The Waters of Tritonis – a North African Cradle of Civilization

[Revachah]

1. I am not talking about Sorghum Bicolor. During the AHP sorghum was widespread in the Savannah-like Sahara, my idea was the Atlanteans domesticated a local variety – i'll call it Atlantic Sorghum to avoid confusion. If you think chufa is a better idea for a domesticated local crop, though, I'm all ears! I'll definitely read about it, thank you.

2. I didn't think (and I didn't say) that Atlantic Sorghum would spread much across the mountains. The Atlas will be dominated by forestry, and Maghreb littoral by the Mesopotamian package.

3. Who says the plough must be introduced to the region by the romans? The Egyptians had ploughs, the Mesopotamians had ploughs, the Chinese had ploughs and, if these people shift to agriculture from 8000 BC I don't see why they shouldn't develop them as well.

4. The spread of the Levantine agricultural package would happen in the same way as it did irl. There are records of Agriculture picking up on the Maghrebi coast between 7000 and 6000 BC.

5. Intensive waterworks were not alien to the early civilisations that needed them. The Sumerians had a complex system of irrigation.

6. In short, the POD veers drastically away from African food norms because I want it to. Like other PODs it's a thought excercise, a what-if, not a report that follows history as it happened in real life. If the POD is a cultural shift in the Capsian Culture, then of course it will veer away from African food norms.

7. thank you once again for the suggestion, I will look at Chufa!

8. I've never made a secret of the fact that I need to research and I'm never averse to learning new things. I'm very happy with suggestions on readings and articles so that I can get more informed - what I'm less thrilled about is you gatekeeping African ATLs, honestly. I want to write about this and I'll keep writing about this.

The AHP was a wholly African Monsoonal occurrence one that wouldn’t form a Mediterranean winter climate adapted grain.

just as rice cultivation from the 8th century of Spain and Sicily has yet to create a winter rainfall adapt plant for the cool winter spring, warm/hot summer climates of the Mediterranean.

there are constraints that have to be minded unless you veer into ASB.

Roger Blench showed linguistically a Roman introduction of aboriculture and plough in the link that spoke about the language flattening of Berber.

Egyptians themselves used primary the hoe and human power and only rarely used a “plough” although more accurately it was an “ard” that scratches the surface of soft flood deposits of soil

China unlike Africa had a plant based food system that later added domesticated animals. African food systems were more complicated because the AHP was radically distinct from Eurasian climatic models that shaped human-plant-animal relationships

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226379625_Cattle_Before_Crops_The_Beginnings_of_Food_Production_in_Africa

I’m basically saying you seem to be using a common ALT format used on this forum for Africa without understanding what made Africa Africa and are making a of creative leaps that yeah most people here won’t notice because they don’t know much about Africa but technically are ASB or are extremely unlikely PODs.

the ways with which people can get away with African atls on here but I’ve seen people spend pages fighting over one *minute* detail in a Eurasian ATL just seems like there are no parameters people doing African ATLs have to have.

you can do what ever you want because you want it but it doesn’t make it within the whelm of possibility.

You can call it gatekeeping or whatever would you want, I’m just saying that in an online community where actual knowledge of subsaharan Africa is slim you could get away with a lot but that doesn’t mean you should.

It’s about respecting the paleo history, OTL history and cultures/peoples of Africa 🤷🏾

best of luck, I was only trying to show how you should do more research though.

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

The AHP was a wholly African Monsoonal occurrence one that wouldn’t form a Mediterranean winter climate adapted grain.


Roger Blench showed linguistically a Roman introduction of aboriculture and plough in the link that spoke about the language flattening of Berber.

Egyptians themselves used primary the hoe and human power and only rarely used a “plough” although more accurately it was an “ard” that scratches the surface of soft flood deposits of soil

With a POD this far back the people could invent those things by themselves you know Africans are pretty clever people and don't need whitey to show up to get agriculture started. And the op explained this people are not Berbers but a relative to them.

 

[CalBear]

With a POD this far back the people could invent those things by themselves you know Africans are pretty clever people and don't need whitey to show up to get agriculture started. And the op explained this people are not Berbers but a relative to them.

Step it down about three notches.

 

[Denliner]

With a POD this far back the people could invent those things by themselves you know Africans are pretty clever people and don't need whitey to show up to get agriculture started. And the op explained this people are not Berbers but a relative to them.

Not exactly sure where this kind of rhetoric came from when most of the organized agricultural societies are not in places like France, Germany, Britain, and etc. but instead in Greece or the Middle East. I think it's pretty clear that the Atlantoi and their descendants developed agriculture on their own in Tritonis as a "cradle of civilization" while keeping close contact with Bronze Age/Iron Age civilizations in Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, or Anatolia.

