Sorry but Britain did not come to civilisation quite late,kicking and screaming at the hands of the Romans, Stonehenge was constructed in 3100 B.C.,before the pyramids were built and would be a not negligible construction project even today.
It required civil engineering skills,logistical skills and the communal co operation of and direction of a quite considerable amount of manpower.
There were numerous other henges constructed (Avebury etc.) and in the Orkney islands in the north of Scotland the stone built houses of several thousand years ago were found to have inside toilets with flowing water.
The British peoples have been found to have been trading all over the European continent at the time as were other European ethnic groups.
It is now believed that agriculture did not actually spread from region to region from the source in the fertile crescent but was independantly discovered by seperate peoples in seperate areas(cite Britain B.C. a documentary) and that this ocurred in the island of Britain.
A couple of other points,the argument up thread about the small population of Australia being an impediment to the Aborigines developing civilisation is confusing cause with effect.
More efficient food producers expand their populations,its not a case that a people will massively expand its numbers and then as result to go on and develop civilisation.
As to another idea postulated up thread that the native people didn’t need to develop civilisation because they were at one with their environment and lived an idyllic contented lifestyle…
It would carry more weight if these noble savages faced with the opportunity to use aspects of civilisation rejected them,if you’re content you dont need shallow gimcracks from outside of your culture;contentment pretty much can’t be improved on.
So why the rush to wear clothes,drink alcohol,smoke tobacco and eat supermarket food rather then Wichita grubs?
Of course it is not feasible to prove, one way or another, that it was possible or impossible to domesticate emus under primitive conditions. All we know is that it did not take place. We are dealing with historical data here, so all we can do is advance possible explanations for what occurred. We can’t subject these to experimental test, since the original conditions under which domestication occurred no longer exist.
Emus differ in behavior and diet from the grazing mammals that were the first human domesticates. They differ in ways that would have made them more difficult to domesticate. None of the information you have posted invalidates these points. This is a possible explanation for why they were not domesticated. There may be other possible explanations; but it is up to you to postulate them and see if they might be valid.
Climatic variability has been proposed as a reason that agriculture did not develop in Australia in the first place. This may be an alternative or additional reason why emus were not domesticated.
However, I would point out that no ratite species has ever been domesticated anywhere, even in areas where there was early development and a long history of agriculture. Ostriches are quite similar to emus in diet and social structure. They previously occurred not just in Africa, but also in southwest Asia and even into China. They were found in or at least adjacent to the earliest centers of agriculture in Egypt and the Fertile Crescent, and perhaps also in India and China. Yet not one early civilization domesticated them, or as far as we know even made the attempt. Like emus, ostriches today are farmed, but not really domesticated. Cassowaries occur in New Guinea in areas that also saw the very early development of agriculture, but were not domesticated. Rheas in South America also were not domesticated, although the areas where they occur are probably too dry for the development of agriculture.
Although I will cheerfully concede that domestication of Emu was hwaaay too difficult for “primitive conditions”, I will not concede that modern emu farms can’t domesticate their emus. Someone I know owns a sheepranch, with also emu. They let my group camp there from time to time. One emu comes around, begs for food, follows us, “dances” to our music, and is as tame as any large domestic animal. The owners say that if they are raised by hand from chicks they get like that. They also said it’s a difficult and time intensive process. So, yes, I doubt that emus could be domesticated by primitive societies. But they are certainly *capable *of being domesticated. I have personally hand fed one such emu.
However, I would note that this is still not true domestication, merely taming of a still innately wild animal. If they have to be raised by hand from chicks in order to be tame, then they are not really domesticated. True domestication requires that the behaviorial changes have become innate, not just a matter of training or taming. Emus, like lots of other animals, no doubt can be domesticated over time, it just hasn’t happened yet. I will note that silver foxes have been domesticated, but it took decades of artificial selection.
Lots of animals that were never domesticated under primitive conditions are no doubt potentially domesticable under modern conditions. But they require fencing or caging, supplemental feeding, and intensive selection, none of which was probably available under primitive conditions.
No, you can’t offer absolute proof. You can, however, offer reasonable arguments to support your position. (Certain practical experiments might also be possible.)
You’ve presented no good evidence that emu behavior or diet makes them significantly more difficult to domesticate (in Australia) than other animals.
Sure, and for most of human history no animal anywhere was domesticated. It doesn’t prove much.
Even if other animals were found to be “better” by humans (for any number of reasons), that does not mean that ratites were exceptionally difficult to domesticate.
