Walking Through Dreams: Lands of Red and Gold (preview)
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
The Spanish emigration to the Americas, while low, was still a bit higher than the Dutch. Both because the Dutch had a lower population, and because they were more inclined to treat their colonies as trading posts, they had relatively few colonists. Still, they did receive a percentage of immigrants from other countries who ended up in Dutch-ruled colonies, so there's likely to be some immigrants. And in a related thought, none of the Dutch colonies really had a gold rush while they were under Dutch rule. Australia is going to see a gold rush, sooner or later. That could get interesting...
Ah, gotcha. There's going to be a very strong sense of strangeness, sure enough. Although Europeans experienced a lot of that when they came to Australia, anyway. Where else has trees which keep their leaves all year round but have the bark fall off in winter? And that doesn't even mention the platypus or the kangaroo...
On a more general note, I've been slowly working on the backstory for this timeline over the last few weeks, although not very quickly since I'm still mainly focusing on DoD (naturally). A few not-so-random thoughts:
It turns out that Australia has a surprising number of native plants which can be turned into domesticated species with not too much effort - provided that people are already farming. The *Aboriginal diet won't just consist of endless yams.
I've figured out a plausible way for some of the native civilisations to be in the early Iron Age, although they will still of course be totally outclassed by European technology (and more specifically European diseases).
The Aboriginal population will be more or less 8 million at the time of first contact with the Dutch. Of course, it will be something like 10-20% of that figure a century later.
If you thought that gum trees were the most invasive plants to come out of Australia, you ain't seen nothing yet...
While this is also a bump...
Any hints on what the butterflies are going to do to the Thirty Years' War?
Take your time, I want to see the end of DoD more urgently...
Any hints on what the butterflies are going to do to the Thirty Years' War?
Take your time, I want to see the end of DoD more urgently...
I haven't forgotten about Lands of Red and Gold (which now looks like it'll become the final title). Indeed, I've been working away on a few ideas, although it will take a while before I start posting any of the timeline.
The focus of this timeline will mostly be in *Australia and the South Pacific. One of the reasons DoD got so big was that I tried to cover the entire world. This means that events elsewhere in the world will mostly be covered at a distance, not up close.
That said, think of it this way: the Dutch who come into contact with the peoples of Western Australia will be tempted to name the country Aururia...
I'm working on that one, too, although any time I try to set a deadline I end up missing it.
This sounds really interesting. I also have to compliment you on DoD, great work.
But besides getting to design an entire culture in australia and figuring that out, what about the European side of things? I know we never hear about that.
I have read that the Dutch were one of the worst colonisers as far as local relations with natives, will this interaction perhaps change their outlook?
But besides getting to design an entire culture in australia and figuring that out, what about the European side of things? I know we never hear about that.
I have read that the Dutch were one of the worst colonisers as far as local relations with natives, will this interaction perhaps change their outlook?
WHAT?
No super-TL focusing on the whole world after 400+ years of butterflies? Added with the founding of several new civilizations in Australia...GASP!!!
Oh well, I guess I'll live.
And on the second thing, that hints they find gold, right? My Latin isn't all that accurate these days...
WHAT?
No super-TL focusing on the whole world after 400+ years of butterflies? Added with the founding of several new civilizations in Australia...GASP!!!
Oh well, I guess I'll live.
And on the second thing, that hints they find gold, right? My Latin isn't all that accurate these days...
On the second thing: "Lands of Red and Gold". I'll repeat that last word: "Gold". (Red is presumably to do with either the desert or the yams.)
Merci.
I'm still not sure how I'll show what's happening in Europe (or the rest of the world). I'm looking at a few options, such as allowing others to write some stories about the rest of the world (a la Tales of the Superpower Empire), having a few DoD-style global tour posts, or perhaps having a few *Aboriginal or Maori characters visiting Europe and having it seen entirely through foreign eyes. Or maybe something else entirely. I'm not sure. There won't be a complete lack of information about Europe, but I really want to keep the scope of this project under control. DoD has been a lot of fun, but it's also got too big to handle.
