Not too sure of the POD, but what happens if Horses don't die out in the Americas? Would there just be another civilization pretty much similar to others or are there other things that make the Americas a unique case?
WI The Horse had never died out in the America
- Thread starter RazeByFire
- Start date
Tad Williams brushed on this in the first Otherland book. In that book, it was a massive computer simulation. With the survival of the horse, the Europeans found civilizations that were more disease resistance and only a little behind them technologically, as a result S. Mexico and Central America were fully Meso-American in the early 21st century, the country was led by a god-king (but with a few socialist elements) and had logging, trucks, busses and satellite phones among other things. The subtitle of the book refers to the capital city. As far as I can tell there was never colonization and instead just trade between them and Europe.
Heh, I would definitely use an advanced computer network to test out AH WIs.
Heh, I would definitely use an advanced computer network to test out AH WIs.
Bill Cameron
Banned
First, the horse along with camels, mammoths, and other megafauna, didn't die out. They were hunted to extinction. Every time humans enter a pristine biome there's a megafauna extinction event. Europe, Australia, the Americas, New Zealand, and everywhere in between, it's happened every time.
Second, animal husbandry means diseases. If the paleo-indians domestic the horse and other animals like ducks and develop a crop package and maintain sufficient population densities, then the Columbian Exchange could quite possibly go in both directions.
Columbus et al will bring Old World diseases to the New World, bring back New World diseases to the Old World, and the slate wipers will kick off in both hemispheres.
Bill
Second, animal husbandry means diseases. If the paleo-indians domestic the horse and other animals like ducks and develop a crop package and maintain sufficient population densities, then the Columbian Exchange could quite possibly go in both directions.
Columbus et al will bring Old World diseases to the New World, bring back New World diseases to the Old World, and the slate wipers will kick off in both hemispheres.
Bill
You are forgetting that horses not only make good riding animals, they also make good beasts of burden, too. They can also be bred and raised for meat, like cattle. Especially if, as in Eurasia, more than one species of the horse survive in the Americas (maybe a big brute for draft or heavy warhorse applications, a medium one for riding and pulling chariots, and a smaller one for meat).
Just the jumpstart provided by having a beast of burden to take over some of the physical labor will give the native cultures a much faster development than happened in OTL. Metallurgy will likely develop much faster, and they might even discover gunpowder, given the extra leisure time people will have to experiment and tinker with things.
Riain
Banned
Firstly I'm assuming that like horses but unlike zebras American horses can be domesticated and ridden. If so then according to Robert L. OConnell the resultant horse nomad - farmer divide will be the defining social paradigm in America the way it was in Eurasia.
With American Huns/Turks/Mongols you get farming societies advancing to greater heights to survive their onslaughts, and ceartainly able to handle small numbers of Europeans when they arrive.
With American Huns/Turks/Mongols you get farming societies advancing to greater heights to survive their onslaughts, and ceartainly able to handle small numbers of Europeans when they arrive.
First, there's no proof that horses were hunted to extinction. That's a theory and far from fact.
Second, we don't know the characteristics of the American horse. They may not be suitable for domestication, the Zebra for example was useless.
So assuming the horses could be domesticated, and the NA realize their utility before they become extinct for whatever reason, and preserve the species - then the impact would be huge.
The main impact would be on agriculture. There were multiple agrarian cultures in the Americas, but many of them failed or were limited in size, or were contained by geography as were the Meso-Americans. Having beasts of burden would be a massive force multiplier. The Americas were blessed with extraordinary crops. Corn, potato, tomatoes, various melons, squashes, chillies. With horses these crops would be widely distributed by trade.
Farming changes everything. You will now have division of labor, new social organizations, cultures, and of course an explosion of innovation because people have time to do that now and because of the much larger population density that comes with agricultural civilizations.
Who's to say the American natives would not become sea faring people and discover other continents?
Second, we don't know the characteristics of the American horse. They may not be suitable for domestication, the Zebra for example was useless.
So assuming the horses could be domesticated, and the NA realize their utility before they become extinct for whatever reason, and preserve the species - then the impact would be huge.
The main impact would be on agriculture. There were multiple agrarian cultures in the Americas, but many of them failed or were limited in size, or were contained by geography as were the Meso-Americans. Having beasts of burden would be a massive force multiplier. The Americas were blessed with extraordinary crops. Corn, potato, tomatoes, various melons, squashes, chillies. With horses these crops would be widely distributed by trade.
