Bronze Age New World v2.0

[Hnau]

Bronze Age New World v2.0

For those of you who do not know, Bronze Age New World was a cooperative timeline started by Doug Muir in 2001 on the Usenet servers during its heyday at soc.history.what-if. Hundreds of pages of content were produced for the project. The original Point-of-Divergence for this timeline was the development of Polynesian-style maritime technology by the Arawaks around 500 CE. These “Polynesian Arawaks” expanded from the coast of Venezuela throughout the Caribbean and developed an aggressive slaving culture that terrorized peoples from as far north as the Chesapeake Bay down to the mouth of the Amazon River. After centuries, the constant raiding inspires the Mesoamerican peoples to finally use the bronze that they had originally used for ornamentation for making weapons. Bronze tools and weapons spread from Mexico through the *Arawak empire, along with the agricultural package, their writing system, architecture, religious ideas and other technologies. Unfortunately for the *Arawak, their civilization collapses in the 14th century due to overpopulation and exposure to Tloggotl, a terrible plague related to the Mapucho virus that was never seen in OTL.

In this timeline, the New World as Columbus finds it in 1492 has been centuries into its Bronze Age, and while the Caribbean islands are post-apocalyptic and easy to conquer, the empires and kingdoms elsewhere are much more advanced than in our timeline. The Spanish have a tough few centuries ahead of them in this alternate Clash of Civilizations, especially considering that the Tloggotl virus makes landfall in Spain by 1520.

This project has fascinated me since I became interested in alternate history in 2004 when it was still being updated. However, after 2005 it came to a standstill as Doug Muir and others who participated under his guidance fell away from the alternate history community. In 2009, I posted Giving Doug Muir’s “Bronze Age New World” Another Look in order to garner interest in a revival, but it never got off its feet especially after I left for Brazil for two years. What’s worse is that some time in 2010 the BANW wiki which contained all installments on one organized page was deleted after years of inactivity.

Fortunately, Google has maintained the Usenet archives and you can now search for “Bronze Age New World” in Google groups and find most of what was posted for this project. It is very disorganized, and some of the installments are difficult to locate, but it is still there.

The alternate history community now belongs to a different generation, but this timeline was very rich and interesting for its time. I’d like to not only renew interest in the project, but re-establish it. Some new information on the pre-Columbian Americas has come to light in the last decade that must be regarded. Also, we are allohistorians with opinions on plausibility that might differ from our predecessors. What is needed is to not only re-organize everything that was written before and streamline the timeline for easier reading, but to re-evaluate the timeline as a whole. We should also make the goal of going where the previous writers have not gone before and expand the timeline further than the 1560s which was the furthest point the project reached.

The largest challenge, however, which baffles me, is how to re-organize and direct the project. In its heyday, Bronze Age New World was managed completely by Doug Muir, its creator, who supervised and authorized everything that was written. These days he is much less active in the alternate history community than before. What is needed is to find a way to organize the project in a way that works best with current conditions.

As such, I invite every member of AH.com to help me restore this project to its former glory and beyond. I have no idea where to begin. I hope there are people out there that will not leave me alone in this endeavor, and that together we can make this work.

 

[Muwatalli']

I will be interested if you restart this, it sounds like an very interesting scenario...

 

[Screvier20]

Bronze Age New World is one of the reasons I got into Alternate History. I will be interested if you restart. I do own am copy of Charles C. Mann's 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus.

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

As usual I can help with anything related to Mayas. It must be noted though that OTL Mesoamericans (other than Tarascans who had some limited bronze) had copper weapons, but they were actually inferior to the flint and obsidian they usually used as they bent easily and weren't as sharp and deadly. In an environment where armor heavier than hardened cotton is impractical, you can see why they didn't take to metal weapons.

 

[Hnau]

I also feel like 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created might be useful, if not as useful as 1491, which I would like to use a lot too.

In the last thread I created on the subject, there were some changes we wanted to make to the original scenario. The first was to have the Arawaks develop their navigational package sooner, but also slower and more staggered. They invent outriggers ~1 CE but then it takes them until ~500 CE to both steal the cotton plant from the Mesoamerican peoples and start making sails out of it. Then they improve upon that a little later by creating double-hulled catamarans for long blue-water voyages.

