Maybe, although as that thread mentions, that looks like it may have been a breed of dog which we're better off without.
Just a quick aside.
Why would the Maori still be cannibals ITTL? My understanding is the practice is thought to have occurred because the Maori lost access to land-based protein sources such as Moa, and had little to replace them in their agricultural package. ITTL, they bring back emus and ducks to Aotearoa before things got really bad. Cannibalism otherwise seems to have been rare in Polynesia (Melenesia, of course, being a different story).
Things were a bit more complex than the Maori smoothly replacing moa and seal-hunting with emu and duck farming. Yes, they picked up emus and ducks in time, along with wattleseeds (the best all-round staple crop, protein-wise), and that provides their major protein source in 1618.
But they didn't get the whole Aururian crop and animal package in one go. The process of transmission and adoption was pretty piecemeal. The Maori were more familiar with root vegetable crops early on (they already knew kumara, yams and taro), and having handy sources of carbohydrates around adds to the energy sources rather well. So yam and murnong farming took off early and well.
This led to the first population boom among the Maori, powered by yams and murnong. Unfortunately, this led to even quicker hunting out of the remaining moa (barring those exported overseas). Yams and murnong are slightly better as a protein source than kumara (about 3% for red yams and 1.8% for murnong, compared to 1.6% for kumara), but still not enough to make for a high-protein diet.
In time, the Maori figured out wattle farming (trees being harder to cultivate properly), and managed to ship emus and ducks across the *Tasman. This didn't happen immediately, though. There was a period of time when there was a booming population and not much in the way of protein available.
This was the period when cannibalism became common. As other sources of protein became available, the cannibalism shifted into a more ritualised form, until in 1618 it's much rarer, although certainly not abandoned.
Hell, before they stopped hunting Moa, there's not even evidence the Maori had many weapons. That said, I think geography of New Zealand would lead to a lot of squabbling states regardless, particularly as population densities rise.
I'm not sure about how militaristic the first couple of generations of Maori were (although I certainly didn't depict them as overly warlike). As you say, though, regardless of how they started, the geography and rising population densities would lead to competing states pretty quickly.
And it keep being so fascinating,
Glad you like it.
I've been lurking on these forums for quite a while now, but I really have to give you credit for this TL. Its very well written and it only seems to get better.
Thanks!
With a huge variety of different cultures in Aururia, will the Aururians develop some sort of national feeling/state?(not too many spoilers please
)
The short version is that it depends on the nature of any colonisation.
In and of themselves, pre-European contact Aururians don't really have any sense of continent-wide unity. They see themselves, at most, as being members of the relevant state (Atjuntja, Yadji, etc).
If Aururia (or most of it) is colonised by a single European power, then a common sense of national feeling may develop. It happened in India in OTL. The subcontinent had never been politically united before the British (although the Moghuls under Aurangzeb came close), but national feeling developed in response. Even there, it didn't quite lead to complete political unity after independence, of course, and the same would probably be true of Aururia.
If Aururia is not directly colonised or is colonised by multiple European powers, the odds of a sense of common national feeling are much lower. Perhaps there could be some common sense of "Aururia for the Aururians" even with multiple colonial powers, but I'd think that the odds are lower.
Will wheat and other annual crops be used in Aururia(on a larger scale) and if so, how will it affect them?
Some annual crops will certainly be taken up by Aururians, certainly. Tomatoes are an obviously high-yielding crop with relatively low effort required. There would be several others.
The bigger question is how much outland crops supplement the diet, and how much they become staples. The thing is that wheat and most European crops are not, in fact, that well-suited for poor Aururian soils. Most Aururian soils lack phosphorus, among other things. Intensive use of fertiliser is required, which will be rather harder to obtain in pre-mechanisation times.
As others have suggested earlier in this thread, rice may be a partial exception. Growing it in irrigation along the *Murray and *Murrumbidgee may prove to be quite rewarding... in good years. Droughts or floods would kill the crop for that year, though.
I'd actually expect rice to fall into the category of luxury food... cultivated, but only in good years will the common man, or even moderately well-off man, eat rice. In poor years, only the rich man eats rice. So a "year of rice" may become an expression which means a rather good farming year.
Will they stick to their own crop package and if so, how will they mechanize/simplify the process to accomodate modern needs/standards?
For a long time, I'd expect the bulk of their calories to come from their native crops. For the labour required, it's difficult to see them changing to anything else. Animal manures will probably boost the yields a bit; they already run emus through some fields, and cattle will help even more.
Mechanising wattles will be difficult, but perhaps can be done with the right sort of machine. Mechanising yams and murnong is impossible without destroying the perennial advantage that makes them so useful. So mechanising them would be rather more difficult.
How big a population can Aururia viably support at various times?(1600, 1800, 2000 etc.)
Good question, and I don't have all of the answers yet.
What I can mention is that the population of Aururia was not stable even in 1600. The spread of iron tools and better farming techniques meant that the sustainable population was higher than it actually was, and the population was still growing, up until the point when Eurasian diseases arrived and reversed this growth.
I have, in fact, recently revised the population figures for the iron-using parts of Aururia upwards, by roughly 25%. This came after realising that I'd been too conservative in working out the sustainable population for those regions. So the Atjuntja have about 1.75 million people (not 1.5 million), Tjibarr has about 1.25 million (not 1 million), the Yadji have about 2.5 million (not 2 million), and the Mutjing population has been raised as well.
The Island's population is unchanged (the limit on their population isn't farming), as is that of *Tasmania and the eastern seaboard, since those areas don't use iron to any significant degree yet. I'll edit the population figures in the published timeline the next time I update it.
For 1800 and 2000, it's a little early to say.
And btw. please make a Scandinavia
I dont even care if its Swedish dominated...
Many things are possible...
The same seems broadly true of the Maori. They only turned to cannibalism once they managed to kill off their major protein source - Moa - along with many of the other larger birds on the islands.
Seals, too, who once ranged much further north.
IIRC, the Maori did have dogs, but somehow lost out on pigs, and sweet potato has next to no protein,
They were missing chickens, too. Presumably just the consequences of a long sea voyage. A lot of peripheral Polynesian islands were missing one of more of the three main domesticated animals (dogs, pigs, chickens). Since kumara, yams and taro are all low protein (taro is even worse than kumara), yes, lack of protein is going to be a big problem.
and thus as their population densities rose, they had harder and harder times acquiring enough in their diet.
Quite. They will be missing it for a while in this TL, too, although they've solved that problem long before 1600.
On a broader note, I am (slowly) working on the next post. It will feature the Islanders (again), and starts to show what at least some of them are turning into in the post-European contact world. Including how they get firearms from what might be thought of as a very unusual source.
