What is the earliest possible date that Native Americans (Pacific Northwest tribes) can reach Asia and create long term contact?

[HyperMuscularDemon]

This is a question designed to help me write my timeline (it is called When the Tlingit Embraced the Seas, and you can read it if you want to). What I want to know is this: If Native Americans from the Pacific Northwest had better seafaring technology and more advanced technology in general, what is the earliest possible date that Native Americans can reach Asia and start long term sustainable contact?

(For a little bit of background in naval technological evolution in my timeline)

250 AD: Basic outrigger is invented

505 AD: Catamaran is invented (along with farming and agroforestry)

715 AD; The sail is invented (along with the shovel)

(Minor spoiler: 735 AD; deliberate trade links are maintained)

So what is the earliest date that Native Americans can reach Asia and sustain long term contact, and what effects is this theoretical contact likely to have on both the Americas and Asia?

 

[Sekhmet_D]

Did they not come from Asia to start with?

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

Did they not come from Asia to start with?

I know, but I want Native Americans to recontact Asia.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Theoretically a lot earlier than what OP stated since all that's required is that the natives of Alaska independently domesticate reindeer and kickstart their society. Some of the same techniques like reindeer "fences" (a hunting tool for channeling reindeer herds into traps) are used among Athabaskan Indians just like they are used by Siberian peoples to hunt (wild) reindeer, and in Siberia that was probably a prelude to domestication. In my own TL, I postulated that selective maintenance of meadows and woodlands as reindeer pastures, favouring crops beneficial to both humans and reindeer like sweetvetch and reindeer lichens, could be a sort of proto-agriculture that in the hands of a more settled society like the Tlingit could lead down the road to actual agriculture.

However, let's be more conservative about the topic. At the time, I did not know that one theory on how and why reindeer were domesticated in Siberia around 1500-500 BC was that the ethnic groups may have done so by analogy of the people south and west of them who domesticated horses. So there was already a good example to follow and certain overlapping concepts. It is also the case that domestication is more to fit a society's needs rather than one that necessarily shapes a society--neither Siberian nor Sami reindeer (a separate domestication event) are truly domesticated like horses are, but more of a tame, self-sustaining population of animals that rarely interbreed with wild reindeer. But it may be possible that in the lack of other large animals and development of an agricultural society (which would be nice come the mid-1st millennium AD since Alaska too was affected by the Late Antique Little Ice Age and also had the problem of volcanic eruptions which could absolutely destroy salmon runs for 2-3 years), a truly domesticated form of reindeer might emerge. The fact the reindeer popuations would be naturally hemmed in by islands and steep mountains is all the better for encouraging true domestication (yes, reindeer can swim but they'd be easy to capture in the water).

I'll insert another mention to my TL that I postulated a larger, more complex Tlingit society might migrate northwest earlier, and one major driver of this would be the eruptions of Mount Churchill (one in the mid-2nd century AD, the other in the early-mid 9th century AD). These were two of the largest volcanic eruptions north of Mexico in the past 2,000 years, especially the second eruption which left ash deposits as far as northern Europe. It is almost certain that large-scale migrations of Athabaskan speakers to the south was caused by this, so it's feasible that a Tlingit migration west might occur as well. IIRC this is also around the same time as the Dena'ina people of the Anchorage area were established in their homeland, which suggests that area was affected enough to damage salmon runs and poison game animals. I envisioned coastal Tlingit people preferring islands off the coast, but it's possible they could become a lot more established. This would establish a tradition of settling islands and cultural knowledge for how to deal with those sorts of scenarios that arise from contacting new groups of people--you'd end up with a mixture of trade and warfare among the various Tlingit kin groups (usually called "houses" in the anthropological literature because they customarily lived in a single longhouse) and tribes and those already living there which would eventually lead to a fullscale assimilation.

To say nothing about sailing tech--constantly sailing back and forth between, say, Kodiak Island and the southeastern islands of Alaska would be a great driver of naval tech and innovations in navigation. I'd rely on Norse sailing as a template since they were without a doubt the finest mariners of Arctic seas in any premodern society. You'd see similar tech like the horizon disk (a board used to determine latitude based on the sun's position) and sun compasses (certain stones that naturally polarise light hence making it possible to determine the position of the sun on overcast days). It doesn't appear however there are any sources of Iceland spar or iolite (minerals used by Norsemen) in Alaska or western Canada, but tourmaline and beryl might substitute and in any case were already trade goods OTL. Since the best sources are fairly remote from the Tlingit homeland, I can definitely imagine these stones being important trade goods--conveniently, there are high-quality beryls and tourmalines on the Seward Peninsula which is also one of the only sources of tin in all northwestern America (the other being northwestern Nevada). I should note that given how closely guarded navigation skills were in all cultures and the Tlingit custom of houses owning the rights to concepts, navigators would become a very tight-knit group.

