European responses to megafauna?

[Roberto]

Before the Ice Age ended, most of the world was home to megafauna such as ground-sloths, glyptodonts, mammoths, short-faced bears, driptodons, etc.

So say these megafauna survive in America and Australia (those being the two major places that the Europeans had no contact with whatsoever) until at least the time the Europeans arrive.

I want to know how the OTL Europeans would react to a whole new world filled with strange beasts but no humans (makes things easier).

Allowing said megafauna to survive and keeping humans from settling America and Australia would have butterflies sufficient to get rid of Europe as we know it, so I must regrettably use the assistance of our friendly neighborhood ASBs.

The Americas and Australia are ISOTed to 1492, and the climate isn't visibly changed. Yeah, I know this should go into ASB Forum, but I'm posing the question to how the Europeans (and Columbus) would respond to the megafauna, not what the world would be like.

[Thande]

Have you ever read Turtledove's A Different Flesh? Although the emphasis is on the fact that homo erectus supposedly survives in Americas free from homo sapiens, there's also the general Ice Age fauna, including using woolly mammoths to pull train carriages before the invention of the steam engine...it sounds corny, but he made it reasonably cool by having the British colonial authorities bring over Indian elephant handlers to domesticate them...

[Roberto]

Originally Posted by Thande

Have you ever read Turtledove's A Different Flesh? Although the emphasis is on the fact that homo erectus supposedly survives in Americas free from homo sapiens, there's also the general Ice Age fauna, including using woolly mammoths to pull train carriages before the invention of the steam engine...it sounds corny, but he made it reasonably cool by having the British colonial authorities bring over Indian elephant handlers to domesticate them...

I've heard of it, and this thread is loosely baed on it. I've not read it yet, but I want to.

[aktarian]

if europeans can't colonise Americas and Australia would this lead to faster and bigger colonisation of Africa, specially southern parts? Energy has to go somewhere and Asia (India, China, parts of Russia) would offer suitable outlet. It would be harder due to technological differences and so on.

[mattw101]

Originally Posted by Thande

Have you ever read Turtledove's A Different Flesh? Although the emphasis is on the fact that homo erectus supposedly survives in Americas free from homo sapiens, there's also the general Ice Age fauna, including using woolly mammoths to pull train carriages before the invention of the steam engine...it sounds corny, but he made it reasonably cool by having the British colonial authorities bring over Indian elephant handlers to domesticate them...

That sounds pretty interesting, doesn't look like the book is readily available though.

[Thande]

Originally Posted by mattw101

That sounds pretty interesting, doesn't look like the book is readily available though.

I had to order it from America.

[MarkA]

I do not see how the existence of megafauna would affect the colonization of the Americas after 1492 at all.

By this time the Europeans had sufficent technology to handle any large beasts. Even the ancient Romans could easily handle lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, wild bulls etc etc to a degree where they could capture them in the wild and transport them thousands of kilometers to the arenas around the Empire.

Mammoth hunts as well as buffalo (bison) hunts and trapping and driving out sabre tooth cats instead of wolves would still occur. The land would still be fenced and the gradual ehanges to the beasts environments would push them to extinction.

For Australia, the European technology would be even more advanced. A giant wombat could feed a family for a month! They would be far easier to hunt than kangaroos as well. With no previous experience with humans they should be easy to approach and kill.

I just wondwer what the ancesters of aborigines were doing all this time? They were after all the most technically advanced people on earth at this time.

[Mason]

Well if you watch the trailer to 10,000 BC http://www.10000bcmovie.com/

The Pyramids were apparently built using mammoths!

[Roberto]

Originally Posted by MarkA

I do not see how the existence of megafauna would affect the colonization of the Americas after 1492 at all.

By this time the Europeans had sufficent technology to handle any large beasts. Even the ancient Romans could easily handle lions, tigers, elephants, rhinos, wild bulls etc etc to a degree where they could capture them in the wild and transport them thousands of kilometers to the arenas around the Empire.

Mammoth hunts as well as buffalo (bison) hunts and trapping and driving out sabre tooth cats instead of wolves would still occur. The land would still be fenced and the gradual ehanges to the beasts environments would push them to extinction.

For Australia, the European technology would be even more advanced. A giant wombat could feed a family for a month! They would be far easier to hunt than kangaroos as well. With no previous experience with humans they should be easy to approach and kill.

I just wondwer what the ancesters of aborigines were doing all this time? They were after all the most technically advanced people on earth at this time.

You're horribly misunderstanding my question. I'm not asking what the effects of an Ice-Age world (although that would be interseting), I'm asking about how the Europeans would react to finding these things wandering around.

[demonkangaroo]

Well, I suspect they'd (the Europeans) would kill and eat them (the animals)

[mojojojo]

What names would they come up with for the animals?

[DuQuense]

Just like they find new animals in Africa, or Asia, they found new ones in the Americas.
By the time they reach Australia, it would be expected that there would be new types of Animals to be found.

[MarkA]

Originally Posted by AHF

You're horribly misunderstanding my question. I'm not asking what the effects of an Ice-Age world (although that would be interseting), I'm asking about how the Europeans would react to finding these things wandering around.

They would eat them and/or drive them to extinction just as in OTL. They would still colonize.

If you are asking what social, philisophical or religo-nonsense would result from them finding a different 'creation' then the answer is bleedingly obvious. NONE. That is what they found in OTL Australia.

What question are you in fact asking?

[Umbral]

They did find some megafauna. The Bison. I expect they'd react the same way as they did to those.

[pompejus]

The largest problem the Europeans face when trying to colonise America in this situation is not the Megafauna, but the lack of other humans living in America. Megafauna are just big animals and the Europeans probably know how to handle them. Very large predators are rare and the other beasts (and probably the predators too) are only a reason to colonize America, if only for the fur.
The lack of humans in America is a bigger problem. I believe that a lot of early colonies suffered from a lack of food, which without any native americans is a bigger problem. Also without Inca or Aztek gold, the spanish have less reason to explore the America's. My guess is that America will be colonized a lot later than OTL.