WI no Panama Isthmus?

Here's a little question: what would the America's and human civilisation there have been like
if the Panama Isthmus was never formed, and the two continents would have remained separate?

And keep in mind that the formation of the Panama Isthmus also caused significant changes in sea currents,
and the world's climate along with that.

No Panama Istmus means continuous contact between Pacific and Atlantic warm currents, so no Ice Ages. Africa remains covered mostly by different types of jungle instead of savanna, so there aren't "humans". At most, different species of bipedal apes in central and south Africa.

Another possibility is that the continental plates touch, but there is a water way between them, simliar the the straights of Gibralter. This would have little effect on ocean currents, but a larger effect on weather and on the migration of plants and animals.

So, will South America still have significant precolumbian Human habitation?

EmptyOne said:

Another possibility is that the continental plates touch, but there is a water way between them, simliar the the straights of Gibralter. This would have little effect on ocean currents, but a larger effect on weather and on the migration of plants and animals.

Click to expand...

I like this one better since we can imagine a version of this world where the butterflies don't do much until 1492. A strait that narrow is easily navigable by the Native Americans, who after all settled the Caribbean fairly early on.

No time for a detailed analysis, but I'll throw out this bone: if the whole point really was to find a passage to India and China, well, guess what, now there is one. And who would be going through it, and collecting the fame and fortune? Cortez and Pizarro. Without their "innovation" of taking a sudden lunge and killing the two most powerful empires in the Americas, one can easily imagine a world where the Aztecs and Incas take a very, very long time to conquer.

Without the dream of a Northwest Passage, Canada might not get settled at all until around 1800.

If you're gonna mess around with Plate Tectonics, shouldn't there also be Darwinian Geologic Bats Forum too? Maybe I'm just belly-aching, but some of the ASB stuff was more plausible than this. No disrespect to the poster, but wow, half a billion years? Its impossible to predict this particular phenomenon.

I would however posit that some Marsupials would survive in the "Alledged, South America", that wouldn't otherwise be killed by Native Americans. Sloths and stuff

Smaug said:

If you're gonna mess around with Plate Tectonics, shouldn't there also be Darwinian Geologic Bats Forum too? Maybe I'm just belly-aching, but some of the ASB stuff was more plausible than this. No disrespect to the poster, but wow, half a billion years? Its impossible to predict this particular phenomenon.

I would however posit that some Marsupials would survive in the "Alledged, South America", that wouldn't otherwise be killed by Native Americans. Sloths and stuff

Click to expand...

actually, the Land Bridge only formed 2-4 million years ago.

that said, a Geologic AH folder would be useful.
(Flood Australia!)

Keenir said:

actually, the Land Bridge only formed 2-4 million years ago.

that said, a Geologic AH folder would be useful.
(Flood Australia!)

Click to expand...

I can live with that.....Its still a reach, just sayin

Smaug said:

I can live with that.....Its still a reach, just sayin

Click to expand...

maybe the Central America//South America water-passageway goes north-south...that way, it doesn't prevent the formation of the Gulf Stream (and thus the evolution of humans)

{or were you referring to the prospect of Australia's interior being an inland sea?}

I guess my point is that a failure of North and South America crashing into one another, would cause butterflys above and beyond whether one or another European Monarch married this or that whoever. Something like this plays games with the world as a whole. JMO

Smaug said:

If you're gonna mess around with Plate Tectonics, shouldn't there also be Darwinian Geologic Bats Forum too? Maybe I'm just belly-aching, but some of the ASB stuff was more plausible than this. No disrespect to the poster, but wow, half a billion years? Its impossible to predict this particular phenomenon.

Click to expand...

Study your geology Smaug, half a billion years ago, the world was transgressing from the Cambrian to the Ordovician age, while the Panama Isthmus was formed only just after the beginning of the Pliocene.

Smaug said:

I guess my point is that a failure of North and South America crashing into one another, would cause butterflys above and beyond whether one or another European Monarch married this or that whoever. Something like this plays games with the world as a whole. JMO

Click to expand...

Well, so would the sentient bird evolution TL (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=35036)
and the dinosaurs survive in the America's TL (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=48975)

Especially in the latter one, the evolutionairy butterflies would be major,
and far greater than those of a small Panama Strait instead of Isthmus.

I agree with Tom Veil that EmptyOne's suggested scenario is the easier
one to work with, hence a small strait with very little Atlantic-Pacific sea currents
would make the smallest difference when compared to the OTL situation.

Smaug said:

I would however posit that some Marsupials would survive in the "Alledged, South America", that wouldn't otherwise be killed by Native Americans. Sloths and stuff

Click to expand...

I would also say that the lionshare of the Marsupial and Xenarthra fauna would survive, and even with a possebility that marsupial hyena's, opossums the size of coyote's and even sabretooth marsupials would survive at least well into the human age of that TL (provided there are no notable differences in global climate with OTL, so human evolution and development are not notably interrupted or changed).

But I doubt wether it was just the Native Americans who wiped out the megafauna by overhunting species.