There's also the northeast Asian side to consider. They had a so-called "partial" bronze age and "partial" iron age that was based almost entirely on trade, but they never really gained the skills needed to make bronze/iron tools themselves and knowledge of making stone tools was still quite common into historic times. The dates for those are around late 2nd millennium BC and late 1st millennium BC respectively. So I'd say based on all the evidence, even at most optimistic you would not have regular contact before 1 AD and probably not until a generation or two after the first Mount Churchill eruption, so maybe 200 AD. And more realistically probably not until 1000 AD or even later.

Personally I don't think they'd ever reach past Kamchatka or the northernmost Kurils, because that is both very far from home, the local Itelmen people are relatively dense in number (and to the north are the Koryaks, also fairly dense and also reindeer herders), and south of there both the Ainu and Nivkh maintained a large trading network that connected with Japan, China, and the Asian steppe. There's no reason to go past there since from an Amerindian perspective the people there are rich in trade goods and willing to pay for their own trade goods, nor would the locals be inclined to let them.

 

[Hearkener]

Personally I don't think they'd ever reach past Kamchatka or the northernmost Kurils, because that is both very far from home, the local Itelmen people are relatively dense in number (and to the north are the Koryaks, also fairly dense and also reindeer herders), and south of there both the Ainu and Nivkh maintained a large trading network that connected with Japan, China, and the Asian steppe. There's no reason to go past there since from an Amerindian perspective the people there are rich in trade goods and willing to pay for their own trade goods, nor would the locals be inclined to let them.

And yet, the Dené-Yeniseian languages made it all the way to Inner Siberia, according to recent linguistic data.

 

[Arkenfolm]

And yet, the Dené-Yeniseian languages made it all the way to Inner Siberia, according to recent linguistic data.

That's a totally different scenario because Yeniseians were among the dominant tribes of the Xiongnu confederation, although they were probably far more widespread anyway even centuries before. While there may have been some regular contact with Alaska during (and before, evidently) the era of the Xiongnu, it was probably mediated by a now-vanished ethnic group living in easternmost Chukotka who were eventually absorbed into the Proto-Athabaskan population. It appears there was a lot of population migration and replacement in the years 100 AD - 1300 AD in most of Chukotka and the ancestors of the Siberian Inuit/Yupik once lived closer to Kamchatka.

That scenario is a little different than maintaining a competitive trade network across a vast distance of ocean AND against people who have local knowledge of sea conditions and safe harbours. The Ainu were very good long-distance traders, and presumably the people they displaced in the northern Kurils (probably Nivkh relatives of Okhotsk culture affinity) were not so bad at it either since there's evidence of trade (and it possibly helped wipe them out since it spread disease into what had been a fairly isolated area).

Plotting it on a map, I can see that a course relatively close to the coastlines is about 6,200 km from Southeastern Alaska to northeastern Hokkaido. That's about the same distance from Lebanon to Britain, which was probably the most remote place the Phoenicians visited with any regularity (and that assumes the "Cassiterides" actually was Cornwall or Britain, otherwise its a lot smaller distance). Actual Phoenician trade posts did not exist much further than southern Portugal or central Morocco. And since there already were existing Ainu and Nivkh trade networks in the Sea of Okhotsk that controlled trade with China and Japan, and control of these routes was competitive enough to cause various tribal migrations and even in the late 13th century enlisting the Mongols themselves as aid, I think the evidence suggests southern Kamchatka/northern Kurils as the stopping point for a hypothetical Tlingit interaction sphere and a vev

The only longer distance I'm aware of might be the Indian Ocean trading network, which would be about 7,500 km from Malaysia to modern Mozambique, a distance which would be akin to Southeastern Alaska to central Japan (Kinai). But most of the islands settled were extremely undeveloped, if not entirely uninhabited before Austronesian people showed up (i.e. Madagascar where East Barito-speaking sailors colonised the place, seemingly with some connection to a patron state). That's rather different compared to Epi-Jomon and other nearby north Asian cultures who would be at the very least just as advanced materially and fairly numerous.

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

Theoretically a lot earlier than what OP stated since all that's required is that the natives of Alaska independently domesticate reindeer and kickstart their society. Some of the same techniques like reindeer "fences" (a hunting tool for channeling reindeer herds into traps) are used among Athabaskan Indians just like they are used by Siberian peoples to hunt (wild) reindeer, and in Siberia that was probably a prelude to domestication. In my own TL, I postulated that selective maintenance of meadows and woodlands as reindeer pastures, favouring crops beneficial to both humans and reindeer like sweetvetch and reindeer lichens, could be a sort of proto-agriculture that in the hands of a more settled society like the Tlingit could lead down the road to actual agriculture.

