WI New Zealand is colonized 38,000 BC?

[Admiral Matt]

I disagree.

I somewhat do myself, actually. I think the principle is sound enough - avoiding extinction is good. But the applications most people (and virtually all organizations) turn to tend to make little sense to me.

I'm always curious in this kind of discussion - ecosystems should be preserved the way they were. Okay. Preserved the way they were when? Before Europeans? Before Homo sapiens? Before mammals?*Preserved the way they were for how long? Nature usually doesn't preserve ecosystems for very long - what is it saying if we preserve an ecosystem longer than it naturally would have survived?

The same philosophy applied to the Galapagos or New Zealand would require the reintroduction of lions, elephants, cheetahs, rhinos, and llamas into the North American wild. Not to mention mammoths and ground sloths. For myself, I'd actually be happy to support that on the basis of rule of cool alone. Yet most (naturally enough) balk at applying the same rules in different places.

Even putting all that aside what is the "natural" environment of, say, the Rhine delta? Its impossible to judge even if we limit ourselves to only the last 200,000 years when modern humans have existed. Technically speaking, the frozen, reindeer-crossed river and the semi-tropical one infested with hippo both have equal claim to the title of the "real Rhine" ecosystem, but try to find anyone arguing for the restoration of either! Instead the preference is and has always been for an idealized past that never quite existed, maintained indefinitely. A sympathetic perspective, but not one I have much faith in.

New Zealand had an 80 million year run of luck. That was going to end, and end badly. It was going to (and still will) sink beneath the waves, carrying better than 99% of its uniqueness to extinction. Or with luck it was going to press back into another land mass, and the culling might only have been 95% or so. This has happened to hundreds of large, beautiful island groups in Earth's existence and it's been a tragedy each and every time an utterly unique ecosystem perishes. But it is also completely natural and fair.

It's arguably an extremely lucky coincidence for New Zealand's ecology that it happened to intersect with the human era - our desire to record and measure and preserve means that hope exists for the first time. Provided we live to support them, the country's organisms and their genes may actually have the unprecedented opportunity to outlive the islands on which they were born.

But we've gone far off topic.

 

[arctic warrior]

First of all, thank you for the links. It boggles the mind to think the "pristine" environment of New Zealand went through Yellowstone-style eruptions with any regularity. I'd had no idea.

A genuine lost civilization.... That might be fun just for the cultural effects when they are finally discovered. But there's a long way to go yet.

First, can they survive at all? Then if they do it's 13,000 years until one super massive eruption that could theoretically kill them all. The ice age will be ending around 11,000 years after that, which is when the foundations for agriculture will begin to be laid (or not). A further 13,000 years and agriculture will be well established if it is possible at all, and then the volcano goes again. Then a thousand years or so and the Polynesians arrive.

Point being, that issue can wait a bit!

If wildlife will survive the eruptions so may humans at least in the South Island.

 

[ingemann]

The major reason for the loss New Zealandic species was not humans but the rats, mouses, cats, dogs and ferrets we brought with us to New Zealand, yes the megafauna will likely die out fast (through the survival of a species or two is not impossible), but the smaller birds will likely do better than in OTL, and have time to adapt to terrestrial predators.

Second I doubt the human will burn forest, the Aborigines on Tasmania doesn't seem to have used this technic (likely because a wetter and colder climate than on the mainland), just as New Zealand is.

I think personal that the Moa have a much greater chance to survive, first the humans will take longer time to take the island over, thanks to a smaller and more primitive founder population. Next the Moa habitat was bigger and more connected in the ice age. So they may survive long enough to adapt to humans (better flight reflexes and faster breeding). Haast Eagle on the other hand will die out fast.

The Tasmanians seem to have lost much of the technological knowledge (including fishing and firemaking) which they brought with them. It's common believed because their very low population (4000 people) was too small to upkeep their technology.

New Zealand allow a much bigger population than Tasmania (lekely 10 times the population), but at the same time they will be isolated earlier and have a lower founder population. But I will lean to them upkeeping the same technology as the mainland aborigines and likely even being forced to make some adaptions (mostly clothing) for the colder climate.