Personally, I think it was rather a combination of the factors of (over)hunting by humans and the stress of a climate change (the ice age), and then there is a quite plausible third theory that I've heard about: the introduction of certain new animal diseases that tend to jump species that put an end to much of the native megafauna, which was already weakened by climate change and being hunted by humans.

There are existing animal diseases with high mortality rates that have been known to jump species successully, such as rinderpest and canine distemper.

The theory is that this disease was not spreaded by the humans directly, but mostly via the dogs that came along with the humans, as well as their flees.

sea snakes would make their way into the Atlantic from the Pacific, and the ecology of the Carribean would be heavily altered.... and the Carribean wouldn't be the sun and surf tourist paradise it is today...

Smaug said:

I guess my point is that a failure of North and South America crashing into one another, would cause butterflys above and beyond whether one or another European Monarch married this or that whoever. Something like this plays games with the world as a whole. JMO

Click to expand...

IIRC correctly the Panamanian isthmus was not caused by 'North and South America crashing into one another'. It is part of the mountain range that runs the length of the west coast of N & S America and was formed by a combination of small continental plates being swept-up by the westward movement of the main plates and volcanic activity from the subduction of the Pacific plate(s).

So, even though the Isthmus did not close until a few million years ago, the POD would need to be earlier. A small continental plate shifted north or south, or enough divergence between N & S America that the passage stays open.

If there was no Panama Isthmus, there could well be no Great Britain as a nation.

There are several Passes across the isthmus that show up as narrow Straits, if you raise the water level 100 meters, So a simply POD is that 100~200 thousand years ago these passes didn't rise up quits as much, leaving you a Gilbrater/Horn africa size strait

Easy enuff for the proto indians to cross with canoe but may stop most large land mammals
[small ones may drift across on driftwood]

You then have a slight effect as group like the mayas have the abillity to visit the West coast-and Vice Versa, so maybe a little earlier dipusion of the new Bronze tech from the Incas to the Aztec areas.

Let us assume that this minor strait has no effects on the other side of the Atlantic, so in 1503, Columbus starts his Forth Voyage that taks him from the yucatan to Pamana [OTL] Except here he discovers the Columbus Strait, Sailing thru, he enters the Pacific.

By 1508~10 Spains attention has shifted from the new settlement in Cuba, to New settlements here along the Straits, Panama is the new Centre of spainish settlement.

In 1519 Magellen travels thru the Strait and having resuppled heads west, still looking for the Route to China,

In 1521 Magllen makes contact with a portugese ship near the Isle of Borneo, Now know where they where, the procedded on back to Spain arriving in 1523, haveing sailed around the world.

Ran Exilis said:

Study your geology Smaug, half a billion years ago, the world was transgressing from the Cambrian to the Ordovician age, while the Panama Isthmus was formed only just after the beginning of the Pliocene.



Well, so would the sentient bird evolution TL (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=35036)
and the dinosaurs survive in the America's TL (https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=48975)

Especially in the latter one, the evolutionairy butterflies would be major,
and far greater than those of a small Panama Strait instead of Isthmus.

I agree with Tom Veil that EmptyOne's suggested scenario is the easier
one to work with, hence a small strait with very little Atlantic-Pacific sea currents
would make the smallest difference when compared to the OTL situation.



I would also say that the lionshare of the Marsupial and Xenarthra fauna would survive, and even with a possebility that marsupial hyena's, opossums the size of coyote's and even sabretooth marsupials would survive at least well into the human age of that TL (provided there are no notable differences in global climate with OTL, so human evolution and development are not notably interrupted or changed).

But I doubt wether it was just the Native Americans who wiped out the megafauna by overhunting species.

Personally, I think it was rather a combination of the factors of (over)hunting by humans and the stress of a climate change (the ice age), and then there is a quite plausible third theory that I've heard about: the introduction of certain new animal diseases that tend to jump species that put an end to much of the native megafauna, which was already weakened by climate change and being hunted by humans.

There are existing animal diseases with high mortality rates that have been known to jump species successully, such as rinderpest and canine distemper.

The theory is that this disease was not spreaded by the humans directly, but mostly via the dogs that came along with the humans, as well as their flees.

Click to expand...

Consider me contrite, or something:l

At any rate, if the two continents hadn't crashed, wouldn't Columbus be right?He could've sailed directly to the Orient....... No canal talk, yudda yudda yudda.

That would all depend on the width of the strait.
He may have sailed right through a very wide strait (300 km or more) if he would have taken a quite unusual route (he'd have to miss all the larger Carribean islands and the Yucatan Peninsula for that), yet if it were only, say, about the size of Gibraltar or even a bit narrower, then he may very well have missed it, and he would propably just have landed in the southernmost tip of North America (or maybe the northwesternmost tip of South America) anyway.

And keep in mind that Columbus originally landed on Cuba, not in Panama.
Most Spanish landings still were mainly on Cuba and Yucatan and such, so even if there would have been a narrow or even a relatively wide strait, that still would only have been discovered after several parts of America itself were already discovered (and most likely mistaken for the Orient, just like in OTL).

But you're right that there would be no canal talk.
Just a second "Gibraltar"...