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

Not exactly sure where this kind of rhetoric came from when most of the organized agricultural societies are not in places like France, Germany, Britain, and etc. but instead in Greece or the Middle East. I think it's pretty clear that the Atlantoi and their descendants developed agriculture on their own in Tritonis as a "cradle of civilization" while keeping close contact with Bronze Age/Iron Age civilizations in Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, or Anatolia.

He implied having this people invent the plough and abioculture without side influence is ASB

 

[Revachah]

With a POD this far back the people could invent those things by themselves you know Africans are pretty clever people and don't need whitey to show up to get agriculture started. And the op explained this people are not Berbers but a relative to them.

Of course but that doesn’t change plant biology. Plants don’t magically become adapted to a winter rain fall cold climate of growth.

Including sorghums and most plants found in Africa. Cold/cool wet soil is a death sentence to most plants in the world.

It’s why plant diversification is so rich in Mediterranean climates (California/Cape/Macaronesian/Caucasus/ Valdivian Chilean forest/succulent karoo) the winter rainfall was a baseline for extreme plant diversification and specialization.

But also the animal driven plough is not something the arises out of no where, it’s not a pre-requisite to civilization and not necessary for society to develop. To assume that it is would be denying the reality of the Americas and Africa.

But worse it’s thinking the world works like Guns, Germs and Steel; plays into an all too common Eurasian based ways civilization develops and simplifies the way African populations *could* have reached what some call “civilization” if they just did or had ________.

 

[Revachah]

He implied having this people invent the plough and abioculture without side influence is ASB

Read my words before you state that. I stated it was ASB to have Mediterranean Sorghum in a monsoonal environment. It’s evolutionary divergence.

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

Read my words before you state that. I stated it was ASB to have Mediterranean Sorghum in a monsoonal environment. It’s evolutionary divergence.

They probably would not use med sorghum if that it the case the region probably hand monsoon adapted sorghum like which is present in India and Africa today. Even Sorghum Bicolor is grown in India a country known for its monsoons

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

Of course but that doesn’t change plant biology. Plants don’t magically become adapted to a winter rain fall cold climate of growth.

Including sorghums and most plants found in Africa. Cold/cool wet soil is a death sentence to most plants in the world.

It’s why plant diversification is so rich in Mediterranean climates (California/Cape/Macaronesian/Caucasus/ Valdivian Chilean forest/succulent karoo) the winter rainfall was a baseline for extreme plant diversification and specialization.

But also the animal driven plough is not something the arises out of no where, it’s not a pre-requisite to civilization and not necessary for society to develop. To assume that it is would be denying the reality of the Americas and Africa.

But worse it’s thinking the world works like Guns, Germs and Steel; plays into an all too common Eurasian based ways civilization develops and simplifies the way African populations *could* have reached what some call “civilization” if they just did or had ________.

The region isn't a med climate its behind a rain shadow the plants had to adapt at this point. And you said sorghum cultivation here would be difficult without the plough so this would spawn innovation to create the things.

 

[Revachah]

They probably would not use med sorghum if that it the case the region probably hand monsoon adapted sorghum like which is present in India and Africa today. Even Sorghum Bicolor is grown in India a country known for its monsoons

The region isn't a med climate its behind a rain shadow the plants had to adapt at this point. And you said sorghum cultivation here would be difficult without the plough so this would spawn innovation to create the things.

An alternate sorghum wouldn’t be necessary because OTL sorghum is adapted to the region. The only reason for someone to create a new sorghum is for a ATL grains outside of the Sahel.

no you didn’t read what I wrote. I stated that the plough was an introduction of the romans and that the true plough would not need to develop in the soft alluvial sandy soils of the Sahara. I stated that it was necessary for the cultivation of the *montane* of Northern Africa.

 

[Glory2Cabinda]

An alternate sorghum wouldn’t be necessary because OTL sorghum is adapted to the region. The only reason for someone to create a new sorghum is for a ATL grains outside of the Sahel.

no you didn’t read what I wrote. I stated that the plough was an introduction of the romans and that the true plough would not need to develop in the soft alluvial sandy soils of the Sahara. I stated that it was necessary for the cultivation of the *montane* of Northern Africa

I misunderstood you my bad am man enough to admit when I fuck up. Also early you said sorghum cultivation here i ASB

 

[William T. M.]

It seems like we are misunderstanding each other. Let me try and reorganise my thoughs.

