1492: a different new world

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:)) and can introduce genetic variations but we are still talking about a heck of a long time to select for new traits.


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
 
If Mounted warfare become a thing before 1492, beyond semi-random skirmishing scouts (and even then) i'd think it would be closer in appearence to the Lightly armored steppe mongol, than anything european, as it would evolve out of mounted hunters, most likely with bows, prehaps with javelins. Which would at least for some time support the wrong guess that they've landed in areas ruled by 'Tartars', or support believes that they have at least casual communitaion across the pacific, which could also be used as an explenation for the odd semi-proficient herbrew speaker, saying that the knowledge have been spread that way around.

Interesting angle. I'll see if I can include it. Of course, the eastern woodlands are not as condusive to large scale mounted warfare as the Mongolian steppe. I'm thinking that any organization these mounted bowmen have will be more like what existed in the small tribal conflict pre-timugin time than the massive hordes he commanded.
 
Going off on a trip for next 3 days. When I return do the loyal readers prefer:
a. A return to Colon's orphaned sailors in 1492(3)?
b. An in-depth look at how first contact between the Beothuk, the Norse, and their pathogens, looks like?
c. A return to Iceland?
d. A look at how Greenland is responding to the influx of refugees (sort of in tempo with world affairs oddly enough)?
 
Going off on a trip for next 3 days. When I return do the loyal readers prefer:
a. A return to Colon's orphaned sailors in 1492(3)?
b. An in-depth look at how first contact between the Beothuk, the Norse, and their pathogens, looks like?
c. A return to Iceland?
d. A look at how Greenland is responding to the influx of refugees (sort of in tempo with world affairs oddly enough)?

All of the above, please ;)

Seriously, probably (a) first, as they were left on a bit of a cliff-hanger, then (b) though (d) might be interesting. Iceland we've had quite a lot of, so not so urgent.

This is a pretty good take on the whole Vinland thing, well written and seems well-researched. Congratulations.
 
Sure, the mounted archers won't be as sophisticated as the Mongol horde that broke out from their small home and conquered half of euroasia, but I'm guessing that they'll look similar (not same, but similar enough) to the tribal pre-horde Mongols,

As for the order i'd say keep Colon as a prolouge, and keep your nose in the track you've laid out in terms of exploring how we got to that point, bit by bit, first gettinb ack to him when the 'universal' timeline get cought up to him.
 
Awesome immunology post Yboxman; I learned something today :)

My only complaint is the idea of Native Americans living in a relatively disease-free environment is a myth. Firstly the existence of culturally known medicinals and therapeutic treatments should be evidence that infections of some type were reasonably common. Archaeologically documented cases of viral and bacterial infections appear to have increased in the Eastern Woodlands as urbanization and primarily maize-based diets increased. The Mississippians seemed to have an 'early start' on disease incubation as their maize-based diets gave many of them iron-deficiency anemia, lowering their resistance to some diseases. Evidence of Staph, strep throat and tuberculosis, all very ancient diseases, have been found in Mississippian skeletal remains. Since it's difficult to diagnose diseases from bones and few actually make a mark on them, it's likely other diseases were present as well. I'm no immunologist and either way I doubt TB would prepare for influenza (from what I took of your post, the required antibodies are different?), but Native Americans are far from disease-free, especially Mississippian cultures during the age of Cahokia which were urbanized, connected and not as clean-living as Mesoamerican cultures. They may even be more culturally prepared to handle disease, but that's just speculation on my part given the highly infectious, deadly nature of TB and observation of how it spreads from sick people. All that would depend on when the Norse visit because once Cahokia falls, the trade networks and some high-level urbanization goes with it and diseases will not spread as easily, burning out to less problematic numbers.

Here's a source for the Mississippian stuff.

I'll see if I can find anything about other American diseases.

Tuberculosis was actually endemic to Newfoundland at this time too, so...yeah :D
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.
When are the Norse visiting, anyway? No Eastern Woodlands trade network made it any further than the very tips of Maine, much less Newfoundland. I doubt disease will be able to spread to the EW if the Vikings stay in Vinland. The Beothuks, unfortunately, are somewhat isolated and don't seem to have a high enough population density to really make a mark, though many villages may indeed be decimated.

The Vikings would have to get to settling/releasing animals near the lower coasts before the diseases burn out.
 