It may change their outlook, but not necessarily in a good way. Being able to exploit the "natives" to go mining and farming labour-intensive cash crops isn't exactly the way to improve the Dutch treatment of the locals.
WHAT?
No super-TL focusing on the whole world after 400+ years of butterflies? Added with the founding of several new civilizations in Australia...GASP!!!
There will be several new civilizations. Of course, since this is meant to be plausible and not "Australian Aztecs conquer the world by 1900 AD", the fate of those civilizations after European contact is not likely to be pleasant.
I'm not sure how long I'll run this timeline. If it does go up to the present day, though, there will be a lot of historical periods - whole decades, say -which are covered in a single post.
Yes, that means gold. Imagine the Dutch with access to the West Australian gold-fields. Having large amounts of gold isn't an unalloyed gain, as the Spanish have already found, but it certainly helps.
Heh. Lands of Red and Gold has a double meaning. It refers to the red of the yams which are one of the main food crop of *Australia, and also to the the emblematic golden flowers of the other main food crops (trees, actually). It also refers to the red soil of the Australian outback, and the gold it's full of.
I haven't actually said that it's going for 400 years. And if it does, well, it will not be as detailed as DoD. If only because the further things go from the PoD, the harder they are to keep track of.
As I child, I went to Rottnest Island, so got a little bit excited about that detail in the initial post!
Here are some potentially (read: very) useful maps of Australia, particularly in terms of mineral deposits and geology.
Also, if Voudon / Santiera emerged from the hybridity of Christianity and the traditional religions of West Africa, could there be a similar result from the missionary encounter with the *aborigine dreamtime? I'd love to see what that ends up looking like.
And even if you don't use it, the prospect of the Aotearoans pulling a Meiji makes me grin. Rather a lot.
Here are some potentially (read: very) useful maps of Australia, particularly in terms of mineral deposits and geology.
Also, if Voudon / Santiera emerged from the hybridity of Christianity and the traditional religions of West Africa, could there be a similar result from the missionary encounter with the *aborigine dreamtime? I'd love to see what that ends up looking like.
And even if you don't use it, the prospect of the Aotearoans pulling a Meiji makes me grin. Rather a lot.
Yeah, it's an oft-overlooked bit of Australian history.
Oh, that's going to be very useful; thanks for pointing it out. Shame it doesn't show tin deposits (very useful for bronze) but I've already found some useful information about tin mines, so that'll be fine. The info those maps have about copper has already given me some useful bits to add to the history of the early Murray River civilizations (i.e. there's some very large copper deposits around the lower Murray).
There will be various fusions of native religions with introduced ones, although I haven't really worked out the details yet. All things in good time...
And even if you don't use it, the prospect of the Aotearoans pulling a Meiji makes me grin. Rather a lot.
While it would be entertaining, it would be rather a large leap for the Aotearons to move from Stone Age to Meiji Age in a few hundred years. Even having a united New Zealand is probably beyond the bounds of probability.
Just a quick update on the progress of Lands of Red and Gold, for those who are interested.
First off, this timeline still isn't going to be released for a while. I have to finish DoD first, which might not take that long, but then I need some time off. I also want to get a decent part of the timeline written before I start posting more than teasers. This will let me maintain a semi-regular schedule of updates even on those weeks when I'm too busy with other commitments.
Secondly, the more I look into things, the more amazed I am at how much Jared Diamond got wrong about Australia. Australia has had a variety of plants domesticated, even one which Captain Cook domesticated. There are six species of plants native to Australia which are used as major components of the diet in various parts of the world. (Indeed, I had two of them in my lunch today). Although oddly enough none of them are used much in Australia, for various reasons which I'll explain more about when I get into writing the timeline proper.
Thirdly, even with all the limitations of drought, bushfires and what-have-you, the Murray River (not counting tributaries) could sustain a population of at least 2 million people, maybe double that.
Fourthly, the biggest changes of all may be in New Zealand, not Australia. At a rough calculation, the population density of New Zealand is going to be eight times higher than what it was historically at the time of European contact.
