From Fog Arises a Nation: Civilization on the Namib Fringe

[Revachah]

​

A few paragraphs cannot explain this feat of humanity. How a society develops in one of the oldest deserts on earth.

Somewhere between the crashing waves against gravel shores and sand dunes, a civilization sprung. In lands with little to no rain and fog so dense one could not see their outstretched hand from their faces.

The reality was this queer and particular place of earth was altered and maintained with a meticulousness that left outsiders baffled for centuries.

In the diary of an early European explorer it was stated

[They] have adapted themselves to that bitter environment so that they laugh deeply and grow the fattest babies in the world

That assessment was true and the very first written accounts by outsiders spoke of a land of such wealth backdropped by desolation.

- Diamonds were so common they were ground for dust to ornamentate knives and tools.
-Sealskins were worn by every echelon of society also draping communal and private homes framed with whale bones.

It was these farmers, copper/bronze smiths and whalers that made this land great to a world who sought to show their inferiority.

This is the land of the Great Dryness and this is their story.

 

[Vuru]

Is this a BUSHMAN STRONK REMOV BANTU timeline i'm sensing?

Seems only rightful the human proto-race get it's rightful place

 

[Revachah]

Is this a BUSHMAN STRONK REMOV BANTU timeline i'm sensing?

Seems only rightful the human proto-race get it's rightful place

I wouldn't call Bushmen proto-race, an early divergent branch of humanity whose antiquity is no doubt augmented by paleo-african roots, however not the people humanity springs from.

But yes BUSHMEN STRONK!!!!11

 

[Falecius]

You have my attention.

 

[Somewhereovertherainbow]

This looks like an interesting timeline

 

[Revachah]

Cool, appreciate the support.

So what are folks interested in reading about first? Pretty open tbh.

 

[Sceonn]

The first chapter.

 

[123456789blaaa]

Cool, appreciate the support.

So what are folks interested in reading about first? Pretty open tbh.

I'd like to know the PoD and details on why it's plausible.

 

[BootOnFace]

Very interested. Sounds like a less disruptive Land of Red and Gold.

 

[Revachah]

I'd like to know the PoD and details on why it's plausible.

The point of divergence? Using the papers of middens and Megamiddens in southwest coastal Africa I'd say around 9-8kbp.

At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum 20km of shore line disappeared in Elands Bay, further south it was a bit more dramatic

So you have a drastic reduction of avaliable winter rainfall space. Limiting knowledge of faunal assemblages and flora subsistence. Finally, there are other people previously adapted to the cycles and systems migrants have to compete with now.

We know already that the use of shellfish, seals and penguins are of great antiquity in the region. Stable populations with vast numbers that have high caloric returns when compared to herding animals.

The return rates of hunting trips for Kalahari populations could not and did not support the caloric needs for population growth beyond replacement levels even in wetter times.

So we have established the when, so what is a viable opportunity for my ATL's population to grow?

The PoD arises with specialized sealing, penguin egg gathering, sea weed eaters (who have the specialized bacteria in their gut to digest algal polysaccharides) who relish whale meat. They stick to the coasts, they have a taste for and adaption to marine subsistence. The return rates are always higher as was said above and the prestige is no longer with ungulates. If anything grass eating animals are seen with disdain, only the elephant and bull eland have high enough fat to be worthy of eating. Even then in this mindset they are seen as creatures of rain and pools and are considered to be "water" animals.

Beached Whales create need for high levels of coordination, planning, materials for storage and places to store the harvest. It's creating feast opportunity and surpluses for more construction materials, more "potlatches", more time for occupational expansion beyond the daily tasks and need.

This creates a number of other effects that set this ATL into motion.
____
The only other issue I can think of is water, but it's not nearly as bad as people would imagine. Namibia has a very conducive hydrology, their rivers eventually just go underground it just takes digging. Even amongst the scattered and rather small clans of inland Australia "soakages" were dug at depths of three meters.

