Typo
Banned
IIRC corn had a far lower yield/calories ratio than wheat, and also the Mississipians for w/e reason, depleted their environment very rapidly in terms of productive agricultural land, does that have to do with the crops they farmed?
How to advance pre-Columbian America?
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twovultures
Donor
I agree with the posters who say more livestock is necessary for the Native Americans to resist the European invasion, but it took thousands of years for disease to cross over from livestock to humans in Europe and Asia. The introduction of Polynesian livestock (c.a. 500 AD) and of Viking livestock (c.a. 1000 AD) would not give enough time for the natives to develop new diseases or for the livestock to spread across the Americas (although it's possible that exposure to germs from a more successful Viking or Polynesian colonization would result in at least one region of the Americas being more disease resistant).
In order to really give the Americas a fair shake, you'd have to have far earlier introduction of domesticated animals or have more domesticable American species. This might stray a little into ASB, especially if every animal species above 2 pounds is domesticable in the Americas, but I think it can be done well. With a slight random mutation, Bighorn sheep, Bison, or White-Collared Peccaries could become more social, less moody, less prone to running, and overall more domesticable. They could be domesticated thousands of years before Europeans arrive, giving lots of time for them to spread diseases to the Native Americans, who could then spread the diseases to European colonizers. A larger population base (caused by having access to more food in the form of animal products) and a temporary halt to colonialism caused by some "American Plagues" will allow Native societies to bounce back, learn tech secrets from the Europeans, and resist the (probably inevitable) second round of European or first round of Asian colonialism.
Another possibility would be, as some of the previous posters commented, having horses cross into the Americas. Horse-based transport could allow that 'silk road' to be built between the Missisipian, Mesoamerican, and Andean civilizations, allowing potatoes, wheels, writing, and other innovations to spread faster along the America's North/South access. I don't know if the Native Americans would pick up any diseases from horses (seeing as Europeans and Asians didn't) but if horses are the ONLY livestock for most of the Americas, then it's possible that Native American societies would become so dependent on horse milk and meat that diseases like Strangles could make a jump to humans in the Americas that they didn't make in the Old World.
The down side of this is that it will almost certainly butterfly away Native American society as we knew it. Yes, there will almost certainly be analogues to the Incas, Aztecs, Missisipians, Mayans, Plains Indians, and others, but they just won't BE the same as OTL.
In order to really give the Americas a fair shake, you'd have to have far earlier introduction of domesticated animals or have more domesticable American species. This might stray a little into ASB, especially if every animal species above 2 pounds is domesticable in the Americas, but I think it can be done well. With a slight random mutation, Bighorn sheep, Bison, or White-Collared Peccaries could become more social, less moody, less prone to running, and overall more domesticable. They could be domesticated thousands of years before Europeans arrive, giving lots of time for them to spread diseases to the Native Americans, who could then spread the diseases to European colonizers. A larger population base (caused by having access to more food in the form of animal products) and a temporary halt to colonialism caused by some "American Plagues" will allow Native societies to bounce back, learn tech secrets from the Europeans, and resist the (probably inevitable) second round of European or first round of Asian colonialism.
Another possibility would be, as some of the previous posters commented, having horses cross into the Americas. Horse-based transport could allow that 'silk road' to be built between the Missisipian, Mesoamerican, and Andean civilizations, allowing potatoes, wheels, writing, and other innovations to spread faster along the America's North/South access. I don't know if the Native Americans would pick up any diseases from horses (seeing as Europeans and Asians didn't) but if horses are the ONLY livestock for most of the Americas, then it's possible that Native American societies would become so dependent on horse milk and meat that diseases like Strangles could make a jump to humans in the Americas that they didn't make in the Old World.
The down side of this is that it will almost certainly butterfly away Native American society as we knew it. Yes, there will almost certainly be analogues to the Incas, Aztecs, Missisipians, Mayans, Plains Indians, and others, but they just won't BE the same as OTL.
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Well, I'm not sure on that. Do you have any sources that say that, specifically, it takes thousands of years for any population to gain a zoonotic disease, or does it say thatr it took Eurasians that long? I ask because the circumstances are I think a little different then in the only real example we have of people gaining disease. We're introducing already domesticated animals to an area with an extremely high population density for pre-Modern times, not just small bands of hunter-gatherers.
