AHC/WI: Other River Valley Civilizations?
- Thread starter SirPaperweight
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Agrciultural potential is limited, and with no suitable 'founder crops' native to the area?
I'll quote my earlier response from another thread:
In other words, while the cultural region around the Liao River had remained stable for several millennia, military expansions from China (originally from the Yellow River) gradually pushed the culture further south into the peninsula, which in turn may have gradually pushed the peninsular civilization out into the Japanese archipelago over time.
The Amur was closer to "Siberia" than it was to "Manchuria," making it much more difficult for a culture to continuously flourish when temperatures often dropped below freezing.
In other words, while the cultural region around the Liao River had remained stable for several millennia, military expansions from China (originally from the Yellow River) gradually pushed the culture further south into the peninsula, which in turn may have gradually pushed the peninsular civilization out into the Japanese archipelago over time.
The Amur was closer to "Siberia" than it was to "Manchuria," making it much more difficult for a culture to continuously flourish when temperatures often dropped below freezing.
I’d like to throw in the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New York. It has extremely fertile floodplains, it is located in a temperate climate zone, and it is geologically owne of thr most ancient rivers on Earth. My (obviously-biased) Pennsylvania-born earth science professor once put it on par with great rivers like the Nile and the Yangtze in terms of its agricultural potential. The indigenous people never had much opportunity to take advantage, however - the Susquehannocks were hunter-gatherers until recieving the Mesoamerican crop package fairly late, and shortly after that, the Europeans showed up.
How could animals such as Guinea Pigs, Turkeys and Llamas come to the Rio de la Plata?
Wild Llamas (or their cousins) historically did range to the Rio de la Plata.
Turkeys were a N. American bird. Quail were indigenous and could conceivably be domesticated.
'crop package' is the key thing here. If you want a river valley civilization, you have to have a reliable food source, something beyond 'hunter/gathering'. A lot of the places mentioned on this topic seem to have had river valley civilizations, but only after crop packages/domesticated animals got there from somewhere else. If the POD here is to kickstart them earlier... gotta get them something to farm. Not sure of just what the OP is looking for here... are we looking for other absolutely first 'cradles of civilization' comparable in time and scale to Mesopotamia and Egypt, or just other river valley civilizations regardless of the time they start? The first is difficult, the second not so much...
And was maize and potatoes present among the local Native farmers?
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The Guarani people of the la Plata prior to European contact raised maize and manioc.
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There actually appear to have been quite a few early civilizations along other major rivers, that happened to collapse at some point. The Amazon, the Indus/Sarasvati, the Danube, the Usumacinta (Mayan civilization) and I would include the Mississippi too.
Civilizations seem to be very fragile when they are in their early stages. It appears that they become more stable only once they reach a sufficiently advanced social/technological stage that they can survive climatic stresses that would have destroyed them at an earlier time. (Or not, it appears that environmental stress and resource depletion due to overexploitation of natural resources have had large roles in their collapses.)
So maybe it was pure chance that the civilizations on the Nile, the Tigris/Euphrates and the Huang-He survived? It seems possible to me that if history could be re-run, the civilizations on the Danube and the Amazon might survive while those on the Huang-He and Euphrates collapse.
Civilizations seem to be very fragile when they are in their early stages. It appears that they become more stable only once they reach a sufficiently advanced social/technological stage that they can survive climatic stresses that would have destroyed them at an earlier time. (Or not, it appears that environmental stress and resource depletion due to overexploitation of natural resources have had large roles in their collapses.)
So maybe it was pure chance that the civilizations on the Nile, the Tigris/Euphrates and the Huang-He survived? It seems possible to me that if history could be re-run, the civilizations on the Danube and the Amazon might survive while those on the Huang-He and Euphrates collapse.
And from when dates the first human presence in the region?
