Building Biomes - Mediterranean & Fertile Crescents

Building Biomes - Mediterranean & Fertile Crescents | Worldbuilding

Рет қаралды 21,760

Күн бұрын

Episode 14: Ecology Part 5 - Mediterranean & Fertile Crescents
In this video we discuss worldbuilding Mediterranean climates and fertile crescents, where they’re found, their flora and fauna, and most importantly, why they’re integral for developing civilisations.
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WORLDBUILDING CORNER: www.worldbuildingcorner.com
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All music, images, and other media used in this video are available for commercial use with Creative Commons licensing, found on www.pixabay.com and www.pexels.com.
The subsequent listed images are permitted for use under the following Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Polycephalous Turtle image credit: Philippe Wagneur, Natural History Museum of Geneva (MHNG)
Mediterranean Basin Map image credit: Flappiefh
Mediterranean Climate Map image credit: Maulucioni
Fertile Crescent Map image credit: Nafsadh
The subsequent listed images are permitted for use under the following Creative Commons license: creativecommons.org/licenses/...
Village image credit: Mikola Volkau

Пікірлер: 39

@SebRomu Жыл бұрын

As a biologically and ecologically minded world-builder I really like the way you made your decamora as plausible within the rules of your world.

@WorldbuildingCorner Жыл бұрын

Thank you! I of course understand that some fantasy creatures are just straight up implausible, but I do feel a certain satisfaction when I'm able to design a well-known mythological or fantasy creature that makes sense (at least somewhat) within the rules of a universe. Glad you enjoyed!

@LeonardoPPitta Жыл бұрын

@Worldbuilding Corner

@LeonardoPPitta Жыл бұрын

@Worldbuilding Corner 😊

@Lilas.Duveteux Жыл бұрын

Great video. A thing about Mediterranean from what I studied about history, is that peas are very important. Terrain can be just as important as climate, and peas require a lot less space. Because peas are a creeping plant, they can deliver quite a good yield for a small amount of space. Plus, their proteins are quite bio-available, and their cultivation is highly correlated in the Middle Ages with demographic growth. In fact, I have learned in my history course on Ancient Rome and a documentary on Romain cuisine that the populations that lived in what is modern day Italy ate in Antiquity a lot more peas than wheat, because of the rocky terrain. They are also hormonally healthy for humans, and vegetarians who used more peas as opposed to soy tend to be healthier. However, they do require more water and are more labour intensive, but it does allow to keep terrace farming to a bare minimum. Another population that have peas as a large component are the ones of Caucase, because of the mountainous terrain, as the surrounding populations eat more wheat, rye and buckwheat than peas.

@WorldbuildingCorner Жыл бұрын

That's very interesting! I think so many people imagine wheat, corn and rice as staple foods because they're more common due to their exceptional calorie values, though you're absolutely right many other legumes and cereals like peas have featured across human history and have been very important. I also find particularly interesting the 'three sister crops' that were so prevalently used by native Americans, and how it laid the foundations for so much of their civilizations. Empires are made first with food, not bricks or swords!

@Lilas.Duveteux Жыл бұрын

@@WorldbuildingCorner The three sisters were an incredibly efficiant way, and should they have discovered fallow, their civilisations would have reached incredibly levels.

@krispalermo8133 Жыл бұрын

@@WorldbuildingCorner Ran a few campaigns base off of Private or royal/imperial use or tax base use farm production. Champagne is a French white wine, but not all white wines can be called Champagne. By tradition or conquest the Champagne French province was the King's personal wine vineyard. Hear of a few accounts you could not call yourself the King of France unless you military control the Champagne area. So for you to raid Champagne was a direct challenge to the king. ( bait the heroes into a trap.) So we had a farm valley that imports its food wheat, and all wheat there is made for beer. The Beer MUST Flow ! Whatever it is about the ground, it grows the best grains for that given type of beer.

@minutemansam1214 Жыл бұрын

@@Lilas.Duveteux Just so you know, soy does not alter your hormones. That is a myth that perpetuates harmful stereotypes. Soy does not contain human sex hormones. It has phytoestrogens, which are similar chemicals, but they do not act as agonists of human estrogen receptors, so would have no influence on hormone levels or how human develop. There is also evidence that eating soy can reduce risk for certain cancers, but there is still much studies to be done.

@andrewlucero3631 Жыл бұрын

technically agriculture developed in more climates that weren't Mediterranean than the fertile crescent. Mesoamerica, the Andes, the Amazon, Eastern US, The Western Sahel, Ethiopia, India, Around the Yellow River, Around the Yangtze River, and In Papua New Guinea. Stratified Civilization has developed around the Fertile Crescent, Indus Valley, Yellow River, Gulf Coast of Mesoamerica, Andean Coast.

@WorldbuildingCorner Жыл бұрын

Absolutely! There are lots of records of agriculture and then subsequently civilization developing independently across the planet, though the 'cradle of civilization' in mesopotamia was the first. Many of the locations that birthed civilisations had similar conditions, though you're definitely correct they weren't all Mediterranean.

@ultrapedrow Жыл бұрын

@@WorldbuildingCorner being first isn't necessarily that important though, my understanding is that all of these civilizations developed close enough together in time, but sufficiently spatially remote from each other that it's reasonable to assume they had no contact with each other, thus did not influence each other. Also some of the starting points we actually significantly different, which lead to very different societal structures. For example, the Inca grew up on the desert side of the Andes mountains, which lead to a much more communist society with government resource stockpiles that were handed out on the basis of need. The point is that you do not need a Mediterranean-like environment to create a civilization, it just happens that the Mediterranean civs dominated the world and now they are the main ones we think of.