The second change that was mentioned was to push back the Mesoamerican discovery of Bronze to 850 CE and make it a little slower to disseminate.

The third change was to have the *Arawaks on their way to recovery following the collapse of their civilization by the time the Spanish show up... which could butterfly a number of things. The Spanish are still going to kick their trash but it will be different than the original sequence of events.

We might have to focus on the *Arawakan period at first to see if any other changes are necessary. In the earlier thread I mentioned Nicaragua as a possible important early *Arawak colony where they could obtain needed obsidian to level the playing field with the Mayans and other Mesoamerican peoples before adopting bronze later on. That could have many knock-on effects. We also talked about rewriting the history of the Incan Empire completely and inventing a score of Amazonian kingdoms of which we know little about but which will surely have an impact on the timeline. The pre-1492 part of this timeline was to be revamped considerably.

If no-one objects, I would like therefore to propose we begin on reworking the entire BANW timeline from 1 CE - 1492 CE. I don't want to spend that much time on it, and we certainly should keep true to the original where it makes sense, but that's where we should start. Agreed?

 

[Screvier20]

I've started rereading BANW stuff it's been an long time. Your are about it being really disorganized.

I do like your the changing of the time period of the Arawaks developmet their navigational package. 500 CE did seemed an bit late in the original scenario moving it back to 1 CE is an good idea. For one thing the Amazon part will need to been completely rewritten will what has come to light in the last 10 years.

 

[TaylorS]

This is interesting!

 

[Screvier20]

After reviewing the original scenario I notice Northeastern United States was not really mentioned at all. Most of Central America and Northern South America was not covered as well. But these areas can covered later.

On the Arawak it does seen the change from just raiding to building an civilization is a little fast in the original scenario maybe push it back by an 100 years from 700 CE to 800 CE. On the collapse of Arawak civilization in the original scenario the tloggotl virus kill same 20% of the Arawak population because the Arawak civilization was all really collapsing because of neglect of agriculture, the soil becoming exhausted and the Arawaks need large trees. I'm thing the best way of having the Arawaks well on their way to recovery from the collapse in time for the Spanish show up is to them pick up Terra preta from the Amazon. With Terra preta the population would be better nourished and better able to deal with the tloggotl virus when it shows up. The 20% death rate may cut in half to 10%.

 

[Screvier20]

Please feel free to make suggestions... as soon as we form a committee we can vote on all this.

For three hundred years between about 1 and 300 CE, the navigational package spreads between the various *Arawak tribes. There's trading, then raiding, warfare along the Orinoco, the Lesser Antilles, and as far as Lake Maracaibo. The trade and new fishing fleets make up for the violence. At the end of this formative period, the *Arawak culture has matured and developed. They are aggressive, expansionistic, proud and competitive. The caciques largely respect and cooperate with one another, and if an exception-to-the-rule doesn't, they are replaced by coalitions created by the rest. The position is passed to whomever the cacique choses, when he grows to a certain 'age of retirement', though its usually to a relative. As caciques are obliged to have ten, twenty, thirty wives, there's usually many sons that jockey for that position, and when they aren't chosen, they are encouraged to recover their honor by taking to the seas in large catamarans. Some don't, of those that do, some die, of those that live, some bring back a large amount of slaves from another territory and live as wealthy plantation-owners, and of those that do not return, they set themselves up as colonists of other lands, or become raiders. Expansion of the *Arawak civilization is thus left to the aristocracy, at least nominally. On the seas, everything is meritocratic. You are of noble lineage as long as you can maintain leadership of the ship you were given by your relative cacique, and mutinies commonly allow for social mobility. Thus, on the ocean are the only opportunities to rise through the classes. For the lower classes, they can hope to lead successful mutinies, or loot and slave enough to become plantation-owners, or colonists. This cultural package thus allows for rapid and relatively stable expansion.

By about 300 CE, the *Arawaks are colonizing Puerto Rico, the Colombian coastline, and are building smaller trading and slaving posts up the Central American coastline and throughout the Greater Antilles.

