Lands of Red and Gold
- Thread starter Jared
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Hmm. Depends for what purpose. Emus are useless as beasts of burden, and are harder to herd and move between places than cattle or sheep. They give you feathers and leather, which is nice, but not anything better than wool or leather from cattle. They're somewhat harder to raise in terms of what you need to feed them, since they can't just be parked in a paddock and left to feed themselves - they need grain or something. On the other hand, if their meat is preferred for flavour reasons, then they could be used a bit.
Depends in what area. The core areas are likely to last where they are, and may expand a bit if one of the non-Gunnagal peoples becomes a major power. The thing about *Australia, though, is that population movements will on the whole be less common than in Eurasia. Farmers will displace hunter-gatherers, but for farmers to make a wholesale displacement of other farming cultures is going to be much rarer. Many of the big population movements in OTL were driven by horse-riding nomads (more recently), or at least those who were herders and who could bring animals with them, which made migrations much easier. So while ruling classes may change, the underlying languages of a particular area are going to be much more stable.
There'll be a bit more in the next post, which covers the demise of the Classical era and its replacement with the Imperial era.
The heartland of the Empire will be the "Five Rivers," which is inland territory. Coastal trade is largely insigificant in this era, since seafaring is not a skill which the Gunnagal and their descendants have really mastered.
Marnitja is a very nasty piece of work. While I've extrapolated some of the features of the disease a bit - since there's no direct analogue to base it on - the class of viruses which it's based on are all too real, and quite nasty. It turns out that bats harbour a number of viruses which are capable of infecting and killing humans. There's been a few outbreaks in Australia, and the closely-related Nipah virus has caused several epidemics in Malaysia and neighbouring countries. Some of these epidemics have involved person-to-person transmission, which looks rather ominous...
The Classical Gunnagal do have a profession which is equivalent to doctor, which involves the systematic classification of symptoms and recommended treatments. (This is actually based on the Sumerians and other ancient Mesopotamian peoples, who had a similar practice.) I'm not sure if it's quite up to Roman standards, and the treatments may not actually be much good, but they do have the concept of doctors.
None of any particular consequence. Some of those pathogens are theoretically transmissible in that way, but it's not the main vector. These infections are nasty precisely because they're airborne, which makes them bigger killers. I'm not aware of any native Australian pathogens which would be likely to evolve into sexually-transmitted diseases, so I haven't tried to depict anything along those lines.
It will be nasty, although far worse for the Australasian peoples than Eurasian.
While I can't speak for other people, I've written this section not out of any enjoyment of death, but because I think it's inevitable that such diseases will emerge in an agricultural civilization in Australia.
Blue-sleep is essentially avian influenza (the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, to be precise). With the use of domesticated ducks in close contact with wild water birds, it's pretty much inevitable that influenza will spread to humans, and it will be a strain to which the rest of the world has no resistance to. (As happened with multiple flu pandemics in the past when they spread from birds.)
The details of Marnitja are something I've extrapolated from related viruses, but they represent a broader case of emerging viruses which are being seen right now around the world, and particularly in Australia. Bats harbour a lot of viruses, and some of these are or have been transmitted to humans in the recent past as human populations encroach on bat habitat. Australia harbours Hendra virus, Australian bat lyssavirus, Menangle virus, and a few related viruses. Elsewhere in the world, diseases like SARS, Ebola, Nipah virus and other killers seem to have originated from bats. With an earlier agricultural civilization in Australia putting pressure on bat habitats, I think it's highly likely that at least one epidemic disease will emerge.
In the long term, though, global population will probably be higher as a result of contact with Australia. This is because the world just got access to a whole new package of crops which are ideally suited for semi-arid regions. The Mediterranean in particular is going to have the food to support a considerably higher population, and so will much of the rest of the world.
And incidentally, contact with the new World ultimately caused more premature deaths in Eurasia than Eurasian diseases did in the Americas. What happened with Eurasian diseases in the Americas was horrific, but in terms of total numbers of premature deaths, tobacco has killed more people in the twentieth century than Eurasian diseases did when they swept through the Americas.
I agree. This is being depicted because it's what's likely to happen, not because I get any enjoyment from it.
Australian diseases aren't going to be as bad as the endemic malaria, sleeping sickness and a whole host of other killers which made tropical Africa such a dangerous place. The worst of the diseases are also easily spread around the world, so their biggest effect will be felt in epidemics around the globe.
