Historical Atlas of Arcél
Ya, much more of something to provoke thought and creativity (which it obviously has done for a number of writers) than a work of hard science, I think. I wasn't actually sure, when I was first reading it, whether he was being serious or not.Pthug wrote:Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the List of Nouns is good science-fiction, even if it's not good history/paleontology. Which it isn't.
Actually reminded me a lot of this one, which is not serious, only pretends to be.
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- Sanci
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I really like the biographies of Phwai and Mur - they add a really nice touch and are interesting from an ethnography point of view too. Speaking of which, can I ask the sources you're getting your stuff on economy, life-expectancy, and stuff from? Particularly for the tropical zone; finding out stuff on Egypt or Mesopotamia is prtty easy, getting information on tropical agricultural areas is a lot harder.
[quote="dinnae"][quote="Sano"]I'm a Homo sapien, does that count?[/quote]
Only if you go Erectus in the presence of the same sex.[/quote]
Only if you go Erectus in the presence of the same sex.[/quote]
Almean rainforests seem to be distinct from the ones we know in some way. It would be interesting to see this explicated. On the face of things it's not obvious why the Beic region's rainforests would have "always allowed a denser population."Gremlins wrote:I really like the biographies of Phwai and Mur - they add a really nice touch and are interesting from an ethnography point of view too. Speaking of which, can I ask the sources you're getting your stuff on economy, life-expectancy, and stuff from? Particularly for the tropical zone; finding out stuff on Egypt or Mesopotamia is prtty easy, getting information on tropical agricultural areas is a lot harder.
I like the peasant biographies too, they're a nice touch.
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- the duke of nuke
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Very nice; it's good to see something about the population rather than the few outstanding individuals. The biographies confirm to me that Belesao is a nicer place to live than Uytai (that's obviously the case for women, but I think it is for men as well).
There is also evidently plenty of Weird Shit going down in Arcél that we haven't heard about yet. I mean, what is 'Hyemsur'? A disease, perhaps? Presumably it's from Uytai or Krwng.
And about the rainforests - both the Rau and Arcél jungles seem to be more like the those of Southeast Asia than of Brazil. I've never been to South America, I'm in Vietnam this summer and while it's easy to see the link with Nan, I think Belesao derives some flavour from Indochina; it seems a bit like pre-colonial Thailand, Cambodia or Java with its healthy trade and aristocracy. (Remember that both Belesao and SE Asia are seasonal rainforest. The same is also true of the Mayan jungle, but not of the Amazon.)
There is also evidently plenty of Weird Shit going down in Arcél that we haven't heard about yet. I mean, what is 'Hyemsur'? A disease, perhaps? Presumably it's from Uytai or Krwng.
And about the rainforests - both the Rau and Arcél jungles seem to be more like the those of Southeast Asia than of Brazil. I've never been to South America, I'm in Vietnam this summer and while it's easy to see the link with Nan, I think Belesao derives some flavour from Indochina; it seems a bit like pre-colonial Thailand, Cambodia or Java with its healthy trade and aristocracy. (Remember that both Belesao and SE Asia are seasonal rainforest. The same is also true of the Mayan jungle, but not of the Amazon.)
XinuX wrote:I learned this language, but then I sneezed and now am in prison for high treason. 0/10 would not speak again.
Some good places to start are Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, Mann's 1491, and several books by Marvin Harris, such as Cows, Pigs, Wars, and Witches. But it's really a bunch of places... a particular detail may be mentioned in books on Maya writing, travel books, histories of technology, books on primates or human biology. Or I might remember something from my wife, who grew up in the jungle.Gremlins wrote:Speaking of which, can I ask the sources you're getting your stuff on economy, life-expectancy, and stuff from? Particularly for the tropical zone [...].
Also, it's a different planet, I sometimes just make up stuff.
I guess we haven't been into much detail about their agricultural technology yet, which is the difference between Southeast Asia and Brazil in re: population density.thedukeofnuke wrote:And about the rainforests - both the Rau and Arcél jungles seem to be more like the those of Southeast Asia than of Brazil
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.
I just read 1491, so I thought maybe the jungle population stuff came from there. One of the ideas espoused there is that the Amazon was actually much more heavily populated before European contact than is currently possible, due to environmental destruction, and loss of the knowledge of traditional farming methods.
That's not just espoused in 1491. I think it's pretty well-attested that there were pre-Columbian maize farming societies in the Amazon, but for whatever combination of reasons -- and post-Columbian factors may be a part of it -- they didn't sustain themselves. In any case they weren't illustrative of any innate higher population density properties of the rainforests in question.eodrakken wrote:I just read 1491, so I thought maybe the jungle population stuff came from there. One of the ideas espoused there is that the Amazon was actually much more heavily populated before European contact than is currently possible, due to environmental destruction, and loss of the knowledge of traditional farming methods.
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.
Don't rainforests have more biota per square kilometer than a temperate savanna, or whatever we're calling the forest-to-plain transition in Uytai? There's lots of insects, fruit, nuts, seeds, and shoots in a rainforest. It makes sense to me that population densities could be quite high there without agriculture.
I was surprised to see that the major language groups are in more or less the same place throughout their whole history, unlike Erelae. But it will be interesting to see how they deal with the coming of Jippirasti, the uterus-ization of Beic culture, and the Ktuvok invasion that Zompist hinted at. I can't wait! Great stuff!
I was surprised to see that the major language groups are in more or less the same place throughout their whole history, unlike Erelae. But it will be interesting to see how they deal with the coming of Jippirasti, the uterus-ization of Beic culture, and the Ktuvok invasion that Zompist hinted at. I can't wait! Great stuff!