However, let's be more conservative about the topic. At the time, I did not know that one theory on how and why reindeer were domesticated in Siberia around 1500-500 BC was that the ethnic groups may have done so by analogy of the people south and west of them who domesticated horses. So there was already a good example to follow and certain overlapping concepts. It is also the case that domestication is more to fit a society's needs rather than one that necessarily shapes a society--neither Siberian nor Sami reindeer (a separate domestication event) are truly domesticated like horses are, but more of a tame, self-sustaining population of animals that rarely interbreed with wild reindeer. But it may be possible that in the lack of other large animals and development of an agricultural society (which would be nice come the mid-1st millennium AD since Alaska too was affected by the Late Antique Little Ice Age and also had the problem of volcanic eruptions which could absolutely destroy salmon runs for 2-3 years), a truly domesticated form of reindeer might emerge. The fact the reindeer popuations would be naturally hemmed in by islands and steep mountains is all the better for encouraging true domestication (yes, reindeer can swim but they'd be easy to capture in the water).

I'll insert another mention to my TL that I postulated a larger, more complex Tlingit society might migrate northwest earlier, and one major driver of this would be the eruptions of Mount Churchill (one in the mid-2nd century AD, the other in the early-mid 9th century AD). These were two of the largest volcanic eruptions north of Mexico in the past 2,000 years, especially the second eruption which left ash deposits as far as northern Europe. It is almost certain that large-scale migrations of Athabaskan speakers to the south was caused by this, so it's feasible that a Tlingit migration west might occur as well. IIRC this is also around the same time as the Dena'ina people of the Anchorage area were established in their homeland, which suggests that area was affected enough to damage salmon runs and poison game animals. I envisioned coastal Tlingit people preferring islands off the coast, but it's possible they could become a lot more established. This would establish a tradition of settling islands and cultural knowledge for how to deal with those sorts of scenarios that arise from contacting new groups of people--you'd end up with a mixture of trade and warfare among the various Tlingit kin groups (usually called "houses" in the anthropological literature because they customarily lived in a single longhouse) and tribes and those already living there which would eventually lead to a fullscale assimilation.

To say nothing about sailing tech--constantly sailing back and forth between, say, Kodiak Island and the southeastern islands of Alaska would be a great driver of naval tech and innovations in navigation. I'd rely on Norse sailing as a template since they were without a doubt the finest mariners of Arctic seas in any premodern society. You'd see similar tech like the horizon disk (a board used to determine latitude based on the sun's position) and sun compasses (certain stones that naturally polarise light hence making it possible to determine the position of the sun on overcast days). It doesn't appear however there are any sources of Iceland spar or iolite (minerals used by Norsemen) in Alaska or western Canada, but tourmaline and beryl might substitute and in any case were already trade goods OTL. Since the best sources are fairly remote from the Tlingit homeland, I can definitely imagine these stones being important trade goods--conveniently, there are high-quality beryls and tourmalines on the Seward Peninsula which is also one of the only sources of tin in all northwestern America (the other being northwestern Nevada). I should note that given how closely guarded navigation skills were in all cultures and the Tlingit custom of houses owning the rights to concepts, navigators would become a very tight-knit group.

There's also the northeast Asian side to consider. They had a so-called "partial" bronze age and "partial" iron age that was based almost entirely on trade, but they never really gained the skills needed to make bronze/iron tools themselves and knowledge of making stone tools was still quite common into historic times. The dates for those are around late 2nd millennium BC and late 1st millennium BC respectively. So I'd say based on all the evidence, even at most optimistic you would not have regular contact before 1 AD and probably not until a generation or two after the first Mount Churchill eruption, so maybe 200 AD. And more realistically probably not until 1000 AD or even later.

Personally I don't think they'd ever reach past Kamchatka or the northernmost Kurils, because that is both very far from home, the local Itelmen people are relatively dense in number (and to the north are the Koryaks, also fairly dense and also reindeer herders), and south of there both the Ainu and Nivkh maintained a large trading network that connected with Japan, China, and the Asian steppe. There's no reason to go past there since from an Amerindian perspective the people there are rich in trade goods and willing to pay for their own trade goods, nor would the locals be inclined to let them.

Wow! Thanks for replying. This reply is excellent and very skillfully written. However, I will point out that my timeline starts on the spot of OTL Juneau, on the Alexander Archipelago, which provides a lot of experience for the Tlingit tribes to get used to marine traveling.

Plus, the Alexander Archipelago is close to the Haida tribe, who were well known to raid as far down as California (I think).

If the Haida gain the outrigger canoe, and all the other naval technologies, then in my opinion they would be intergrated into the newly made Pacific Northwest trade routes, and spread those trade routes all over the West Coast of America and maybe even inland (you can share your opinion on what the Haida would do).

