AHC: Longest possible continuity for a settled agricultural society

joyjoyjoy

The challenge is to have the oldest long-term continuity for one or more settled agricultural society and have it or them survive up to our 19th century. I am excusing political continuity but cultural permanence is essential. The culture (and religion etc.) can mutate over time but maintain its main characteristics that denote a sense of historical permanence. So the Egyptians under the Ptolomies and Romans (before Christianity) would be an example.

Bonus if the alt great powers are all descendents of these older societies.
 

Qastiel

Need more details on what you’d consider “cultural continuity” to know if you’d consider civilisations/culture zones like China as having cultural continuity that far back since you consider Egypt lacking in such continuity Christianisation onwards.
 

GuildedAgeNostalgia

Qastiel said:
Need more details on what you’d consider “cultural continuity” to know if you’d consider civilisations/culture zones like China as having cultural continuity that far back since you consider Egypt lacking in such continuity Christianisation onwards.
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But does Mongol conquest disrupt that continuity?
 

joyjoyjoy

Qastiel said:
Need more details on what you’d consider “cultural continuity” to know if you’d consider civilisations/culture zones like China as having cultural continuity that far back since you consider Egypt lacking in such continuity Christianisation onwards.
Click to expand...
I consider China through the Mongol and Qing dynasties for this exercise.
 
Aluma

Aluma

You mentioned Christianity, does that mean religious conversion breaks the continuity or its just when the culture is assimilated through conversion?

For example if the Mexica were not conquered by the spanish(thus no hispanicization, which obviously would fail the challenge) but replaced their pantheon with a abrahamic religion, would that still be considered a failure even though they survived?
 

Thisisnotausername

joyjoyjoy said:
The challenge is to have the oldest long-term continuity for one or more settled agricultural society and have it or them survive up to our 19th century. I am excusing political continuity but cultural permanence is essential. The culture (and religion etc.) can mutate over time but maintain its main characteristics that denote a sense of historical permanence. So the Egyptians under the Ptolomies and Romans (before Christianity) would be an example.
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I mean, it has to be Egypt, right? IOTL, it survived as a coherent culture (under your terms) for three thousand years. Prevent it from being Christianized, Islamicized, and Arabized, so that it continues to speak the Egyptian language and follow some variant of its traditional polytheistic religion until the present day, and you get a society that has, by your definition, maintained cultural continuity for five thousand years. Hard to see how you can top that.
 
anotherlurker

anotherlurker

Thisisnotausername said:
I mean, it has to be Egypt, right? IOTL, it survived as a coherent culture (under your terms) for three thousand years. Prevent it from being Christianized, Islamicized, and Arabized, so that it continues to speak the Egyptian language and follow some variant of its traditional polytheistic religion until the present day, and you get a society that has, by your definition, maintained cultural continuity for five thousand years. Hard to see how you can top that.
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The premise of these kinds of threads are always flawed as they ignore lokal change of culture and customs. For Egypt we can easily designate a number of big ones, such as Akhenatens mono/henotheism experiment, the Hyksos occupation or Thurmose III under whom the until then reclusive kingdom mutated into a militaristic and expansive empire.
 

Kerney

Qastiel said:
Need more details on what you’d consider “cultural continuity” to know if you’d consider civilisations/culture zones like China as having cultural continuity that far back since you consider Egypt lacking in such continuity Christianisation onwards.
Click to expand...
I think you hit on something. Egypt was Hellenized, Christianized, Islamicized and Arabized until links, while still there, are tenuous. But it went through multiple cycles before it became something else.

On the other hand, you can go to Northern Europe, and you can make an argument that you can trace common cultural traits back to the Bronze Age, and while there were different ages in between, there is a continuous strain with only one small Christianization. It's hard to prove, due to a lack of written records, but when the rock art of 500 bc seems to refer to stories in the Eddas, you have your suspicions.

Overall, I think you have to be out of the way, like Japan or Scandinavia and be relatively self sufficient.
 
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