting. If the horse nomads are putting such a huge demand on the yam farmers, maybe that might stimulate a domestication of the pencil yam, murnong, or other suitable crop? I believe there is also a species of yam that is found in New Guinea which is farmed for food but never was in Queensland where it is also found--but the rainforest or the Great Dividing Range in general is bad horse nomad areas, so it would have to be the pencil yam. Western Australia also has some interesting plants too, but getting a horse civilisation there is harder than getting one to New South Wales/Victoria because of the terrain.

Any "civilisation" that develops out of this would be loosely-organised horse nomads, most comparable to the Plains Indians, ruling over a horticulturalist village culture most comparable to the Pawnee, Arikara, etc. The transition to agriculture for them might occur because of the demands placed on them by trade that occurred between Aboriginal groups, which in turn would be caused by overhunting of the kangaroo and the emu. As we saw in North America, bison numbers declined nearly everywhere after the introduction of the horse, even before intensive white hunting. It's gonna be much easier to kill a kangaroo or an emu when you're on horseback, and sooner or later, you won't be able to sustain yourself, your family, or your tribe, based on those numbers, hence you'll go elsewhere to find more. Depending on how many tribes pick up this lifestyle (and many will, elsewise they'll be outcompeted), this will mean huge declines in kangaroo and emu numbers, and the winning strategy will be to trade with tribes that have more food from other sources. I'd expect because of this that Australia will be slightly more populated in the pre-colonial era, even though they'll still get mostly wiped out by smallpox and other diseases in the long run.

The British or any other would-be colonial power will no doubt find them easy to get rid of, but in marginal regions, they will fight back, and they will be a huge thorn in the side. That goes even more if anyone introduces the camel to Australia and some society transitions to camel nomadism. The village Aboriginals will be dealt with as per history--their numbers will be too small after disease and they'll be forced to surrender. Practically, I wonder if the means of dealing with Aboriginals (more treaties, I bet) as well as the fame they'll gain as expert raiders will mean they can at least move to American Indian status in terms of treatment and perception.
 
If food supplies for hunting becomes low, cant they just breed and butcher and then eat horses?

Assuming they don't evolve a taboo against eating horses like the Comanche and some other Plains Indians had. Horse was famine food for the longest time, only to be eaten when no other food could be found. It makes sense why--why eat the creatures that give you your livelihood? And since the initial domesticated horse population in Australia would be pretty small, I wouldn't be surprised for such a taboo to evolve there too.
 
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