The *Arawaks begin raiding the more advanced civilizations such as the Mayans and the Mesoamericans by 400 CE, where they recognize they aren't the greatest people on the face of the world. They start picking up technology during each tacit raid, but many also tell of horrible stories being butchered with obsidian weapons, and of the fantastic amount of men the Mesoamericans are able to put into battle, and with such organization! Around this time a rather intelligent *Arawak captain steals the cotton plant from Mesoamerican shores and takes it back with a load of slaves in order to create a unique crop on his forthcoming plantation. Within a hundred years, huge cotton sails are replacing the smaller plaited leaf sails, and drastically changing how fast and far *Arawak ships can travel.

By 500 CE, the *Arawaks are fully dominant in Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and the eastern half of Cuba, as well as along the coastline of South America from OTL Colon, Panama to OTL Georgetown, Guyana, and sailing catamarans now enable the *Arawaks to become more than just the occasional nuisance of the Caribbean... while they can't quite penetrate the obsidian-rich Mesoamerican states, they do step up the frequency of their raids, burning fields and slaving as covertly as they can in the more weakly-held areas. They also start slaving and trading throughout the Gulf of Mexico, they start hitting Florida and Atlantic coastline as far as South Carolina. No colonizing though, beyond a distant port near OTL Baton Rouge and near OTL Jacksonville that serve *Arawak ships and trade with the natives... they aren't done with Cuba yet at this point.

Between 500 and 600 CE the *Arawaks conquer the Lake Nicaragua peoples for their obsidian tools, and ever-more crazed for obsidian, a few entrepreneurs build ships on the Pacific coastline in order to reach obsidian in Honduras. More and more obsidian weapons slowly allow the *Arawaks to seriously threaten and damage the Mesoamericans. By about 600 CE the *Arawaks are fully dominant throughout Cuba, also in Jamaica and the Bahamas, and agriculture is being adopted more and more. Mesoamerican crops and tools are stolen more and more, allowing the *Arawaks to achieve their level of sophistication. There is a total of four to five million people in the lands their civilization occupies, a significant but not majority of the population consisting of slaves.

This is pretty good from your old 2009 thread. Doesn't really need to be changed an good starting point for this new thread.

 

[jmberry]

After reviewing the original scenario I notice Northeastern United States was not really mentioned at all. Most of Central America and Northern South America was not covered as well. But these areas can covered later.

Yeah, one of the big problems with BANW was that it suffered from Science Marches On - in this case, Archaeology has since revealed the existance of a city-building civilization stretching across the Amazon River at the time of the POD, which no one knew about. The Timacua suffer from a similar lack of information - no one knew about them in 2006, so the end result was they built some causeways, then the Spaniards came and 90% of them died from disease. Move forward 5 years and we know more about these regions than Muir and his contributors would have when they started.

 

[Hnau]

I hope they we can use the newest sources of pre-Columbian America to remake this timeline. Please keep me updated on any information.

This is pretty good from your old 2009 thread. Doesn't really need to be changed an good starting point for this new thread.

Thanks Screvier. But I would like to change it a little bit, and I agree that the *Arawaks should move from raiding to civilization building a little slower, like you suggested. Does anyone mind that I write up a new installment of the first 500 years of this timeline concerning the *Arawaks? I'm going to post it sometime soon tonight.

I'm thinking of calling the *Arawaks the "Arahabara" which closely resembles "People of the Sea" in Taino. Another alternative would be to call them the "Barano" which means "Sea-People". Opinions? I'm really like Arahabara and if no one thinks otherwise, I think I'll use it.

 

[Hnau]

Well, here it is.

The Formative Period of the Barano Civilization (500 BCE - 800 CE)

The Barano (“Sea-People”), known as the Arawaks in OTL, emerge from the Orinoco River basin to colonize the Lesser Antilles islands around the year 500 BCE. Their women are cassava planters and basket-weavers, their men are warriors and fishermen. The first few hundred years of Barano expansion into the Lesser Antilles is done with large, slow rafts and smaller, faster but less stable canoes. One day around 30 BCE, the inventive son of an important cacique decides to rig a long, thin secondary hull to the unstable main hull of his canoe. Its improvement to stability is very noticeable and within a generation the model will spread through the archipelago. With this new technology, the Barano can sail faster, carry more cargo, and there is less risk of capsizing. Their rate of expansion accelerates.