Regarding NorthEast Asia, is it possible for the Tlingit traders and merchants to go even farther than Kamakatcha and the north part of the Kuril Islands?

Given that the Ainu have lived in the Kuril Islands and a part of southern Kamakatcha, it could be possible for the Tlingit traders and merchants to learn to speak the language of the Ainu reasonably well, and learn of the rest of the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, and maybe even Hokkaido and Manchuria?

This could lead to the Tlingit traders and merchants leading trade expeditions to those areas, which in turn could lead to further trade contact with Asia, which could possibly have interesting effects down the road, especially if the Mongol empire shows up and/or Japan turns a interest to the islands of the Ainu (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and Hokkaido).

 

[Arkenfolm]

Wow! Thanks for replying. This reply is excellent and very skillfully written. However, I will point out that my timeline starts on the spot of OTL Juneau, on the Alexander Archipelago, which provides a lot of experience for the Tlingit tribes to get used to marine traveling.

Plus, the Alexander Archipelago is close to the Haida tribe, who were well known to raid as far down as California (I think).

I'd say the big skill necessary to develop is open ocean navigation, since hugging the coast as the Tlingit often did means slower travel times. Regular trade across open ocean to an island like Kodiak would help those skills evolve.

The Haida raids did not occur until the 19th century when they had guns and the people in northern California did not (and these were very rare events). In precolonial times they didn't travel much past Vancouver Island. That's not to say the Pacific Northwest was a peaceful place since the oldest evidence of fortifications goes back 2,500 years IIRC and there's several 1,000+ year old archaeological sites that correspond with oral histories regarding battles and massacres, but there wasn't as much long distance raiding or trading.

If the Haida gain the outrigger canoe, and all the other naval technologies, then in my opinion they would be intergrated into the newly made Pacific Northwest trade routes, and spread those trade routes all over the West Coast of America and maybe even inland (you can share your opinion on what the Haida would do).

Probably. But I wouldn't say inland since "Haida" is more just a linguistic grouping than anything. Haida, Tlingit, and Coast Tsimshian societies all shared so many common elements which based on oral record seem to have evolved together and extensively borrowed from each other that language is the easiest way to say where one society began and the other ended. So Haida expanding inland would mean they'd have to marry into Tsimshian groups and would end up speaking Tsimshian (especially since IIRC all three cultures are matrilineal).

Regarding NorthEast Asia, is it possible for the Tlingit traders and merchants to go even farther than Kamakatcha and the north part of the Kuril Islands?

It is possible, but would not amount to much for the reasons I said--there already is a pre-existing trade network there in which the people involved possess similar, if not superior, technology. The Ainu and Nivkh have centuries of experience as middlemen, and would not want to turn over that role to newcomers. There is also going to be a limited market for whatever goods the Tlingit could get from it because the Alaskan coast is very rugged and can only support a given number of people. Using the relevant example of medieval Norway with its similar climate and environment, that can't be much more than 500,000 at most from the southernmost corner of the modern state to Attu Island (and in many areas would be very fragile since high-quality woods like yellow cedar and Sitka spruce don't grow well/at all so would need to be imported). It also really doesn't help that the Tlingit are more vulnerable to Old World diseases than the Ainu or Nivkh and I can't imagine spending weeks and weeks sailing very cold seas rowing a boat and messing with the sails does anything good for your immune system.

That's part of why I favour southern Kamchatka for this sort of trans-oceanic trade route, since it would be akin to the role the city-states of the Malay Peninsula played in the Indian Ocean trading network. Although there's obviously differences since unlike in Malaysia where strong states like the Khmer or Chola or Javanese states were actively involved in manipulating it, there's no local hegemon since Japan and China are too far away and the population density is too low. Now yes, large communities of Persians and Arabs did establish themselves in China, but that may be due to there not being enough Chinese overseas trade to account for the huge demand in both China and the Middle East (two incredibly wealthy regions with a huge population) so Arabs and Persians complemented those roles. That might be the longest medieval trade route by distance, and I do admit there's probably factors I'm not aware of involved. I'm just not sure it's plausible to have those factors in this scenario, even with some insane West Coast Indian alt-agriculture wank where they have an equivalent level of economic development and depth of time as the Old World.

Given that the Ainu have lived in the Kuril Islands and a part of southern Kamakatcha, it could be possible for the Tlingit traders and merchants to learn to speak the language of the Ainu reasonably well, and learn of the rest of the Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, and maybe even Hokkaido and Manchuria?

