Mexican Mound-builders, Mississippian Ziggaruts

I was thinking of some way to create a situation where the relative scale, sophistication, population and longevity of the Mississippian and Mesoamerican cultures were reversed, and what effects that would have on later history. Basically a situation where when you think of Pre-Columbian cultures, you think of Peru, the Mississippi and perhaps Mexico as a distant third.

One possible cause could be an earlier idea of mine of corn never being developed into an edible form. I've read that maize-based agriculture, while key to the development of Mesoamerican cultures, in other areas replaced native cultivars that were probably more nutritionally sound. In a world without maize, it would be much more difficult for cultures to develop in the Mesoamerican environment. I would propose as a replacement the development of extensive wild rice agriculture by the Mississippians, which later spreads to other regions.

Now, about effects. When the Spanish arrive, they are likely to find the mound-building Mexica and Maya with their limited agriculture to be rather uninspiring, and may instead turn towards the large, highly populated rice-based empire along the Mississippi. This would change the pattern of European colonisation in the Americas. Perhaps the Hispanic population of Mexico would be much higher than OTL, but the bulk of the Spanish North American population would be along the Mississippi. It would mean that later other European powers or their offshoots would find expansion into the American interior a much less inviting prospect.

I'm wondering if the presence of a large Mississippian empire would also stimulate the development of urban centres in other regions. Perhaps in this world there would be no cities or pueblos in the American southwest but instead small rice-farming kingdoms along the St Lawrence and around the coasts of the Great Lakes. These cities and kingdoms could serve as escape routes for the Mississippian nobility after Spanish conquest and could serve to complicate matters in the future.

Are there any other potential causes for a situation like I suggest above?

And what would other effects be, on the Spanish in South America, on British and French actions in North America, on the spread of horse-riding across the prairie? Perhaps in this timeline, European colonists displace and exile American Indians along a south-north axis, from Mexico to the prairie, as opposed to the east-west axis of OTL. Nahuatl speakers living in reservations in Utah?

tormsen said:

Now, about effects. When the Spanish arrive, they are likely to find the mound-building Mexica and Maya with their limited agriculture to be rather uninspiring, and may instead turn towards the large, highly populated rice-based empire along the Mississippi. This would change the pattern of European colonisation in the Americas. Perhaps the Hispanic population of Mexico would be much higher than OTL, but the bulk of the Spanish North American population would be along the Mississippi.

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OTL, Mexico is heavily mestizo. The Spanish settlement pattern in Mexico was more like classic conquest and subjugation than the complete annihilation or removal of native populations that you saw with the British. Especially in a denser, urbanized region, I'd think that most of the people would stay put and intermarry with los conquistadores and later arrivals from Spain.

Would Cahokia be the center of this civilization, or would a different city arise and take charge (as happened in that upstart town on the lake, Tenochtitlan)? What language(s) would these Mississippians speak?

tormsen said:

It would mean that later other European powers or their offshoots would find expansion into the American interior a much less inviting prospect.

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Sure - Spain would still end up with Central America and the Andes region, so one impact of this scenario could be that Spain is spreading itself over a wider territory. Maybe the British, French and Dutch end up in Mexico and California.

tormsen said:

Are there any other potential causes for a situation like I suggest above?

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Maize was the first I thought of, so that gives you 2 PODs: the failure of maize agriculture and the success of rice agriculture. Are there any other grainy crops native to the Midwest/North America? Beefed-up sunflowers, maybe?

This is sort of "ASB", but a mass Mayan exodus northward in response to a prophecy?

Benkarnell said:

OTL, Mexico is heavily mestizo. The Spanish settlement pattern in Mexico was more like classic conquest and subjugation than the complete annihilation or removal of native populations that you saw with the British. Especially in a denser, urbanized region, I'd think that most of the people would stay put and intermarry with los conquistadores and later arrivals from Spain.

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Yep, but I was thinking that it may turn out that the Mississippian region becomes heavily mestizo while Mesoamerica is more readily dominated by Europeans.

Would Cahokia be the center of this civilization, or would a different city arise and take charge (as happened in that upstart town on the lake, Tenochtitlan)? What language(s) would these Mississippians speak?

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Good questions, but hard to answer easily. I think that the rice PoD would likely have to be quite early, perhaps even before the rise of the first Mississippian cultures of OTL. So it could be Cahokia's analogue, or it could easily arise somewhere else. I may want to emphasise the role of the Ojibwe people, as they crop up whenever I look at stuff related to wild rice. Though that might mean a migration.