There are a number of plants that are indicators of ground water that can be clues on planning digs. There are ways to store vast amounts of water by other means that can be mentioned later. But suffice to say those who control soakages, wells and cisterns control the people.


Does this answer your question?

 

[Neoteros]

A TL about sub-Saharan Africa? Even though I don't know a lot about the region, it's going to be interesting.

 

[123456789blaaa]

The point of divergence? Using the papers of middens and Megamiddens in southwest coastal Africa I'd say around 9-8kbp.

At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum 20km of shore line disappeared in Elands Bay, further south it was a bit more dramatic
<snip>
So you have a drastic reduction of avaliable winter rainfall space. Limiting knowledge of faunal assemblages and flora subsistence. Finally, there are other people previously adapted to the cycles and systems migrants have to compete with now.

We know already that the use of shellfish, seals and penguins are of great antiquity in the region. Stable populations with vast numbers that have high caloric returns when compared to herding animals.

The return rates of hunting trips for Kalahari populations could not and did not support the caloric needs for population growth beyond replacement levels even in wetter times.

So we have established the when, so what is a viable opportunity for my ATL's population to grow?

The PoD arises with specialized sealing, penguin egg gathering, sea weed eaters (who have the specialized bacteria in their gut to digest algal polysaccharides) who relish whale meat. They stick to the coasts, they have a taste for and adaption to marine subsistence. The return rates are always higher as was said above and the prestige is no longer with ungulates. If anything grass eating animals are seen with disdain, only the elephant and bull eland have high enough fat to be worthy of eating. Even then in this mindset they are seen as creatures of rain and pools and are considered to be "water" animals.

Beached Whales create need for high levels of coordination, planning, materials for storage and places to store the harvest. It's creating feast opportunity and surpluses for more construction materials, more "potlatches", more time for occupational expansion beyond the daily tasks and need.

This creates a number of other effects that set this ATL into motion.
____
The only other issue I can think of is water, but it's not nearly as bad as people would imagine. Namibia has a very conducive hydrology, their rivers eventually just go underground it just takes digging. Even amongst the scattered and rather small clans of inland Australia "soakages" were dug at depths of three meters.

There are a number of plants that are indicators of ground water that can be clues on planning digs. There are ways to store vast amounts of water by other means that can be mentioned later. But suffice to say those who control soakages, wells and cisterns control the people.


Does this answer your question?

It does indeed! Thank you . Why didn't these whale eaters arise and thrive in OTL?

 

[Vespasian]

In!

Bonus points if you somehow allow for the mastery of the giant eland as a transportation animal.

 

[Vespasian]

Although, Khoisan were using cows before Europeans came to Namibia:

 

[Umbral]

Domesticated Ostrich!

 

[Polish Eagle]

Penguins and seaweed in a forbidding desert? Sounds like a tame version of the Tsalal.

This looks very interesting. I suppose their first contact with the outside world will be with the Portuguese, unless they themselves reach the Niger River societies first. Maybe they'd round the Cape of Good Hope and colonize Madagascar themselves.

 

[wtw]

hyenas as war animals

 

[Revachah]

The Namib in all its beauty wreathed in fog was never for the faint of heart. Swedish explorer and botanist Charles John Andersson on hearing the stories of the Skeleton Coast declared, “Death would be preferable to banishment to such a country.”

But not everybody agreed, atleast not entirely. Dauna-Daman (meaning ‘seaside people on a desert plain’) a khoekhoe speaking group of pastoralists turned beachcombers made opportunity from their stark situation.

They were not originally a fishing folk, actually they had all but wipe out by disease, war, intermarriage or simply pushed out the completely unrelated Xuu and Kx'a speaking peoples who made the coast their home for possibly some ten thousand or more years.

With their flocks of a few goats and apparently having ended the Cushitic/Khoekhoe taboo against eating animals of water, they eeked out a living until times would get a bit tough and move inland for months or sometimes years.