That was actually not true until the 14th century since the northern coast of Hokkaido and the Kurils were inhabited by Nivkh speaking people of the Ohkotsk culture. They may have been the first group called "Kurumisu" (which seems to just be an Ainu term referring to people on distant islands). They seem to have died out because the medieval Ainu were very expansionistic, probably related to both immigration from Honshu and in attempts to secure the valuable trade between China and Japan (and to a degree Korea plus the Jurchens and other Tungusic peoples). The ones in the northern Kurils (their last holdout) seem to have greatly declined in the 14th century, probably as a result of epidemics caused by increased trade which undermined their ability to sustain themselves and meant by 1500 or so they were assimilated by the Ainu (but still distinct enough that the earliest European explorers commented how the natives of the northern Kurils were different in appearance than the southern Kurils). The specific culture you're speaking of did not emerge until around 1600.

This could lead to the Tlingit traders and merchants leading trade expeditions to those areas, which in turn could lead to further trade contact with Asia, which could possibly have interesting effects down the road, especially if the Mongol empire shows up and/or Japan turns a interest to the islands of the Ainu (Sakhalin, the Kuril Islands, and Hokkaido).

The Mongols did invade Sakhalin OTL to protect their Nivkh vassals. It was a very lengthy campaign mostly involving said Nivkh vassals supported by a few ethnic Mongols and Jurchens, but successful. They even built a small fort at Cape Crillon, the southern tip of the island. If there was a source of valuable goods like ivory coming from further northwest, they'd probably just add it to the tribute the Nivkh were required to send them.

On the other hand, it would support the idea of a two-front campaign against Japan. This doesn't seem to have ever been proposed and likely only existed in the imagination of Japan's elite--the Mongol attack on Sakhalin probably contributed to a series of Ainu uprisings in northernmost Tokoku that lasted sixty years by disrupting their trade and denying an outlet for expansion, and this was interpreted by some as a sign of impending disaster and war with the Mongols. The logistical preparations for the campaign and securing Hokkaido (probably with the aid of the aforementioned Okhotsk culture Nivkh) would be useful in increasing access to trade and also benefit powerful Mongol elites (Hong Dagu and his clan plus the powerful descendents of Genghis Khan's brothers).

But I'd say that even your broadest possible North American trade route is just going to be another source of goods the Mongols (or whoever rules China) already get. I can see ivory, jade, antler/deerskin, and furs being the main goods, which are valuable but nothing new--it's just an additional source. More important for developing that corner of Asia would be the logistical preparations for a two-front campaign against Japan which would involve repopulating northeastern Korea and the coast of modern Primorsky Krai (it seems to have been fairly marginal compared to a few centuries prior to the Mongol conquest) plus a greater densities of forts and farms in the Amur Basin in general.

As far as Japan is concerned, they weren't really interested in those northern lands since they already were getting everything they needed via trade and there was always a powerful local family mediating that trade like the Abe clan, the subsequent Northern Fujiwara clan, the Kamakura/Muromachi era Andou clan, and lastly the Kakizaki/Matsumae clan (the first three were assuredly of partial Ainu descent). So basically those clans would perhaps be slightly wealthier, but not enough to shift any power balance within Japan or necessarily get them interested in northern expansion.

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

I'd say the big skill necessary to develop is open ocean navigation, since hugging the coast as the Tlingit often did means slower travel times. Regular trade across open ocean to an island like Kodiak would help those skills evolve.

The Haida raids did not occur until the 19th century when they had guns and the people in northern California did not (and these were very rare events). In precolonial times they didn't travel much past Vancouver Island. That's not to say the Pacific Northwest was a peaceful place since the oldest evidence of fortifications goes back 2,500 years IIRC and there's several 1,000+ year old archaeological sites that correspond with oral histories regarding battles and massacres, but there wasn't as much long distance raiding or trading.

Probably. But I wouldn't say inland since "Haida" is more just a linguistic grouping than anything. Haida, Tlingit, and Coast Tsimshian societies all shared so many common elements which based on oral record seem to have evolved together and extensively borrowed from each other that language is the easiest way to say where one society began and the other ended. So Haida expanding inland would mean they'd have to marry into Tsimshian groups and would end up speaking Tsimshian (especially since IIRC all three cultures are matrilineal).

It is possible, but would not amount to much for the reasons I said--there already is a pre-existing trade network there in which the people involved possess similar, if not superior, technology. The Ainu and Nivkh have centuries of experience as middlemen, and would not want to turn over that role to newcomers. There is also going to be a limited market for whatever goods the Tlingit could get from it because the Alaskan coast is very rugged and can only support a given number of people. Using the relevant example of medieval Norway with its similar climate and environment, that can't be much more than 500,000 at most from the southernmost corner of the modern state to Attu Island (and in many areas would be very fragile since high-quality woods like yellow cedar and Sitka spruce don't grow well/at all so would need to be imported). It also really doesn't help that the Tlingit are more vulnerable to Old World diseases than the Ainu or Nivkh and I can't imagine spending weeks and weeks sailing very cold seas rowing a boat and messing with the sails does anything good for your immune system.