Farming changes everything. You will now have division of labor, new social organizations, cultures, and of course an explosion of innovation because people have time to do that now and because of the much larger population density that comes with agricultural civilizations.
Who's to say the American natives would not become sea faring people and discover other continents?
Michael Busch
This is the biggest thing, and would massively change the societies you get. However, just by itself it won't make big technological cities. To reach 1500 Europe populations; we need plows, good horse collars, and a sensible selection of crops. IOTL, the Incas and the Aztecs were both plagued by chronic dietary deficiencies (proteins and calcium, particularly). But with the horse, maybe the buffalo will be domesticated.
Working from this assumption, I see four initial centers of civilization: Chile-Peru, Mexico-California-American Southwest, Great Plains, and the Great Lakes over to the eastern seaboard.
However, as long as there we're changing the stone age megafauna, we might as well as add in the giant sloth and that armadillo the size of a Mini. The butterflies from all of this will eliminate all familiar political structures in Eurasia-Africa-Australia, so it is impossible to predict which of Asia, Europe, or Polynesia would cross the oceans first, but I have an amusing vision of a conquistador staring at an Aztec army riding giant sloths, armed with shotguns or something similar.
The native americans already had a crop package (corn, beans, squash, are the main ones) and were more than able to maintain population densities without horses (Tenochitlan, Cahokia, and Cuzco being the most famous). That was part of the problem in was that the dense populations were easily wiped out by small pox. The tribalification and creation of non-dense populations was partly due to small pox.
I thought the Columbian Exchange did go both ways in OTL. Thats why we call it an exchange.
Syphilis is an example of a disease brought back to Europe from the Americas.
True, but the Native American definately got the worse end of the deal by far. I would guess that the previous poster was positing a Columbian Exchange that hurt Europe as badly as it did the Americas ... that would be pretty darn devastating.
Pyramid ran an article along those lines some years ago. Da Vinci ends up founding a proto-medical school/CDC after the plagues ravage Europe.
Bill Cameron
Banned
Tallwingedgoat,
Bull.
There has been a megafauna extinction in every pristine region man has entered. Period. It happened in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and the Americas. There's megafauna, man arrives, and there's no more megafauna. Man is the only common thread in each of the events.
You can believe whatever hippy-dippy "Noble Savages Living In Harmony With Nature" crap you want. The fact is that we were hunter-gatherers and we have been causing extinctions for most of our history as a species.
That's true. Hence my use of the word if.
And the Americas are cursed with a north-south alignment which means that crop package needs to be bred for growing seasons of differing lengths. For example, it took thousands of years for corn production to make it from Mexico to what would become the US northeast.
Nothing at all.
Tobit,
Once again, a crop package that had to be bred for different latitudes dramatically slowing it''s spread. See above.
Yes, that was the result of the slate wipers in the Mississippi-Ohio watershed and other dense food production areas. You completely missed the point however. The Amerinds are going to need dense populations to "develop" and sustain their own domestic animal-derived diseases which they then can pass on to the Old World.
This is all covered in detail and at length Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel. Isn't that book required reading here? If not, it should be.
Completely wrong on both counts.
It's called an exchange because it was originally used to refer to many more things than disease. Common usage has merely limited it to disease.
Syphilis was present on both sides of the Atlantic and we've got enough bones from Classical Greek ossuaries and mediaeval graves to prove it. Each continent had it's own strain of syphilis which the local populations had grown to live with, just like any other disease. It was when those two strains met and created a third that the "slate wiper" syphilis arose. For instance, by 1499 syphilis was killing in a matter of days the troops of Louis XII's French army in Lombardy in days.
Bill
I'd also recomend 1491 by Charles Mann. Excellent read and blows many of the popular interpretations of pre-european contact First Nations out of the water.
No, that's really not true.
--First of all, climate change is also a common factor in all these events.
--Second, in Australia, man arrived ca 50,000 years ago. The megafauna didn't go extinct until between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago, which coincided with a major period of climate change triggered by the end of the last of the major ice ages. So humans and megafauna co-existed in Australia for at least 30,000 years before the extinction. Hardly evidence that humans caused the extinction.
--In Europe, the megafauna survived possibly up until 10,000 years ago, or even later, depending on the species and the area. Modern humans arrived in Europe around 40,000 years ago. Once again, not a case where "humans arrive, megafauna goes extinct."