Fascinating stuff. I'm always happy to see new Almean developments.
A question on orthography (sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere): reading the Múr article, I noticed that Beic words with accented ɔ & ɛ are being written with spacing accent marks (e.g. brɔ`ŋ, Prɛ`n). Would it not make more sense to use combining accents (i.e. brɔ̀ŋ, Prɛ̀n)? (These may show up incorrectly in some browsers with some fonts, but you're already requiring fonts with ɔ & ɛ, and a misplaced accent generally won't look any worse than the spacing version anyway.)
A question on orthography (sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere): reading the Múr article, I noticed that Beic words with accented ɔ & ɛ are being written with spacing accent marks (e.g. brɔ`ŋ, Prɛ`n). Would it not make more sense to use combining accents (i.e. brɔ̀ŋ, Prɛ̀n)? (These may show up incorrectly in some browsers with some fonts, but you're already requiring fonts with ɔ & ɛ, and a misplaced accent generally won't look any worse than the spacing version anyway.)
Sure, but ironically the high biodiversity typically means that food resources useful to humans tend to be very dispersed. That's why hunter-gatherers in tropical rainforests on Earth are usually very marginal populations. But again there may be some different dynamic happening on Almea.brandrinn wrote:Don't rainforests have more biota per square kilometer than a temperate savanna
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- Yiuel Raumbesrairc
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Like Java-style densities?ils wrote:Sure, but ironically the high biodiversity typically means that food resources useful to humans tend to be very dispersed. That's why hunter-gatherers in tropical rainforests on Earth are usually very marginal populations. But again there may be some different dynamic happening on Almea.brandrinn wrote:Don't rainforests have more biota per square kilometer than a temperate savanna
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Also, most life in rainforests is inaccessible. 90% of species are found in the canopy alone, and the raw biomass is also tilted toward the canopy. Only 1-2% of the light reaches the ground, so plants accessible to humans will probably be fairly sparse (other than at river banks and other gaps in the canopy).ils wrote:Sure, but ironically the high biodiversity typically means that food resources useful to humans tend to be very dispersed. That's why hunter-gatherers in tropical rainforests on Earth are usually very marginal populations. But again there may be some different dynamic happening on Almea.brandrinn wrote:Don't rainforests have more biota per square kilometer than a temperate savanna
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I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
But the river tripped on her by and by, lapping
as though her heart was brook: Why, why, why! Weh, O weh
I'se so silly to be flowing but I no canna stay!
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The main reason Java can support the densities it does is the extreme fertility of the volcanic soil. If they didn't have all the volcanoes there it couldn't sustain what it does. So it's not the best example, as the Beic (and the Uytainese, for that matter) plain don't seem to be dotted with volcanoes.dhokarena56 wrote:Java relies on rice agriculture, I think.
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I see.Drydic Guy wrote:The main reason Java can support the densities it does is the extreme fertility of the volcanic soil. If they didn't have all the volcanoes there it couldn't sustain what it does. So it's not the best example, as the Beic (and the Uytainese, for that matter) plain don't seem to be dotted with volcanoes.
However, you do have the near deltas just north of Vietnam which could be a better example. They are densely populated, and they don't seem doted with volcanoes. And the Beic homeland seems to be swamps, just like said portions of Vietnam.
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Just carelessness... I fixed them in the Múr article; people are welcome to fix other occurences. My Mac doesn't combine them correctly so they're hard to see, but I see that my Vista machine now shows them correctly.butsuri wrote:A question on orthography (sorry if this has already been discussed elsewhere): reading the Múr article, I noticed that Beic words with accented ɔ & ɛ are being written with spacing accent marks (e.g. brɔ`ŋ, Prɛ`n). Would it not make more sense to use combining accents (i.e. brɔ̀ŋ, Prɛ̀n)?
Basically, anywhere you see dense populations in tropical rainforest zones, they're agriculturalist populations. (Yes, Yiuel, I made reference to SE Asia's agriculturalists already.) West Africa is an example of this -- and those population densitites have had consequences for the region's ecology, since sustaining large populations with slash-and-burn agriculture exhausts soil more quickly than flooded-field rice paddy agriculture.
Oh THAT'S why I was on hiatus. Right. Hiatus Mode re-engaged.
Yes, this too.Salmoneus wrote:Also, most life in rainforests is inaccessible. 90% of species are found in the canopy alone, and the raw biomass is also tilted toward the canopy. Only 1-2% of the light reaches the ground, so plants accessible to humans will probably be fairly sparse (other than at river banks and other gaps in the canopy).ils wrote:Sure, but ironically the high biodiversity typically means that food resources useful to humans tend to be very dispersed. That's why hunter-gatherers in tropical rainforests on Earth are usually very marginal populations. But again there may be some different dynamic happening on Almea.brandrinn wrote:Don't rainforests have more biota per square kilometer than a temperate savanna
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Indians in the Amazon came up with a way around this, apparently.ils wrote:Basically, anywhere you see dense populations in tropical rainforest zones, they're agriculturalist populations. (Yes, Yiuel, I made reference to SE Asia's agriculturalists already.) West Africa is an example of this -- and those population densitites have had consequences for the region's ecology, since sustaining large populations with slash-and-burn agriculture exhausts soil more quickly than flooded-field rice paddy agriculture.
[quote="dinnae"][quote="Sano"]I'm a Homo sapien, does that count?[/quote]
Only if you go Erectus in the presence of the same sex.[/quote]
Only if you go Erectus in the presence of the same sex.[/quote]