Language is interesting, as I believe in OTL there were a number of different peoples who participated in the overarching Mississippi culture complex. In this TL there may be more political, cultural and linguistic homogeneity if one group achieves supremacy. Perhaps a southern Iroquois or Algonquian language. Different languages could easily dominate different areas of course: Muskogean languages being the first encountered by the Spanish visiting coastal cities at the far south of the Mississippian civilisation.

Sure - Spain would still end up with Central America and the Andes region, so one impact of this scenario could be that Spain is spreading itself over a wider territory. Maybe the British, French and Dutch end up in Mexico and California.

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I see Mexico being far less appealing to explorers, and the absence of native settlements in the American southwest would discourage Spanish efforts in the West and California. The West would likely quickly develop into something very similar to OTL, except the burgeoning Native horse empires would be shielded from easy European domination by the behemoth to the east. Unless, of course, they come from the south and west.

Maize was the first I thought of, so that gives you 2 PODs: the failure of maize agriculture and the success of rice agriculture. Are there any other grainy crops native to the Midwest/North America? Beefed-up sunflowers, maybe?

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I'd fudge it to say butterflies from the first PoD lead to the second PoD. Before the coming of maize, the Eastern Agricultural Complex in North America farmed squash, barley, knotwood, goosefoot and sunflowers. In this TL all of these crops would continue to be farmed and spread throughout the Mississippian culture. Later, Muskogean sea traders import beans and amaranth from the Mesoamerican cultures, but no Andean crops reach the region until the coming of Europeans.

This is sort of "ASB", but a mass Mayan exodus northward in response to a prophecy?

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Maybe, could be interesting. So, a Mayan Mexico? Those small bean-raising kingdoms may bequeath their name to the region, known in Spanish as Maya. if I drop English colonists there later they may change the name to Maine

the main problems with having an early civilization arise in NA are:

lack of domestic food plants. Give the Native Americans some kind of equivalent for wheat or barley, and you have a better chance of kickstarting civilization (although they still lack domestic animals)

late arrival. Humans have been in the Middle East (home of ancestral wheat) since before modern humans evolved. But they didn't arrive in the Americas until comparatively recently (best guesses range from 20-12,000 years ago). Get some humans over here earlier (say, 40,000 years ago, comparable to when they first arrived in Australia), and combine that with having a domesticable cereal plant, and the odds of having a civilization arise earlier go way up...

The lack of a proper empire in Mexico would delay European conquest. This time there isn't a hated "one" to lead the rest of the natives against it.

Dave Howery said:

the main problems with having an early civilization arise in NA are:

lack of domestic food plants. Give the Native Americans some kind of equivalent for wheat or barley, and you have a better chance of kickstarting civilization (although they still lack domestic animals)

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Hence the PoD. There were quite a few domestic food plants but they were superceded by the arrival of maize and are largely considered weeds today. They were difficult crops to work with, however. Wild rice, however, might just fit the bill though I am going to be a bit cheeky and say that an earlier point of cultivation has bred the wild rice to be somewhat easier to cook and more cost-effective than OTL wild rice. If the NAs can make maize from teosinte I don't think it's completely implausible.

The domestic animals thing will hurt them, particularly when they encounter Eurasian zootropic disease.

Get some humans over here earlier (say, 40,000 years ago, comparable to when they first arrived in Australia), and combine that with having a domesticable cereal plant, and the odds of having a civilization arise earlier go way up...

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True. But my intent isn't to have an earlier NA civilization so much as a situation where the civilized areas differ from OTL.

The lack of a proper empire in Mexico would delay European conquest. This time there isn't a hated "one" to lead the rest of the natives against it.

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The population density will be a lot lower, however, and the population less drawn to civilized life. The bean-and-amaranth cultures of the region will be much easier to displace than in OTL. You are right to say, however, that Mexican conquest would likely be delayed. The interest probably wouldn't be there. This delay would be unlikely to allow the locals much time to adapt, however.

tormsen said:

Hence the PoD. There were quite a few domestic food plants but they were superceded by the arrival of maize and are largely considered weeds today. They were difficult crops to work with, however. Wild rice, however, might just fit the bill though I am going to be a bit cheeky and say that an earlier point of cultivation has bred the wild rice to be somewhat easier to cook and more cost-effective than OTL wild rice. If the NAs can make maize from teosinte I don't think it's completely implausible.

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the problem here, though, is that maize took a looooong time to first breed up to a usable size, and then another looooong time to acclimate it to the temperate zones. Whereas wheat in the Middle East was practically ready to go from the start. Thus, giving NA some kind of large seeded cereal plant will get those N. Americans started earlier.

True. But my intent isn't to have an earlier NA civilization so much as a situation where the civilized areas differ from OTL.