(Ostriches have been undergoing domestication for some time now, and ostriches bred for human purposes are supposedly already noticeably different from “pure” wild ostriches. Example.)
Obviously they are not. Domestication under modern conditions simply demonstrates domestication is possible under modern conditions. It says nothing about primitive conditions.
Yes, I have.
However, those that were domesticated have some common traits that do provide lines of evidence, even if not definitive proof.
Please advance a hypothesis or explanation for why they were not.
One can perform experiments on, for example, emu behavior. “If you do X, will emus typically do Y or Z?” One could even attempt basic domestication experiments in the wild under best-guess realistic conditions, perhaps with the help of Australian Aborigines.
No, you haven’t [presented good evidence that emu behavior or diet makes them significantly more difficult to domesticate (in Australia) than other animals].
What it is about emu behavior that makes them so badly suited for domestication? Your most recent explanation is that they’re not true Scotsmen. Oops. I mean, true herd animals. But apparently you don’t want to be more specific than that.
I’ve asked you what it would it take to refute your claim that emu diet is a big problem. You don’t answer.
Emus do share traits with animals that were domesticated. They are not picky eaters. They do commonly (but not always) live and travel in flocks, and have a dominance hierarchy within the flock.
Great. This again. My answer to why ratites weren’t domesticated is “we don’t know”. This is the default answer. You don’t seem to comprehend that. If you think you have a better answer, be it “it must have been their diet!” or “God did it!” you need to provide convincing evidence to substantiate that claim. If you don’t, the correct answer remains “we don’t know”.
I can certainly think of possible reasons for why the rare circumstances that lead to domestication never occurred with regards to ratites. But I’d rather not derail this discussion with my loose speculation. Your loose speculation is keeping me plenty busy.
The herding mammals that were domesticated form permanent groups with well-developed and long-standing relationships between members. Emus do not, but only flock temporarily.
Prove that aborigines domesticated them.
You don’t seem to comprehend that I am not attempting to prove definitively that it was impossible to domesticate emus, merely offering a possible explanation. True, we don’t know for sure, but there are good reasons based on behavior and diet that emus would be more difficult to domesticate than the animals that were domesticated elsewhere in the world.
There are good reasons based on social behavior and diet why ratites may not have been domesticated. This is not loose speculation, this is a fact.
We need to compare emu with chickens, geese, ducks and turkeys, not herd mammals. Do wild turkeys travel in flocks all that much?
I think we know that aborigines did *not *domesticate emu (or anything else much), but *could *they have is the question. Note that the North American natives also did not domesticate anything much besides the dog, and that wasn’t really a food animal. (The South Americans did have the cavy, llama & alpaca). And the bison appears to be able to be domesticated, but the Indians did not try to do so, it appears.
I think that currently emu are on the brink of domestication, at least as much as some other domesticated fowl. I certainly think that it is possible to domesticate the emu.
BUT- I don’t think that the aborigines could have spent the energy to do so. Apparently they are not easy to raise. And the aborigines had no examples of domesticated food animals to use to get the start from. In any case, the emu is only a food animal, it can’t be used for riding or as a draft animal,afaik.
Note that Jared Diamond in “The Third Chimpanzee” more or less agrees with you about domesticated animals.
It has occurred to me that the above reasons for no farming by the Aboriginals might be a tad on the politically correct side.
There is little point in herding emus or dodos, ditto in cultivating plants if you run a risk of having the results forcibly removed, and an even greater risk of landing up as dinner oneself for an opportunistic raider.
What evidence do we have of raiding and cannibalism ?
Right, so what are you trying to say? That black folk are naturally savage with no respect for their neighbours, whereas those white and red folk who developed agriculture are not?
Why is it that so often when someone plays the “PC” card their next utterance smacks of baseless racism?
Precisely the same as we have for every location on earth where agriculture did develop. White people were once cannibals living in tribes too, you know.
Since this is your hypothesis perhaps you should present your evidence that Aborigines were more prone to raiding and cannibalism than European, Asian or American HGs. If you have no such evidence then this is nothing more than a baseless argument from ignorance with a racist foundation.
A couple of points: I don’t think any of these birds were domesticated until after the development of agriculture and crop plants. Like pigs, they can make a living feeding on agricultural waste and what they can find foraging around a village. They don’t have to be herded. Also, since they are much smaller than emus, they can make a living on much less food.
A flock of emus isn’t going to be able to feed itself just wandering about within the confines of a village. Because of their size, they would have to forage much more widely than a flock of turkeys, making herding an issue.
