Primitive Europe or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Being Colonized

A Long Note From the Original Author
(the following is written from the perspective of our time-line)

'''If you have a complaint READ THIS NOTE FIRST. I WILL NOT respond to or acknowledge a complaint if I've explained it in this note.'''


 * This may take me a while to get started because of how much research it takes. I will try to make this alternate time-line as realistic as possible, but some areas, such as the Olmec and Khazar language, can't be realistic because of the lack of information available to our time-line humans. Articles will take me a long time to create because of the accuracy I wish to maintain for this alternate time-line.


 * For the moment I (bofriu) would like to be the sole editor of this timeline, but there may come a time where I will open up this timeline for public editing.


 * I have read Guns, Germs, and Steel, and it's actually the basis for this alternate time-line. I may state something which disagrees with something in our time-line, in this alternate time-line, or something in Guns, Germs, and Steel. If you find a discrepancy or have a recommendation please state so on that page's respective talk page.


 * I will always specify when I'm writing from the perspective of our time-line. If you find a discrepency it may be that I was writing from the perspective of people form this alternate time-line, not that I didn't know what I was talking about.


 * If you see a * next to a word it means that there is a note about it below in a notes section. I will usually use our time-line English names for geographic formations and areas, because there are many names for each, in different languages in this alternate time-line, and I haven't decided on all the names for the geographic locations yet in this timeline. There is also no English language in this alternate time-line so no translation can be given.


 * In this alternate time-line, White Europeans are seen as animals. At times when writing from the point of view of the people in this alternate time-line it may seem like I am writing with a racist view point. I will not ever write from a racist view point though, I will only write from the view point of the people from this alternate time-line, and the knowledge available to them. In this time-line White Europeans are seen by the world much the same as Europeans in our time-line saw Native Americans or Aboriginal Australians. They are not biologically or mentally different from the White Europeans in our time-line. They just have a different social evolution.


 * I say that human choices made it impossible for civilizations to form in places where they may have prospered, and I stand by that. You may disagree with me though if you've read Guns, Germs, and Steel. I've read it too, but what I really took away from it was that certain people were at more of a disadvantage than others. There was no proof that a civilization couldn't form in Australia. It just had the odds against it due to being small, and therefore having less animals/plants, and less of a chance for any of those animals/plants to be domesticated. There are still animals/plants capable of domestication in Australia though. This timeline explores the possibility of those animals being domesticated. Also if some plants and animals evolved a bit differently in both timelines it could also drastically affect domestication in this alternate time-line. Another reason mentioned by Guns, Germs, and Steel is geographic location, namely area and axis orientation. We'll deal with area first. The main reason given for area is population. Since there would be less area it would naturally follow that there would be less people occupying that area. The reason given by Jared Diamond to why a smaller population makes agriculture impossible is that with a smaller population, it means less groups, and therefore a smaller chance that people would adopt agriculture from their neighbors. It also means a smaller chance of someone being an accidental inventor. This wouldn't make agriculture impossible though, it would simply make agriculture far less likely. The other problem stressed by this book is axes. Now the reason given by Jared Diamond that different axis make agriculture impossible is that north-south axis create different climates and geographic barriers which prevent the spread of domesticated plants and animals. Let's examine climate first. Korea has a very different climate from China, just as does North Sudan from the Fertile Crescent, but plants from both the latter have managed to excel in the former. From this one would assume that plants would be able to adapt to similar climates if forced. A problem with the Geographic barrier problem is that corn was able to get across the deserts of the Southwest United States, and in an even bigger barrier, Chinese technology and culture was able to get across the Himilayas (the largest mountain range in the world) to India and Nepal. Therefore, all these things can be factors preventing an empire, but they can be easily overcome.


 * Because of the butterfly effect the native cultures of Australia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Americas will be slightly to dirastically different upon contact with other parts of the world than they are in OTL, especially concerning languages and beliefs. This is the only page where I'll use the names discussed below from our time-line, even when writing from the perspective of this time-line.

Thank you for reading this long message and enjoy this alternate time-line.

Background Information
(the following is written from the perspective of our time-line)

The Ice Age ended around 12,500 B.C.E, and at the end of the Ice Age all humans on the globe were hunter-gatherers. By 9000 B.C.E. humans had adopted the 8 founder crops of agriculture, all of which are still widely used today. The founder crops soon spread to Europe by 7000 B.C.E. through Greece and this led to civilization. In contrast some people never developed agriculture. South-West Australia, while having a similar climate to the Fertile Crescent, never developed civilizations or even farming. Australia remained a hunter-gatherer continent until the arrival of Europeans in 1606. All the events leading up to European dominance in the world are human influenced, and humans aren’t the most logical creatures at times and don’t always do what’s best for them. 14,500 years ago when the Ice Age was ending it could have easily been the Khoisans, the Inuit, and the Koori who colonized England instead of the other way around. Human choices are what led Europe to dominate the world.

Part 1
In OTL the original innovations which made Europe successful didn't originate in Europe; writing, agriculture, and early inventions all originated in the Fertile Crescent and were adopted by Europe though Greece later, but what if these early innovations didn’t spread to Europe. What if those early Greeks were xenophobic, preferred hunting-gathering, or for some other reason never adopted agriculture from the Fertile Crescent. Europe would remain a mainly hunter-gatherer continent, and never advance to have any empire.

Part 2
As we also know in OTL Eurasia was by far the most successful continent in terms of civilization. Civilizations such as the Inca, Maya, and Ancient Egypt emerged on other continents, but not to the extent of Eurasia's. No civilizations emerged in Australia or in the arctic, but as stated above it was purely by human choice. Civilizations could have emerged anywhere, but due to human choices, civilizations were prevented from forming in areas where they previously would have prospered, but suppose those choices were different. Suppose that for some reason humanity made choices to adopt agriculture, and then developed civilizations despite all the odds in very unlikely places. When Europeans would have arrived in the Americas in 1492 and Australia in 1606 they would have been met with empires of equal strength, and neither would have been colonized.