Even or especially with a small founding population and the long time, we wsill see some radical adaption to the different climate. They will likely suffer from a degree island dwarfism, but at the same time they will likely stay more robust than pygmies elsewhere thanks to temperate to alpine climate. So we likely get a small (below 1,5 meter) robust (big strong bones, barrel chested and muscular) people.

Cultural I think the relative lack of big prey species, even with the potential survival of the Moa, will likely make them cannibals.

I doubt we will see them develop their own agriculture and so they will stay a hunter, fisher and gartner people until their first contact with the proto-Maoris. Here we could lean toward a Maori blitzkrieg conquering the island. But the proto-Maoris wasn't especially well adapted to New Zealand, so more likely we will see some settlements in the north, barely surviving, but transfering their crop and animal packets to the natives, which will spread it and include the semi-domesticated plants they have in it. Polynesian rats will likely harm the local fauna, but they local animals have adapted to terrestrial predators and likely survive better.

 

[NothingNow]

True enough. The currents are right, so it's not they need to paddle to get there, but not being a planned trip, it'd be very touch and go in terms of surviving. They'd be weak on arrival even in the best case. If they do make it, though, at least they are washing up in a place full of flightless birds with no fear of man. At that point survival becomes likely.

Assuming they're not dehydrated or stupid enough to be Eagle food, since they'd be arriving in handfuls.

A Haast's Eagle would certainly be capable of killing an adult male, and a human does fit the size profile of their prey (Moa and other flightless birds.)

As for them becoming Pygmies, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that's actually an adaptation to an iodine deficient environment (which seems to be something whites never developed, leaving mountain folk to a major predisposition to goiter and retardation,) not something to do with island size. Polynesians f'r instance have always been some pretty big guys, by dint of their lifestyle and the quality of the diet.

 

[ingemann]

Assuming they're not dehydrated or stupid enough to be Eagle food, since they'd be arriving in handfuls.

A Haast's Eagle would certainly be capable of killing an adult male, and a human does fit the size profile of their prey (Moa and other flightless birds.)

As for them becoming Pygmies, there's a lot of evidence suggesting that's actually an adaptation to an iodine deficient environment (which seems to be something whites never developed, leaving mountain folk to a major predisposition to goiter and retardation,) not something to do with island size. Polynesians f'r instance have always been some pretty big guys, by dint of their lifestyle and the quality of the diet.

Polynesians was not stuck on a single or two island.

 

[NothingNow]

Polynesians was not stuck on a single or two island.

Overall, of course not.
But considering that you've got individual populations on different islands, like say, Rapa Nui that certainly fucking were completely isolated, and they didn't turn into Pygmies, is a pretty solid refutation of your absolutely terrible argument.

Hell, instead, the Spanish party that landed on Easter Island in 1770 recorded heights of 196 and 199cm. By comparison, the average height of an Englishman in the period was roughly about 165cm, and this was up from what it was after the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.

Pygmies, by definition, have an average adult male height below 150-155cm. From what we can tell, the Sentinelese, the ideal test case for your asinine hypothesis, just barely qualify, with an average of about 147cm from estimates. And this is with a population of maybe 500, isolated for twelve millennia, on a 72 square kilometer island.

The South Island of New Zealand, on it's own, is over two thousand times the size, and happens to be lousy with good sources of iodine. You're not getting a whole island of Pygmies there, even under the worst possible circumstances.

 

[ingemann]

Overall, of course not.
But considering that you've got individual populations on different islands, like say, Rapa Nui that certainly fucking were completely isolated, and they didn't turn into Pygmies, is a pretty solid refutation of your absolutely terrible argument.

Hell, instead, the Spanish party that landed on Easter Island in 1770 recorded heights of 196 and 199cm. By comparison, the average height of an Englishman in the period was roughly about 165cm, and this was up from what it was after the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.