I would also expect that the pigs and Chickens will have some diseases already on them, but diseases that the Polynesians who introduce them will be immune to, since their low population prevents any form of epidemic. Not virulent diseases mind you, but small ones that might turn into a more virulent version.
Ah, yes, the Manta culture of Ecuador used sturdy balsa wood rafts to trade as far north as Mexico and as far south as Chile. While the rafts seem to have been good enough to get the job done, I can't help but wonder if they could have benefitted a lot more with better sailing technology, perhaps adapted from contact with the Taino or the Polynesians.
When I was in Ecuador, market places all over the place would sell miniature models of intiguing dragon boats like this made out of totora reeds:
Apparently they're used along Lake Titicaca. The models I have show rather large ships (there are little models of Native American sailors glued inside them) with large rectangular sails, but I'm not sure whether or not boats of that caliber existed in Pre-Columbian times. Apparently they last for four to six months... I wish I knew more about South American sailing technology.
One legitimate domesticated animal left out is the muscovy duck in Mexico. The Mayans also had a pretty extensive tradition of stingless beekeeping, but I'm not sure that the stingless bees were domesticated to the same extent that the Old World honey bee was - They seem to be more vulnerable and their honey output isn't as great.
As for the stuff about deer and coatis, many tribes kept captive-bred animals but it wasn't really domestication. There's the macaw trade that existed between Mesoamerica and the Anasazi, for example. Rainforest tribes took in all sorts of exotic animals, and people in the Pacific Northwest and Plateau region even adopted large animals like bears and wolves.
twovultures
Donor
Atom-
That's a very good point. My source was "Guns Germs and Steel", where I simply checked the first attested dates of diseases to the last attested dates of animal domestication, and found them to be very far apart. Your comment made me double check the section, and I see that Jared Diamond does point out that disease culture accelerated with the rise of cities, making a more successful Polynesian colonization a potential source of lethal germs that could attack Europe. This makes a good potential POD for a timeline where some of the Native Americans do better. However, it does suffer from a few potential problems:
1. Jared Diamond could be wrong-the earliest 'attested' dates of Smallpox, mumps, etc could just be what shows up on the record. Perhaps they actually jumped to humanity before the rise of cities and writing, after a period of thousands of years of coexistence between humans and animals.
2. There's no guarantee that the diseases will jump to the Natives fast enough to give them a germ weapon to use against the Europeans. Worse, diseases jumping to the Natives simultaneously with European germs could hasten their end, not save them.
3. Only a problem if you want to save all of pre-Columbian America, but the Polynesian scenario really most likely only saves the Andes-maybe MesoAmerica, very possibly some remote parts of the Pacific coast. Of course, that's only a problem if you want to save all the Native Americans. If you want to save the Inca but not the Lakota, this is an ideal POD (and let's face it, sadly more realistic. Even given optimal conditions, few cultures would survive European colonization).
That's a very good point. My source was "Guns Germs and Steel", where I simply checked the first attested dates of diseases to the last attested dates of animal domestication, and found them to be very far apart. Your comment made me double check the section, and I see that Jared Diamond does point out that disease culture accelerated with the rise of cities, making a more successful Polynesian colonization a potential source of lethal germs that could attack Europe. This makes a good potential POD for a timeline where some of the Native Americans do better. However, it does suffer from a few potential problems:
1. Jared Diamond could be wrong-the earliest 'attested' dates of Smallpox, mumps, etc could just be what shows up on the record. Perhaps they actually jumped to humanity before the rise of cities and writing, after a period of thousands of years of coexistence between humans and animals.
2. There's no guarantee that the diseases will jump to the Natives fast enough to give them a germ weapon to use against the Europeans. Worse, diseases jumping to the Natives simultaneously with European germs could hasten their end, not save them.
3. Only a problem if you want to save all of pre-Columbian America, but the Polynesian scenario really most likely only saves the Andes-maybe MesoAmerica, very possibly some remote parts of the Pacific coast. Of course, that's only a problem if you want to save all the Native Americans. If you want to save the Inca but not the Lakota, this is an ideal POD (and let's face it, sadly more realistic. Even given optimal conditions, few cultures would survive European colonization).