In the next two hundred years, the Barano chiefdoms witness small changes to their culture. They are trading farther, exploring more of the ocean, and bringing in more fish to eat. They also require more labor in order to fell the necessary trees along the Orinoco to produce the outrigger canoes. The Barano take to slaving more aggressively than ever before to meet the rising demand of labor. By 300 CE they are trading with the rich Maya and in the meantime colonizing Puerto Rico after a long period of ruthless slaving on the island. In another hundred years the first Barano settlers arrive at Hispaniola and Cuba to establish their villages and enslave the locals. Many slaves taken from the Central American coastline wear high-quality cotton tunics, and some that have lived in close proximity to the Maya know how to grow the cotton plant. Mexican cotton finds its way to the simple garden plots at Hispaniola by 500 CE and it isn’t long before all of the women there are wearing dyed cotton skirts. That’s not the only application for the plant either. Some Barano sailors had been using plaited leaves and animal skins as crude sails for their outrigger canoes, and cotton turns out to be an even better material for sail-making. The advantages are dramatic. Within the next few generations central masts are added to support large square sails made of woven cotton, which are hoisted up with woven grass bowlines. The extra weight of the mast and sail necessitates a larger secondary hull and thus double-hulled catamarans become the standard design for Barano ships throughout the Caribbean.

Cotton fields don’t pick themselves and the huge old-growth trees used to build catamaran hulls need felling. The Barano chiefdoms require more and more slaves and are prepared to travel the length of the Caribbean to find them. With more mouths to feed, the Barano transition to a full agricultural society, though it remains the work of slaves to toil in the fields. With the climate changes of the mid-6th century leading to droughts and thus widespread malnutrition, these technological advancements couldn’t have come at a better time. The Caribbean Basin is terrorized by Barano raiders who take advantage of the increasing weakness of the mainland polities.

However, the Barano people aren’t ready to advance from the status of mere pirates and establish a true civilization until the end of the 8th century. The Mayan city-states, the Totonac peoples and especially the city-state of Teotihuacan remain obstacles to Barano dominance in the Caribbean, especially because they control the production of obsidian. Drought slowly weakens the power of these states to the point that the Barano are able to invade Teotihuacan and raze the city to the ground by 750 CE. A powerful pirate lord establishes himself as the new king of Teotihuacan for about a generation. During this time he razes and loots everything nearby and ships all of the bounty back to fill his treasuries in Hispaniola, including gold, jewelry, slaves, and obsidian weapons. Eventually he leaves the city a wreck, but he brings with him to the Greater Antilles knowledge of advanced architecture, the arts, amate paper and writing. With the collapse of many of the Mayan city-states and the Totonac culture soon after [1], the Barano become the masters of the Caribbean Basin. The former primitive jungle peoples of the Barano are poised to enter the Classical Period of their civilization and change the entire fate of the Americas.

[1] There are many explanations for the collapse of Teotihuacan and the Mayan city-states. Climate change is increasingly thought of as the principal cause. Disruption of trade networks and foreign invasion are also cited as possible causes in OTL. Here there is no mystery, the Barano raiders are responsible for the collapse. I imagine Teotihuacan falls around 700-750 CE only slightly earlier than OTL, while the Mayan collapse is much faster, starting earlier than OTL and ending by 800 CE. The Totonac capital of "El Tajin" was one heck of a fortress, it survived the collapse in OTL despite the destruction of all of its trade partners, so it may barely survive as a vassal to the Barano until the turn of the millennium.

---

Comments, suggestions, approval?

 

[Screvier20]

I like it the only changes I would may is whats going with the Muisca, Quimbaya, Tairona, and the many other people in what is how Colombia and Venezuela. Both regions are likely be to major sources of slaves for the Barano. These regions maybe better targets for Barano slave raids mainly because there little less advance than the people of Mesoamerica. I see Colombian Indian game of Tejo catching on among the Barano joining theMesoamerican_ballgame.

I found this about non-native animals bones found on the island of Carriacou. I think it's very likely the same thing would happen in this TL but only on an larger scale. http://www.livescience.com/17267-animal-bones-prehistoric-caribbean.html By time the Europeans arrive the Caribbean islands would an large population of non-native animals.

