Reverse the positions of Africa and Europe

So for a while I have been wondering how a situation would arise whereby the positions of Africa and Europe(socially, not geographically smartass :p) would be switched. Now, my first candidate for a POD would be to have the Carthaginians win the Punic Wars, most likely the second one. Also, having Antony defeat Augustus in the Final War of the Roman Republic which would allow the Ptolemaic empire to remain in power and thus perhaps allow it to take the lead at a later time.

I wonder what anyone else thinks of this and if they have any other ideas for a way in which Europe becomes the victim and Africa the victor.
 
At one point during the Middle Ages, the Middle-East was more advanced than Europe. If Europe remained a backwater mud puddle, Arabic advances in society, technology, and such would probably spread further into Africa. The Caliphate afterall did include Northern Africa.
 
The problem is most of the Middle East had less agricultural potential than Europe so they were fighting a losing battle. The other is that with the longer hot seasons and wetlands south of the Sahara, disease bearing agents are going to be more prevalent than in Europe or the Middle-East so outside of the Maghreb and Egypt the populace has another strike against it. Perhaps if you could establish an early civilization of the Islamic or Phoenician type in South Africa. (I guess non-wank Draka.)
 
Trouble is that Italy and Greece were part of the greater Mediterranean cultural area quite early on: and it's a lot easier for know-how and ideas to spread north of the Alps and the *French mediterranean coast than it is for it to spread across the Sahara and the jungles. And if Carthage wins, then _Carthage_ spreads more advanced African know-how into southern Gaul and Iberia.

Might be easier to wank Africa than hamstring Europe: if the Egyptians developed more of a naval tradition and made voyages to Punt and beyond on a regular basis, you might get something like OTLs mixed Arab-Bantu "Swahili" culture springing up a millenia and a half earlier, with knock-on effects on all of East Africa. Similarly, a more vigorous Carthage could colonize and trade along the Atlantic coast and get organized Sahelian states going 8-9 centuries earlier.

Still, I don't think you can get something like OTL Stanley making his way through the Congo cannibal country only with an Ethiopian in the Black Forest. Disease environment, agricultural potential, internal connections, legnth of sea-coast, accessibility to a wider world across the Med and over the Black Sea straits and even across the Steppes: no part of Europe can be isolated to the extent that Africa south of the Congo river basis was OTL.

At best, we might get a difference like Europe and the Middle East, with a civilized, blimp-travelling Isis-worshipping Ethiopian or Fulani visiting the quaint and barbarous realms of the Wotan-worshipping Saxons, or the Bhuddist Khan of Rus, like a Victorian Englishman visiting Egypt or Afghanistan. But I can't see N. Africa developing a literate state society and it failing to spread N. of the Med and later to the northern parts of Europe, although without Rome it might be another half a millenium or so before, say, the Scandinavians develop effective state structures.

Bruce
 
So for a while I have been wondering how a situation would arise whereby the positions of Africa and Europe(socially, not geographically smartass :p) would be switched. Now, my first candidate for a POD would be to have the Carthaginians win the Punic Wars, most likely the second one. Also, having Antony defeat Augustus in the Final War of the Roman Republic which would allow the Ptolemaic empire to remain in power and thus perhaps allow it to take the lead at a later time.

I wonder what anyone else thinks of this and if they have any other ideas for a way in which Europe becomes the victim and Africa the victor.
The problem with this is that 'Carthaginians' and 'Egyptians' are part of the wider mediterranean civilization. European, if you will. To get BLACK africans in that dominant position would be much harder. Largely because tropical diseases really sap a society's energy.
 

Typo

Banned
The geology of subtropical africa is inheritently poor for agriculture, and therefore whoever happens to live there is almost bound to fall behind Europe.
 
The geology of subtropical africa is inheritently poor for agriculture, and therefore whoever happens to live there is almost bound to fall behind Europe.

Bleh, don't let a small mind be your hobgloblin.

Let us have an Africa which not only has a horse equivalent survive (Let's say a more efficient and domesticatable form of rhino) but also a yam which is genetically altered so it provides as much nutrient per unit effort as Wheat or Rice.

Yes, its requires deep time PODs, but so what?

Domesticated War Hippos, and nutritous Yams are enough to make black africa's development much more parallel to the old world's at least.
 
Bleh, don't let a small mind be your hobgloblin.

Let us have an Africa which not only has a horse equivalent survive (Let's say a more efficient and domesticatable form of rhino) but also a yam which is genetically altered so it provides as much nutrient per unit effort as Wheat or Rice.

Yes, its requires deep time PODs, but so what?

Domesticated War Hippos, and nutritous Yams are enough to make black africa's development much more parallel to the old world's at least.

It depends on what can be domesticated with relative ease by a pre-modern population. Most animals can't- for example unlike horses zebras are vicious which makes them poor candidates for domestication. Hippos are right out because they're incredibly aggressive and dangerous. More importantly if all this handwaving is going on it might have knock on effects that throw everything out of the ballpark. Say your yam which gives as much nutrition as, say, a potato is discovered. Yes, it gives the Africans a boost but once ti spreads it gives everyone else a boost too. The problem with deep time changes is that it becomes very hard to extrapolate anything from them.
 
Yeah, Jared Diamond kind of answers this with saying that there needs to be deep time changes in crops, and animals for Africa to be successful.
 
I had an idea for this scenario (too bad I can't remember the details :(). Basically fling a meteor near the Middle East during the early dynastic period maybe, causing the temperature in Europe to drop and the destruction of the Sumerian Civilization while Egyptians are forced to migrate south, bringing with them some domestic animals and possibly some knowledge of how to use metal. Over a long period of time these remnants of Egyptian Civilization spread and evolve throughout Sub Saharan Africa.

It could take awhile to rebuild civilization and it may be a little far out there but I think it’s possible.
 
The problem is the climate. That's why Africans had spears at the time that Europeans had breech loading rifles.

Disease and geographic isolation rather than climate. Bengalis, SE Asians, Aztecs all managed to build pretty advanced civilizations in tropical areas, and the Aztecs didn't have much in the way of domestic animals to boot. And the climate isn't so bad in Ethiopia, South Africa, etc.

Anyway, state-building got off to a late start in subsaharan Africa, but it's hard to see why it shouldn't have begun earlier, since the staple west African crops of rice, millet and sorgum were developed from local plants as early as 5000 BC. Iron smelting began in OTLs Nigeria region several centuries BC, and it's unkown if this was a local development or knowledge passed along from N. Africa or Egypt: if it was an indigenous achievement, again it's hard to see exactly why the discovery might not have arisen earlier - we currently don't know too much about the development of metallurgy in W.Africa, although copper seems to have been worked north of Nigeria as early as 3000 BC.

Bruce
 
If there were pre human evolutionary changes making 'civilization' easier in Africa might fewer humans have left that continent in the first place?
 
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