Pygmies, by definition, have an average adult male height below 150-155cm. From what we can tell, the Sentinelese, the ideal test case for your asinine hypothesis, just barely qualify, with an average of about 147cm from estimates. And this is with a population of maybe 500, isolated for twelve millennia, on a 72 square kilometer island.

The South Island of New Zealand, on it's own, is over two thousand times the size, and happens to be lousy with good sources of iodine. You're not getting a whole island of Pygmies there, even under the worst possible circumstances.

Let me get it, because the isolated population on the North Sentinel Island turned into pygmies, I'm wrong about isolated populations on islands turning into pygmies over time?

 

[NothingNow]

Let me get it, because the isolated population on the North Sentinel Island turned into pygmies, I'm wrong about isolated populations on islands turning into pygmies over time?

No. It's because the only way that it ever actually happened was because you had a tiny, tiny population so backwards they didn't even have boats isolated for twelve thousand years. Generally, if a hypothesis just barely crosses the threshold in to passing at the most extreme test you could possibly throw at it, it's a failed hypothesis.

And indeed, outside Andaman Islands, such a result has apparently never been repeated. Looking at the Rapa Nui, and the Moriori as comparisons (and they are the closest test cases, where a nutritional deficit should be readily apparent in historical records and skeletal remains,) the Andamanese result looks to be very much a result of an adaptation to an iodine poor environment (rainforests are, and without seafood, there's no real way to make up the deficit,) and is obviously not a general rule.

So, looking at Aboriginal colonization of New Zealand, with that set of results in mind, we're talking about a situation that requires very skilled and very lucky fishermen landing on a much larger island that is much better suited to human habitation.
The resultant likelihood that they would forget how to carve out canoes, (especially when they're so very useful in New Zealand's terrain,) or suffer from enough of an ongoing iodine deficiency that Pygmyism would be anything other than maladaptive is honestly going to be extremely remote.

 

[Umbral]

Looking at the Rapa Nui, and the Moriori as comparisons (and they are the closest test cases, where a nutritional deficit should be readily apparent in historical records and skeletal remains,) the Andamanese result looks to be very much a result of an adaptation to an iodine poor environment (rainforests are, and without seafood, there's no real way to make up the deficit,) and is obviously not a general rule.

I don't think you quite grasp how many generations you need for a change like that. Even in a limited population and allowing for mass decreases being much easier than going the other way.

Of course, New Zealand may well be too large for the effect to kick in at all.

 

[NothingNow]

I don't think you quite grasp how many generations you need for a change like that. Even in a limited population and allowing for mass decreases being much easier than going the other way.

Well, yeah, it'd take millennia for it to develop. I'm not arguing that point in the least. However, since it's a response to a nutrient-poor environment, the population should fairly short in the first place (which happens within one or two generations, and a precipitous decrease in size would readily be apparent in excavation of burials) and/or there would be signs of serious nutritional deficiency, like Goiter, or even full-blown Cretinism in a noticeable part of the population.

 

[jabberwoky]

If wildlife will survive the eruptions so may humans at least in the South Island.

Thank god, I was worried that this project was doomed before it even started!

 

[Admiral Matt]

I'm currently trying to decide what sort of language these people (we really need to just decide on a name already) will be speaking.

Small founding populations and total isolation both support linguistic conservatism, so the language is likely to be very different from what we know of as Tasmanian. Tasmanian linguistic isolation is a mere 15,000 years old after all. Instead they'll likely be speaking a primordial tongue which is now very thoroughly extinct. At the time there might well have been a linguistic continuum stretching most of the way back to India or even Africa. Obviously there's not much left to look at now. Language changes too fast.

What could we expect them to be speaking?

Something with at least some relationship to Tasmania's historic tongues is likely. Most words would disappear in linguistic drift and as people's moved around it is very possible that the linguistic ancestors of historic Tasmanian language families were nowhere near the place. That said, something is almost always conserved.

