Alternative to the horse ideas?

[Prime Minister]

Is the an alternative animal that the North American or South American Native peoples could have used in place of horses. For riding, fighting and travailing I mean?

Other animals I plan on using are the bison and lama, though they are good only for beasts of burden and carrying light cargo respectively. I guess the bison COULD be used to carry larger loads of cargo, but that strikes me as impractical.

What do you guys think?

[Prime Minister]

Elk and Caribou figured it out. Win.

[Danth]

Elephants
Bears
Pigs

That's what I got

[Fox Eating Bamboo]

Relevant thread:

http://www.alternatehistory.com/disc...=llama+cavalry

[altwere]

how far back would the POD be? There were horses, big camaliods and Mammoths, but they all died out around 11,000 years ago. Pigs and Elephants are imports. Not much to work with. maybe breed up Rheas. but that would probably need to be an ASB thread " Fowl riders of the pampas"

[Lalli]

How zebras?

Elks doesn't work very well. Swedish has tried that on 19th century but it didn't work well. Elks are too bullish. These doesn't like take any carriages behind them.

Pigs would be quiet intresting idea.

[jamsodonnell]

Shame the giant sloth died out... although the Sloth Express probably wouldn't catch on....

[The Kiat]

Originally Posted by Lalli

How zebras?

Then tend to be a bit more agressive than steppe horses and donkeys.

[Beedok]

Reindeer/Caribou work in Siberia. Why not the NWT?

[altwere]

No zebras in the Americas.

[Dave Howery]

Originally Posted by Beedok

Reindeer/Caribou work in Siberia. Why not the NWT?

I don't know if anyone has ever tried to domesticate caribou. From what I remember reading long ago, even though reindeer and caribou are practically the same species, they have different social habits that doesn't allow the latter to be domesticated. Caribou, like bison, have ingrained habits for long distance seasonal migration, which is apparently a problem when it comes to domestication...

[ingemann]

Originally Posted by Dave Howery

I don't know if anyone has ever tried to domesticate caribou. From what I remember reading long ago, even though reindeer and caribou are practically the same species, they have different social habits that doesn't allow the latter to be domesticated. Caribou, like bison, have ingrained habits for long distance seasonal migration, which is apparently a problem when it comes to domestication...

You mean like reindeer also have? Reindeer are just domesticated caribou, so domestication of caribou is quite possible.

[twovultures]

Originally Posted by Dave Howery

I don't know if anyone has ever tried to domesticate caribou. From what I remember reading long ago, even though reindeer and caribou are practically the same species, they have different social habits that doesn't allow the latter to be domesticated. Caribou, like bison, have ingrained habits for long distance seasonal migration, which is apparently a problem when it comes to domestication...

Old World reindeer have all those problems (long migrations and a non-hierarchical social structure) and are still domesticated.

It is true that these habits make it difficult to domesticate them, and they are arguably only 'semi-domesticated' as even tame herds mostly roam free, and have the bad habit of wandering off to join wild herds if they're not watched by their herders.

[yourworstnightmare]

Originally Posted by twovultures

Old World reindeer have all those problems (long migrations and a non-hierarchical social structure) and are still domesticated.

Yes, but the tame reindeer still need to make their long migrations, it's just that the reindeer herders follow them around. So one can in fact ask who domesticated whom.

[jkay]

Dolphins, in my Americas' World TL (linky below). Tbat gives them, early indeed, the same kind of ocean-traveling and sea dominance ability OTL took 'til the 15th century to get.

Sadly, my progress has been even slow by my low standards.

[MattII]

The fact that Elk and all that haven't been domesticated probably has a lot to do with the fact thatwe started domesticating the horse first.

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Originally Posted by Lalli

How zebras?

Elks doesn't work very well. Swedish has tried that on 19th century but it didn't work well. Elks are too bullish. These doesn't like take any carriages behind them.

Pigs would be quiet intresting idea.

Originally Posted by MattII

The fact that Elk and all that haven't been domesticated probably has a lot to do with the fact thatwe started domesticating the horse first.

Originally Posted by Prime Minister

Elk and Caribou figured it out. Win.

Which elk are we talking about? Alces alces, otherwise known as moose, or Cervus canadensis, (=Cervus elaphas canadensis) otherwise known as wapiti? Very different beasts.

I assume the swedish ones were Alces, but the other references were to Cervus.?

[MattII]

Sorry, meant reindeer, although the wapiti works too, given the Far Eastern peoples worked fine with domestic horses. Altwere makes a good point though, horses and other potentially ridable megafauna only died out in the Americas after the arrival of humans (the Hagerman horse for instance is reckoned to have existed as recently as 10,000 years ago).

[Prime Minister]

I really wouldn't want to use North American Horses. It feels like a cop out. It would be FAR to simple to just be like "Yeah, and the natives didn't kill all their horses here. If someone were to do that may as well also keep the wolly mammoth around as a beast of burden.


Which is an awesome thought.

[Polish Eagle]

The ideal domesticated beast of burden is large (to carry a rider, cargo, and armor), reasonably quick, and has a herd mentality that makes it social and thus good for domestication. A docile subspecies of bison would theoretically fulfill these requirements--after all, horses were first domesticated, not as mounts, but as food sources for the winter. A docile strain of bison can follow the same route.

The problem is "docile" and "bison" don't normally go together.