The main problem with emus is as an initial domesticate, that is, one that might have been made before the development of agriculture. If you can pen them, and feed them on agricultural surplus or waste, then you don’t have to herd them and domestication becomes feasible (as is happening today). But under primitive conditions, when you can’t feed them on crops, domestication would be much less feasible. Since native Australians never developed agriculture, they wouldn’t have had this option.
Right, I agree. While Emus may well be subject to domestication, they- like other birds- would have to wait until an agricultural society developed. AFAIK, all hunter-gatherer societys domesticated only rather mobile mammals.
My WAG is that the pig could be an in-between case of domestication- you can feed pigs scraps and better yet- acorns. In areas with oak forests you can gather a LOT of acorns, which pigs love. Sure, humans can certainly eat acorns, but hey require quite a bit of processing usually.
Jared Diamond makes the point that the Northern California natives are one of the few case he knows of where the natives scorned agriculture, even after seeing it in action with other tribes. My guess it was because of the high availability of acorns- not to mention the gentle climate.
Anyway, I agree that Emu are not a animal one would see a hunter-gather culture domesticate.
Yes, but that’s long been known, and has nothing to do with Britain. Certain packages of animal and plant domestication arose independently, but the chief characteristic of such packages is that each one is, at least initially, a distinct “package” – the sorghum and millet agriculture of the Sahel region of Africa didn’t include maize or wheat until introduced from the cultures that developed those crops.
Are we saying Britain developed a native system of warm beer-, blood pudding-, and gruel-based farming, before the Fertile Crescent package of wheat, barley, horses, cattle, goats, and sheep found its way there?
My understanding is that the Fertile Crescent farming package spread so swiftly that most cultures not separated from it by geographical barriers adopted it instead of developing their own native plants and animals (which were usually less suitable). Yes, the English Channel might count as a geographic barrier for this purpose, I’ll admit.
First, I am not presenting a hypothesis, more a suggestion, and one that I’m surprized that nobody else has come up with.
Places with porous borders are prone to raiding parties, for example between Scotland and England there was an area held by the ‘border Reivers’ who were a pretty lawless and uncivillized bunch.
Similarly one gets cattle raiding in Africa, in fact quite a lot of Africa’s problems could be put down to people moving into an area and creating havoc.
Australia does not seem to have natural borders, it seems possible that agriculture and husbandry was simply not worthwhile, as you have pointed out there were plenty of other preconditions for agriculture, and my understanding is that Australia has a wide variety of ‘climates’ so the weather hypothesis might work for most of the continent, but not for all of it.
Incidentally, my understanding of the benefits of animal husbandry is that it prevents Nature taking a ‘natural’ toll on the flock - basically replacing other predators’ place in the food chain.
You do realise all this occurred *millenia *after the adoption of agriculture? Right?
Whatever is your point?
First off cattle rustlingis a problem everywhere, especially where the stock are along way from law enforcement. Rustling is so serious in Australia that most states have special police departments that deal with nothing else. And it’s hard to imagine a place on this planet with more secure borders than Australia.
Secondly, where in the world are a lot of problems not attributable to people moving into an area and creating havoc, and WTF does this have to do with HGs adopting agriculture?
Can you please identify the places on Earth that have more natural borders, from the perspective of HGS? And provide references to this effect? I don’t think you understand just how mobile HGs were, just how much territory they occupied or how low their population densities were.
Can you name this place in Australia that has stable andpredictable weather patterns on a multi-decadal timescale? Becuase I’m buggered if I can think of it.
Yes, and?
FRDE can you possibly cease being coy and just come out and say what you mean? At this stage we have a suggestion of an implication of something ill-defined to do with raids that apparently take place over at least three continents and several millenia.
If you have an actual point in there somewhere can you just state plainly what it is and cease dancing around the point?
I see,the fact that agriculture was independantly discovered on a whole continent doesn’t actually carry any weight when it comes to talking about former colonial powers ?
I refer you to my earlier cite,a Channel Four documentary called Britain B.C. researched and presented by a very well respected archaeologist,Francis Prior .
We’re not talking loony toons/Von Daniken here.
Whether or not your disbelief is based on your own preconceptions, or on what you’d like to believe is a matter of conjecture that only you can honestly resolve.
The fact that you haven’t read anything to the contrary tells us more about your reading choices rather then the researched,historical and documented facts available to any reasonably interested,dispassionate historian.
Unfortunately the world is as it IS,rather then how we’d like it to be based on our ideas of fairness and or political correctness.