In my TL I used wild rice, and included the old and neglected Eastern Agricultural Complex. There's also Oca and Cassava in South America which could be imported and most likely would be.
Tame the Bison
- Thread starter Malta
- Start date
In my TL I used wild rice, and included the old and neglected Eastern Agricultural Complex. There's also Oca and Cassava in South America which could be imported and most likely would be.
I my case I am going by the Guns, Germs, and Steel hypothesis.
Also the importation of crops from South America is made problematic by the north-south axis of the Americas compared to the east-west axis of Eurasia. The climatic zones vary so much that the importation and adaption of food crops takes longer than it did in Eurasia.
twovultures
Donor
The changes needed to domesticate bison are not that unreasonable: they're the same genus as cows, so it's not unimaginable to say that they're domesticable. They need to be less ornery, but they also need to a. live in mixed-gender herds b. be perhaps a little more hierarchical and c. they need to be less prone to randomly deciding to run at top speed for miles at a time (which would make taming them for early farmers nigh impossible without horses).
I don't think the Mexican deserts need to be much of a barrier for them. Environments do change over time, and at one point the deserts were green enough to allow a massive southward migration of Nahua people. Domesticated bison brought to the southwest could be bred to be more desert-friendly, and good herders taking good care of them could bring them across the desert. I do agree that the valley of Mexico is likely to be their most extreme southward outpost of their presence, though.
The time that bison would be domesticated would depend on whether they are more like horses or like cattle for the people who domesticate them. According to my hobbyist farmer uncle it is possible to ride them, and they are fast and agile, so they may become riding beasts as much as meat and milk beasts. If they are cattle-like, they can be reasonably domesticated after 2,500 BC (when farming appeared in North America), if like horses, an earlier domestication is possible, somewhere between 5,000 and 2,500 BC would be reasonable.
As for zoonotics, Buffalo provide a number of nasty bacterial zoonoses including Lyme disease, TB, and Brucellosis. Buffalo transport could create the trade routes necessary to spread these diseases and keep them alive. I have not been able to find any literature on viral zoonotics that they pass to humans (though believe me, I looked), though them having a pox virus, parapox virus, or measles variant is not impossible. Although it hasn't happened OTL, the genetic changes that would make them domesticable in an alternate universe might cause butterflies that let them catch and carry a viral disease into North America, which they then pass on to humans.
I don't think the Mexican deserts need to be much of a barrier for them. Environments do change over time, and at one point the deserts were green enough to allow a massive southward migration of Nahua people. Domesticated bison brought to the southwest could be bred to be more desert-friendly, and good herders taking good care of them could bring them across the desert. I do agree that the valley of Mexico is likely to be their most extreme southward outpost of their presence, though.
The time that bison would be domesticated would depend on whether they are more like horses or like cattle for the people who domesticate them. According to my hobbyist farmer uncle it is possible to ride them, and they are fast and agile, so they may become riding beasts as much as meat and milk beasts. If they are cattle-like, they can be reasonably domesticated after 2,500 BC (when farming appeared in North America), if like horses, an earlier domestication is possible, somewhere between 5,000 and 2,500 BC would be reasonable.
As for zoonotics, Buffalo provide a number of nasty bacterial zoonoses including Lyme disease, TB, and Brucellosis. Buffalo transport could create the trade routes necessary to spread these diseases and keep them alive. I have not been able to find any literature on viral zoonotics that they pass to humans (though believe me, I looked), though them having a pox virus, parapox virus, or measles variant is not impossible. Although it hasn't happened OTL, the genetic changes that would make them domesticable in an alternate universe might cause butterflies that let them catch and carry a viral disease into North America, which they then pass on to humans.
Valdemar II
Banned
I personal think we have a somewhat good model for how a Amerindian plain society with domesticated bisons would look. The Masai and other pastorial African people could serve as model. We will likely see the tribe which domesticate them spread over a large territorium, leading to a massive die-off of the other language where they spread.
Of course the interesting development will be, when they make contact with agriculturalists. We could either see something like Africa, where agriculturalist and pastorialist often stay separate people, or something like in Europe and China where we ended up with agruculturalist whom happened to farm animals too.
Of course the interesting development will be, when they make contact with agriculturalists. We could either see something like Africa, where agriculturalist and pastorialist often stay separate people, or something like in Europe and China where we ended up with agruculturalist whom happened to farm animals too.
the problem with corn vs. wheat is mainly time, with 2 big ones: First, where humans were in the middle east pretty much since humans left Africa (and been around the wild ancestors of wheat and barley), humans were around corn for only 12,000 years or so, so humans had a much longer time to experiment with the Old World crops. Second, where wheat and barley were practically ready to go right off the bat for adaptation to farming, corn had to be selectively bred up in size first, and then acclimated to move north. If you really want to kickstart civilization in the New World, they need to be given some kind of large seeded grain plant comparable to wheat... add the tame buffalo to that, and you got a good start...
