Recent content by Anson

Perhaps what you can get, so that there aren't too many butterflies, the Uyghurs to still end up in the Tarim Badin, but that they assimilate and merge with the Tocharian (or did someone come in between these two?). It would be a histoey like the Bulgarians.

I think this is a very cool idea. I've always been interested in the potential of Australian aboriginal crop domestications as well. If contact with Indonesia occurs, and maybe even south India around the 9th century, when Indian trafitr ships regularly came down to the archipelago, then...

I've been recently thinking about contact between South Indians and Australia and Papua during the expansion of Indian/Hindu culture to Southeast Asia, roughly around the 5th century onward. I was wondering if winds and currents prevented them from further exploring south and east to Australia...

I had thinking similar to this. My thoughts were that since the American Southwest already had agriculture centred from maize, the people in the main Colorado river basin might also adapt agriculture but for nipa/ palmer's grass. So I also think that California could have somehow also become...

Well, nipa is amazing but it might not be so unique after all. Around that region in northwest Mexico the Seri people ate the grain produced by the eelgrass, which is probably the only crop potential to come entirely from saltwater. Apparently historical explorers noted that nipa grain was...

But the Japanese evidently also had an abundance of silver and the Spanish in the Philippines never made attempts of aggression against them. Actually, in thinking about the Japanese example... I think something analogous to the Japanese adaptation and mass reproduction of Portuguese handheld...

Was it really that easy for Spain to conquer much of Peru though? It almost seems like it was pure dumb luck for Pizarro's success. His earlier expeditions were not very fruitful. The terrain and disease chipped away at his resources. How easy was it to get naval expeditions across Panama and...

I was thinking about a scenario where Tawantinsuyu survives conquest and becomes analagous to China as a lucrative place for trade. So, perhaps Pizarro's conquest of Peru is a big failure and the Huáscar-Atahualpa civil war is either quickly resolved or never occurs, and the elites realize that...

I mentioned this in my first post in this thread. The difference between China and Japan in this regard is due to the Manchurian cultural influence, and even then, I believe furs were valuable mostly due to their use in ranking for mandarins. So pre-Qing/Manchu influence, China would be the same...

As I mentioned earlier, I think we should rethink what are the incentives and resources that would pull people the Japanese to trade in the PNW. Fur was reportedly not desired by East Asians; the North American fur trade may very well have been uniquely European driven.

Maybe the fact that reindeer can eat from the taiga while your sled dogs would be dependent on you to feed them meat and hard to procure food?

I agree with you that how people usually examine Australia they usually do it with a Eurocentric lens. I remember another post a while back that compared the Kimberly to Rajasthan. With Indian irrigation and well making technology, even the driest parts of the world (eastern Iran, coasts of...

I'm from British Columbia and I can tell you that the Okanagan (which is between mountain ranges and so is not like the temperate rainforests of the west coast) is not what you make it out to be... It's a fruit and wine producing region. Its climate is nearly Mediterranean. But your point about...

I've always been interested in this idea, but never was able to think of a plausible incentive. What would incentize the Japanese to settle or form trading posts in the Pacific Northwest? It can't be furs, like it was for OTL Europeans. According to John Kendrick and Meares, the Japanese were...

This is an interesting idea! The Islamic Moorish architectural distinction of the Maghreb could be appropriated and then help magnify the religious split. I'm thinking of the single lighthouse minarets and the Byzantine style columns and arches and the muqarnas/mocarabes. Also, this would...