That's part of why I favour southern Kamchatka for this sort of trans-oceanic trade route, since it would be akin to the role the city-states of the Malay Peninsula played in the Indian Ocean trading network. Although there's obviously differences since unlike in Malaysia where strong states like the Khmer or Chola or Javanese states were actively involved in manipulating it, there's no local hegemon since Japan and China are too far away and the population density is too low. Now yes, large communities of Persians and Arabs did establish themselves in China, but that may be due to there not being enough Chinese overseas trade to account for the huge demand in both China and the Middle East (two incredibly wealthy regions with a huge population) so Arabs and Persians complemented those roles. That might be the longest medieval trade route by distance, and I do admit there's probably factors I'm not aware of involved. I'm just not sure it's plausible to have those factors in this scenario, even with some insane West Coast Indian alt-agriculture wank where they have an equivalent level of economic development and depth of time as the Old World.

That was actually not true until the 14th century since the northern coast of Hokkaido and the Kurils were inhabited by Nivkh speaking people of the Ohkotsk culture. They may have been the first group called "Kurumisu" (which seems to just be an Ainu term referring to people on distant islands). They seem to have died out because the medieval Ainu were very expansionistic, probably related to both immigration from Honshu and in attempts to secure the valuable trade between China and Japan (and to a degree Korea plus the Jurchens and other Tungusic peoples). The ones in the northern Kurils (their last holdout) seem to have greatly declined in the 14th century, probably as a result of epidemics caused by increased trade which undermined their ability to sustain themselves and meant by 1500 or so they were assimilated by the Ainu (but still distinct enough that the earliest European explorers commented how the natives of the northern Kurils were different in appearance than the southern Kurils). The specific culture you're speaking of did not emerge until around 1600.

The Mongols did invade Sakhalin OTL to protect their Nivkh vassals. It was a very lengthy campaign mostly involving said Nivkh vassals supported by a few ethnic Mongols and Jurchens, but successful. They even built a small fort at Cape Crillon, the southern tip of the island. If there was a source of valuable goods like ivory coming from further northwest, they'd probably just add it to the tribute the Nivkh were required to send them.

On the other hand, it would support the idea of a two-front campaign against Japan. This doesn't seem to have ever been proposed and likely only existed in the imagination of Japan's elite--the Mongol attack on Sakhalin probably contributed to a series of Ainu uprisings in northernmost Tokoku that lasted sixty years by disrupting their trade and denying an outlet for expansion, and this was interpreted by some as a sign of impending disaster and war with the Mongols. The logistical preparations for the campaign and securing Hokkaido (probably with the aid of the aforementioned Okhotsk culture Nivkh) would be useful in increasing access to trade and also benefit powerful Mongol elites (Hong Dagu and his clan plus the powerful descendents of Genghis Khan's brothers).

But I'd say that even your broadest possible North American trade route is just going to be another source of goods the Mongols (or whoever rules China) already get. I can see ivory, jade, antler/deerskin, and furs being the main goods, which are valuable but nothing new--it's just an additional source. More important for developing that corner of Asia would be the logistical preparations for a two-front campaign against Japan which would involve repopulating northeastern Korea and the coast of modern Primorsky Krai (it seems to have been fairly marginal compared to a few centuries prior to the Mongol conquest) plus a greater densities of forts and farms in the Amur Basin in general.

As far as Japan is concerned, they weren't really interested in those northern lands since they already were getting everything they needed via trade and there was always a powerful local family mediating that trade like the Abe clan, the subsequent Northern Fujiwara clan, the Kamakura/Muromachi era Andou clan, and lastly the Kakizaki/Matsumae clan (the first three were assuredly of partial Ainu descent). So basically those clans would perhaps be slightly wealthier, but not enough to shift any power balance within Japan or necessarily get them interested in northern expansion.

Once again, a great reply. What sort of goods would be traded along such a hypothetical trade route from the Pacific Northwest to Northeast Asia, and could it include various crops which could filter back to the Tlingit tribes and other Native Americans? About the Kuril Islands being inhabited by the Nikvh before the Ainu expansion, if the Tlingit traders and merchants learn to speak the language of the Nikvh reasonably well, or at least passably well, then a incentive could exist to go exploring further along in Asia and start trading with the Ainu and other Nikvh, gaining various crops of the Ainu, especially if the Tlingit traders arrive some time before the 14th century, when the Nikvh started to decline from epidemics, although that could spread epidemics to the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Also, given that historically Japanese fishermen have been driven across the Pacific sea and survived, only to land in the hold of Native Americans (in 1834, one such case occurred with the Makah tribe), there could be a increased desire to explore more in Asia for where these strangers came from if the Native Americans recognize the valuable goods of the Japanese fishermen. (Considering these alt Native Americans would be more advanced, it could be likely). Also, if the Japanese fishermen are helped by the Native Americans with advanced technology to return home, then knowledge of the Pacific Northwest could spread to Japan, which could potentially lead to Japanese expeditions discovering America and parts of Northeast Asia.

