AHC: Have a "cradle of civilization" develop on the Rio Grande

[SunKing105]

While OTL Ancestral Puebloans did have some of their culture span parts of the river, I am looking for an entirely new civilization, on par with Mesoamerica or the Andes to arise on the Lower Rio Grande Valley, near the mouth of the river. Achieve this without using a "Horses/Megafauna survives" POD, since that would affect a whole lot more than just the Rio Grande valley, as well as being quite overdone on this site. And I am talking about the lower reaches of the river here, what would become part of the border between Mexico and the US.

 

[Gwyain]

While OTL Ancestral Puebloans did have some of their culture span parts of the river, I am looking for an entirely new civilization, on par with Mesoamerica or the Andes to arise on the Lower Rio Grande Valley, near the mouth of the river. Achieve this without using a "Horses/Megafauna survives" POD, since that would affect a whole lot more than just the Rio Grande valley, as well as being quite overdone on this site. And I am talking about the lower reaches of the river here, what would become part of the border between Mexico and the US.

Are you looking for an independent crop package to spring up or is Three Sisters agriculture allowable?

In terms of potential domestic animals, the Rio Grande is blessed with a solid set to work with: Bighorn Sheep, Bison, Peccaries, and White-Tailed Deer could provide good analogs to Mouflon Sheep, Cattle, Pigs, and Goats, respectively.

 

[SunKing105]

Are you looking for an independent crop package to spring up or is Three Sisters agriculture allowable?

In terms of potential domestic animals, the Rio Grande is blessed with a solid set to work with: Bighorn Sheep, Bison, Peccaries, and White-Tailed Deer could provide good analogs to Mouflon Sheep, Cattle, Pigs, and Goats, respectively.

I am looking for at least an independent founder crop at least to kickstart the development of civilizations, while Three Sisters agriculture is permitted, it should persist alongside native domesticates and not overtake them, like what happened to the Eastern Agricultural Complex OTL. Also, I'm not sure Bison or Bighorn Sheep can be domesticated by these peoples, since Bison would be notoriously hard to control for these peoples, and Bighorn Sheep have a fairly weak dominance hierarchy. Not saying that they can't be domesticated, but it would be somewhat harder and that these hurdles prevented their domestication OTL.

 

[Gwyain]

I am looking for at least an independent founder crop at least to kickstart the development of civilizations, while Three Sisters agriculture is permitted, it should persist alongside native domesticates and not overtake them, like what happened to the Eastern Agricultural Complex OTL. Also, I'm not sure Bison or Bighorn Sheep can be domesticated by these peoples, since Bison would be notoriously hard to control for these peoples, and Bighorn Sheep have a fairly weak dominance hierarchy. Not saying that they can't be domesticated, but it would be somewhat harder and that these hurdles prevented their domestication OTL.

Looking at crops native to the area, I think something in between Three Sisters and the Eastern Agricultural Complex is the most likely as agricultural packets go. Ignoring Maize, the best option for Cereals seems to be Little Barley, including Pseudo-Cereal adds Goosefoot and Amaranth. Options for legumes include American Vetch, Tepary Beans, and especially Mesquite. Sunflower works as an oilseed, Jerusalem Artichoke adds a tuber to the mix, Cotton as a fiber crop, and Prickly Pear as a cultivated fruit. Maize, common beans, and squash will probably find their way into the mix at some point, and Maize might end up displacing Little Barley when it does. We saw wheat do that to millet in China, so there's definitely precedent, but they could also both be cultivated. Common Beans might actually have a hard time over Tepary Beans, Tepary are far more drought hardy.

As far as Bighorn and Bison, I think they're more domesticable than is often credited. Aurochs seem to have been as temperamental as Bison, but the domestic cow is nothing like that now. Given this is a Neolithic PoD, Bison shouldn't be too difficult. Bighorn's dominance hierarchy may be weak, but there still is one and current research makes it look like there's more of one is traditionally thought. I have a couple books on them I need to finish reading through, but so far I don't see anything that would preclude their domestication. Peccary and Deer are definitely doable though, they both seem to have been at the very least on the road to domestication at the time of Spanish Conquest, with records of them being raised in pins by both the Maya and Muisca.

 

[Mad Bad Rabbit]

There isn't much building stone or metal ore near the mouth of the river, and prior to dam construction the river was historically prone to flood one year, dry up the next. The area is also subject to hurricanes, which are good at destroying mud brick structures.

