When the pressure is there, populations will, eventually, adapt. Just like a bacterial culture on a petri dish encountering an antibiotic culture totally alien to them. Do it right, in small amounts, and they eventually become resistant.
Sure. Given enough time. But trouble is humans are not bacteria. generations are around 20 years whereas E.Coli generation take 20 minutes. mutation from generation to generation is much lower as well. granted that sexual reproduction has it's advantages (besides the obvious ones
Fair enough, but I don't see how the Triple Alliance was so unlikely. They seemed to have the right ingredients to me, what with the mercenary culture, general feeling of persecution, and managing to learn more secrets of tactics, civics and some politics from the states they fight with (with the last polity they served under, the Tepanecs, overthrowing them once they got powerful enough and were tired of perceived or real oppression).
It's precisely the combination of those traits with a political window of opportunity to use them that was unlikely. Other empires seem to have emerged via almost determenistic geographical luck. The Aztecs OTH, seem to owe their rise to many human imponderables.
Red River Carts were used by Métis to travel across Canada. They were rather popular among Métis, being used from Manitoba to Alberta. In this timeline, I can see a "Métis" identity cropping up from Viking contact![]()
As can I. But the point is that it will be a hybrid identity, with mixed origin, rather than an adaptive native polity. because...
That said, a wheeled vehicle is rather different from, say, a horse. Maintaining a horse doesn't involve a lot of surprising knowledge. Making horses is even easier to figure out. In order for a culture to use wagons, they need to know how to make them. Which involves things like how axles work in relation to the chassis and wheels, bearings, distribution of weight, construction material needed for various parts, size of the wheels, creating the wheels out of planks and spokes rather than perpendicular-cut logs that wear away layer by layer from stress, and most importantly knowing how to maintain and repair one.
like you said
But people are not only beginning to farm intensively in the Eastern Woodlands, but also trade intensively. They are starting to work on large projects in mound building, palisades and canals. They're going to benefit and may very well see the benefit of Norse carts and watercraft in transporting bulk goods across the land. To top it off, their paramount chiefdoms are not too terribly unlike those of the Viking age. I would imagine if the Norse were to make contact with a large Early Mississippian, Fort Ancient or Late Woodland polity and be on good terms enough to share technologies like the wheel, wagon technology may spread rather well throughout the proto-civilizations.
Well, part of the issue is that these groups will be encountering Norse pathogens long before they encounter the Norse. So the highly socially stratified hiearchy, the trade networks, urban and proto-urban complexes... They are going to take a hell of a whallop. Cahokia willl likely fall to pathogens rather than soil exhustion and erosion. The collapse won't be nearly as severe as OTLs post 1500 nightmare but It will take these cultures a century or two to recover enough to find much of the norse-tech useful.
They may especially be interested in sailing technology to use in their preferred method of long-distance travel -- the Mississippi watershed. Longboats will allow people to trade and explore much more effectively than with dugout canoe fleets. Potentially, the entirety of the watershed can be accessed; this covers a very, very wide area. I can only imagine what things the sight of a longship in the upper Missouri River can inspire.
Have some ideas along those lines. Will keep them under my hat for now