 

[Screvier20]

Thinking about the future development of North America. Have North America divided into five parts Mississippians, Chesapeake city-states, Iroquoians, Florida, and Wisconsin. I would keep the Mississippians largely the same but at a bit lower level of technology than in the original scenario. On the Chesapeake city-states I would increase their range up and down the East Coast said equal to the 13 colonies range. On the Iroquoians I'm thinking of have then at similar level of development to Wisconsin in the original scenario. In the original scenario Wisconsin was divided into three parts the Ho-Chunk, Chippewa, and Chippewa. I liked the new detail you added about Florida in your old thread so I'm thinking only small changes would have to be made for the new thread.

On the remainder of North America both the Northwest and California will some work on detail. California would likely need the most. Maybe an small new civilization would rise in California a few hundred years before the European arrive said around maybe 1200 or 1300 time period. The only change the Southwest would need is to change the timing a bit to fit the new TL.

In South America the people of North Colombia like the Tairona and Sinu are likely to become targets of Barano raids. But more inland people like the Muisca are likely to development am more organized political and social structure than OTL due the threat of the Barano.

Here the part on Wisconsin: http://groups.google.com/group/soc....k=gst&q=Bronze+Age+New+World#02be4bbbd5a77684

 

[Atom]

Good to see this again.

One of the things I think I mentioned last time around was what to do with the Andes. In the original BANW, the Andes were mostly left to themselves, which I think was a terrible shame. There was some movement of ideas between Mesoamerica and the Andes (if very slight!) which I think would be greatly increased with the spread of sails. So, I do think the treatment of the Andes should be broader. personally, I was sort of thinking that the Andean civilizations would not get bronze working for weapons by 1492, due to the difficulty of movement, and also the cultural and technological abilities of Andean civilizations (honestly, I don't think Andean metal smiths would look at what the Mesoamericans are doing, "I mean sure you could make weapons with metals, but why?" would be they're probable response); sails seems very likely to cross over, which would have huge ramification.

Certainly, the littoral cultures would become a lot stronger, now that they can travel farther and faster. Trade would also pick up along the littoral. Beyond that, it's hard to say. Easter Island might be contacted, but that changes so much I'm wary of putting that into this TL.

 

[Hnau]

@Atom

One thing that happened in the original BANW that I think we miss sometimes is that the Kingdom of Chimor still existed in the Andes, alongside with the Tawantinsuyu which had expanded more southward than IOTL. The political situation seemed to be different but the writer on the Incas didn't explain it too much. I think one reasons they cited that Chimor still existed was that they were able to pick up bronze working before the Inca, and applied bronze to weapon making, which turned the tide of the war.

Lately, with the discovery that Ecuadorian peoples were making catamarans with sails by 700 CE (mentioned in 1491) and probably visiting the Mesoamerican polities soon after, its possible that they begin to diverge much sooner than in the original BANW. We could probably rewrite all of Incan history from the very beginning. I'm not completely decided on whether or not they should learn how to make bronze weapons (I am inclined to say they should though just to make it even more divergent from OTL), but I definitely want them to develop bronze tools at the very least. I was even thinking it would be sweet if they could develop ironworking (the Andes are incredibly rich with iron) but I realize that might be a bit implausible.

@Screvier20
Good analysis. I think my Florida write-up was a little too extravagant, I might look over it again to see if it can be simplified. The Muisca could develop into an interesting confederation of chiefdoms... though probably without bronze working as I'm not sure if there is a good source of tin or arsenic there. But they could be a deal more advanced, populous and organized than IOTL thanks to Barano pressure and diffusion of technology.