Hmm. That's rather apples and oranges, though, IMO.
Otherwise, great timeline so far, just wish it was updated more often. I'm keen to see what happens first with Maori-Aboriginal contact and then later when the Europeans arrive.
This seems like the sort of broad timeline that would also support allo-allo-historical speculation, particularly of the "WI Asian-Aboriginal early contact?" variety within the timeline itself.
mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
How is the flavor of emu flesh and eggs? Is it good enough to create a demand around the world, Or are emus more likely to follow the way of the guinea pig. Domesticated as a food source in it's homeland (and still enjoyed as such there) but kept as a pet in the rest of the world?
realistically I don't see emus being kept as pets, maybe more along the lines of ornamental birds such peacocks and swans.
I've had Emu meat and it is quite good. It's a red meat, but much more tender than beef, lamb, or game. I could see it becoming a fad delicacy in the Netherlands and perhaps the rest of Europe. Maybe it lasts longer and becomes an occasional treat. I assume the eggs taste like eggs, but who knows?
I could also see it becoming popular with cultures forbidden certain types of meat for religious purposes. Non-Vegetarian Hindus, perhaps (mmmm...Emu Vindaloo!). Perhaps it's seen as an acceptable alternative to fish on Fridays for Catholics? Perhaps Emus get known as "Friday Beef" or even "Lent Birds"?
Hendryk
Banned
That's the point. In TTL, with an indigenous agricultural civilization in Australia, the diseases we dodged in OTL upon contact will be around.
I can certainly see a sustained migration of Han settlers to China's drier Western provinces once that crop package becomes available. This, in turn, may not be without social and ultimately political consequences, if it can alleviate the home provinces' rural overpopulation to such an extent that the uprisings that took place in the 19th century in OTL are butterflied away.
Fatal Wit
Banned
How many more updates until the nature of the West Autsralian aboriginal civilisations is explained? Not to say that your disease one wasn't epic
Also, how affected will the northernmost and inner desert regions be by the time of European arrival? Will they be different in any paticularly relevant way?(I mean I know butterflies and all will change individuals/minor events, but will their be substantial changes?)
Also, how affected will the northernmost and inner desert regions be by the time of European arrival? Will they be different in any paticularly relevant way?(I mean I know butterflies and all will change individuals/minor events, but will their be substantial changes?)
Hrm.... I'm curious.
This is the first section where the changes wrought in Australia by the rise of a civilization seem.... decided upon, rather than inevitable. What grounds exactly do we have for saying that the Australian civilization would produce these diseases (here I refer to lost last two plague-ish ones)?
As far as I'm aware, there were only two disease "zones" before the modern era: The sub-Saharan one, which had developed largely as a fluid progression out of the primate disease-and-parasite ecology. And the Eurasian network.
Now obviously you don't need something that size to produce an infectious disease - in the end it only takes one transmission to start the process. All these diseases arose in small local zones - southeast Asia and southern China for many forms of flu, some cattle herding community or other for smallpox, etc. The record is clear that diseases can pop up in lots of places where people live in close proximity to their livestock.
That begs the question why it didn't happen in either Mexico or Peru. Both had ongoing civilizations for thousands of years, but the most they've produced is scholarly controversies over whether maybe they had TB or syphilis. There are certainly enough endemic diseases in just the primate populations of central and south america, and these people lived with dogs and turkeys in Mexico, and in the Andes and Amazon llamas, alpacas, guinea pigs, dogs, and in some places ducks.
Where were the plagues?
This is the first section where the changes wrought in Australia by the rise of a civilization seem.... decided upon, rather than inevitable. What grounds exactly do we have for saying that the Australian civilization would produce these diseases (here I refer to lost last two plague-ish ones)?
As far as I'm aware, there were only two disease "zones" before the modern era: The sub-Saharan one, which had developed largely as a fluid progression out of the primate disease-and-parasite ecology. And the Eurasian network.
Now obviously you don't need something that size to produce an infectious disease - in the end it only takes one transmission to start the process. All these diseases arose in small local zones - southeast Asia and southern China for many forms of flu, some cattle herding community or other for smallpox, etc. The record is clear that diseases can pop up in lots of places where people live in close proximity to their livestock.
That begs the question why it didn't happen in either Mexico or Peru. Both had ongoing civilizations for thousands of years, but the most they've produced is scholarly controversies over whether maybe they had TB or syphilis. There are certainly enough endemic diseases in just the primate populations of central and south america, and these people lived with dogs and turkeys in Mexico, and in the Andes and Amazon llamas, alpacas, guinea pigs, dogs, and in some places ducks.
