American Bamboo Discussion Thread

Arundinariinae Americanus is a subtribe of bambuseae that never came to be in our world, it's potential ancestors, brought along by wind currents sweeping along bambuseae flowers were halted and sunk into the pacific before ever making landfall. In our world this part of bambuseae tribe, otherwise known as asian bamboo never made it out of the Old World area until humans brought it over following contact. This timeline is meant to ask what the world could have been like if it had made its way over. In TTL asian bamboo made its way to the New World before the end of the last ice age, settling in central Mexico and spreading north and south, some two thousand years before mankind would make its way to the area. By the time the natives of the Americas reached the Middle Archaic (6000-3000 BCE) bamboo had reached a greater growth density than in our world, but around the same areas in the Americas as it is now.

Map of Arundinariinae Americanus around the Middle Archaic.



The presence of asian bamboo in the Americas has not only altered the migration patterns of Humans in the area (namely by retarding advance into South America and increased settling in Central America), but has also altered the very climate zones of the continent. The shrublands have shrunk due to the presence of the new invasive species and while the Tropical and Subtropical forests have grown, the inclusion of a new water retaining and fast growing perennial plant has turned areas from moist broadleaf forests to middling broadleaf and bamboo forests. Meanwhile dry broadleaf forests experienced a die off of traditional plants and have created new mixed bamboo-grassland and non-broadleaf forest biomes across the southern and central part of the continents and the Mississippi.

The spreading of asian bamboo has also caused the creation of a biome arc of tropical middling and humid subtropical areas in Central America and the Caribbean. This combined with the ever massive bamboo forests to the south lead to the majority of people settling around the Greater Mississippi-Yucatan-Caribbean-Panama area. TTL begins in the Middle Archaic, which was one of the important formative periods in American history. It was the time where the first noticeable sedentary settlements could be found and noticeable material culture began. The point of this thread is to simply bounce off ideas on what kind of cultures would develop and how they would change over thousands and thousands of years. Eventually I will make a separate TL thread based upon further research and ideas from this thread.

This is an experiment to create a wildly different America with a new ancient, classical and modern history.

So are you positing that bamboo forests would have prevented human migration into South America? How would bamboo affect material culture, building and shelter methods, etc.?

This one looks interesting, funny how a single plant have potentional of butterflying away all the classic american cultures.

I guess if somehow people will learn how to make bamboo bows, perhaps longbows might have similar tradition in americas as they had in eastern asia

Cash said:

So are you positing that bamboo forests would have prevented human migration into South America? How would bamboo affect material culture, building and shelter methods, etc.?

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Well, not prevent it completely but keep it back for generations while more of the population pools around Central America.

More or less, I want to see how the inclusion of bamboo at the beginning of American civilization would change things and the ways that it could go because of that.

Ledalek said:

This one looks interesting, funny how a single plant have potentional of butterflying away all the classic american cultures.

I guess if somehow people will learn how to make bamboo bows, perhaps longbows might have similar tradition in americas as they had in eastern asia

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I chose bamboo not only because it would change the climate of the Americas (and be able to grow there easily) but because it can be incorporated (and is) into every facet of human society. Building, farming methods, warfare, medicine, food, writing, music, etc.

btw Bambuseae does exist in our world in americas. There are tens and tens of native species..

Fascinating. I'll look forward to seeing what you do with it....

Ledalek said:

btw Bambuseae does exist in our world in americas. There are tens and tens of native species..

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If you are talking about Guadua and other Guaduinae Americanus then yes, but they are very limited by temperature and elevation and is overshadowed by the broadleaf plants of the Amazon. However Arundinariinae Americanus (which is meant to be more like East and Southeast Asian Bambuseae) does not exist. There is also the Arundinaria, but they are also limited and more or less confined to some swamps in the West of North America.

There are also the lesser Arthrostylidiinae, but once again, they have the same problems.

I probably should have put that in, apologies. I edited the first post to be more clear.

This looks very interesting. Great idea, and particularly original. What were the bamboo species which were seeded to the Americas, and when did they arrive? Are they giant bamboos, or smaller grass-like types? And how long will they have to diversify before the arrival of humans?

Cheers,
Ganesha

Ganesha said:

This looks very interesting. Great idea, and particularly original. What were the bamboo species which were seeded to the Americas, and when did they arrive? Are they giant bamboos, or smaller grass-like types? And how long will they have to diversify before the arrival of humans?