 

[Arkenfolm]

Once again, a great reply. What sort of goods would be traded along such a hypothetical trade route from the Pacific Northwest to Northeast Asia, and could it include various crops which could filter back to the Tlingit tribes and other Native Americans?

Depends when and where. I don't think you'd see many ships sailing the vast distance between Cape Lopatka in southern Kamchatka and any part of mainland Alaska. Tlingit trading posts there would likely receive the same goods the Ainu received--rice, sake, paper, and for more valuable goods, silk, armour, lacquerware, iron tools (pots, knives, axes, etc.), and weapons (katanas). The less valuable goods would be used locally to feed the trade post, the more valuable goods would be sent onward and sold in Alaska. Long distance rice trade isn't really feasible IMO since it takes up precious space for other cargo, and there's very little chance it would ever reach an area far enough south for rice to grow.

It is however worth noting that in the Middle Ages, the Ainu farmed for some of their nutrition (mostly buckwheat and a few hardy millet species), and raised pigs as far north as the southern Kurils. Cereals like millet or buckwheat are pretty useful for a society since few of the Pacific Northwest's indigenous plants are cereals, and pigs are also good because they are eat almost anything. Unfortunately, Ainu agriculture was not very high yielding, but based on Hokkaido's climate I am certain that parts of Southern Alaska could probably sustain at least some yields from that.

About the Kuril Islands being inhabited by the Nikvh before the Ainu expansion, if the Tlingit traders and merchants learn to speak the language of the Nikvh reasonably well, or at least passably well, then a incentive could exist to go exploring further along in Asia and start trading with the Ainu and other Nikvh, gaining various crops of the Ainu, especially if the Tlingit traders arrive some time before the 14th century, when the Nikvh started to decline from epidemics, although that could spread epidemics to the Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest. Also, given that historically Japanese fishermen have been driven across the Pacific sea and survived, only to land in the hold of Native Americans (in 1834, one such case occurred with the Makah tribe), there could be a increased desire to explore more in Asia for where these strangers came from if the Native Americans recognize the valuable goods of the Japanese fishermen. (Considering these alt Native Americans would be more advanced, it could be likely).

This topic actually got me to revisit the literature on that, and it seems many landed in the Aleutians. An Aleut chief on Attu who was around 70 years old claimed he saw three within in his lifetime for instance. The other high density areas of shipwrecks was far to the south on Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. Not necessarily in the traditional Tlingit country.

But there's a few problems, with the biggest being that the ships were swept out to sea because they were unseaworthy but were forced into long distance trading due to the Tokugawa Shogunate's sakoku policy. The Shogunate mandated specific designs on larger ships used for trade in order to prevent captains from sailing them to other countries (which was illegal), and these designs made them not suitable for open ocean and liable to suffer heavy damage in open sea conditions. This was not a factor prior to the sakoku policy in the 1630s. The total effect of this was to cause a greater likelihood ships would be swept out to sea, meaning extrapolating the rate of shipwrecks after the 1630s to before the 1630s means an overestimation of the number of ships from Japan reaching North America. However, it does seem likely that it still happened, just at a reduced rate. I also assume that it definitely was rare (if not unheard of) prior to the 8th century when Japan expanded northward and began regular trade with Hokkaido and northern Asia through places like Akita Castle and Tosa Port plus of course the need to ship rice to and from northern/eastern Japan, so the people claiming it happened since 500 AD don't have much good evidence.

The other problem is that those ships weren't exactly laden with valuable goods. I assume it is possible that a Japanese ship bound for trade with the Ainu might contain valuable lacquerware, silk, swords, or armour, but that depends it being en route to there, not returning from there, and it's certain that in a TL with more advanced Pacific Northwest Indians they'd be more important. However, many of the goods they brought back were simply furs and salted fish (Japanese trade in Sakhalin used as a means to import Chinese goods from Ainu middlemen was a 16th century development IIRC), so not exactly valuable to people who live in a land full of fur-bearing animals and where salted fish is easily obtained. Obviously there's a 0% chance any sake would survive on a ship adrift at sea with sailors who believe death is imminent. A lot of the ships were most valuable because there were iron nails in their frames which could be hammered into strong iron points or made into beads. I suppose this is valuable if you propose the natives do not have native iron working, but if they do than it's meaningless.

Overall I don't think strange foreign shipwrecks would cause many people to go exploring, especially since few would occur in a place where people actually are doing the exploring.

Also, if the Japanese fishermen are helped by the Native Americans with advanced technology to return home, then knowledge of the Pacific Northwest could spread to Japan, which could potentially lead to Japanese expeditions discovering America and parts of Northeast Asia.