On deer semi-domestication: I can't give a source I'm afraid, but I do recall reading that some MesoAmerican cultures did round up deer and keep them in pens for a while so they had a dependable source of meat. I don't know if there was any effort to keep a breeding stock, and I suspect that there wasn't, though I don't know for sure one way or the other.
There are, of course stages between domesticating animals and purely hunting them. I get the impression that Indian cultures generally tried to avoid overhunting prey animals, and manipulated the environment to encourage favorite prey species. There were also possibly non-deliberate mechanisms that encouraged favored prey species. For example, the Dakota and Ojibwa were in a state of small-scale war most of the time, with a large buffer area between them where it was dangerous for either side to hunt. Deer thrived in the buffer area and spread out from it into both sides' territories. When the tribes made peace briefly, hunters nearly cleaned out the buffer area deer populations and both tribes felt the impact as deer populations plummeted.
There are, of course stages between domesticating animals and purely hunting them. I get the impression that Indian cultures generally tried to avoid overhunting prey animals, and manipulated the environment to encourage favorite prey species. There were also possibly non-deliberate mechanisms that encouraged favored prey species. For example, the Dakota and Ojibwa were in a state of small-scale war most of the time, with a large buffer area between them where it was dangerous for either side to hunt. Deer thrived in the buffer area and spread out from it into both sides' territories. When the tribes made peace briefly, hunters nearly cleaned out the buffer area deer populations and both tribes felt the impact as deer populations plummeted.
Another BTW: I read recently that horses and Mammoths apparently survived in at least one pocket on the mainland of North America until around 7600 years ago. Bringing them forward to the time Indians would have been ready to domesticate them is still kind of ASB, but not quite as much as before.
"After plucking ancient DNA from frozen soil in central Alaska, researchers uncovered "genetic fossils" of both mammoths and horses locked in permafrost samples dated to between 10,500 and 7,600 years ago."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34435240/
"After plucking ancient DNA from frozen soil in central Alaska, researchers uncovered "genetic fossils" of both mammoths and horses locked in permafrost samples dated to between 10,500 and 7,600 years ago."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34435240/
Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
Perhaps a much faster and successful spread of the Polynesian culture can work some charm into advancing the native Americans.
This is the unfortunate truth of the matter. In imagining a scenario where Native Americans get disease we are imagining a scenario where Native Americans are much more equal with Europeans at the end, but only because we've killed 80% of the entire planet (except for some very isolated peoples, and those of Australia and New Guinea).
(My first post... please be gentle with me 
)
Although introducing something as a way of gaining immunity to disease helps in the case of a "slow-burn" scenario, I don't think it would prevent Cortez from taking out the Aztecs. I'm not sure how rapidly disease became a factor, though.
What I see as a major issue is the fact that (for the Aztecs at least, who were the first line of defence for mainland America) warfare was highly ritualised and more intended to capture prisoners for sacrifice than to kill significant numbers of the enemy.
So what we need as a POD for this is something which changes the nature of warfare in the Aztec region. A natural disaster creating resource constraints wouldn't do it; that just makes for more hecatombs of human sacrifices to appease the wrath of Tezcatlipoca. I suggest therefore that an inspirational human might be required. An Aztec Napoleon, if you will. Soemone who takes the throne from the Emperor a couple of generations before Montezuma, and makes it his mission to conquer Tlaxcala and other nearby cities. In the process, war becomes a matter of conquest rather than ritual.
With this in place, the Aztecs would be better placed to deal with the conquistadors on more even terms. The conquistadors have technology, horses and war-dogs (which actually came as a very nasty shock to the Aztecs - they may have had chihuahuas, but a battle-trained wolfhound was a bit more than they were used to !), but the Aztecs had weight of numbers, centralised organisation, a belief in the emperor as divine, and the sling. Slingshots were the weapon the Spanish most feared, and the one which caused the most casualties. Apart from helmets, most conquistador armour was actually quilted cotton virtually identical to that worn by the Aztecs; rust was a major problem, as was rotting of crossbow strings.
If the Aztec hordes can destroy the few hundred Cortez initially had at his disposal before disease sets in, the conquest is halted in it's tracks. The Incas wouldn't be threatened, and subsequent Spanish expeditions would be unlikely to succeed against an enemy outnumbering them so greatly who also had the confidence that if they could win once, they could do it again.
