WI: Civilization develops in Africa before humans migrate out

Suppose that humans in Africa discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, and that urban civilization and the state arose in Africa before any significant migration out of Africa had occurred. What would have been the ramifications in Africa and elsewhere for humanity and other hominid species alive at the time?
 
Probably a lot of the large African fauna go extinct.
Earlier desertification of arid regions.
Probably an earlier homogenisation on human variety.
 
Suppose that humans in Africa discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, and that urban civilization and the state arose in Africa before any significant migration out of Africa had occurred. What would have been the ramifications in Africa and elsewhere for humanity and other hominid species alive at the time?
Sahara Farming ?
 
Suppose that humans in Africa discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, and that urban civilization and the state arose in Africa before any significant migration out of Africa had occurred. What would have been the ramifications in Africa and elsewhere for humanity and other hominid species alive at the time?
Suppose that humans in Africa discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, and that urban civilization and the state arose in Africa before any significant migration out of Africa had occurred. What would have been the ramifications in Africa and elsewhere for humanity and other hominid species alive at the time?
Probably a lot of the large African fauna go extinct.
Earlier desertification of arid regions.
Probably an earlier homogenisation on human variety.

It is now estimated, that humans evolved already 300.000 years ago. An early civilization would coexist with Homo Naledi, Archaic Homo Sapiens, Homo Erectus and other hominids in Africa.
 
The Sahara was a lush, fertile land filled with vegetation as recently as 5,000 years ago. About 100,000 years ago the region now known as the Sahara was full of rivers.

That aside from farming along the Nile and other fertile areas on the continent.
If you have humans in the Nile, they're going to be crossing over into the Levant.
 
Probably a lot of the large African fauna go extinct.
Earlier desertification of arid regions.
Probably an earlier homogenisation on human variety.
Not necessarily true that the megafauna would go extinct. African megafauna evolved with us and know how to deal with us. Part of the reason we wiped out megafauna in other places is that the megafauna there didn't evolve defenses against humans and didn't know that we were dangerous. You see this in modern extinctions of large critters, or other places where humans don't live - ie. in Antarctica you can walk right up to a penguin and it won't care. The same is not true of a zebra, a hippopotamus or a lion.
 
The formation of agriculture in Africa is a response to neolithic era Sahara dessication and what seems like a greater population strain as a result of the adoption pastoralism.

I did conceive of an OTL that reaches back to the Green Sahara period from before the most recent one but thought it would be far too long and "boring".

It centers around small clusters of people who survive in the Sahara highlands around wadis, wells and fossil water sources subsisting on North African date palms, honey and Ammotragus lervia.

The intensive reliance on food and material resources is the impetus for trade and resource consolidation creating complex stratified systems that would be very dynamic once greening occurred again.

I focus on Phoenix dactylifera for a number of reasons
1. It's already native to North Africa
2. It's an indicator species of ground water/high water tables
3.it's a very big water dependant species but dense enough to be very efficient and act as a "nurse tree" for other crops
4. Leaves can be fodder for sheep and it's pollen is useful to bees
5. Most importantly it sprouts vegetatively and so like everywhere else it's less a matter of domestication and more so adventageously propagating mutants that happen produce more or more consistently
___
Bees and apiculturists pursuits are very worthwhile and supportive of non-deforesting caloric intake.

Just have flower fodder and it thrives, this limits cutting down olive and other trees that OTL are given a sacred status amongst desert people's like North African olive, saharan Myrtle, Saharan "acacia", etc...

We have a great body of work about Okiek foraging communities that were in fact gardening apiculturists who traded honey with herders and it is seen as a transitional trade good between Herders and "hunters"
_____
Ammotragus lervia aka the Barbary goat was actually contained in caves and feed during the first of a two part greening OTL in the Neolithic Saharan. It was abandoned with dessication but it can still theoritically persist in a slash and take tree fodder system.
____

Part of me would love to have giraffes because they were recorded in stone carvings and cave paintings as being lead by ropes or chains in Saharan art. They'd be perfect in this agroforestry system but to maintain genetic diversity the amounts of energy and labour is just too much.
____
Anyways with Barbary goats you'd really be able to take advantage of green grasslands and with higher stocking be able to really some damage on populations of non-human hominids elsewhere.

The spread of disease from them could collapse wild life like rinderpest did in 19th century East and South Africa and destroy the subsistence economies of Eurasian neanderthals and others leaps and bounds.

Having a stratified society in Oasis would dramatically shift once water availability broadens but you know some aspects would persist, maybe for the better or worse but what ev's
___
Oh and early ceramic culture, use of pitch in waterproofing, maybe early exploitation of surface copper in the air used as luxury goods for early trade?

Sky's the limit, just do research and do this ATL right or else I'm gonna read you to bits and pieces :p
 
Not necessarily true that the megafauna would go extinct. African megafauna evolved with us and know how to deal with us. Part of the reason we wiped out megafauna in other places is that the megafauna there didn't evolve defenses against humans and didn't know that we were dangerous. You see this in modern extinctions of large critters, or other places where humans don't live - ie. in Antarctica you can walk right up to a penguin and it won't care. The same is not true of a zebra, a hippopotamus or a lion.
I was thinking in terms of kicking them off the land and islandisation if most of their habitat is farms.
 
The formation of agriculture in Africa is a response to neolithic era Sahara dessication and what seems like a greater population strain as a result of the adoption pastoralism.