Going off on a trip for next 3 days. When I return do the loyal readers prefer:
a. A return to Colon's orphaned sailors in 1492(3)?
b. An in-depth look at how first contact between the Beothuk, the Norse, and their pathogens, looks like?
c. A return to Iceland?
d. A look at how Greenland is responding to the influx of refugees (sort of in tempo with world affairs oddly enough)?


First hope you have a good trip.

I personally would like to see A first then D.

I will take any and all updates you are willing to share.
 
I'd like A then D, too.

As for Natives not using carts, I believe the toboggan and other assorted draggables made up for that as far as they were concerned. The sedentary tribes simply kept everything in their homes/tents, and the nomadic ones had little stuff so no need for carts.
 
Awesome immunology post Yboxman; I learned something today :)

Thank you kindly.:)

My only complaint is the idea of Native Americans living in a relatively disease-free environment is a myth.


It's an hypothesis that cannot be objectively validated. It does, however, have three bodies of evidence backing it:
1. The fact that no plagues, with the possible exception of syphilis, ravaged Europe post contact.
2. When 19th century European scietists, utilizing far more rigorous medical and scientific recordkeeping, documented isolated population in Polynesia and AUstralia they witnessed few little in the way of native diseases, and exactly the same pattern of decimation by Eurasian diseases as hypothesized for the Americas.
3. Mayan, Aztec, Zapotec, and Inca records abound with descriptions of court intrigue, death in battle and natural disaster. But there is no mention of Epidemics pre contact. In contrast, following Spanish incursions in Panama and Argentina, The Inca did record the smallpox epidemics which swept over them.

Firstly the existence of culturally known medicinals and therapeutic treatments should be evidence that infections of some type were reasonably common.

Dating these medicinals as pre contact is problematic. Even if they were, the symptoms they originally treated may have been induced by parasitic infections or non infectious diseases.

Here's a source for the Mississippian stuff.

Thanks for the link! Send me any others you might have.

However, a clarification is in order.

The four infectious "pathogens" this link describes are TB, Syphilis, S.aureus and Strep. Evidence for them in conjectual- there are no actual bacterial remains recovered in native American skeletons (It's pretty much impossible to recover such evidence). Rather, ambiguous bone deformities and stunted growth are interpeted as arising from infection.

But even assuming this interpetation is correct, while these diseases are all "infectious" they do not fit the person-to-person, rapid infection model we generally think of when we say "infectious disease".

S.Aureus is a soil bacteria and is not generally harmful. Generally Only when exposed to an immune compromised, malnourished or injured individual do certain strains induce a pathogenic outcome. It is generally not infectious person-to-person.

Strep is a comensal bacteria in the mouth biota microenvironment and is also not generally harmful to otherwise healthy individuals.

Even when harmful strains DO develop they are not, as a rule, fatal.

The jury is still out on the pre-contact new world prevalence of TB and Syphilis but both of these diseases have an extremely long latency period, asymptomatic carriers and take years or decades to kill their victims.

This is pretty much the only type of infectious pathogen which could become endemic in the recently urbanized, no domesticate, low trade volume/range environment of the new world.
 
I'd like A then D, too.

As for Natives not using carts, I believe the toboggan and other assorted draggables made up for that as far as they were concerned. The sedentary tribes simply kept everything in their homes/tents, and the nomadic ones had little stuff so no need for carts.

First hope you have a good trip.

I personally would like to see A first then D.

I will take any and all updates you are willing to share.

All of the above, please ;)

Seriously, probably (a) first, as they were left on a bit of a cliff-hanger, then (b) though (d) might be interesting. Iceland we've had quite a lot of, so not so urgent.

This is a pretty good take on the whole Vinland thing, well written and seems well-researched. Congratulations.

Sure, the mounted archers won't be as sophisticated as the Mongol horde that broke out from their small home and conquered half of euroasia, but I'm guessing that they'll look similar (not same, but similar enough) to the tribal pre-horde Mongols,

As for the order i'd say keep Colon as a prolouge, and keep your nose in the track you've laid out in terms of exploring how we got to that point, bit by bit, first gettinb ack to him when the 'universal' timeline get cought up to him.

The colon enthusiasts seem to be in the majority. WIll probably have a post in a day or two,
 
Top