Where were the plagues?
Few domestic animals in Mexico, lowish population density in Peru, I suspect.
Note that at least one of Jared's diseases is an avian flu that originated in Asia, and was kept alive by the sizeable duck/human populations.
Having so many diseases does seem to be pushing it, true.
The Sandman
Banned
This is Australia, you know. It just wouldn't be the same if there weren't at least a few things horrifyingly lethal to humans roaming about.
Understandable about wanting updates more often, but there is sadly this thing called "real life." I don't have a lot of spare time these days, what with one thing and other. I figure it's better to make regular but less frequent updates than try to release all of the written updates in a short time, then have people waiting around indefinitely for the next instalment.
With Maori-Aboriginal contact, what will mostly be described is the effects, rather than the short-term contact. The next post which will be shown is one which is effectively "The Rise and Fall of the Empire." The one after that is an overview post which shows the broad history of Australasia in LoRaG, and then a brief overview of the main cultures which exist in 1618. After that, it's on to individual cultures, starting with the Atjuntja in Western Australia. (Who are not Gunnagalic, and who are also quite... weird, in some respects.)
There's certainly a lot of scope for that, although I don't think that I'll have much time to explore it. Writing about the main timeline will keep me busy enough as it is.
I can't speak directly for the flavour of emu; I've tried kangaroo and (saltwater) crocodile, but not emu. From what I understand in general, though, it sells well enough, but it's not enough to create a brimming worldwide demand.
Most likely, the emu goes the way of the llama or alpaca, I think. The predominant use is in the area of original domestication, and while it's taken up occasionally elsewhere (as ornamental bird or food source), it's not a major domesticate.
I've had Emu meat and it is quite good. It's a red meat, but much more tender than beef, lamb, or game. I could see it becoming a fad delicacy in the Netherlands and perhaps the rest of Europe. Maybe it lasts longer and becomes an occasional treat. I assume the eggs taste like eggs, but who knows?
I could also see it becoming popular with cultures forbidden certain types of meat for religious purposes. Non-Vegetarian Hindus, perhaps (mmmm...Emu Vindaloo!). Perhaps it's seen as an acceptable alternative to fish on Fridays for Catholics? Perhaps Emus get known as "Friday Beef" or even "Lent Birds"?
For Lentan alternatives, I suspect emus would be treated in the same category as chickens. I have no idea about how chickens are categorised in Catholic tradition, though, so I'm not sure whether they would acceptable at Lent or on Fridays. Emu vindaloo would be wonderful taste-wise, although again I don't know enough about Hinduism to judge what they'd make of it.
That would be interesting, although quite long-term in its effects. (I'm not even sure how I'm going to depict the 19th century ITTL.) I just took a quick glance at China's precipitation levels, and there may be a few areas which will greatly benefit from Australian crops. The limiting factor will be the elevation; the Tibetan plateau may be much too high. But it looks like much of Ningxia, Gansu and parts of Shanxi would do well.
Interesting last installment, Jared...It seems the Europeans will be in a world of Hurt once the land upon the "continent". Keep it comming
Well, things certainly won't be pleasant for Europeans in Australia, disease-wise. The disease exchange is less one-sided than in OTL, although the proportional effects will be much worse in Australia.
How many more updates until the nature of the West Autsralian aboriginal civilisations is explained? Not to say that your disease one wasn't epic
There's a brief bit about Western Australia as part of the overview post (#10), and the post after that (#11) is about what south-western Australia becomes in 1618.
There will be changes, but the peoples in northern and desert Australia will remain predominantly hunter-gatherer, and mostly nomadic (in the Australian sense of the word). There will be a few permanent mining settlements in some parts of the interior. There will be a lot of metal tools which get traded throughout Australia; the occasional bronze implement will make it to the northern reaches of Australia. There may be some occasional cultivation of wattles north of the Tropic of Capricorn - some of the domesticated species will grow there, although red yams and murnong won't - which may allow a slightly higher population growth. And in much of Queensland, the last couple of hundred years before European arrival will be a time of agricultural expansion, too - a couple of new crops will arrive which mean that the Tropic of Capricorn is no longer a barrier to agriculture.
Indeed, but the main domesticated crops do spread to south-western Australia eventually.