[...] in an online community where actual knowledge of subsaharan Africa is slim you could get away with a lot but that doesn’t mean you should.

1. First I would like to address the question of me disregarding African food norms. I have read the article you linked and it's very interesting and informative. One thing that was evident, though, is that the broad area that the paper examines has different conditions to the very specific area I want to talk about. As an African myself, I am interested in the peculiarities that have made Subsaharan Africa what it is today, and I certainly have a great interest in making this TL realistic, but I'm also not talking about Subsaharan Africa in this ATL.

The region I identified as Lake Tritonis would be one of the first areas to be cut off from the the southern Sahara as the range of the African Monsoon becomes more limited and the strongest climatic influence in the area becomes the Mediterranean, as it is today. Between 7000 and 5000 BC, the area would shift from wet and luxuriant under the influence of the southern monsoon to semi-desertic and with sparse winter rains as it is today (maybe slightly wetter because of the presence of a large body of water). So while the region was part of a network (ecological and perhaps cultural) that linked it to what is today Subsaharan Africa, the appearance of the Desert would cut it away from it. It's pretty easy to see, thus, that the reactions to this change might be very different from the ones that developed (later than my POD) in Subsaharan Africa. The title of this Timeline might as well be: "A different reaction to the desertification of the Sahara in a small territory surrounding the Chotts Megalake". It was a bit of a mouthful, though.

I'm not saying that the entirety of the Sahara is overcome by an agricultural revolution, I never said that: agriculture sprouting in a small area with very particular conditions is not invalidating the fact that semi-nomadic pastoralism is the main and most productive source of sustenance in that wider region – both in OTL and in this ATL. My POD does transform Lake Tritonis in a haven of agriculture and fishery in a land where desertification is creating great shifts in the environment. Around Tritonis, though, where the lush savannah is turning into semiarid grassland, the domestication of cattle, ovines etc. will remain the dominant mode of sustenance.

But what I'm focusing on is not the grasslands, it's the lake (hence the title). The people around the lake weren't pastoralists, not until they had no other choice because the lakes dried up. The ate snails, the fished, they gathered local plants and they hunted. This lifestyle of these "acqualithic" cultures allowed them to live rather comfortably, and in less strenuous conditions than nomadic pastoralist cultures would allow – rock art and Neolithic remains from the area suggest as much.

So what is stopping me from theorising how these people could develop in a different direction from what happened in ATL? With chufa cultivation and fishing as their main modes of sustenance, they would be a very strong incentive to focus their resources on the maintenance of the lake through canals, earthworks and dikes as it starts to dry out in the 5th millennium. It's a realistic shift that, in my opinion, doesn't require ASB or leaps of logic and that can be realistically and logically engineered. Is it the most likely course? Maybe not. Is it the least likely? I'm sure it isn't. And it's the POD that most realistically allows me to develop what I am interested in developing.

I can not be convinced that an early adoption of agriculture around a body of freshwater by people who practice intensive fishing is impossible just because people in a very different but neighbouring environment went in another direction. I'm aware that what I was discussing as I threw ideas around could sound a bit far-fetched but, to be fair, I have not written the first chapter yet, and nothing of what I'm writing so far is written in stone.

2. Now let me clear up a point about Sorghum.

Sorghum as a grain arose in the ripirian edge and summer rainfall regions of the green Sahara.

[...]

the spread of Sorghum will be limited without intensive water works in the Mediterranean littoral and is very counter to initial forms of agriculture which relied on rain-fed food systems to spread.

This comment about the spread of Sorghum is definitely right, but I must say I have misunderstood you initially. I had a lot to read and it was fairly early in the morning, so I must have missed your point – I apologise. Yes. Sorghum would not spread in the mediterranean littoral - not until the Atlantean civilization has agricultural and land management practices that are advanced enough (and they might never have, considering that according to my timeline they will not survive the end of the Bronze age).

You, in turn, misunderstood my comment: I have no intention for Atlantic Sorghum to be a mediterranean winter-rain species, it was just another denomination that distinguished it from OTL's sorghum that was domesticated later and in the Sahel.

Putting Sorghum aside, Chufa, which you so kindly directed me towards is a much more suited founder crop for this culture: it has a high yield, high caloric content and does well in the wet sandy soil that would surround Lake Tritonis. If the Capsians were to become more sedentary around the 8th Millennium (when Pastoralism wasn't yet widespread in the area ad hunter-gatherer lifestyles still dominated) this would probably be the first plant they domesticate, their "powerhouse", so to speak. It would grow next to the banks where they fish and gather snails and it could integrate what is missing in their diets fairly well.

