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As far as the first factor, as far as I'm aware the islands of the Greater Antilles did have dense populations in Pre-Columbian times on scale with Mesoamerica. The societies that lived there were complex, agrarian, chiefdom-based societies, not simple village cultures, horticulturalists, or...

I'd argue that there's continuity between ancient Persia and modern Iran - The only big difference is the adoption of Islam, but in the same way, China went through Confucianism, Buddhism, and state atheism in the time since Qin Shi Huang. Don't forget Ethiopia, which can be traced back to the...

It depends. Pliny and Tacitus describe a Germanic "tribe" called the Hilleviones or the Suiones, likely related to the ancient Svear, that seems to have been pretty fixed in place - If the continuity between them and the modern Swedes is true, then they never left their home villages en masse...

But then we have clan systems like the ones in Ireland and Scotland that have faded from relevancy almost completely. You could argue that the various tribes of the dark ages evolved into the strong regional identities in modern Europe. The Saxons settled into Saxony, the Bavarians into...

Not only that, but the entire beer industry in China would be a big open-ended question. Tsingtao was the first successful Chinese-produced beer and thanks to its continuous tweaking to capture Chinese tastes, every other brewery in China (there are many) emulates them. Today, beer is ubiquitous...

Countries in Southeast Asia didn't adopt the Chinese writing system or Chinese ideas of government or philosophical traditions as much as Vietnam and northeast Asia, but they did benefit from maritime trade routes directed toward China. Some countries benefitted from Chinese military protection...

We can also count the spaces between our fingers, but the only cultures that did so in practice were a few nomadic Native American tribes in California and Mexico. Some linguists suggest that the ancient Indo-Europeans originally used a base-8 system as well due to the similar sounding roots of...

Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein... Botswana is one of the most stable countries in Africa and if not for the AIDS problem would likely be even better off. Bolivia has a lot of silver but its wealth never benefited the masses, who were exploited to mine the silver.

My point is that French assistance wouldn't discourage the Celtic Renaissance in Ireland. The French aren't opposed to Celtic symbolism.

Many mainstream French have long believed themselves to be descended from the Gauls first and foremost, so I don't think their influence would discourage Celtic identity in Ireland.

Don't underestimate the Manichaeans!

There are plenty of possible sources for a higher French-speaking population, including the Acadians, Huguenot immigrants, Quebecois immigrants in New England, Metis, Missouri French, and possibly French royalist immigration after the French Revolution (see the French Azilum scheme). The problem...

The problem is that the Middle East has always been the first part of Asia to be defined as such. Ancient Greek maps split the three continents there - Europe begins at Thrace and the Balkans, Africa begins at the Sinai Peninsula, and Asia is everything else - Hence, Anatolia is Asia Minor. In...

Size shouldn't be an issue... The Jewish population in the United States is about the same size as the Native American population yet Jewish American influence on popular culture is very strong.

That's my first thought, too, but I also like the idea of naming the two states after Native American themes as most mainland states are: The western can be Ciboney, or Siboney, after the original people of central Cuba who were pushed west by the Taino. Presumably, the western state would...

A Muslim Uyghur dynasty would be difficult to achieve for two reasons... The biggest reason is geography - the only way into the middle Chinese plains, location of the historic capitals and the heartland of Han Chinese civilization is through the Hexi corridor of Gansu, which is a very small...

Your timeline is quite a bit off. The ancient Uyghurs settled in Xinjiang around the time of the Tang dynasty, after the rise and fall of the Uyghur empire. The modern Uyghur culture arose after the ancient Uyghurs and other migrating Turkic speakers mixed together with the Tocharians and other...

Same with Grenada. It's no more "Latin" than the United States and Canada, and arguably less so given the latter countries have much larger proportions of the population speaking Romance languages.

Greek culture and history is pretty far removed from the typical definition of Western culture. Ancient Greek civilization influenced Western civilization but that doesn't make it part of Western civilization, nor does the fact that modern Greece chose NATO over the Iron Curtain. To my...