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But again, the problem is that the NAs lack domestic animals; without them, their civilization gets slowed down. Giving them both an earlier arrival and a grain plant still puts them behind Europe, but a lot further down the road towards your ziggurat-building culture. And a counterpart of wheat would do just the opposite of maize... it'd be quick to develop into a crop plant, but take a long time to acclimate to the tropics... so, civilizations would develop first in NA, and slower in the tropics (who either are trying to breed up maize or acclimate the northern grain).

Yes. I know. That's essentially the premise. The Native Americans of my TL would be roughly the same level of sophistication as the Native Americans of OTL. Except the highly populated cities will be the rice-farmers of the Mississippi, while the tropics will be much less populated and sophisticated than OTL. So, while there are ziggaruts in the Mississippi, there hasn't even been anyone on par with the Olmecs in Mesoamerica.

In North America they're still copper age and they still lack draft animals, there's just more of them, in denser populations and colored by the political and cultural consequences of using rice instead of maize.

I do remember one TL where the Mound-Builders turn into a great but nihilistic civilisation and end up in a cold war, with, appropriately enough, Absurdly Overpowered Ireland (another civilisation which people mistakenly think could have become a great power...although to be fair at least in this case it was with a Roman-era POD)

I've seen stuff like that, yeah. My Mississippians aren't going to be quite that bad. Think Shang dynasty China maybe for a comparison. They will get quite thoroughly steam-rolled by the Spanish gun, germs and steel.

Here's my outline of what the New World looks like, circa 1491.

The Mississippi River basin

There is a complex settled society centred around the Mississippian river valey that is culturally homogenous and expansionistic. Like the Chinese absorbing surrounding peoples, the Mississippians have absorbed and assimilated a large number of other tribes, including many we would be familiar with in OTL. Cultures that resemble the main Mississippian culture have emerged around the Tennessee river and some other regions.

In the south Musokogee-speaking people have settled into rice-farming kingdoms with a higher level of density and sophistication than OTL. They are the Phoenicians of the New World, and have trade links with the northern Yucatan and settlements in northern Cuba and some other islands.

Ojibwa-like people in the north around the Great Lakes, who have been influenced by the southern culture and have settled cities and rice agriculture but are fiercely independent. They have been known to raid Mississipppian cities along the Great Lakes and have been subject to Miss reprisal raids. To their west are Iroquoian peoples, who more closely resemble their OTL equivalents.

Agriculture: The Miss culture farm a variety of plants, particularly wild rice, squash, goosefoot, little barley, sumpweed and sunflowers. The first and second are of the greatest importance, and a paddy farming culture has developed. Wild rice differs somewhat from its OTL equivalent, it has through breeding over time come to resemble true rice though it remains visually different. Recently, beans from Mesoamerica have arrived though they are mainly eaten by the Muskogee.

Wild rice farming in paddies began around the Great Lakes region and spread south from about 2500 BC, though estimates vary. Wild rice over time was selectively bred to be easier to harvest and cook, becoming more akin to true rice over time. It spread across the North American continent over the course of several thousand years, but was picked up relatively early around the Great Lakes region and along the banks of the Mississippi.

Language:The Mississippians use a logographic writing script was developed in the first millennium AD. North America is much less linguistically diverse than OTL, while the main language of the Miss is a southern Iroquois tongue with some Algic characteristics. This language has spread throughout the region and is largely considered the lingua franca, though there are other languages scattered. Muskogee languages are spoken in the south though they have a localized form of the Miss script for written communication. In the north Algic and Northern Iroquoian languages are spoken.

Mesoamerica

Mesoamerica in this TL closely resembles the Archaic period of OTL Mesoamerican history, there are no large scale cities but large numbers of towns and villages. The largest settlements grow beans, amaranth and such to survive and create mound settlements. There is a complex trade network across the entire region which has in the past few centuries brought wild rice to the Yucatan and some Mesoamerican crops to the Mississippi. They make pottery, weavings and odd statuary but that’s about the height of their achievements. Stone-circle building Mixtecs rose and fell in the Valley of Mexico between 200 and 1200 AD.

Mixtec languages are much more widely spoken than in OTL, and Mayan languages are spoken over a slightly different area. Many crops and plants domesticated by OTL Mesoamericans have not been touched in this timeline. Rubber and cotton is ignored, as is the tomato. They mostly farm beans, amaranth and cassava.

The Andean region

Butterflies have affected the region, there is an Inca-like empire centred around Lake Titicaca, but they have not conquered the Chimu people to the north. In general they are roughly analogous in all respects to the Inca of OTL. The largest major difference is that both Andean empires use gold currency, unlike the somewhat communistic Incans of OTL. There are also some differences in language (Quingnam, the Chimu tongue, is more widely spoken).

Is the potato used in TTL?

Good work torm

AirshipArmada said:

Is the potato used in TTL?