First off, this timeline still isn't going to be released for a while. I have to finish DoD first, which might not take that long, but then I need some time off. I also want to get a decent part of the timeline written before I start posting more than teasers. This will let me maintain a semi-regular schedule of updates even on those weeks when I'm too busy with other commitments.
Secondly, the more I look into things, the more amazed I am at how much Jared Diamond got wrong about Australia. Australia has had a variety of plants domesticated, even one which Captain Cook domesticated. There are six species of plants native to Australia which are used as major components of the diet in various parts of the world. (Indeed, I had two of them in my lunch today). Although oddly enough none of them are used much in Australia, for various reasons which I'll explain more about when I get into writing the timeline proper.
Thirdly, even with all the limitations of drought, bushfires and what-have-you, the Murray River (not counting tributaries) could sustain a population of at least 2 million people, maybe double that.
Fourthly, the biggest changes of all may be in New Zealand, not Australia. At a rough calculation, the population density of New Zealand is going to be eight times higher than what it was historically at the time of European contact.
Cultivateble crops and domesticatable animals.
The major issue facing more primitive forms of agriculture would be the reliance on rain rather than irrigation to water crops. We are currently in the 7th year of a drought (in Victoria) , and only manage to keep some major agricultural areas going due to irrigation from major river systems.
My parents actually grow native limes (blood limes, sunrise limes) in Mildura, where there is an increasing demand for native foods. Other foods include the bush tomato, quandong and bush plum. These could have been improved by cultivation and selective breeding. Acacia seeds can be used for the production of flour - in addition to the Red Yam in this timeline.
The other major issue would be in meat and protein. Personally, I eat kangaroo to the exclusion of other meats. Its free range, lean and tender and tastes fantastic. Its also available at most major supermarkets in Australia! I understand a lack of a suitable prey animal/protein source was one barrier faced by the Moari, which would ultimately lead to ritualised cannibalism (at least according to Flannery and Diamond). It also may have been a contributing factor to the Maori's ability to resist the incursions of Europeans.
The other thing - aborigines are connected with the eradication of Australia's megafauna - such as diprotodons and giant kangaroos. Whether or not this was direct hunting or habitat destruction as a result of firestick deforestation (where aborigines essentially changed the Australian landscape, from forested to plains) or a combination of the two is up for conjecture. Either way - the diprotodon would be signficant source of protein as well as a potential domestic meat animal. This would add to the "exotic" nature of the aborigine culture! Imagine a wombat the size of a cow, and you get the picture.
I'll include a link to the CSIRO (Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation) which has some other ideas on native foods.
The major issue facing more primitive forms of agriculture would be the reliance on rain rather than irrigation to water crops. We are currently in the 7th year of a drought (in Victoria) , and only manage to keep some major agricultural areas going due to irrigation from major river systems.
My parents actually grow native limes (blood limes, sunrise limes) in Mildura, where there is an increasing demand for native foods. Other foods include the bush tomato, quandong and bush plum. These could have been improved by cultivation and selective breeding. Acacia seeds can be used for the production of flour - in addition to the Red Yam in this timeline.
The other major issue would be in meat and protein. Personally, I eat kangaroo to the exclusion of other meats. Its free range, lean and tender and tastes fantastic. Its also available at most major supermarkets in Australia! I understand a lack of a suitable prey animal/protein source was one barrier faced by the Moari, which would ultimately lead to ritualised cannibalism (at least according to Flannery and Diamond). It also may have been a contributing factor to the Maori's ability to resist the incursions of Europeans.
The other thing - aborigines are connected with the eradication of Australia's megafauna - such as diprotodons and giant kangaroos. Whether or not this was direct hunting or habitat destruction as a result of firestick deforestation (where aborigines essentially changed the Australian landscape, from forested to plains) or a combination of the two is up for conjecture. Either way - the diprotodon would be signficant source of protein as well as a potential domestic meat animal. This would add to the "exotic" nature of the aborigine culture! Imagine a wombat the size of a cow, and you get the picture.