I did conceive of an OTL that reaches back to the Green Sahara period from before the most recent one but thought it would be far too long and "boring".

It centers around small clusters of people who survive in the Sahara highlands around wadis, wells and fossil water sources subsisting on North African date palms, honey and Ammotragus lervia.

The intensive reliance on food and material resources is the impetus for trade and resource consolidation creating complex stratified systems that would be very dynamic once greening occurred again.

I focus on Phoenix dactylifera for a number of reasons
1. It's already native to North Africa
2. It's an indicator species of ground water/high water tables
3.it's a very big water dependant species but dense enough to be very efficient and act as a "nurse tree" for other crops
4. Leaves can be fodder for sheep and it's pollen is useful to bees
5. Most importantly it sprouts vegetatively and so like everywhere else it's less a matter of domestication and more so adventageously propagating mutants that happen produce more or more consistently
___
Bees and apiculturists pursuits are very worthwhile and supportive of non-deforesting caloric intake.

Just have flower fodder and it thrives, this limits cutting down olive and other trees that OTL are given a sacred status amongst desert people's like North African olive, saharan Myrtle, Saharan "acacia", etc...

We have a great body of work about Okiek foraging communities that were in fact gardening apiculturists who traded honey with herders and it is seen as a transitional trade good between Herders and "hunters"
_____
Ammotragus lervia aka the Barbary goat was actually contained in caves and feed during the first of a two part greening OTL in the Neolithic Saharan. It was abandoned with dessication but it can still theoritically persist in a slash and take tree fodder system.
____

Part of me would love to have giraffes because they were recorded in stone carvings and cave paintings as being lead by ropes or chains in Saharan art. They'd be perfect in this agroforestry system but to maintain genetic diversity the amounts of energy and labour is just too much.
____
Anyways with Barbary goats you'd really be able to take advantage of green grasslands and with higher stocking be able to really some damage on populations of non-human hominids elsewhere.

The spread of disease from them could collapse wild life like rinderpest did in 19th century East and South Africa and destroy the subsistence economies of Eurasian neanderthals and others leaps and bounds.

Having a stratified society in Oasis would dramatically shift once water availability broadens but you know some aspects would persist, maybe for the better or worse but what ev's
___
Oh and early ceramic culture, use of pitch in waterproofing, maybe early exploitation of surface copper in the air used as luxury goods for early trade?

Sky's the limit, just do research and do this ATL right or else I'm gonna read you to bits and pieces :p
Lands of Red and Gold: Last Interglacial in Africa edition.
I say do it. Bonus points if you can somehow save the non-HSS hominids into the bargain(unlikely, I know, with humans doing even better than OTL, but still)
 
Suppose that humans in Africa discovered agriculture and animal husbandry, and that urban civilization and the state arose in Africa before any significant migration out of Africa had occurred. What would have been the ramifications in Africa and elsewhere for humanity and other hominid species alive at the time?

The Toba catastrophe theory is a concern for me. What if a theorized massive volcanic eruption was indeed the origin of a postulated extreme decimation of humans before they migrated out ? Given the theory is valid, the geographic event would still occur, regardless of human cultural evolution.
 
The Toba catastrophe theory is a concern for me. What if a theorized massive volcanic eruption was indeed the origin of a postulated extreme decimation of humans before they migrated out ? Given the theory is valid, the geographic event would still occur, regardless of human cultural evolution.

But humans who had agriculture might be more resilient, able to fall back on stored reserves.

Also, where in Africa would be a good candidate, apart from the Green Sahara? Personally, I like the idea of civilization starting in Kenya and Tanzania.
 
But humans who had agriculture might be more resilient, able to fall back on stored reserves.

Also, where in Africa would be a good candidate, apart from the Green Sahara? Personally, I like the idea of civilization starting in Kenya and Tanzania.
If Homo Sapiens is indeed more resilient and survive the Toba Event in much greater numbers(isn't reduced to a bottleneck), wouldn't he posess a greater genetic diversity to start with ? What consequences would that have regarding the admixture with other species ( in and out Africa, did they even interbreed with other species before Toba and are we speaking about various Archaic Homo Sapiens who start ATL farming or coexisting modern anatomically Homo Sapiens Sapiens ) ?
 
But humans who had agriculture might be more resilient, able to fall back on stored reserves.

Also, where in Africa would be a good candidate, apart from the Green Sahara? Personally, I like the idea of civilization starting in Kenya and Tanzania.

A Green Sahara is not conducive to agriculture, the pressures that force reliance on few key resources fosters greater efficiency, utility and diversification of uses among other things.

The only places acceptable are refugia.
 
Lands of Red and Gold: Last Interglacial in Africa edition.
I say do it. Bonus points if you can somehow save the non-HSS hominids into the bargain(unlikely, I know, with humans doing even better than OTL, but still)
Well OTL Herders formed clienteleship amongst gathering/gardening/apiculturists in East and Southern Africa.

However this doesn't fully mention the exploitation and damage Herders did to these people's lifestyles that forced them to become clients in the first place.

I don't think we know enough about non human hominids to accurately gather how the worked between groups or how they conceptualized return rates/strategy.

The most I can think of is a harem system occur meaning higher levels of Admixture or the flip side, these non-human are just outright killed. Of course this will vary place to place based on the local population density and environment.
 
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