 

[UponALotusBlossom]

White-Tailed Deer, and Bison aren't good bets for stone-age or bronze-age tool-sets. Hell buffalo/bison are a recent domestication in the present day because good fucking luck taming that at the bottom of the proverbial tech-tree. Deer too, don't make great domestication targets, they have family structures so that's one thing. But they're goddamn deer, they were never domesticated until very recently because they're panicky as hell, can gore you, and are fast. Far beyond what a human on foot to manage. Since the only path to domestication of deer would probably be through capture and breeding you're going to have a fun time on a long-shot with no apparent short to mid-term gain. Without quick positive feed-back or a way to manage the deer easily and stop them from escaping, killing themselves, or if you're unlucky killing you. it's not likely a pre-modern society might even identify it as domesticatable in the first place.

Edit: actually good point about the Aurochs, but all the same it was the Aurochs that was domesticated and not the European bison possibly for a very good reason. As it is however domestication is a risky business and resource intensive. If they knew to try they might be able to, but otherwise it falls into the nice but improbable range for me.

Edit2: Aurochs might weigh up to 700+kg, Bison weigh 900+kg. Both are built but a generic bison might be 900-1200Kgs moving at up to 30mph. I don't think you're gonna have a fun time getting gored by something with the mass of a car at 30mph. (50~km/h). Wikipedia isn't a great source but sue me I went low-effort.

Also this is my first post on the forum. Huh.

 

[Gwyain]

White-Tailed Deer, and Bison aren't good bets for stone-age or bronze-age tool-sets. Hell buffalo/bison are a recent domestication in the present day because good fucking luck taming that at the bottom of the proverbial tech-tree. Deer too, don't make great domestication targets, they have family structures so that's one thing. But they're goddamn deer, they were never domesticated until very recently because they're panicky as hell, can gore you, and are fast. Far beyond what a human on foot to manage. Since the only path to domestication of deer would probably be through capture and breeding you're going to have a fun time on a long-shot with no apparent short to mid-term gain. Without quick positive feed-back or a way to manage the deer easily and stop them from escaping, killing themselves, or if you're unlucky killing you. it's not likely a pre-modern society might even identify it as domesticatable in the first place.

I think people are far too prone to projecting modern domestic animal behavior onto their ancestors. The aurochs was swift, fast, and aggressive. It fended off wolves and bears successfully. Yet in spite of that, the aurochs was domesticated at least 2 or three different times, and today cattle are incredibly docile. Bison are not that different from Aurochs in temperament, strength, or aggressiveness. Wild yaks similarly so, and today we have domesticated yak. The same can be said for wild and domesticated water buffalo, Gaur and Gayal, and so forth. All of which were domesticated in the Neolithic period without bronze tools.

If we look at Llama and Alpaca's ancestors in Guanaco and Vicuno, the wild forms are incredibly flighty, just as much as deer. Their domestic forms, by contrast are not. The same can be said for wild vs domestic goat, wild vs domestic horses, and on. As it is, there is evidence of both the Maya and Muisca keeping captive deer and peccary, and while that isn't domestication, it is certainly on the road to it. @DValdron has written several threads over the years about animal (and plant) domestication and may be able to shed more light on this.

 

[Gwyain]

There isn't much building stone or metal ore near the mouth of the river, and prior to dam construction the river was historically prone to flood one year, dry up the next. The area is also subject to hurricanes, which are good at destroying mud brick structures.

I was under the impression that the Rio Grande's issues with dryness were a more modern phenomenon because of extensive upriver agricultural draw. I could be wrong of course. I agree about the mouth, it might be easier to have the cradle develop a bit upstream where stone and metal is more abundant and then spread along the river over time.

 

[Falecius]

To be fair, Mesopotamia also tends to seriously lack raw materials, especially most metals, good quality stone, and wood.
They became a "cradle" nonetheless, because of course earlier developments in nearby areas allowed access to those resources through trade (or raiding/looting).
The key in that case was the possibility to use the rivers to create a large (for the time) agricultural surplus.
But the technological advances (including the selection of the domesticated plants needed) required to accumulate that surplus and organise its centralised management in the earliest forms of state had taken place earlier at the margins of the region.
I am not sure if the Rio Grande could be in a similar position. I understand that its water regime tends to be highly irregular and historically the area was one of the least settled in Pre-Columbian North America, with agriculture never really being adopted in a major way despite being practiced to the South, West and North-East.
But if they can accumulate a sufficient agricultural surplus, the cities there could manage to attract trade routes, or muster sufficient manpower to force the needed resources their way, as the Sumero-Akkadian states had been doing for a long time.

 

[twovultures]

I am looking for at least an independent founder crop at least to kickstart the development of civilizations, while Three Sisters agriculture is permitted, it should persist alongside native domesticates and not overtake them, like what happened to the Eastern Agricultural Complex OTL.

Perhaps a potato equivalent, with a mutant variety of the ornamental nightshade developing a large, edible root? It is related to the domestic potato, so it has a precedent so to speak.

