What if a Papuan Civilization existed In history?

[Arkenfolm]

Sorry, that was notes from my own planned Papuan TL leaking into that post, which has a reason in that TL but would probably not happen unless a series of very specific events occurred.

Some of those specific events could be interesting. There are legends that the small Malay-influenced states of western Papua were founded by people with great spiritual knowledge, and they brought with them Hindu relics. I don't see why Buddhism couldn't do the same, it's just said state would have to evolve in a very particular way and Buddhism would need to propagated among its people (easier said than done given the prevalence of "folk Buddhism" and syncretic beliefs in all Buddhist countries) for it to survive.

There apparently is to this day a very isolated area on the island of Lombok in Indonesia where folk Buddhist traditions persist, so it's definitely possible, the question is how widespread it would be. I think the highlands of Papua would be very poorly integrated with the coast--they're very hostile to outsiders after all, and generally don't have a lot of good resources--so it likely wouldn't be there.

 

[JewishBolshevik]

The question is why a civilisation didn't become dominant on the island of new guinea. They have some highly productive land which was utilised for food development.

Probably because of terrain. New Guinea was with a mountain range splitting the islands, dense jungles, and many, MANY people that probably wouldn't take too kindly to be occupied. (there is over 60 language families, and 800-1,000 languages)

(Papuan Ambum Civilization) what if the Papuans of New Guinea built a thriving civilization? in this alternate history timeline, the Papuans build extensive megalithic structures (based on the Ambum Stone) and started developing complex farming societies that transform into state societies with advanced irrigation systems and urban 'garden cities'. The papuan state societies are briefly unified by loosely governed empires and they exert influence on the Torres strait islanders and Australian Aboriginals of Northern Australia. This burgeoning Papuan civilization comes with into contact with Austronesians in Indonesia and the Philippines trading with them and gaining new technologies. How would this have affected history, cultures, demographics, economics, social dynamics, languages, cultures, religion, politics, etc??

Ambum stone - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

There was and is before the Europeans, they domesticated the banana and taro, both of which spread across the globe, and are probably in your local grocery store.

 

[Beatriz]

Papuan religions are animist with some gods, as well as gender-separate ceremonies IIRC

 

[Cultivation Emperor]

Thank you everyone

 

[Kushim]

Could create some interesting effects in Maritime SEA, especially if this civilization starts trading with the islands much earlier, they could even create a ''Papuasphere'' of sorts which mixes with the Indosphere influence resulting in some interesting fusions, maybe the southeast asian states as a whole reach urbanisation and form high density states much earlier due to more trade and influence coming in from three different directions

 

[Cultivation Emperor]

Could create some interesting effects in Maritime SEA, especially if this civilization starts trading with the islands much earlier, they could even create a ''Papuasphere'' of sorts which mixes with the Indosphere influence resulting in some interesting fusions, maybe the southeast asian states as a whole reach urbanisation and form high density states much earlier due to more trade and influence coming in from three different directions

Yeah, that would be very interesting