--It is true that megafauna in the Americas went extinct shortly after the arrival of humans. However, humans didn't arrive in significant numbers until around 10,000-15,000 years ago. This was also a period of drastic climatic change.
Indeed, the only real common factor is that all these extinctions seem to be happening at that same time...in the period between 20,000 and 10,000 years ago, and at that time, the Ice Ages were ending, and the climate worldwide was undergoing huge changes. Areas which were formerly wet, were turning into deserts. Forests were being replaced by savanna lands. While I am sure human hunting didn't help matters, the fact is that human populations probably weren't large enough to have been a decisive factor.
"Timeo hominem unius libri" (I fear the man of only one book) as Aquinas would say.
While Diamond is a great read, I hesitate to put too much faith in him. The North-South alignement of the Americas vs the East-West of Eurasia flies in the face of the simple fact that plant-life does not adapt to latitude but to climate, and the climate in Europe is more dependent on longitude (specifically from gulf-stream warmed waters).
Back on topic:
A horse-like domesticated animal available to Pre-Columbian societies would be a complete game-changer, although maybe not enough to bring them up to par with the Europeans of the 15th Century, who had at least a not just the horse but also oxen along with the other domesticated food animals.
Personally I would find it much more interesting from an AH perspective if they managed to domesticate one of the megafauna such as Mammoth or
Wooly Rhino (although that last one would be extremely unlikely). A society with Elephants and dogs but nothing in between strikes me as pretty cool.
Hmmm ... was always curious about that but I've read that it contains a lot (or too much perhaps) speculation and assumption on a lot of things leaving readers wondering what is a fact versus a maybe. Your thoughts?
In all the different threads about horses remaining in NA, no one has ever brought the fact that there would be die offs of horses in both the Old and the New World. Everyone brings up the point about Old World diseases decimating the Native Americans, but hardly ever about the fauna.
In this scenario we have horses (domesticated?) developing in a different NA with their own diseases evolving alongside. When Europeans bring their horses there is going to be an exchange of diseases across the Atlantic. The people and horses of NA will not be the only ones contending with the effects of new diseases, the Europeans and their own horses may have pandemics of their own.
In this scenario we have horses (domesticated?) developing in a different NA with their own diseases evolving alongside. When Europeans bring their horses there is going to be an exchange of diseases across the Atlantic. The people and horses of NA will not be the only ones contending with the effects of new diseases, the Europeans and their own horses may have pandemics of their own.
Hmmmm ... are you saying that we are the only species to have such an effect in ages past? What about any of our 'relatives'? Seems like there has always been dominant species and they no doubt always stomp out things along the way ... that's not something too unique is it? I suppose your looking at things from a more 'modern' sense correct?
I agree with farwalker
The point is the horse (assuming it can be domesticated) would bring tremendous changes and advances to the Americas.
I agree with others that possibly, due to the north-south alignment of the continents crop-sharing is still at a heavy disadvantage. Nevertheless cultures can evolve in a belt like fashion.
Having beasts of burden would not only allow for greater technological development but also solve some of the dietary deficiencies that many American civilizations had. You know have animals to get meat from (protein) and if they practice breeding carefully you can even get a good source of milk (calcium). Yes I know horse milk sounds disgusting but who is to say they could not breed it. We get milk from everything.
And even if the American civilizations (I would add a fifth one to the list proposed in southern Brazil/ north Argentina as it is a good place for horses) are not as advanced as European when they fist meet for whatever reason they will still be able to fend off against them much much better.
There mights still be some colonization as it did not stop the Europeans from doin it in Africa
The point is the horse (assuming it can be domesticated) would bring tremendous changes and advances to the Americas.
I agree with others that possibly, due to the north-south alignment of the continents crop-sharing is still at a heavy disadvantage. Nevertheless cultures can evolve in a belt like fashion.
Having beasts of burden would not only allow for greater technological development but also solve some of the dietary deficiencies that many American civilizations had. You know have animals to get meat from (protein) and if they practice breeding carefully you can even get a good source of milk (calcium). Yes I know horse milk sounds disgusting but who is to say they could not breed it. We get milk from everything.
And even if the American civilizations (I would add a fifth one to the list proposed in southern Brazil/ north Argentina as it is a good place for horses) are not as advanced as European when they fist meet for whatever reason they will still be able to fend off against them much much better.
There mights still be some colonization as it did not stop the Europeans from doin it in Africa