The Chumash should definitely be pushed towards agricultural civilization after pre-Columbian contact with the *Tlon (should we still call them that?). They will get there late on the game compared to the other Gulf of Mexico cultures. I was thinking, in the original BANW they talked a lot about *Tlon refugee fleets "heading north". What if the refugee fleets go to the Chumash, are given hospitality there, and send scouts north to find a new home for them. The scouts locate the San Francisco Bay. It is decided to move *Tlon civilization to the *Bay Area, and in short order they explore the *Sacramento River and find the Valley to settle and farm. It would be the perfect hideaway from the Europeans, and they might not be found for a while. They would probably still trade though, down to the Chumash and up to the Seattle peoples, and they would likely find the gold fields there hundreds of years before OTL and possibly export it. The Spanish could recognize the trickle of gold from the north after a few decades and might follow it there, but perhaps this New *Tlon in California would have adapted some in the interim. Knowing that the Spanish are out there, they might be able to attain knowledge of crossbows, gunpowder, and even import enough contraband horses to start breeding them locally. The *Tlon would know about irrigation and so could begin to irrigate the Valley like in OTL and would benefit hugely from the agriculture, leading to a population boom. And, the mountains would insulate them somewhat from the waves of European diseases. Trade could be established overland, too, to the Pueblo peoples.

It is an interesting possibility that I would like to see in the timeline, if no one thinks it too implausible.

 

[Atom]

Well, one of the more interesting things about the Andean Civilizations, to my thinking, is that they seem to pursue a different technological path, which is something I think we should explore in the TL. I'm pretty sure you've read 1491, and it was Mr. Mann's description I was really thinking about. So, I was kind of thinking that maybe it would be most interesting to have the Andean civilizations very much aware of the idea of Bronze weapons and tools, and just not care. That's just not how they imagine metals should be used. Obviously if a bronze weapon wielding civilization were to show up, then the Andean civilizations would probably adopt, that just hasn't happened yet. Even the Chimor, most aware of the bronze weapons to the north, don't like them, so for by 1491 the Andes are prevented by culture. Do you see?

Oh, that reminds me. I think with a richer more interconnected Andes, we really should have the quipu be much more developed. Not only by the Tawantinsuyu heartland (do we even want to have them be the power in the Andes?), but throughout the Andes. Messengers carry bundled cords relaying the orders of distant capitals; sea captains stare at the stars with one hand fondling a quipu that remembers the pattern of stars to navigate by better then he ever will; peasants carry little cords woven into clothes, luck charms created by priests they cannot even read (but they feel the power); and in distant Chan Chan, Cuzco, Tumebamba, Pachacamac, the blind librarians archive the will of kings and gods, the collected knowledge of the mountains. When the Spaniards come this time, the culture of the elite will not be so easily suppressed.

The idea of the Tlon in San Francisco seems a little much to me. With the kind of boats we're thinking of, that's a very long way and a very long time. perhaps we could just focus on some Tlon influencing the Chumash, creating a hybrid culture very aware of the Spanish? In the longhouses of the Valley, elders gather in shaded chambers, feeling their new bronze swords and hearing the soft whoosh of the sails of their fleet on the beach below. One empire fell before, but perhaps, not this one, this time.

 

[Reichenfaust]

I love this, even though I have never heard of it before.

 

[Fabius Cunctator]

This is great, have also covered this on a map game started by a king James XI , but going in a whole different direction. Before that I'd also given some alternate times lines in Americas development thought, so this is not out of the blue for some of us and even new thought are exciting!

My thoughts on this timeline agree with some others, chiefly:
1) get it moving! Let's not let this timeline die from insufficient addition/movement. I say next th g is the inca trade routes link up and they share knowledge from a distance. 2 civs can advance faster than one.

2) if any change is needed, it's a role for the near-bronze civs, since their aid in advancement and challenges to old world conquistadors is closer in tech levels for providing a challenge and mOre plausible than a random, Pre-copper civ with limited agri leaping over everYone, but other than that, even including that nitpick, excited to see the next step, moreso than a revision. Alternative cOntacts with others would be nice in future installments as feedback.

 

[Screvier20]

Reading up the Mississippian from the old TL here: http://groups.google.com/group/soc.history.what-if/msg/ac5dce39e43a3c7e?&q=BANW+Mississippians

Only thing I change would is there use of stone for building. I don't no if there is stone in that part of North America for large scale building. Love what they did with government system of the Mississippian. I'm thinking the overall population of the Mississippian would be around 5 to 7 Million people.

Also was reading up on the Amazon from the old TL here: http://groups.google.com/group/soc....k=gst&q=Bronze+Age+New+World#971c4ea53169dacd

With all the new info about Amazonian civilization this part will need to be completely redone.