Dave nails it right here.
And besides for climatic changes to occur we will have to move the POD further and further back and keep the butterflies from effecting everything outside of the Americas until 1000 or 1492.
JMO, but its more interesting if you don't give the Americas and entirely new package--just tame buffalo, and see what ensues.
twovultures
Donor
It's pretty easy to keep butterflies out of the Old World, IMHO. Tundra will provide a pretty effective barrier for Buffalo, so it will keep butterflies from reaching Asia. Even if, by some miracle, Inuits on buffalo skin kayaks begin rafting into Siberia, the small and isolated populations there will probably not cause butterflies that will affect Korea, China, or Russia for centuries.
It's completely ASB beyond the point of suspended disbelief to have the appearance of buffalo rapidly develop Native American technology to the point where they could sail across the Atlantic. (Plug alert!) Unlike my own domesticable peccary timeline, I think that ITTL the viking explorers of Newfoundland will contend with pastoralists in Newfoundland. Pastoralists with small herds of less than perfectly healthy buffalo perhaps, but livestock nonetheless.
I'm just thinking, should they catch a disease from the Natives of Newfoundland and should somehow bring it back to Europe? That would be some bad shit.
I'll take a whack at it.
900CE - The Mississipian population explodes, sending Cadoan Cities far out, right up to the edge of the Forests. There, some Cadoans begin capturing beast of the plains for food. One in particular is shown to be quite adept at managing to survive in Captivity, while most of the other animals had died in the captivity, the Plains dogs, the badger, the prairie deer, died childless.
This animal was the bison. They kept breeding the bison, at first for meat, then some of the Village ne'er-do-wells begin riding them. In 1008, the first Buffalo walk into Cahokia.
The First Case of The Herder's Cough appeared in 1069, and the Mississipians died in Droves, approximately 20% of the Mississipian Population.
Continue if you want, I was just giving a springboard.
900CE - The Mississipian population explodes, sending Cadoan Cities far out, right up to the edge of the Forests. There, some Cadoans begin capturing beast of the plains for food. One in particular is shown to be quite adept at managing to survive in Captivity, while most of the other animals had died in the captivity, the Plains dogs, the badger, the prairie deer, died childless.
This animal was the bison. They kept breeding the bison, at first for meat, then some of the Village ne'er-do-wells begin riding them. In 1008, the first Buffalo walk into Cahokia.
The First Case of The Herder's Cough appeared in 1069, and the Mississipians died in Droves, approximately 20% of the Mississipian Population.
Continue if you want, I was just giving a springboard.
Actually I was thinking something much, much earlier namely the Hopewell or Adena Agriulturalists. 1,500BC is Bison become common Domesticated and use in Agricultre begins with increasing intensive useage of agriculture so by 100bc or so Agriculture is fully intensive (where by 500-1000bc this is so OTL) leading to a sophistication of culture and technological advancement 500-1000 years earlier then OTL.
Last edited:
1) No, they're not. Bison are "Bison bison" and cows are "Bos taurus".
2) so what. Horses and zebras are not only in the same genus (Equus), but are in the same subgenus (i.e. horses and zebras are closely related, asses, not quite so much). Still, zebras aren't domesticable.
Of which TB and Brucellosis are European diseases.
Eh, I tried.
I was under the impression it would be a recent thing, but apparently not. I'll revise it later, I have a serious headache.
twovultures
Donor
1. Bison can breed with cows, though, showing that they are close genetically.
2. I'm just saying that a domesticable cow-cousin is far less ASB than, say, a domesticable wombat. I'm not saying that Bison=cows so Bison=domesticable
TB has been found in ice age bison-they could bring it with them to the Americas. Constant exposure to bison over a period of a few millenia would naturally select Native Americans with a greater genetic resistance to bacterial disease.
It's almost impossible to find a bacterial disease you can become immunized too, but genetic factors can help people resist bacterial infection. The presence of bison herds would make at least some Native American groups a little more disease resistant.
TB wasn't what surged through the Amerindian populations, it was all the lovely viral diseases.
But TB resistance wouldn't be much beyond much shallower breaths (I mean, if you don't inhale it, or give time to latch in your lungs there is a lesser likely hood that you can catch it.
Based on Sickle Cell Enemia, said resistance will likely be defective even when the Europeans arrive.
twovultures
Donor
Resistance to bacterial disease (the genetics have more to do with developing the immune system than developing observable physical and behavioral changes) doesn't do much for the natives, but it does do a little bit. Tuberculosis was not a big killer, but it was (and for that matter, still is) a problem for Native Americans.