animals are only half the story. The old world was lucky too in that it had the (rather easy to domesticate) wild versions of wheat, barley, rice, etc. The new world had nothing comparable; most of the domesticated plants took a long time to get that way (particularly corn). Animals alone could help the N. Americans a lot, but without grain available as fast as it was in Europe, they're still going to lag quite a ways behind...
Native American animal domestication
- Thread starter Just plain Craig
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Flocculencio
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We've got a winner.
Some animals are plainly impossible to domesticate, like for example rhino's.
One of the theories of Jared Diamond is that Europe pretty much conquered the other continents instead of the other way around because amongst others the high amount of domesticable animals in Europe compared to those in other continents.
Not Europe, Eurasia.
Llamas have a very workable temperament if raised properly. They have crossed llamas and camels in the middle east in an attempt to get a nicer camel. The offspring was actually viable and has been bred with additional llamas and camels. The results were not encouraging however, they got really cranky llamas for all intents and purposes. The point being that llamas are more easily domesticated.
The (proto)llama in my earlier post was found in central Florida. Prior to the great mega-fauna extinction camelids in NA were quite varied and found in a wide variety of ecological niches and climates. This particular variety seemed to prefer the transitional regions between forested and open country. They had to migrate across the isthmus of Panama to get to the Andes. Domestication has been dated to about 4,400 years ago. Many sources I have seen indicate that modern llamas are in fact not a domesticated animal, but a domestic animal variety developed from alpacas, guanacos etc.
Watson Brake in Louisiana, an early site associated with the mound building cultures of the central US, pre-dates the pyramids by about a thousand years. This would tend to indicate that there was a society capable of channelling major efforts into civic structures. Normally I don't think that is likely without some form af agriculture that could free the labor for construction. This was about 5,400 years ago.
I agree that domestication of animals, particularly for food and labor, would probably have meant that many of the Amerind peoples we know would not be here. But is is interesting to speculate what might have happened if the Clovis culture arrived to find a thriving population already in place in southern North America.
Good god...
They didn't domesticate dogs because dogs aren't native to the Americas. They brought dogs with them, just as Aborigenes brought the ancestors of the dingos to Australia.
Getting back to the OP's question, various fowl like ducks or turkeys might be good domestication candidates.
Bill
Che? I thought dogs were set loose upon Australia by ancient mariners no more than four thousand years ago, because I'm fairly certain they weren't domesticated sixty thousand years ago.
Okay I'm kind of new to this but my question is Jared's story pretty much change the whole history of Australia with one plant, Yams. Why couldn't it be done with pigs in North America?
Lets say the Norse colony of Greeneland started in 780 instead of 980 travel south to say...Nova Scotia or Long Island and left pigs. I figured if someone can reverse a river I could have pigs thousands of years early.
Lets say the Norse colony of Greeneland started in 780 instead of 980 travel south to say...Nova Scotia or Long Island and left pigs. I figured if someone can reverse a river I could have pigs thousands of years early.
If you want to use early introduction of Eurasian domesticate animals as the POD, things get a little easier. Norse or Celtic (Irish monastics like St. Brendan) voyagers introduce both pigs and horses into short-lived colonies in lower New England or Long island in the 700's- 800's or (about the same time) Chinese travelers do the same in California and Central America. There is sme debatable evidence in Chinese chronicles of such a voyage. Somewhat less likely might be introduction of the pig from Polynesia to coastal South America via Hawaii or Easter Island. An example of an Ice Age megafauna surviving the Younger Dryas is the Musk Ox, which apprently was providentially protected from overkill by a glacial barrier that separated Labrador form the rest of Canada
Ummm... Not likely pigs. I don't know if Greenland had any or Iceland had any significant numbers of pigs. Horse, cows, sheep? Yes, any and all of those.
You want to carry a horse in a coracle!? I'm not getting in that boat. Nope.
Edit: no matter WHAT the abbot says.
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Riain
Banned
Dogs/Dingos were bought to Australia by Asians during the bronze age about 4000 years ago.
Two issues here: (1) Closely related animals (horses versus zebras) can differ widely in temperate. We can't assume that the llama species we've never encountered would be similar in temperament to the ones that survived. That's unknowable. (2) The earliest Mound-building cultures in Louisiana were almost certainly not agricultural. There were a few places in the world where conditions were favorable enough that populations could grow large enough to support monumental building. The key isn't agriculture versus non-agriculture. It's ability to have either stable or store-able food sources sufficient to support a large population. That can, in a few favorable places come from intensive gathering of wild grain and from intensive use of aquatic resources.