Why would they do that? If you land in their territory, you are their slave now (if they don't kill you for using their resources without permission). Why would they want their slave to leave them instead of doing something more productive like reproducing with a female slave to give the owner more slaves, or maybe sacrificing their exotic foreign slave at the next potlatch or other social event?

Actual Japanese exploration seems difficult as ever, since you have to explain why they aren't just content with buying Tlingit goods like jade (which I should note is only valuable to the Japanese as something to sell in China) or (walrus) ivory from the Ainu or Nivkh.

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

Depends when and where. I don't think you'd see many ships sailing the vast distance between Cape Lopatka in southern Kamchatka and any part of mainland Alaska. Tlingit trading posts there would likely receive the same goods the Ainu received--rice, sake, paper, and for more valuable goods, silk, armour, lacquerware, iron tools (pots, knives, axes, etc.), and weapons (katanas). The less valuable goods would be used locally to feed the trade post, the more valuable goods would be sent onward and sold in Alaska. Long distance rice trade isn't really feasible IMO since it takes up precious space for other cargo, and there's very little chance it would ever reach an area far enough south for rice to grow.

It is however worth noting that in the Middle Ages, the Ainu farmed for some of their nutrition (mostly buckwheat and a few hardy millet species), and raised pigs as far north as the southern Kurils. Cereals like millet or buckwheat are pretty useful for a society since few of the Pacific Northwest's indigenous plants are cereals, and pigs are also good because they are eat almost anything. Unfortunately, Ainu agriculture was not very high yielding, but based on Hokkaido's climate I am certain that parts of Southern Alaska could probably sustain at least some yields from that.

This topic actually got me to revisit the literature on that, and it seems many landed in the Aleutians. An Aleut chief on Attu who was around 70 years old claimed he saw three within in his lifetime for instance. The other high density areas of shipwrecks was far to the south on Vancouver Island and Haida Gwaii. Not necessarily in the traditional Tlingit country.

But there's a few problems, with the biggest being that the ships were swept out to sea because they were unseaworthy but were forced into long distance trading due to the Tokugawa Shogunate's sakoku policy. The Shogunate mandated specific designs on larger ships used for trade in order to prevent captains from sailing them to other countries (which was illegal), and these designs made them not suitable for open ocean and liable to suffer heavy damage in open sea conditions. This was not a factor prior to the sakoku policy in the 1630s. The total effect of this was to cause a greater likelihood ships would be swept out to sea, meaning extrapolating the rate of shipwrecks after the 1630s to before the 1630s means an overestimation of the number of ships from Japan reaching North America. However, it does seem likely that it still happened, just at a reduced rate. I also assume that it definitely was rare (if not unheard of) prior to the 8th century when Japan expanded northward and began regular trade with Hokkaido and northern Asia through places like Akita Castle and Tosa Port plus of course the need to ship rice to and from northern/eastern Japan, so the people claiming it happened since 500 AD don't have much good evidence.

The other problem is that those ships weren't exactly laden with valuable goods. I assume it is possible that a Japanese ship bound for trade with the Ainu might contain valuable lacquerware, silk, swords, or armour, but that depends it being en route to there, not returning from there, and it's certain that in a TL with more advanced Pacific Northwest Indians they'd be more important. However, many of the goods they brought back were simply furs and salted fish (Japanese trade in Sakhalin used as a means to import Chinese goods from Ainu middlemen was a 16th century development IIRC), so not exactly valuable to people who live in a land full of fur-bearing animals and where salted fish is easily obtained. Obviously there's a 0% chance any sake would survive on a ship adrift at sea with sailors who believe death is imminent. A lot of the ships were most valuable because there were iron nails in their frames which could be hammered into strong iron points or made into beads. I suppose this is valuable if you propose the natives do not have native iron working, but if they do than it's meaningless.

Overall I don't think strange foreign shipwrecks would cause many people to go exploring, especially since few would occur in a place where people actually are doing the exploring.

Why would they do that? If you land in their territory, you are their slave now (if they don't kill you for using their resources without permission). Why would they want their slave to leave them instead of doing something more productive like reproducing with a female slave to give the owner more slaves, or maybe sacrificing their exotic foreign slave at the next potlatch or other social event?

Actual Japanese exploration seems difficult as ever, since you have to explain why they aren't just content with buying Tlingit goods like jade (which I should note is only valuable to the Japanese as something to sell in China) or (walrus) ivory from the Ainu or Nivkh.

Great reply. How far do you think millet, buckwheat, and pigs can spread across the Pacific Northwest? Maybe into the states of Washington, Oregon, and California and even the Pueblo world, where it will be a game changer in all those areas. I can easily see the Costal Salish tribes eagerly adopting the pig, buckwheat, and millet, along with the California peoples and the Pueblo tribes.