They were a scattered sort, some might say almost forgettable for shortly after settlement European colonists pushed them off to the edges.

But enough about OTL for now

From Fog Arises a Nation
Part One; The Mother to Coastal Peoples

At the end of the Last Glacial Maximum the western winter rain coastline of Southern Africa shrunk by over a quarter. Most clans relying on the herds slowly scattered to the winds and moved deeper inland, armed with poisoned arrows and spears. But some remained, continuing their marine lifestyle in a greatly expanded shallow bay.

They had abandoned the pursuit of antelope and spent their days plucking laver from exposed rock shelf to pilfering from their tidal fishing weirs they relied more and more on as seal populations became depleted.

In the summer the populations of False Bay beat the nectar of sugarbush and gathered the fruit of pigface to mix with herbs and stored in the inflated, proofed skins of seal for the fermentation of vision making brews.

Merrily the clans came together when a beached whale was seemingly offered by the Ocean Grandmother for their good ritual etiquette. Conch shells bellowed all along the westernmost Cape to call all to the territorial range of the presiding chief holding such bounth.

When the night fell boisterous celebrations prevailed, trance dancing the movements of sardines, the dance story of how the lobster got its claws or how they came to be a Seal People were performed until the sky turned sherbet oranges and pinks.

These corroborees of whale lasted for weeks as explorer Lancelotto Malocello was to learn in 1312 on what is in OTL referred to as Gran Canaria:

“…having brought our boates laden with whale aptly hunted we cutt the fatt from them for oyle, belly for bacon and the rest was throwne a good distance deep in the ground of the beach near the tents: upon which fish the Saldanians hartlie on, with much fervor after

it had lyen in a heape bellow syol with salt some 15 daies, that noe Christian could abide to come within a myle of it pit opined but they made much adoe”

Shell bead necklaces were traded, marriages were made, ochre incised with ceremonial images dealt with amongst the older wise folk for grey greasestone found deep inland. Powdered perfumes were held in every tortoise shell case applied with a tuft of baby seal fur. Blister pearls and even the occasional full beaded pearl was worn cemented by some vegetal sap.

There was time for luxury for anyone who made it for themselves or was gifted it. No one was in want for the sea was in plenty until it wasn't.

The lands of False Bay and the Cape Peninsula no longer held seals after a few centuries. Some among them stayed put to eat the fish from tidal weirs, some sought the animals that were grazing in their lands but among the rest began their trek North, clubbing or spearing every seal in sight.

 

[Revachah]

It does indeed! Thank you . Why didn't these whale eaters arise and thrive in OTL?

There are only so many beached Whales, they needed to have a boating culture.

In!

Bonus points if you somehow allow for the mastery of the giant eland as a transportation animal.

Eland Bull and the Eland Bull song are the most ancient songs subg by Kalahari people but they aren't important in this ATL

Although, Khoisan were using cows before Europeans came to Namibia:

Khoekhoe yes, I have posted about them here a few months ago

But these people aren't Sandawe-Khoe, those people didn't come from East Africa to South Africa until about 3kya.

Domesticated Ostrich!

Nope! Ostrich are not truly domesticated and aren't worth farming. Ranching maybe but even then in southern Africa there are better animals for that.

Penguins and seaweed in a forbidding desert? Sounds like a tame version of the Tsalal.

This looks very interesting. I suppose their first contact with the outside world will be with the Portuguese, unless they themselves reach the Niger River societies first. Maybe they'd round the Cape of Good Hope and colonize Madagascar themselves.

I felt like Tsalal was supposed to have some gross factor to it but no, it's not at all ASB one can live in the Namib and even thrive depending on specialization.

Also yes they will go far if you haven't noticed it in my latest post.

hyenas as war animals

Lol, everyone here is so into domesticated "packages"

 

[Revachah]

Basically I'm trying to change the way I write by not packing it too densely with data and not doing massive walls of text.

But yeah, let me know what y'all think so far.