I'll include a link to the CSIRO (Commonwealth Science and Industrial Research Organisation) which has some other ideas on native foods.
The lack of water is going to be a detriment, certainly. It's not an insurmountable one, though. Firstly because early *Aboriginal societies could develop some forms of irrigation quite easily. They did it to an extent even in OTL - the Gunditjmara people around Lake Condah had quite a sophisticated system of aquaculture and eel farming going on. There's quite an easy transition from hunter-gatherer to hunter-gardener (with red yams), and from there, aquaculture would be the next step. Then irrigation would follow.
The second big advantage of indigenous agriculture is that there are a number of plants, particularly perennial plants, which are quite tolerant of low rainfall. I've posited that the red yams are relatively drought-tolerant - which is reasonable, I think, given that actual Australian native yam species can tolerate drought. The other plant species I'm thinking of including in indigenous Australian agriculture are similarly tolerant of drought, and a lot of them are being explored for this purpose right now. There are actually huge advantages for perennial plants in this context, in that perennial plants have established root systems which lets them take advantage of out-of-season rains, and they also generally have less need for water than annual plants anyway.
Of course, even with these factors, *Aboriginal agriculture is going to be limited. Areas which have intermittent droughts are one thing, but there will still be problems expanding too far.
The quandong, in particular, is going to be a useful plant. There are already a couple of commercial cultivars established for quandong. "Bush plum" can refer to quite a few different plant species, most of which should be domesticable, although they are usually less tolerant of drought. I have some doubts about the bush tomato, mostly because of where it grows and the drawback that its fruit is toxic until it ripens. Still not impossible to be domesticated, but there are other plants which are more likely. Murnong, native raspberries, riberries, Warrigal greens, bush potato, native thyme, and bunya, to name but a few.
Wattles (Acacias) are actually the other big group of plants I'm looking at using in this TL. Some species of Australian wattles are being used right now in various parts of Africa (Niger and Senegal, mostly) as food crops where they form a major part of the diet. They're marvellously useful trees. Not just for the edible seeds (although these are a big help), but they are fast-growing, revitalise the soil, and are a handy use of timber besides. Wattles will be as important for *Aboriginal agriculture as the olive was to the Mediterranean, or date palms were in Mesopotamia.
This is where wattles come to the rescue again. Wattleseed is an excellent source of protein. The seeds are 20-25% protein, higher than almost any other vegetable source. My sources are ambiguous on whether they offer "complete" protein, but any missing amino acids would be available from yams.
Of course, there is also the possibility that *Aboriginal villages and towns will still keep large rangelands around, managed by controlled burning, as hunting grounds for kangaroos and the like. I wouldn't be surprised at that, although I still suspect that they would have enough protein from wattleseed to survive. Meat would be a premium food rather than a staple food.
And there's one other bonus about wattleseeds... they can be stored for extremely long periods. Wattleseeds are still viable after up to twenty years, and in some species seem to remain viable for up to fifty years. This will help with food storage to get through the drought years...
I've thought about the possibility of surviving Australian megafauna, but I have extreme doubts about its plausibility. I explored the possibility once in an Australia which had no inhabitants before Europeans arrived, but I abandoned that timeline early on. The megafauna look to be pretty much dead whenever humans arrive on the scene.
However, Australia does have at least one domesticable animal of a decent size: the emu. It can be bred in captivity quite easily. Not as much use as a beast of burden, sometimes picky in what it eats, and somewhat difficult to fence in, but still, it'll probably be around.
There's been a considerable amount of work done on "bush foods" in the last couple of decades, and it indicates a lot of potential for crops. I've found an amazing amount of stuff online. (And incidentally, I can heartily recommend wattleseed icecream, if you find a place which sells it.) The only reason wattles aren't turning into a major crop is the problem of developing a mechanical harvester. Quandongs look promising too, along with a lot of other species.