Place names tend to hold over, for one. The "Jiang" in Chang Jiang (Yangtze) is not actually Chinese in origin, but a word for river from a distant relative of proto-Thai. It entered Chinese as a place name for that particular river system as something like Krang He ("he" being a genuinely sinitic word for river) gradually shifted sound over time, and was eventually itself adopted as a general term for river in Chinese. Now most rivers are Jiangs, and the term He is unusual - reserved for bodies in the Chinese heartland like the Huang He (Yellow River). So if we can find some place names in Tasmanian languages, it wouldn't be unreasonable to guess at their being in use in this NZ.

Unique animals, cultural practices, and technologies tend to work similarly. For animals that means that if an animal can be known to have been only in Tasmania 40,000 years ago, that means there is a better chance it has always had a similar name. Animals also present elsewhere can't be used because the words are likely imports from elsewhere. But if there's a species that was unique there at human contact then known Tasmanian words may be ancestors, and the words might end up applied to things in Aotearoa. Technology is slightly more promising - there would probably have been a shared language for the tools and methods of fishing across southern Australia. If a culture was continually fishing since then (so at least Tasmania is right out, having skipped the last five millennia), then some word forms could conceivably have survived.

It should be fairly obvious by now that this is grasping at straws. Luckily, there are alternatives to a desperate scramble for a handful of conserved terms for things we don't much need to know.

The closest thing left to Victorian English is spoken in towns on the border between Virginia and West Virginia. Quebecois French is closer to that of the ancien regime. The closest thing to Latin is the dialect of the sheep-infested island of Sardinia. The whole linguistic history of China is recorded in the mountain valleys of the south, colonized at different times in the last two millennia. The general rules are that geographically isolated areas with small populations preserve languages best, and colonial populations tend to be more conservative. This is not absolute - continued migration stops the trend dead and language may be adopted from locals - but it's probably our best bet.

I think they spoke click languages.

Africa was the human heartland, is heavily partitioned geographically, and is rife with click-based languages. Prior to the Bantu expansion, they seem to have been nearly uniform south of Ethiopia and east of the Congo. This is most blatantly clear in the most isolated areas; the areas which would have had the least migration through them - the Kalahari and the Cape.

Click languages are very common in Africa. In fact, there's only one place outside outside of Africa sporting a click tongue - Mornington Island and the Forsyth Islands, just off the northern coast of Australia.

The Damin language is a ritual language taught in a male initiation ceremony originally (some prehistoric date) just on the former island. When ice age humans were circumnavigating the continent New Guineaustraltasmania 40k years ago, the place would have been isolated from the migratory links to Eurasia, an isolated set of mountains in the lowland interior. Then when the ice age ended and it became an island off a desert coast, it would have been more isolated than anywhere in the mainland. In other words, an ideal place for preserving old languages.

Now there is some suggestion that Damin is a constructed "language game" (although if so it is literally the only one in the world to result in a click consonant using language), but to me it seems very reasonable to speculate that during the late ice age there were click speakers at least the entire circumference of the Indian Ocean. Which is all kinds of fun.

 

[Jared]

Interesting idea! I have a few thoughts, in no particular order:

Getting There

This is, of course, the biggest challenge. And to be honest, it's a massive difficulty. A successful colonisation across 2000 kilometres of open ocean is a major undertaking. It requires a very good technological package.

While we don't know exactly what level of seafaring technology the proto-Aboriginal peoples of Australia had, it certainly seems to have been worse than that developed by, say, the Polynesians. I can't think of any equivalent island which was colonised until at least a neolithic level of technology. Even Madagascar - which for comparison, is only about 500km from Africa - went uncolonised until Austronesian and Arabic technology.

Still, it's not entirely impossible for some ship - or better yet, a whole fishing fleet - to be swept out to sea by winds/squalls/sudden storms/whatever and wrecked someone on Aotearoa. And I usually figure that any WI gets at least one gimme.

But remember that whatever happens will be a one-way trip, and it will be a very small starting population base. You'll be looking at some serious founder effects and inbreeding in whatever population emerges. And they probably won't be bringing a great deal of technology with them.

Also, while this is largely tangential, I doubt that the colonisers would come from Tasmania. We don't know exactly how much ocean currents changed during the ice ages, but I think that an equivalent to the branch of the East Australian Current that moves east from the New South Wales coast is more likely.