Cheers,
Ganesha

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A. Fargesia, A. Pseudosas, A. Yushania and A. Acidosasa are the four types of bamboo that arrive in the Americas. They vary from small grass-like clumps to large towering varieties. They've had 2000 years to spread and diversify before humans arrived in the area where they spread, and another 6000 years before the Middle Archaic. Due to the variety of climates they found themselves in and the climate changes they caused, the settled bamboo diversified quite a bit. The Broadleaf-Bamboo forests for instance contain a mixture of clumping grass-like bamboo and bamboo that grows high enough to poke out above even the thicker broadleaf areas. The Grassland-bamboo areas have more shrub-like medium clumping bamboo and height variation becomes more noticeable the closer you come to the Grassland-Forest line.

On the coasts of the Caribbean islands Arundinariinae Americanus type bamboo has started to mimic the coast hugging bamboo of South China.

A thought, the inclusion of Asian bamboo lead to multiple changes in the biomes of the Americas including the creation of the middling region around the Caribbean and the expansion of grasslands (though different and containing bamboo mixes). Since this alteration starts before humans arrive and before the end of the ice age that means that multiple ice age and pre-human animals would be affected long before humans.

My main focus with this train of thought is the Pronghorn. There were originally around 13 different species of the "American antelope" which slimmed down to around 5-6 just before humans arrived. The end of the ice age and the alteration of their habitats caused a mass die off until only one Pronghorn species survived. However the inclusion of Asian bamboo expands the biomes that multiple species of Pronghorn were used to, though it also pushes some of them southward, further into Mexico than they went in OTL.

This means that the habitats of any surviving Pronghorn species (not sure how many, though certainly more than 1 and less than 5) will overlap with the northern part of the Central Settled Area of the Americas.They will also overlap with any populations in Western North America.

Mathuen said:

A thought, the inclusion of Asian bamboo lead to multiple changes in the biomes of the Americas including the creation of the middling region around the Caribbean and the expansion of grasslands (though different and containing bamboo mixes). Since this alteration starts before humans arrive and before the end of the ice age that means that multiple ice age and pre-human animals would be affected long before humans.

My main focus with this train of thought is the Pronghorn. There were originally around 13 different species of the "American antelope" which slimmed down to around 5-6 just before humans arrived. The end of the ice age and the alteration of their habitats caused a mass die off until only one Pronghorn species survived. However the inclusion of Asian bamboo expands the biomes that multiple species of Pronghorn were used to, though it also pushes some of them southward, further into Mexico than they went in OTL.

This means that the habitats of any surviving Pronghorn species (not sure how many, though certainly more than 1 and less than 5) will overlap with the northern part of the Central Settled Area of the Americas.They will also overlap with any populations in Western North America.

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Along similar lines, horses continued to exist in North America nearly up until the human arrival. With the presence of bamboo, horse populations will be affected. It's a bit tough to work out exactly what might happen, given that we don't really know why they went extinct OTL, but it's not crazy to think that somehow they may wind up surviving the Pleistocene extinctions ITTL.

Cheers,
Ganesha

Ganesha said:

Along similar lines, horses continued to exist in North America nearly up until the human arrival. With the presence of bamboo, horse populations will be affected. It's a bit tough to work out exactly what might happen, given that we don't really know why they went extinct OTL, but it's not crazy to think that somehow they may wind up surviving the Pleistocene extinctions ITTL.

Cheers,
Ganesha

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It's not crazy, but I'm not yet sure if I want to keep horses in the Americas ITTL.

Now this is amazing. Instead of tweaking one plant or animal, you've completely altered the American biome, and right in the location of some of Native America's biggest civilizations. This is a very original idea.

Personally, I vote for a surviving American Cheetah (really they were fast cougars, but whatevs). If you have more pronghorns and more grassland, then these specialized predators might stand a chance.

Also, I kind of hoped that this POD would be far back enough for Gigantopithecus to make it to the Americas and survive, but doesn't look like that will happen

You could have some camelids here, as the bamboo would directly affect their enviroment.

We do know that Camelops was generalistic herbivore, so with plentifull bamboo, they could survive. I guess they would have similar social behavior like, still surviving camelips (and all species have domesticated forms, in Dromedary case, only domesticated form survived).. maybe it could be domesticated. Maybe under certain circumstances, natives from central and southern north america could domesticate them. I guess beast wich is more than 2m tall in shoulders could be quite handy as a pack beast.

Maybe Hemiauchenia gracillis could survive, it was mainly browser, but it could graze as well. I guess, if we would assume it had fur similar to fur of other llamas (genus Hemiauchenia possibly evolved into genus Lama in South America), as well as similar social structure, it could be domesticated for wool and meat.

