Pangaea with an inland sea

fortyseven

Let's say we have a large super-continent(Pangea) that has an inland sea the size of South America. The sea to land ration is still 70:30 tho. The land is divided into 6 river valleys. Tho the valleys are divided from each other by Alps size mountains, and they all merge into the hill ranges and lowlands surrounding the inland sea. The equator runs thru the center of the land and inland sea i.e half is "north" of the Equator and half is "south" of the Equator. Let's say each river valley develops a civilization, technologically, equivalent to Egypt,Mesoptamia,India,China,Olmec,Chavin/Moche.

Anyway, I'd think that 2 of the great river valleys would be half jungle or more. Some of the great river valleys would have deserts though I suspect only as dry as the Kalahari. I'd suspect most if not all the rivers' delta plains would be mostly swamp/salt flat, but these could be drained. There would be Indian Ocean-like weather over the inland sea.

Civilization would begin at the same time as our world's did for comparison. The civilizations would expand upriver though slower than our Ancient Egypt. The civs would need to protect themselves against each other, so military tech and sea travel tech would both advance faster than our world. Technology as a whole will advance faster than OTL since innovations from one civ will reach the others much faster than our world. Being conservative, let's say long bows and chain mail by our 1000 BCE. Plus the faster military tech advances will lead to non-military tech advances as in our world.

Once we reach the point where each great river valley is mostly (70-90 percent) unified, we'd see alliances between empires to conquer others by sea and land. No one empire would be able to conquer and hold on to more than 2 other great river valleys. These expansions would be shortlived I believe. Should there be a world war (yes it is possible) then it's possible to have Pangea temporarily divided between 2 empires(about 1.5 Mongol Empires). These super-empires would be very short-lived however.

In time, the delta cities and the others of the inland sea plain would develop into Venice/Amsterdam-like cities. They would grow closer to each other than their respective empires. Their merchant classes would grow in power. Eventually, they would form a Hanseatic League-like alliance and free themselves from their respective empires.
 
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David S Poepoe

Banned
Civilizations on the donut continent

Those civilizations in the temperant zones will most likely do better than those in the tropics. Actually, I think its likely that the super-Empires (3+ river valleys) will last for a very long time, like the Roman Empire. However, with six major rivers emptying into this Inland Sea I wonder how long can the delta civilizations last, since the sea level of the Inland Sea will always be rising.

Oh, and true, this is not AH.
 

fortyseven

Posted on wrong board. I didnt notice till now though.

David, you'd think it's possible for all of 3 valleys/floodplains to be held by a super Empire for that long? I would think that would be too difficult.
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
fortyseven said:
Posted on wrong board. I didnt notice till now though.

David, you'd think it's possible for all of 3 valleys/floodplains to be held by a super Empire for that long? I would think that would be too difficult.
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Technology permits. Once advance forms of communications develop (ie. telegraph, etc.) the ability to govern over great distances becomes easier. Look at the territory that is controlled by Russia across the Eurasian landmass. There are no major natural borders, particularly down by the Inland Sea and even the Alps not major hurdles.

In the interest in diversity I think it also likely that the land mass would probably support more than six distinct civilizations. Probably many more. A map would make things a little easier, since then we can actually point out the regions most likely to produce really successful socities. Tho I would speculate that those civilizations that develop upon the outside of the continent may have a leg up on those that border the Inland Sea. At that point it comes down to fishing and the likelihood of raids and blockades.
 

DuQuense

Depending on the placement of Mountain ranges You have some almighty big deserts in the center of the land mass.
You probally end up with River civilazations, bordered by deserts, think eygpt times six.
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
DuQuense said:
Depending on the placement of Mountain ranges You have some almighty big deserts in the center of the land mass.
You probally end up with River civilazations, bordered by deserts, think eygpt times six.
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My thoughts exactly. The presence of these two deserts, one of the east and another on the west side of the Inland Sea, would provide some natural border. The deserts do effectively divide the continentent into a North portion and South portion. This is one reason I felt that control of 3+ river valleys would be possible. Actually, I wonder if these land divisions really can be considered river valleys. I think more along the line of river basins - such as the Amazon.
 