Effects on Native Flora and Fauna

These can be summed up as "moas are gone". In a very short timeframe, probably. When landing on an alien land with no knowledge of the flora or fauna, the obvious target for food is big game. Their ancestors in Australia have just finished wiping out the megafauna in a very short period; the megafauna will follow.

Much of the smaller fauna will survive; I doubt that these colonists have brought rats with them, and they certainly don't have any other domestic animals. Nor are they likely to find any.

Eruptions of Lake Taupo

The effects of this will be very very bad, but a civilization-killer it is not. Anyone who's within range of the (rather large) pyroclastic flows is dead. Anyone who's living under the ashfall will also be in a lot of trouble, but the ashfalls will (mostly) spread with the wind, and the people who live upwind will mostly do okay. It's significant that the Taupo eruptions were not (as far as I know) associated with any extinctions. In the most recent major eruption, even the North Island subspecies of various flora survived. If they can do it, so can humans.

In the long run, the ash will actually be a major boost to soil fertility.

Agriculture: Yea or Nay?

This is the $64 million dollar question.

Unfortunately, the short version is "probably not".

The reason for this is that the Maori, who had agriculture, did not find much if anything in the way of domesticable crops there. There were a few plants which they cultivated or just harvested for food, perhaps most notably bracken fern (Pteridium esculentum) and the cabbage tree (Cordyline australis). But they didn't turn up much.

Of course, this is not a complete answer. The Maori were only there for a few centuries, and it does take time to get to know all of the flora, and even longer to start some plants down the road to domestication. But then the Maori had the advantage that they were already bringing agriculture in, so that gave them a rather large head start in terms of domesticating crops. Without that, then agriculture needs to arise de novo - and that is a much harder proposition.

I'm not familiar with any New Zealand flora which could serve as a full set of founder crops. Bracken fern is not ideal, nor is the cabbage tree.

Offhand, I know of only two plants in New Zealand which can reasonably be considered for part of a founding agricultural package - and they're not enough. It has a relative of murnong (called Microseris scapigera) which could probably be turned into a tuber crop - but it won't be enough in itself. The other is Warrigal greens/New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides) which makes a decent leaf vegetable, but not much more.

What is needed is a few plants which are rich sources of carbohydrates and (ideally) protein as well. That basically means cereals and legumes, or a decent root vegetable if one's available (murnong is the best I know of, though).

New Zealand's legumes are mostly trees or shrubs, and I don't know of any which are particularly suitable. There's the scree pea (Montigena novae-zealandiae, formerly known as Swaisona), but that has the problems of being (i) a perennial shrub and (ii) growing native only in restricted areas on mountain slopes. There's a whole bunch of New Zealand brooms (Carmichaelia), but again they're mostly trees and don't seem to have particularly accessible seeds.

I know next to nothing of New Zealand's native grass species, and those few I do know of are not suitable. It may be worth having a rummage around on google if any of them are useful (the Genocide does at least have a list of them here).

So, all in all, while I wouldn't completely rule out indigenous New Zealand agriculture, it's not an easy proposition.

 

[Leo Caesius]

You've opened a rather interesting discussion about proto-languages. Most comparative and historical linguists believe that related languages diverge sufficiently after 10,000 years to lose any semblance that could be identified using our current techniques. Granted, that is a somewhat arbitrary number, as we don't have written records extending that far back in time, which could potentially disprove this theory, but when I compare languages like Armenian and English, which did not diverge that far back in time, relatively speaking, I lose any hope in doing comparative work at that time depth (for example, words like English two, Italian duo, German Zwei, Greek dhio, and Armenian yerku are all related, but this relationship is not immediately apparent, and you need to assemble cognate sets to see which sounds correspond to one another).

I guess what I'm saying is that, after 40K years, any language family would have considerably more depth than any currently documented language, and would probably have gone through well nigh every conceivable permutation of phonology and grammar during that period, limited only by human physiology. This gives you considerable creative license when talking about the languages of your particular scenario.