I'm not sure what you count as the "lower"Rio Grande, but El Paso at least had a tin mine, so this civilization could eventually become a center for producing bronze.

 

[SunKing105]

Perhaps a potato equivalent, with a mutant variety of the ornamental nightshade developing a large, edible root? It is related to the domestic potato, so it has a precedent so to speak.

I'm not sure what you count as the "lower"Rio Grande, but El Paso at least had a tin mine, so this civilization could eventually become a center for producing bronze.

The area between the confluence of the Pecos and Rio Grande and the Gulf Coast is what I had in mind. But would the El Paso tin be accessible to a pre-modern civilization? IIRC the mine only was founded in the 20th century and didn't produce enough initially to make the investment worth it.

 

[TxAggie]

You can pretty much get by in Mexico with just beans and corn. The two together were grown together by Mesoamericans in what's called a milpa, and the two are extremely complementary. IIRC, the beans help fertilize the soil for the corn, and the pair form a complete set of amino acids. I know you said you want something besides Three Sisters agriculture, but that's just such an elegant way to get a society going.

 

[Gwyain]

The area between the confluence of the Pecos and Rio Grande and the Gulf Coast is what I had in mind. But would the El Paso tin be accessible to a pre-modern civilization? IIRC the mine only was founded in the 20th century and didn't produce enough initially to make the investment worth it.

El Paso's Tin is in the form of Casserite which is what most tin sources in antiquity came from, it is not however a large mine by any means. There's a much larger source around Chihuahua, which is still in the Rio Grande Basin, but that is still a ways upriver from where you're looking. That said, having a local source of tin isn't critical, the Fertile Crescent traded for tin much further away than what we're talking about here. This cradle can either spread up that way over time or trade with whoever is there. Even in China the Casserite sources were a good bit upriver from the primary agricultural land, so there is certainly precedent there too.

You can pretty much get by in Mexico with just beans and corn. The two together were grown together by Mesoamericans in what's called a milpa, and the two are extremely complementary. IIRC, the beans help fertilize the soil for the corn, and the pair form a complete set of amino acids. I know you said you want something besides Three Sisters agriculture, but that's just such an elegant way to get a society going.

You pretty much just need a cereal and legume to scrape by with agriculture. In the fourth post or so of the thread I noted several different (pseudo-)cereals and legume pairs that could work that don't require Maize/Beans. I think Maize and Squash are still nice additions at some point, but they're not strictly necessary to kick things off.

 

[DG Valdron]

I think people are far too prone to projecting modern domestic animal behavior onto their ancestors. The aurochs was swift, fast, and aggressive. It fended off wolves and bears successfully. Yet in spite of that, the aurochs was domesticated at least 2 or three different times, and today cattle are incredibly docile. Bison are not that different from Aurochs in temperament, strength, or aggressiveness. Wild yaks similarly so, and today we have domesticated yak. The same can be said for wild and domesticated water buffalo, Gaur and Gayal, and so forth. All of which were domesticated in the Neolithic period without bronze tools.

If we look at Llama and Alpaca's ancestors in Guanaco and Vicuno, the wild forms are incredibly flighty, just as much as deer. Their domestic forms, by contrast are not. The same can be said for wild vs domestic goat, wild vs domestic horses, and on. As it is, there is evidence of both the Maya and Muisca keeping captive deer and peccary, and while that isn't domestication, it is certainly on the road to it. @DValdron has written several threads over the years about animal (and plant) domestication and may be able to shed more light on this.

Historically, I think that there have been a couple of events where deer were domesticated or semi-domesticated. In Central America and in the Balkans in ancient times. I'd have to double check the literature. I suspect both theories were classified as 'interesting' but not generally accepted as proven. The Reindeer were definitely domesticated, to the extent that North European/Siberian cultures required. There's evidence of an abandoned Moose domestication. Domestication of Hutia.

Pretty much any big labour domesticate can outrun humans, were quite flight oriented, and quite a few were or could be highly combative and aggressive. Just look at wild swine, auroch, camels, water buffalo, etc.

Successful domestications are a tricky thing. There's an element of mutualism, the animal has to obtain benefits or opportunities that support habituating to human presence. At the same time, there have to be economic opportunities, usually accessible meat, but consistently for larger animals draft labour capacity which make the animal viable in human society. There's an economic trade off - the costs of supporting the animal versus the benefits of incorporation into human society. And there has to be an interface, where you have mingling populations, rather than the local animals being wiped out. And you require an actual need - it's difficult to domesticate an animal if there's already a good domesticate in place.

The issue is considerably more nuanced.