Aozhouhuaren
Banned
Excellent concept, I like where this is going. It gives me more inspiration to carry out more research for my Nyoongar Timeline "Bujar Ka Nyitini" (Land of the Dreaming)
There is a myriad of resources that could have been tapped into earlier and the socio-economic change of that kind of resource exploitation on Aboriginal cultures would be immense. The amount of flora and fauna available, which comes to mind for agricultural/economic use is extraordinary. As well, you have such abundance of minerals and metals.
You have crops which have decent yields if selectively bred as well many are drought-resistant and hardy to craptacular soil that most parts of Australia have. There is one that comes to mind, Native Millet, with more abundant rain and a large population available to cultivate, I think it would be a major continental crop. The problem is getting out of its normal range which is in the Central Desert.
I'm also curious as to how the Iron Age and subsequent ages will change the Aborigines, will they even maintain recognisable cultural characteristics of their OTL counterparts. Moving from a Hunter-Gatherer lifestyle to a more sedentary one will create some unimaginable changes.
There is a myriad of resources that could have been tapped into earlier and the socio-economic change of that kind of resource exploitation on Aboriginal cultures would be immense. The amount of flora and fauna available, which comes to mind for agricultural/economic use is extraordinary. As well, you have such abundance of minerals and metals.
You have crops which have decent yields if selectively bred as well many are drought-resistant and hardy to craptacular soil that most parts of Australia have. There is one that comes to mind, Native Millet, with more abundant rain and a large population available to cultivate, I think it would be a major continental crop. The problem is getting out of its normal range which is in the Central Desert.
I'm also curious as to how the Iron Age and subsequent ages will change the Aborigines, will they even maintain recognisable cultural characteristics of their OTL counterparts. Moving from a Hunter-Gatherer lifestyle to a more sedentary one will create some unimaginable changes.
Hendryk
Banned
Ooh, I'm curious as to what Maori culture is going to be like in TTL. I'm hoping for the existence of a formal state structure, well-developed regionally specialized agriculture, and generally a level of organization similar to that of the Inca. That would make it possible for New Zealand to become the southern hemisphere's analog to Japan once European technology is introduced.
Aw, too bad. I too was hoping to see domesticated diprotodons. But if it's not plausible, nothing anyone can do about it. Now, what about domesticated wombats? They could fill the same niche as rabbits in Europe, or perhaps with a gradual selection of the larger specimens, become an analog to sheep.
Aozhouhuaren
Banned
Well over several millenia, I guess selective breeding could cause Wombats to grow to great sizes. I know some larger specimens (males) can grow up to about 50 kilos in weight.
As for the Maori, I'm not sure if a proper state structure could evolve unless more crops are brought into NZ to sustain a larger population , though I guess there already did exist a codified legal system to a degrees (orally transmitted albeit). The population was too sparse, for a centralised government to control anyway. Also having a Maori script would be much more helpful.
I just searched for that... is it just in the thread here, or is there something more recent?
Looking over your timeline, by the way, it looks quite interesting, but there are some stretches with the proposed domesticated crops. You've suggested native millet (Panicum decompositum), spinifex (various species of Triodia), and wattles (Acacia). The problem is that none of these will get an agricultural civilization going. Native millet and spinifex may not even be domesticable (see below). Wattles are domesticable, but they are not a founder crop.
What Australia is actually lacking in OTL is a founder crop or crops. There are domesticable plants, lots of them, but not ones which are suitable to make the transition from hunter-gather to full-time agriculturalists. Jared Diamond notwithstanding, there are lots of domesticable plants around the world (including in Australia); he considerably underestimated the effects of selective breeding. But there is a shortage of founder crops around the world. Australia has no suitable founder crops, or at least it only has crops which would take a very long time to domesticate. (Aboriginal peoples made a lot of use of native plants, and none of those plants were even close to being domesticated.) The PoD for Lands of Red and Gold actually is that Australia has a founder crop - red yams - which lets people get established in a sedentary lifestyle, and get more used to systematic agriculture and selective breeding of plants. Only then can they turn to the harder to domesticate plants like wattles, murnong, and so on.