A longer history of high population density than in the Americas, mostly. Transmission of diseases doesn't happen instantaneously; a lot of Eurasian diseases seem to have arisen a long time after the development of large urban centres. Smallpox first hit Europe during Roman times, for instance. The diseases do ultimately come from domesticated animals, but it can take a while for them to appear even after the domestication of animals.
Australia is also somewhat more plugged into the Asian disease environment than the Americas, although ATL only blue-sleep/influenza became an epidemic disease as a result. Northern Australia in OTL actually has a few diseases of Asian origin (malara and scrub typhus, for example) and migratory birds do bring avian influenza to Australia. (I'm not sure what strains of influenza are native to the New World).
Well, there were a variety of infectious diseases existing elsewhere. The Americas had a few, although probably not epidemic ones. Chagas disease, Bolivian haemorrhagic fever, Rocky Mountain spotted fever, plus maybe syphilis and TB (those last two being perpetually argued about, as you mentioned below). It's just that the Eurasian and African networks were by far the largest.
The question of why the Americas had no such plagues is an interesting one, and the short version is that we don't have a full answer. Part of it seems to be that some domesticated animals seem to have more communicable diseases than others. Cattle seem to have contributed the biggest proportion of human epidemic diseases by far - smallpox (from cowpox), measles (from rinderpest), tuberculosis (from bovine tuberculosis), and several others. Pigs, sheep, chickens and goats seem to have contributed fewer epidemic diseases, and horses and dogs none, as far as I know. It may be that the particular animals domesticated in the Americas did not have as many transmissible diseases. Messr Diamond wondered why llamas and alpacas, in particular, hadn't been the source of epidemic diseases.
The other part of the answer does seem to be the length of time in which the cultures had large urban centres and the sort of high population density which could sustain epidemic diseases. Urban life in Eurasia goes back much further than in the Americas; while there was some agriculture in the Americas quite early, the larger population centres did not start to emerge until relatively later than in Eurasia. It may just be that more time was needed for epidemic diseases to make the jump.
For the civilization in *Australia, what I have happening is that a couple of epidemic diseases arise, but they take a while to do so. The early urban centres (Formative era) had large populations and some domesticated animals (ducks), but were free of epidemic diseases. The first epidemic disease (blue-sleep) appears 2800 years after the first large urban centre, and the relatively worse Marnitja after about 3700 years. This is a function of more time for the diseases to evolve into an epidemic form which is transmissible amongst humans. It's also because the population density is relatively higher, with a higher percentage of the population as urban population than in comparable pre-Columbian cultures (cities seem to be particularly prone to breeding epidemics).
That probably plays a part, particularly in Mesoamerica. All they really had there were dogs and turkeys. Dogs don't seem to be reservoirs of many diseases which infect humans. (Dogs can get rabies, but weren't the original reservoir.) I'm not sure about turkeys, but it would appear that they aren't, either, or at least there hasn't been long enough for something to make the jump to humans.
Of epidemic diseases, there's only two of consequence. One of those I regard as inevitable (avian flu) given the geography. Marnitja is more contingent, but given the long history of large urban populations and contact with various deadly bat diseases, I figured that it was highly likely that something would become transmissible between humans. Australian bat lyssavirus, Hendra virus and Menangle virus are all real bat-borne diseases, and which are classed as emerging diseases today. (There's also a wide variety of other bat-borne viruses in Australia which seem to be less likely to infect humans - Adelaide River virus and Berrimah virus, for example.)
In an *Australia with a longer history of high population density cultures than in the Americas, I think that it's likely that some diseases will make the jump. In the end I depicted one epidemic disease of bat-borne origin (Marnitja), and one which became endemic (Drongo disease) but which is not a significant killer.
I did also depict some non-epidemic diseases, yes. One of those is the real Australian bat lyssavirus, which is such a close relative of rabies that rabies vaccine actually protects against it. This virus has killed people in Australia in recorded history, and presumably did so occasionally amongst Aboriginal peoples. With a larger population density and more domesticated dogs, I figured that it would make the jump to being a human/dog infectious disease in pretty short order.
The other main endemic disease I depicted, swamp rash (Barmah Forest virus) is an example of a process which has happened over and over again historically - an originally minor malady evolved into a more virulent form. With all of the artificial wetlands in close proximity to humans, I thought that it was likely that there would be something which evolved there.