 

[JSilvy]

I still doubt bison domestication. Again, there was a reason the European variant wasn’t domesticated. That difference in mass does make a difference. Bison are essentially tanks on hooves. We can barely control them now with modern technology. They require steal enclosures, and even then are incredibly risky. I have no idea how an ancient people would be able to wrangle them into a pen.
By contrast, deer are much better candidates. Reindeer/caribou have been domesticated, and I imagine you can do the same with elk/wapiti. Moose would be more of a challenge due to its diet more than anything else, but could probably be controlled with careful silvopasture and a reliable source of low-fiber feeds. As for white-tailed deer, humans have been trapping deer for centuries and I don’t see why that couldn’t lead to domestication.

 

[Gwyain]

I still doubt bison domestication. Again, there was a reason the European variant wasn’t domesticated.

This I think has more to do with already having Cattle by the time anyone might be thinking of domesticating Eurasian Bison - there just isn't the need (something I address a bit more specifically over in my Elk/Wapiti Cavalry thread).

That difference in mass does make a difference. Bison are essentially tanks on hooves. We can barely control them now with modern technology. They require steal enclosures, and even then are incredibly risky. I have no idea how an ancient people would be able to wrangle them into a pen.

Finding information on how aurochs were domesticated is difficult, but from what I can gather, they didn't try to enclose aurochs - likely because it wouldn't do much good. From what little I can find, it seems more likely that they managed the herds and culled larger and more aggressive individuals which over time put a selection pressure for more docile and smaller individuals, eventually becoming the cattle we know and love today.

It got me thinking though, the domestication of Cattle and other larger mammals didn't occur until well after the domestication of smaller, less dangerous animals like sheep and goats. I suspect that the early experience with managing sheep herds was an important component in allowing larger domestication to occur. Once you know how to manage a flock of sheep by hand and with dogs, the skill set is pretty transferable. The difference of course is that while you're learning how to do it, a sheep generally isn't going to gore you to death the way a bovine might if you screw up. So I wonder, are small to medium sized domestications of the likes of Bighorn Sheep and Deer necessary to get the experience needed to domesticate something larger like Bison or Elk?

 

[DG Valdron]

I'm not sure that the pathway to domestication is always the same.

The problem is that with the exception of rattite birds in the 19th century, every major domestication event took place thousands of years ago, in remote regions, with no tradition of literacy and very poor archeological data.

So we tend to assume, or hope that there's a 'master theory' of domestication, where the pathway for horses, cattle, sheep, reindeer, goat, water buffalo. llama, swine, camels and yak are all similar. There may be something to this - many of these animals show overlapping characteristics - they're large, herbivores, used for draft or labour, sometimes with secondary features, typically milk or wool.

The majority are grazers, though some are browsers, a number seem to be migrators or potential migrators, though some are territorial. Some seem affiliated with agricultural societies, but some were clearly domesticated by nomadic hunter/gathers. I think that there may have been distinct pathways for agricultural and nomadic societies. But it's hard to say.

I'm inclined to think that the relationships are commensalist - ie, animals are habituated or tolerant to humans and find advantages in hanging around with human society. But how commensalism evolves may be variable.

As to other domestications - cats, chickens, dogs, microlivestock, etc., almost certainly variant pathways.

 

[Gwyain]

I'm not sure that the pathway to domestication is always the same.

The problem is that with the exception of rattite birds in the 19th century, every major domestication event took place thousands of years ago, in remote regions, with no tradition of literacy and very poor archeological data.

So we tend to assume, or hope that there's a 'master theory' of domestication, where the pathway for horses, cattle, sheep, reindeer, goat, water buffalo. llama, swine, camels and yak are all similar. There may be something to this - many of these animals show overlapping characteristics - they're large, herbivores, used for draft or labour, sometimes with secondary features, typically milk or wool.

The majority are grazers, though some are browsers, a number seem to be migrators or potential migrators, though some are territorial. Some seem affiliated with agricultural societies, but some were clearly domesticated by nomadic hunter/gathers. I think that there may have been distinct pathways for agricultural and nomadic societies. But it's hard to say.

I'm inclined to think that the relationships are commensalist - ie, animals are habituated or tolerant to humans and find advantages in hanging around with human society. But how commensalism evolves may be variable.

As to other domestications - cats, chickens, dogs, microlivestock, etc., almost certainly variant pathways.

I think commensalism actually makes the most since with cats, dogs, and other carnivores. Prey pathways of management make more since to me for herbivores. Of course, even then there's evidence of a more intentionally directed pathway for horses and camels, so multiple paths certainly seem likely. You've raised the point elsewhere that domestication tends to occur where animal populations are smaller, such as on the fringes of society. I think there's a great deal of truth to that especially for the prey pathway, there's no reason manage a herd yourself if the population is stable already.