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Only in South America, it hasn't spread north as of 1491.

I'm reading some posts about the possibility of the domestication of the bison and I'm probably going to include that in this TL. They're not going to ride them or do anything twee like that but I'd like a local analogue to water buffalo used in rice agriculture in Asia. However, I'm not all that sure how bison handle being in a wet environment. I may also introduce more herding, of both bison and caribou. But I'm not sure yet.

So it may mean there will be at least one Mississippian zootropic disease waiting for the Europeans when they get there.

Another thing I'm going to have to work out is that effect of the Spanish never discovering the silver and gold mines of Mexico. They will get some wealth from North America (discovering a source of gold in OTL North Carolina and colonising the region) and they will discover the Potosi mine (but not until the 1550's); but the disastrous expedition of Diego Colon into Sandero (*Mexico, a Spanish corruption of a Mixtec word) which yeilds not gold not death and disappointment means that the wealth of Sandero will be undiscovered for some centuries.

This means that the Spanish will have less wealth than OTL, but become less dependant on foreign imports. Inflation in Europe will be less, with subsequent effects across a number of economies and a slight decrease in urbanisation. This will be exarcebated by the white bison's kiss, a zootropic disease from North America which will see some deaths and a slower increase in the European population vis-a-vis OTL.

You want a big, powerful, wetlands ungulate to domesticate?

Moose.

Can Moose be domesticated? I'm not sure. I don't think that the effort has ever been made. For the most part, they aren't hypersocial herd animals, which is kind of a negative as far as current theories of domestication go. On the other hand, Moose are generally very calm animals and not at all inclined to panic (unless its mating season and they're mad).

It seems to me that if the laps can Domesticate or Semi-Domesticate Reindeer, then you've got a fair chance with Moose. And those bastards have power like you wouldn't believe. Also, just based on basic morphology and behaviour, they'll drag a plow with conviction.

I dunno. I've known Bison and I've known Moose, and if I had to choose, I'd go with Moose. Bison live to F*ck you up. They're not nice.

I seem to remember a tl here called "Mississippi rice" or something which was rather involved. was it yours? If not it may help you.

ah yes it is yours! good work, was wondering what happened to it

DValdron said:

You want a big, powerful, wetlands ungulate to domesticate?

Moose.

Can Moose be domesticated? I'm not sure. I don't think that the effort has ever been made. For the most part, they aren't hypersocial herd animals, which is kind of a negative as far as current theories of domestication go. On the other hand, Moose are generally very calm animals and not at all inclined to panic (unless its mating season and they're mad).

It seems to me that if the laps can Domesticate or Semi-Domesticate Reindeer, then you've got a fair chance with Moose. And those bastards have power like you wouldn't believe. Also, just based on basic morphology and behaviour, they'll drag a plow with conviction.

I dunno. I've known Bison and I've known Moose, and if I had to choose, I'd go with Moose. Bison live to F*ck you up. They're not nice.

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Errr... But Reindeer ARE herd animals, very unlike Moose. I doubt highly that moose would be domesticable.

As a professional north american archaeologist, I do like this TL and you have developed it well.

However, I really think you have got to provide some sort of climactic/ecological PoD to explain why the pre-existing archaic and woodland cultures of eastern north america and the mississippi basin would abandon their previous subsistence pattern of gathering, hunting and low-intensity cultivation of native cultivars and switch to intensive agriculture, "urban" settlements, social stratification, state-level societies, etc., early enough to have preempted similar developments in Mexico. Eastern north america was a very fertile environment, with a wealth of plant and animal resources which could keep a low-density population of hunter-gatherers fat and happy for ever. Generally speaking, people do not unilaterally abandon such a lifestyle unless they are forced to, either by living in a geographically/ecologically constricted environment, or as a means of adapting to, and trading with state-level societies evolving in adjacent areas. Frankly, maize probably has to play a part in this one way or the other.

Perhaps, you might postulate that the first complex societies in north america develop, not in the lush center of the Mississippi basin, but at its margins, in an area where incipient farming communities must adapt to prolonged drought episodes or other situations requiring intensification of farming and greater social stratification. I would suggest that such situations might be imagined in the Caddoan area of western Arkansas, northeast Texas, and southeast Oklahoma - areas at the margins of the southern plains which could put pressures on early farming cultures to intensify their water management practices. Another possible location might be the extreme lower Mississippi delta, where the availability of good farmland is limited by saline marshes, creating a situation where increasing populations can only be sustained by increased intensification of rice agriculture on the good land(as an aside, there are specialists who argue that both these areas may have been, in fact, the places where the incipient mississippian mound-building tradition began in OTL). Civilization develops here and spreads inward to the central mississippian area, as well as west and south into Mexico.