That being said, it could not, and would not be the only plant they domesticate. As they shift to sedentism other wild plants would be brought closer to their village, and that would include Sorghum and Signalgrass which at the time were still widespread in the area. Yes, Sorghum would not be suited for the mediterranean coast – and I'm not proposing that it would be – but it would be suited to the northern shores of Tritonis: the people living on the southern slopes of the Aurès mountains today still grow it as their main crop. So with chufa, sorghum and signalgrass before 7000 BC, when animal domestication spread in this particular region why would they change their food norms so abruptly, if the lake provides them with what they need? As the paper you linked me explains, the modes of food production in Africa are very different and varied: what's best around a lake isn't what's best in the open grassland.

3. I do have a lot to do today, so follow up posts about my reasoning behind the adoption of forestry will have to wait a while but I'm very interested in hearing your response. First though, I want to bring attention to one thing you wrote – and that I thought it wasn't very fair.

But worse it’s thinking the world works like Guns, Germs and Steel; plays into an all too common Eurasian based ways civilization develops and simplifies the way African populations *could* have reached what some call “civilization” if they just did or had ________.

This is not at all my intention in creating this timeline. I do realise the variety and complexity of human culture and I never said that agricultural urban societies were the "right" or "only" way for humans to develop. You yourself have written a timeline in the past about an agricultural society developing in the Namib - does that mean you invalidate the peculiarities, complexity and food norms of the pre-agricultural people living there? No, again it's a thought excercise.

I don't want agriculture around Tritonis to develop in the same exact way as it did in the Levant. This particular thought excercise started with me wondering about what the area would be if the people inhabiting it had dedicated their resources to the maintenance of the freshwater lake around it – early agriculture and a civilization that is able to organize the labour necessary for that to happen was the best bet.

I'm writing here because this forum is a place where people who want to create an ATL come to hear the opinions of people who know OTL. I'm always glad to receive feedback, but I think you're being unfair in how you're characterising me. I'm here to learn and create an interesting, fleshed out and realistic timeline.

 

[altwere]

This sounds interesting

 

[Richard Drummond]

This is very interesting. I've played with the idea of such a TL in my mind for a few years but never got around to it. Cool to see this!

 

[Shahrasayr]

I remember that you were discussing an alternate North-African IE descendant on another thread not too long ago. Is that still a part of the TL’s scope?

Regardless, despite what some posters maybe insinuating, the TL feels well-researched and well-informed. Can’t wait for the first update.

 

[Richard Drummond]

Regarding the 'peopling' of North Africa ITTL, here is my 2 cents. IIRC, the Guanche are the product of Berber migrations into the Canaries where a pre-Berber group already existed. Now, I imagine that the *Atlanteans would be related to these people. Let's call them Pre-Berbers. There is the possibility that the Pre-Berbers would have been related to the ancestors of the Proto-Basque/Proto-Aquitanians in Iberia. Nonetheless, it seems that Berber migrations from the east would be occuring at around the same time that the *Atlantean civilization is developing so I imagine what we might see is a situation similar to Sumer wherein Berbers (fulfilling the role of Semites) overrun the Pre-Berber civilization (fulfilling the role of the Sumerians) and assimilate the former inhabitants. This could take place as late as 2000 BC. If William goes along with an event similar to what I describe, we could perhaps see Egypt's western frontier be slightly more peaceful as there would be a greater pull factor from the west.

It would be very interesting to see civilization spread throughout the western Mediterranean giving us a situation where the western and eastern halves of the Med. have civilization whereas the centre is inhabited by 'uncivilized' peoples. Proximity to civilization could mean a survival of the Nuragics and Iberians alongside the pre-Greek Sicels. This is definetly further down the line but I wouldn't be all to surprised if a Phoenician analogue in North Africa went on to establish colonies in the British Isles for the local metal resources. The Oera Linda book speaks of a Frisian civilization. Perhaps ITTL, the greater civilizational presence in the Western Mediterranean would kickstart such a civilization (although ofcourse different to what is described in the book). Nonetheless, pre-Celtic (who I believe were Indo-Europeans) or pre-pre-Celtic peoples survive in the British Isles.

The coming of the Iron Age and perhaps an analogue to the Sea People would also be interesting to see attack North Africa. Nuragic conquest of Tunisia but assimilation into the local culture perhaps?

But I'm getting ahead of myself; never bite more than you can chew. Personally, I fail to see the Nilo-Saharans having too much of an influence in the *Atlantean civilization.