@danichimarques Жыл бұрын

@@WorldbuildingCorner I want to remmenber that both sumer and egipt are in hot desert climates that develop there fertility not from the climate conditions per se but the river basins that they are suplied, creating ecosistems that dify there climate conditions. Having really hot summers but very big water avaibility and sedementary anual replaneshment that brings nutritions to this areas. And this is actually why this ecossistems are so fragil, they strongly deppend in the relibality of the river system for there water intake, having really low precipitation. This means that any river vallie is a great place for agriculture that develp ecosistems that contradict there climate geografical area do to constant avaibility of water and mineral replanichment, making your desert and savana areas that have big river systems really viable for agriculture development. Other thing is that almost non of the seasonal plants that you have stated in the video are actually native of mediterranian climates, they are native to this amazing river ecossystems that stringly rely on the sesonality of the river system.

@icefalls 8 ай бұрын

@@danichimarquesif you think about it, iraq has a ultra hot Mediterranean climate though instead of rainfall it gets water from rivers. The two climates have more in common than they seem, being characterized by a hot dry season almost desert like, and a milder and wetter season due to rainfall or flood

@Ninjaananas Жыл бұрын

This is the first time that I heard, that cold ocean currents mainly cause mediterranean climate. I am pretty shure the cause for this climate is the location at subtropical highpreassure areas, which shift towards the equator in the respective winter. The subtropical highs are dry, warm areas with little wind, which is why the summer are dry there. In winter, the ITCZ (intertropical convergence zone) shifts towards the other hemisphere, which is currently in its summer. This shift of the ITCZ also causes the subtropical high to shift in the same direction, thus the mediterranean area is now, in winter, no longer in the subtropical high but in the westerlies area. This is why the winters are wet in this climate. Of course, this means for mediterranean climate to form, the westerlies must actually cross oceans and the land should not be in rainshadows. But this makes me think that warm ocean currents are actually more favorable for the formation of the mediterranean climate since the West need the humidity from these currents. Still good video, though. Decemora is some wild idea.

@Rei_geDo Жыл бұрын

Ohh boy I've been waiting for this one and it surpassed my expectations! Really intriguing ecology you've brought up in this episode!

@WorldbuildingCorner Жыл бұрын

Glad you liked it so much! Was there a particular reason you've been hanging out for this biome? Thank you as always for your positive feedback :)

@Rei_geDo Жыл бұрын

@@WorldbuildingCorner I just really like this biome, it's vegetation and it's contribution to our real life history. Places like Greece and Rome peak my interest, personally.

@WorldbuildingCorner Жыл бұрын

@@Rei_geDo I agree! I find it fascinating how everything lined up to contribute to the establishment of the early empires of those locations, and how much biomes have played a role in our human history. I think the Mediterranean really highlights that!

@andresmarrero8666 Жыл бұрын

The mutagenic of the malaurum could be helpful for early civilizations for adapting to new biomes or as a tool in conflict. The mutagenic properties could even be used in construction. All it would really take is some added ingredients and some severance/synthesis processes to filter for the mutations you want.

@dankenk 4 ай бұрын

2:48 just a tiny correction, only warm summer Mediterranean has woodlands. Hot summer Mediterranean has only shrubland

@kentario1610 11 ай бұрын

I'm rewatching this to brainstorm about how and where a tribe of winged people would choose to farm (while the rest of the race continues hunting and gathering) that would have an advantage for flighted people above humans, since humans definitely want to have more Mediterranean areas under their control. I wondered if high plateaux or something behind natural barriers humans can't cross would work. A consistent water source would be a problem to solve but it will be fun to do!

@wexxi2256 Жыл бұрын

Wow, this I really cool! I was just having a bit of a think, you could probably write in that malorum has been outlawed due to people fucking around and finding out and creating eldrich creatures

@astralnekomimi Жыл бұрын

Yeah, or at least heavily regulated, like pufferfish (fugu) are in the real world. If you are unaware, you must be licensed (at least in Japan) to serve fugu, because they are highly poisonous and require special preparation procedures, or you may kill someone. I imagine in Locus, something similar occurs where only those licensed to prepare malaurum are allowed to do so.

@sergeigen1 Жыл бұрын

whoa the decamora design is crazy lol

@WorldbuildingCorner Жыл бұрын

I imagine they would not only be crazy but super varied as well, literally mutation left unchecked.

@ghostlyninja125 Жыл бұрын

5:00 id say that climate matters less than plants in any given biome that can be easily domesticated and grown en masse

@g-rexsaurus794 2 ай бұрын

The issue with this video is that agriculture didn't appear in Egypt and lowland Mesopotamia, because those places were either just too arid to have "primitive" rain-fed agriculture or because they were too swampy like the Nile was during the African Humid Period. Agriculture was discovered in the semi-arid and mediterranean Levant, northern Mesopotamia and South-East Turkey

@MerkhVision Ай бұрын

Are u sure Egypt and lowland Mesopotamia were too arid back in the relevant time period? Back in that time the climate in that region was different, more mild, likely less hot, and the area was probably greener. Although by your mention of the African Humid Period it looks like you are aware that conditions could be different in the past.

@g-rexsaurus794 Ай бұрын

@@MerkhVision >Are u sure Egypt and lowland Mesopotamia were too arid back in the relevant time period? Yes I'm sure for Iraq, the idea that the region was sginificantly greener as a whole in that period is absolute reductive and pop history bullshit that spread for no reason, if you read accurate information about the African humid period you would not think Iraq was not a desert in climate by the time of agriculture. please just open up a map from any of the studies instead of just generalizing the climate of all of Iraq and Egypt. Anyway the Nile valley during the humid period was likely less inhabited by the grasslands and steppe around it, so it wouldn't have had much agriculture either.