New Guinea Civilization
- Thread starter pa_dutch
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Keenir
Banned
why does it need to be state-based? surely the Mongols weren't the only ones able to jump from Tribe to Empire.
Well, in this context, a state based civilisation that developed from a tribal civilisation would be the most likely development, as New Guinea is not the most geologically suitable place to quickly build an empire...
I figure that if there would develop a civilisation on this island, it would develop from a mix of marine Melanesian ethnic groups and cultures with inland Papua ethnic groups and cultures, and that it would most likely spread across the Bismarck Archipelago, and later on possibly in Micronesia as well.
I figure that if there would develop a civilisation on this island, it would develop from a mix of marine Melanesian ethnic groups and cultures with inland Papua ethnic groups and cultures, and that it would most likely spread across the Bismarck Archipelago, and later on possibly in Micronesia as well.
Water buffalo's will propably survive in New Guinea, although keep in mind that just having a lot of domesticated animals is not neccesary to build to a great and developed civilisation, as the native American civilisations show.
The Papua's and Melanesians already had dogs and pigs, and if the civilisation is to spread across small islands and the forests and mountain ranges of New Guinea, horses won't be that efficient, even if they would adapt to the climate.
Terrain. Highly mountainous, covered in thick forests, swarming with diseases, low technology. The island gets segmented in a few hundred 'islands' of culture, separated by impassable wilderness.
I think you'd need a geological POD for a New Guinean civilisation. The terrain is simply too much for one Stone Age group to unite or conquer the island. Hell, by the 1960s there were still vast areas we, with 20th century technology, simply couldn't get to.
they had agriculture down, but didn't have good plants for it... give them something better earlier.. dunno just what tropical plant in that area would do the job...
Ayup. New Guinea developing into a large civilization has two severe strikes against it. The first is that the geography of the place makes this virtually impossible. The second is that all the local crops they had available - taro, yams and a few others, if memory serves - were extremely protein-deficient. A lot of the children in the New Guinea highlands suffered from a range of nutritional disorders as a result. Now if they had some form of handy animal protein available - think pigs and chickens, only more so - this would be largely overcome...
About a thousand different languages, half of which will probably die out soon.
Thande
Donor
Someone wrote a book recently about a British airliner that had crashed in New Guinea in the 1950s, and then by the present day there's a small but thriving colony based on it (deep in the jungles and unknown to the outside world), and they manage to survive by using old Empire tactics to play the indigenous tribes off against one another.
Max Sinister
Banned
Yes, the geography of New Guinea leads to a division of the people - every valley has / had its own language and culture.
I have read that the Papua's catch tree kangaroo's and other arboreal marsupials,
and then break their legs so that they can be kept alive for a while without the risk of escape.
I was just wondering; couldn't the Papua's domesticate some of these arboreal marsupials or something?
"Water buffalo's will propably survive in New Guinea, although keep in mind that just having a lot of domesticated animals is not neccesary to build to a great and developed civilisation, as the native American civilisations show."
The Peruvians raised llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs intensively for their meat. To a lesser extent, they also made use of ducks and dogs, though the latter had largely been coopted for religious purposes. There is also limited evidence that they had begun to use chickens brought in from Polynesia even before the Spanish arrived. That's not to mention the fact that fishing was important for many of the cultures.
In Mesoamerica, dogs and turkeys were heavily relied on for supplemental protein. When the Spanish arrived, the Mexicans were backing this up with deer kept in pens (not really tame). They didn't really have enough of a protein base when you come down to it, and this was a recurring problem especially when soil depletion from corn cultivation peaked.
So yeah, domesticateds are key here.
The Peruvians raised llamas, alpacas, and guinea pigs intensively for their meat. To a lesser extent, they also made use of ducks and dogs, though the latter had largely been coopted for religious purposes. There is also limited evidence that they had begun to use chickens brought in from Polynesia even before the Spanish arrived. That's not to mention the fact that fishing was important for many of the cultures.
In Mesoamerica, dogs and turkeys were heavily relied on for supplemental protein. When the Spanish arrived, the Mexicans were backing this up with deer kept in pens (not really tame). They didn't really have enough of a protein base when you come down to it, and this was a recurring problem especially when soil depletion from corn cultivation peaked.
So yeah, domesticateds are key here.
I was watching a show about the Aztecs today, and they apparently built islands in the lake at Tenochtilan(?). They'd use reeds and mud and build up areas that were capable, if the show was right, of giving up 6 or 7 crops a year, assuming seedlings were planted, rather than sowing seeds and waiting. It was really rather interesting. I'm sure it was History or somesuch....just thought I'd through that out there. I never realized they were so inventive, agriculturally.
Was that the History Channel show "Engineering An Empire"? I was planning on watching the Aztec episode tonight but I had an international club meeting and no blank tapes. It comes on again Sunday, though, according to the scheduling... Anyway, was it any good? I've been waiting for the History Channel to have programs about non-Western (or non-Western precursor) civilizations for a while now. Did they get actual Native American, or at least Mexican, people to play the Aztecs, or did they they just have white actors like in that Barbarian special on Genghis Khan?