That's my humble view, anyway !
)Although introducing something as a way of gaining immunity to disease helps in the case of a "slow-burn" scenario, I don't think it would prevent Cortez from taking out the Aztecs. I'm not sure how rapidly disease became a factor, though.
What I see as a major issue is the fact that (for the Aztecs at least, who were the first line of defence for mainland America) warfare was highly ritualised and more intended to capture prisoners for sacrifice than to kill significant numbers of the enemy.
So what we need as a POD for this is something which changes the nature of warfare in the Aztec region. A natural disaster creating resource constraints wouldn't do it; that just makes for more hecatombs of human sacrifices to appease the wrath of Tezcatlipoca. I suggest therefore that an inspirational human might be required. An Aztec Napoleon, if you will. Soemone who takes the throne from the Emperor a couple of generations before Montezuma, and makes it his mission to conquer Tlaxcala and other nearby cities. In the process, war becomes a matter of conquest rather than ritual.
With this in place, the Aztecs would be better placed to deal with the conquistadors on more even terms. The conquistadors have technology, horses and war-dogs (which actually came as a very nasty shock to the Aztecs - they may have had chihuahuas, but a battle-trained wolfhound was a bit more than they were used to !), but the Aztecs had weight of numbers, centralised organisation, a belief in the emperor as divine, and the sling. Slingshots were the weapon the Spanish most feared, and the one which caused the most casualties. Apart from helmets, most conquistador armour was actually quilted cotton virtually identical to that worn by the Aztecs; rust was a major problem, as was rotting of crossbow strings.
If the Aztec hordes can destroy the few hundred Cortez initially had at his disposal before disease sets in, the conquest is halted in it's tracks. The Incas wouldn't be threatened, and subsequent Spanish expeditions would be unlikely to succeed against an enemy outnumbering them so greatly who also had the confidence that if they could win once, they could do it again.
That's my humble view, anyway !
Sorry to burst your bubble, and I apologize if I come across as rude, but that is simply the mistaken popular view. How it really worked is more complicated and very different. For one, disease was the #1 factor in all native losses, Aztecs included. Also, their ritualized warfare is both taken out of context and exaggerated. They quickly realized that it would be total war when it was clear the Spanish and their allies were bent on conquest, which the Aztecs were not alien too as they had created an empire after all. Also, they did not have an advantage in numbers. Cortez may have had only a few hundred conquistadors (initially, more when Narvaez's force joined him) but he also had well over 200,000 troops from Tlaxcala and its allies, and some of the various subject peoples of the Aztec empire. Also, atlatls I am sure were more influential than slings. Better range and accuracy and still amazing penetrating power. Anyways, the easiest PoD would be to make Cortez a little less lucky. This can most easily be achieved by having not escape Tenochtitlan during La Noche Triste. He barely got out as is.
Well, considering that he explicitly says the the Aztecs would have conquered and held the surrounding cities some time previously (perhaps for a hundred years or more), I don't think you could necessarily say that the conquistadors would be able to pick up as many native allies as IOTL. OTOH, this might make the subject peoples *even more* restless than they already were.
It's okay, Hersvelgr, you weren't rude.... you'll have to be much ruder before I get upset
I've done a bit of digging on the disease issue. Yes, it was the number 1 killer, but it seems it mostly came into play once the Spanish had reached Tenochtitlan and been pushed out again in La Noche Triste. The subsequent siege of Tenochtitlan, when disease really started to become a factor, lasted three months. This suggests to me that it needed at least a few weeks of solid contact between Aztecs and Spanish for disease to get established.
Now, if the Aztecs have control over Tlaxcala, the Spanish aren't going to spend time there infecting the locals. I think it likely that a more dynamic emperor than Montezuma would have confronted the conquistadors on the coast shortly after they landed, rather than waiting for them to march inland. Although it's likely that disease would still have wreaked an awful toll, by that time, the Spanish would be no more than trophy heads and burned hearts. In OTL, the Aztecs only learned to fight total war towards the end, but in TTL I'm suggesting it wouldn't need much of a change for them to do so right from the moment the conquistadores landed.