Heh. Australia does have a reputation for that. And it does, in fact, have a surprising number of emerging diseases today. I've mentioned a few already, and there are a couple of others (e.g. Ross River fever). It's by no means as bad as some of the emerging tropical diseases, but there are several potential killer diseases lurking in Australia.
You may have answered this already, but will you be doing more vignettes down the line?
I just had an interesting idea: We know that Australia's gonna get hit hard by European diseases, and that Europe's gonna get its own (albeit minor) epidemics, but will the Europeans then carry those Australian diseases to the Americas? Would there be a second wave of population die-offs when people carrying blue-sleep and Marnitja arrive in Mexico/Brazil/the Atlantic seaboard?
Remember, Barnacle Geese were acceptable because they weren't geese, but seafood (seriously - it was thought they started as barnacles). I doubt Emus would be acceptable.
Almost irrelevantly, bovine TB looks like it comes from human, not the other way around, just to confuse us all.
http://www.plospathogens.org/article info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.ppat.1000160
"In this study, we provide genetic evidence indicating that the most common ancestor of the bacterial complex emerged some 40,000 years ago from its progenitor in East Africa, the region from where modern human populations disseminated around the same period. This initial step was followed 10,000 to 20,000 years later by the radiation of two major lineages, one of which spread from human to animals."
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If I get some inspiration about a particular scene to write, yes. I don't have any particular ones planned at the moment, but I may write some later. Especially for the first Europeans who visit the Murray basin.
Yes, there will be further die-offs when Australian diseases hit the Americas. European colonists and Native Americans will be equally vulnerable to them.
Unless someone thinks that emus grow out of the swamps, then...
Seriously, though, I don't know enough about Catholic beliefs (then or now) to know what would be classed as acceptable foods. This also extends to what they will make of things like wattleseed bread. IIRC, in some parts of medieval Europe, the bread used in mass had to be made from wheat, not from other grains. Wattleseed bread would be cheaper, but would it be acceptable? I don't know.
Wow. I didn't know that.
Oh, don't stop writing a timeline on my account; AH.com always needs more timelines.
Okay, I'll buy that.
You know, your depiction of the Waiting Death is a very dark one, but you may be missing out on the other side of the coin. Quite a few societies have developed celebrations and rituals that make light of death. Ancient (and modern) Mexico, for example. I could see a culture developing in which it is customary for a person infected to act very differently during their period of "waiting."
Some cultures might expect victims to spend the period in a state of religious ecstasy, and assume that the ones who died did so out of a failure in piety. Others might seek to model virtuous and unassuming lives. You might find some where the infected run to and fro, proclaiming love and reconciling grievances, with the culture at large viewing the period as a transitional one in an individuals life - a liminal state where standard societal taboos are relaxed. Hrm. Pseudo-berserkergang aborigine warriors? A month can be a fairly long period in wartime....
Heaven help the nation whose king thinks he has to establish his legacy right now.
As for the emus, people seem to be missing the obvious somehow. There's a large, monied minority waiting in Europe for a new source of meat, and a reason Israel is number one in the world for per capita consumption of Turkey.
You know, your depiction of the Waiting Death is a very dark one, but you may be missing out on the other side of the coin. Quite a few societies have developed celebrations and rituals that make light of death. Ancient (and modern) Mexico, for example. I could see a culture developing in which it is customary for a person infected to act very differently during their period of "waiting."
Some cultures might expect victims to spend the period in a state of religious ecstasy, and assume that the ones who died did so out of a failure in piety. Others might seek to model virtuous and unassuming lives. You might find some where the infected run to and fro, proclaiming love and reconciling grievances, with the culture at large viewing the period as a transitional one in an individuals life - a liminal state where standard societal taboos are relaxed. Hrm. Pseudo-berserkergang aborigine warriors? A month can be a fairly long period in wartime....
Heaven help the nation whose king thinks he has to establish his legacy right now.
As for the emus, people seem to be missing the obvious somehow. There's a large, monied minority waiting in Europe for a new source of meat, and a reason Israel is number one in the world for per capita consumption of Turkey.
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mojojojo
Gone Fishin'
IIRC a critter had to be associated in some fashion with water ( so people could accept it as a sort of fish) to be eaten on Lent . Muskrats in NA and capybaras in SA fit the bill.Although I doubt the Vatican ever officially ruled on the subject.
On the subject of Maori/Aborigine contact, do you see any religious ideas or cultural practices traveling between the two cultures?
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