Maur
Banned
Well, nothing would survive what happened to Indus civilization, aka the river drying up
. It did not really end, more like moved to Indus (from Sarasvati) and Ganges. Mississipi is somewhat special case, due to its being located in America (in old world it would be hard to have early civ that later on gets hit by diseases as virgin soil). I dont know about the others, though. Whats the difference between Amazon/Mississipi and Mesoamerica/Andes? I mean, not much left was of the former, while the later sort of survived as civilizations (meaning, there was a urbanisation left, if on lower level)
In any case, thats partly what i pointed before. The main four had very stable environment. The Nile, Huang-he and Tigris/Euphrates cant dry up short of huge global climate change (neither can Indus/Sarasvati, they just changed their riverbeds, something Huang-he and iirc Tigris did a lot, too. They couldnt really be overexploited, either, you cant destroy the environment by deforestation or something, since these areas are not very forested in first place, and its soil is not dependent on existing forests either.
And all of them got hit realld hard by invaders, including nomads, and survived.
In other words, the other rivers, danube, the mayan one, or Amazon, were completely dfferent environments.
I suppose if people really wanted to compare the two it would be to look at the climates of say the Mississippi and Tigris at the same time frames.
I believe the cause of the Mississippi collapse was more a cause of overpopulation, famine, pestilence, and the acompanying warfare and breakdown of order that came with it. The Native North American language groups were at one point a large similar group but then something occured which caused the group or groups to split into the very, very, very varied and isolate groupings.
Rather then coalesce they split apart and drifted. If we take the case of the Nile the reason why their cultural group primarily did not drift was due to geography. The same for most of the Tigris and Euphrates, hemmed in as they were by the deserts and mountains external invasions happened but they were Inbelieve far between one another which favored theu consolidation of government and society.
The Mississippi and Danube are not as hemmed in geographicly.
I believe the cause of the Mississippi collapse was more a cause of overpopulation, famine, pestilence, and the acompanying warfare and breakdown of order that came with it. The Native North American language groups were at one point a large similar group but then something occured which caused the group or groups to split into the very, very, very varied and isolate groupings.
Rather then coalesce they split apart and drifted. If we take the case of the Nile the reason why their cultural group primarily did not drift was due to geography. The same for most of the Tigris and Euphrates, hemmed in as they were by the deserts and mountains external invasions happened but they were Inbelieve far between one another which favored theu consolidation of government and society.
The Mississippi and Danube are not as hemmed in geographicly.
It is commonly thought that the Amazon civilization did survive until being devastated by European diseases. They had a different problem than the Danubians.
Id be favorable to the writing of a California Civilization TL.
Well, for the case of my TL Totems and Salmon the big tie in is of course similar to Black and Gold's development of a agricultural food source which spurs the development of agriculture and thus civilization in the complex sense. Geography for the Wilamette favors a unified culture group which largely sheltered from large movements of people leads to expansion and expansion.
Well, for the case of my TL Totems and Salmon the big tie in is of course similar to Black and Gold's development of a agricultural food source which spurs the development of agriculture and thus civilization in the complex sense. Geography for the Wilamette favors a unified culture group which largely sheltered from large movements of people leads to expansion and expansion.
What about the New Guinean Sepik and Fly Rivers? New Guinea had very early agriculture, perhaps even the earliest agriculture in the world, predating even Mesopotamia; see Kuk Swamp.
As for Amazonia, it does seem a bit odd that civilization thrived so much in the relatively inhospitable Andes yet never got a strong foothold in the Amazon Basin, given the enormous agricultural potential of the region and its countless crops. Not to mention that the Amazon is navigable all the way up to Iquitos even by modern ships.
Also, no one has mentioned the Orinoco River Basin, which has a climate very similar to that of much of Amazonia
As for Amazonia, it does seem a bit odd that civilization thrived so much in the relatively inhospitable Andes yet never got a strong foothold in the Amazon Basin, given the enormous agricultural potential of the region and its countless crops. Not to mention that the Amazon is navigable all the way up to Iquitos even by modern ships.
Also, no one has mentioned the Orinoco River Basin, which has a climate very similar to that of much of Amazonia
Living in California myself, if faster growing varieties of oaks could be domesticated, a Californian civilization based around the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Valley seems completely plausible. If you want to write a TL on the subject, I have a good amount of knowledge on the subject of Precolumbian California.