In terms of the two crops you mentioned, native millet is actually quite bad as a suitable founder crop, or even as a domesticated crop for human use. It was one of the cereal crops which Jared Diamond looked at in terms of Australian plants, and he correctly cited it as being extremely difficult to work with. There are several problems with it. The main one is that the seeds are extremely small and thus labour-intensive to cultivate. Even wattleseeds are larger, and wattleseeds are on the small side for cultivation as it is. The other problem is that the areas where native millet grows are the desert regions, which is a considerable disincentive.
Native millet would work well as a pasture crop, by the way, with the seeds being a bonus rather than the main purpose. But it doesn't work very well as a human staple. The same thing applies to other Australian cereal crops like Australian sorghum; good for grazers, not much good for people. They might even end up being domesticated for use with domesticated animals if Australia has any (emus, most likely). But they wouldn't really be much use for human consumption.
Spinifex is a very poor domesticable crop since it is very, very slow-growing. It's hard to base an agricultural society on a crop like that. It's also sensitive to a lot of soil conditions (although it does tolerate drought).
And as an aside, it's often hard to pick which plants would be suitable founder crops. There are two domesticated species of rice used today, an Asian and an African variety. Although both have been domesticated, African rice doesn't seem to have been a founder crop. Farmers had been living alongside it for thousands of years using other crops (including yams) before African rice was domesticated (2-3000 years ago). Even the Asian version seems to have been domesticated as a founder crop in India, but not in China, where other plants were used as founder crops (including some millets).
As per above, Australian cereal crops, including above, are pretty craptacular, for the most part. Root crops and pseudocereals are probably the way to go. The core of the *Aboriginal agricultural package in Lands of Red and Gold is red yams, half a dozen species of wattles, murnong (also called yam daisies), and later sweet potato.
In Western Australia, murnong will probably be replaced by some of the native tuber species - WA has an extraordinary variety of such species. There has been some serious work recently on domesticating some of these species. There is one extremely promising species, Ipomoea costata (a kind of morning glory). A preliminary plantation of this plant yielded 24 tonnes per hectare, which is a huge yield. The problem is that this particular species grows only in the northern reaches of Australia. But there are other root crops which may be used in WA.
There will be all sorts of changes, but a few things will be maintained. I'll be working with OTL beliefs as a starting point, then extrapolating how they might change based on similar trends in various societies around the world. Plus a few random things thrown in on the basis that not everything is easily predictable.
Maori technology is going to be considerably more advanced than in OTL, due to higher population density and more stable agriculture. There are some deucedly difficult problems about turning it into a Meiji analogue, though. The Maori started from a preliterate stone age hunter-gardener society with one crop species barely suited to their homeland, in about 1280. Going from that to being strong enough to pull a Meiji in six centuries maximum is rather a stretch. Even political unity is probably optimistic.
Wombats are wonderful animal, but domesticable they probably are not. Solitary, temperamental, react aggressively to things perceived as intruders (including people, I suspect), nocturnal, burrowing (equals hard to keep enclosed), and so on. They are also devillishly difficult to breed in captivity; despite lots of efforts, there hasn't been much success. Entertaining although the idea is, it stretches plausibility too far for my liking. I suspect that emus are the way to go, in terms of domesticated animals. As emu farmers around the world are demonstrating, they can be kept in captivity and bred quite easily. They do have a couple of problems in terms of diet and environment (they need some grains, and need to be allowed to exercise), but nothing which can't be overcome.
I didn't think that wombats got quite that big, but it isn't really size that's the problem. It's their aggressiveness and reluctance to breed in captivity.
A higher population density would probably help there. The Maori population started quite a dramatic explosion when Europeans brought the first potatoes. Red yams and wattles would make for a similar growth in population.
It would, although I'm not sure about how likely literacy is likely to develop. Most writing systems which developed natively (of which there are only a handful) seem to have had long development periods, measured in thousands of years. I'm not even sure whether the *Aboriginals will develop a full written script. Still, they could always be inspired by stimulus diffusion. A lot of cultures developed their own written scripts once they got the idea of writing from someone else. The Cherokee script, to name just one. The Maori may be similarly inspired.
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