Putting in a vote here for a giant sloth adapted to eating bamboo. Failing that, a racoon or bear would be nice, too. And there's always primates, and opossums.

Scaling down, I think it almost certain at least one rodent would adapt to this food souce.

Looking forward to more of this interesting POD.

Mathuen said:

Well, not prevent it completely but keep it back for generations while more of the population pools around Central America.

More or less, I want to see how the inclusion of bamboo at the beginning of American civilization would change things and the ways that it could go because of that.

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Thanks for the clarification. Given the impact that bamboo has had on Asian civilizations, it seems obvious that humans entering North America would latch onto it fairly quickly for many uses.

Is bamboo an important part of the diet of the Asian elephant? If so, I could see an outside chance that some form of mastodon would survive the dieoff.

twovultures said:

Now this is amazing. Instead of tweaking one plant or animal, you've completely altered the American biome, and right in the location of some of Native America's biggest civilizations. This is a very original idea.

Personally, I vote for a surviving American Cheetah (really they were fast cougars, but whatevs). If you have more pronghorns and more grassland, then these specialized predators might stand a chance.

Also, I kind of hoped that this POD would be far back enough for Gigantopithecus to make it to the Americas and survive, but doesn't look like that will happen

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It is reasonable that if more Pronghorns survive then their predators would survive as well. As such it would be more likely that Miracinonyx trumani survives but Miracinonyx inexpectatus still goes extinct.

Sorry, no dice on the Gigantopithecus.

Ledalek said:

You could have some camelids here, as the bamboo would directly affect their enviroment.

We do know that Camelops was generalistic herbivore, so with plentifull bamboo, they could survive. I guess they would have similar social behavior like, still surviving camelips (and all species have domesticated forms, in Dromedary case, only domesticated form survived).. maybe it could be domesticated. Maybe under certain circumstances, natives from central and southern north america could domesticate them. I guess beast wich is more than 2m tall in shoulders could be quite handy as a pack beast.

Maybe Hemiauchenia gracillis could survive, it was mainly browser, but it could graze as well. I guess, if we would assume it had fur similar to fur of other llamas (genus Hemiauchenia possibly evolved into genus Lama in South America), as well as similar social structure, it could be domesticated for wool and meat.

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Camelops would have still been around during the POD and bamboo would have spread for thousands of years until the point that they went extinct IOTL. This would give them more than enough time to adapt and survive.

I'm not so sure about Hemiauchenia gracillis, though given the climate change if it survived it probably would have settled in a more eastern area than the Camelops. I'm thinking the Mississippi-Florida area.

Given the block-off in South America the evolution path of the Hemiauchenia that would become the llama will most likely change.

chr92 said:

Putting in a vote here for a giant sloth adapted to eating bamboo. Failing that, a racoon or bear would be nice, too. And there's always primates, and opossums.

Scaling down, I think it almost certain at least one rodent would adapt to this food souce.

Looking forward to more of this interesting POD.

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The Caribbean Hutia fit the bill. It would also make sense that following contact between mainland and islander people that now-bamboo-eating-hutia could spread everywhere.

Cash said:

Thanks for the clarification. Given the impact that bamboo has had on Asian civilizations, it seems obvious that humans entering North America would latch onto it fairly quickly for many uses.

Is bamboo an important part of the diet of the Asian elephant? If so, I could see an outside chance that some form of mastodon would survive the dieoff.

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Important? no. Part of it? yes.

I don't think it will prevent a die off of the mastodon though. A mastodon derived animal might exist and undergo a form of mild diminutism in South America though.

One issue with having bamboo take over grasslands and such: Few bamboos are fire-adapted, but many grasslands and dry forest have a fire cycle that is going to prevent bamboo from colonizing those ecosystems. For instance, you only see bamboo in fairly wet environments in Asia, and the wetter the climate, the more diversity in species.

mosodake said:

One issue with having bamboo take over grasslands and such: Few bamboos are fire-adapted, but many grasslands and dry forest have a fire cycle that is going to prevent bamboo from colonizing those ecosystems. For instance, you only see bamboo in fairly wet environments in Asia, and the wetter the climate, the more diversity in species.

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Good point, in which case it would make more sense for areas like the northern grasslands to have grass-like clump bamboo along rivers and pools of water rather than small to middle clump bamboo spread all throughout.

Cuvieronius might be better alternative to mastodon as we dated youngest subfossil to +- 6000 bc in northern south america