Why would the Polynesian introduction of the pig be less likely than Chinese or earlier European introduction? They certainly lived a lot closer to the Americas than the Chinese.
I agree with you regarding animal temperament. Camels and llamas have very different temperaments, which is why they tried to cross them in the first place...to get a nicer camel. Since most surviving members of the camelid family have been domesticated, Dromedaries, Bactrian camels, llamas, alpacas, etc. I don't think it is out of the question that extinct varieties may have had a suitable temperament as well. Of course that can't by guaranteed.
The whole purpose of a POD is to consider WI _____ were the case, WI _____ happened, WI ____ survived, died, was taller, was shorter, had never been born.
Regarding Watson Brake and agriculture...mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa! You are absolutely correct.
"The new investigation, led by Joe W. Saunders of Northeast Louisiana University, indicates that Watson Brake may have been used as a base by mobile hunter-gatherers from summer through fall. Located above wetlands, the site would have provided access to vast aquatic resources during certain seasons. Bones of the freshwater drum, a species of fish that spawns from spring to early summer, and charred seeds of plants that ripen in the summer and fall were recovered at the site. The findings contradict the commonly held belief that major building projects took place only in complex societies with permanent villages supported by agriculture or trade. Mobile hunter-gatherers, it was thought, were unable to undertake such projects."
Its a looong way to carry livestock in an open canoe. Island-hopping in Micronesia and Polynesia didn't involve as far a distance.
isn't it becoming an accepted idea that the Polynesians actually did introduce the chicken to S. America? I suppose that pigs would have been harder to carry along, unless they took along some half-grown ones...
but I do remember reading that Polynesians did take pigs along with them in their canoes when they were exploring the ocean; pigs could sometimes smell out islands off in the distance, 'pointing out' the way... so I have to wonder just how big these Polynesian pigs were... I doubt they were as big as modern stockyard porkers... maybe more like the pet miniature pigs around today?
but I do remember reading that Polynesians did take pigs along with them in their canoes when they were exploring the ocean; pigs could sometimes smell out islands off in the distance, 'pointing out' the way... so I have to wonder just how big these Polynesian pigs were... I doubt they were as big as modern stockyard porkers... maybe more like the pet miniature pigs around today?
They had very large double hulled canoes. A medium voyaging canoe was 50 to 60 feet long, perhaps 15 or so feet in beam and could carry 24 people, stores, planting supplies, livestock etc.
The distances were not too great for the best mariners and navigators mankind has ever produced. look at the distances from the Tuamotu's to Easter Island or from the Marquesas to Hawaii. New Zealand is pretty out of the way as well.
And pigs start out pretty small.
The distances were not too great for the best mariners and navigators mankind has ever produced. look at the distances from the Tuamotu's to Easter Island or from the Marquesas to Hawaii. New Zealand is pretty out of the way as well.
And pigs start out pretty small.
Although I have not found the specifics, the references I have seen to the pig carried by Polynesian colonists is refered to as the "small black Polynesian pig". The current feral pig in Hawaii is a cross between this and the larger European varieties.
The Polynesian pig didn't actually make it to everywhere in Polynesia. Easter Island, the Polynesian settlement closest to the Americas, never had pigs, nor did New Zealand.
I tend to be of the Diamond "if it could have been domesticated, it was" camp. There are plenty of cases in which Native Americans had captive animals but were never successfully able to domesticate them. The Mayans bred stingless bees for honey, and Central American macaws bred for their feathers were traded as far north as Chaco Canyon. There's plenty of cases of exotic pets among Amazonian tribes, and in an anthropology course, I learned that some Pacific Northwest groups even raised large animals like wolves and bears (taken young).
I tend to be of the Diamond "if it could have been domesticated, it was" camp. There are plenty of cases in which Native Americans had captive animals but were never successfully able to domesticate them. The Mayans bred stingless bees for honey, and Central American macaws bred for their feathers were traded as far north as Chaco Canyon. There's plenty of cases of exotic pets among Amazonian tribes, and in an anthropology course, I learned that some Pacific Northwest groups even raised large animals like wolves and bears (taken young).
AmIndHistoryAuthor
Banned
Heck, pet wolves or dog wolf hybrids are still a bit popular as pets among Indians. Friend of mine has a pet hybrid. It takes dedication. Not giving it enough attention for even a few days can make it start to turn on him.