David Howery

are we assuming that the original supercontinent never broke up and survived until today? If that's the case, there would be such a massive butterfly affect, I don't even think you'd have humans, much less civilizations anything like what we'd recognize....
 

DuQuense

Dino-iods

The original post didn't mention Humans, just Civilazations. I Assumed some kind of Dino-iods.

beside the super deserts You would have MAJOR Cyclones hitting the shores.
I wonder if you would have rebels escaping to the coral & volcanic islands scattered around the oceans, or a polinesian analouge, civilazation.
 

David S Poepoe

Banned
DuQuense said:
The original post didn't mention Humans, just Civilazations. I Assumed some kind of Dino-iods.

beside the super deserts You would have MAJOR Cyclones hitting the shores.
I wonder if you would have rebels escaping to the coral & volcanic islands scattered around the oceans, or a polinesian analouge, civilazation.
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Unless otherwise stated there are no coral atolls or volcanic islands for which one to escape to for there to be a polynesian analogy.
 
Anthony Appleyard

Anthony Appleyard

The shape of the land would make the monsoon winds and the sea currents blow across the poles, not round and round them, so there would be no polar icecaps. See the last episode of "Walking with Dinosaurs" for when OTL Earth was like this in the Cretaceous.
 

fortyseven

I meant to have humans but obviously that wouldn't work under certain circumstances. I didn't say humans specifically for this reason, so it's any sentient land-based beings.

There'd be non-pangeaic land. Whether there'd be volacnic islands is if the planet is seismically stable or not. I wouldn't want the edge of a tectonic planet too close to the spercontinent though for obvious reasons.
 

zoomar

Wow, I was going to talk about the possibily of faster diffusion of cultural traits among coast hugging civilizations until I saw that we've gone so far back that we're wondering about what, if anything, would evolve to sentience in a world which never had to face the results of plate techtonics. Definitely ASB.

Personally, given the effects that continental drift has had on evolution and climate over the past several hundred million years, I think the likelihood that anything remotely resembling humans evolving on Pangaea is quite limited.
 

DuQuense

Coastal ships are easyer than Ocean Ships, it is easyier to sail from morrocco to somili than to sail to America. In one you are simply following the coast. in the other you are sailing into the great unknown. If you ignore the seasonal cyclones, Sailing all the way around Pangea could be done with Carracks and 50,000 BC Tech [IOTL 50,000 BC they sailed from Wales to Italy & Back]
 

zoomar

DuQuense said:
Coastal ships are easyer than Ocean Ships, it is easyier to sail from morrocco to somili than to sail to America. In one you are simply following the coast. in the other you are sailing into the great unknown. If you ignore the seasonal cyclones, Sailing all the way around Pangea could be done with Carracks and 50,000 BC Tech [IOTL 50,000 BC they sailed from Wales to Italy & Back]
Click to expand...

Exactly what I meant. Thanks for explaining.
 

zoomar

Assuming that the interior of a huge continent like Pangaea would be largely arid, I would suspect that civilizations would develop coastal and lower riverine adaptations - like Egypt and the Mediterranean basin along the outer coast. This is what DuQuesne said. Few would attempt journeys directly overland. I would also expect that a significant commonality of culture traits, technology, possible language families, and religion would spread among the rim civilizations.

Perhaps an analog of the Americas in OTL might be found in a partial parallel development of civilization among the people settling and living along the banks and rivers flowing into the inland sea. Perhaps an earlier, more temperate climate allowed "prehistoric" human settlement of the interior, only to have it be abandoned except for the inland sea when climate became harsher. These interior civilizations might be largely independent from the world civilization developing along the outer coast and, as a result, be less fully developed - as Mesoamerica was in OTL

Maybe some ATL Columbus might perfect the domestication of "camels" and "discover" these civilizations while searching for a short cut to "China"?
 
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