As for the atlatl, from what I've read, the Spanish had no fear of them. The Aztecs used them to throw lightweight darts and rarely javelins, which appear to have been relatively ineffective and appears to have inflicted few serious wounds on the conquistadores. A slingstone hit, even on plate armour, could break bones and, if it hit a helmet, could cause skull fractures and death. From the commentaries I've seen, the Spanish really only feared two weapons the Aztecs had; the sling when used en masse, and the maquahuitl when expertly handled.
I've done a bit of digging on the disease issue. Yes, it was the number 1 killer, but it seems it mostly came into play once the Spanish had reached Tenochtitlan and been pushed out again in La Noche Triste. The subsequent siege of Tenochtitlan, when disease really started to become a factor, lasted three months. This suggests to me that it needed at least a few weeks of solid contact between Aztecs and Spanish for disease to get established.
Now, if the Aztecs have control over Tlaxcala, the Spanish aren't going to spend time there infecting the locals. I think it likely that a more dynamic emperor than Montezuma would have confronted the conquistadors on the coast shortly after they landed, rather than waiting for them to march inland. Although it's likely that disease would still have wreaked an awful toll, by that time, the Spanish would be no more than trophy heads and burned hearts. In OTL, the Aztecs only learned to fight total war towards the end, but in TTL I'm suggesting it wouldn't need much of a change for them to do so right from the moment the conquistadores landed.
As for the atlatl, from what I've read, the Spanish had no fear of them. The Aztecs used them to throw lightweight darts and rarely javelins, which appear to have been relatively ineffective and appears to have inflicted few serious wounds on the conquistadores. A slingstone hit, even on plate armour, could break bones and, if it hit a helmet, could cause skull fractures and death. From the commentaries I've seen, the Spanish really only feared two weapons the Aztecs had; the sling when used en masse, and the maquahuitl when expertly handled.
NothingNow
Banned
Put some good metal tips on those Atlatls though, and they'll punch through anything the Spanish had, same with the bows.
AtriumCarceris
Banned
Something that hasn't been suggested yet is domesticated rice. I recall a timeline with this premise, where rice instead of corn was domesticated. There are a couple of varieties of wild rice native to the New World, and while it's a very big longshot to get any of them domesticated, I don't think it's as big a longshot as it was for corn to come to us in its modern form. So why not have the people in the America's get lucky twice, instead of just once?
twovultures
Donor
Basically, that's the answer to the question that started this thread. Getting lucky twice may be the only thing that the Native Americans need.
twovultures
Donor
Two kinds of people are into history: romantics who want to live in the period they study, and sadists who enjoy watching people suffer. Reading this website, I think the majority of people here (including me) are in the latter and would love to see a world where 80% of everyone dies. Personally, I'd be fascinated to create a world where this happens.
I suppose, but I'm not really sure that it fits with the "spirit" of the OP. Of course it's fascinating so I propose we ignore that and keep talking.
The areas that would survive best would be those areas that have a mixture of the various hemispheres, and therefore the genetic resistance to each disease. So, early colonies of Europeans in the New World (places like the West Indies, perhaps Mexico depending on how quickly the epidemics begin); along with (maybe) areas of Europe and Asia that might have had some contact with early forerunners of this disease (those that fish the Grand Banks, possibly Scandinavians from the Vinland contact, certainly Siberia).
If you look at population data for Spanish Mexico (the best example we have, since the data exists for every plague that they received to some extent) you'll notice that each disease came in waves (for example, smallpox one year, then measles a few years later, maybe scarlet fever the next, then again smallpox). This suggests (to my mind) two possible models for this "equaler" Columbian exchange:
1)All At Once: Basically the diseases hit all at the same time, carried over by sailors with so little time between epidemics that we get a huge series of pandemics that rage across the world killing a vast majority of the world's population. Any survivors will have resistance to all of the world's various epidemics and will not face such a catastrophe (presumably) again.
2)Waves: One disease gets transported, and kills a huge number of people. Contact between the New and Old world stops as mass die-offs occur. Each world's survivors have some immunity at the end. Then contact starts again. A new disease gets transported, the cycle repeats. Repeat until all epidemics have spread around the world.
I think that number two is the most likely although the hardest to predict. It's unclear what survivors there would be, and at the start of each new cycle a new batch of survivors is created. It's sort of like taking all the world's cultures and then sifting them over and over again in a random fashion.