Alternate Horses

Thanks.
I did mention the octopus/squid idea needing a POD way back. A hundred million years? The Permian Extinction period?
Somebody on the net had an alternate evolution with cephalopods instead of vertebrates dominating the land, occupying all the niches, and some were fairly large.
And there have been reports of giant squid dozens of feet long,

EDIT: No, I guess that big an invertebrate would stay in the water. Sorry. But there's still that alternate evolution scenario...

An alternate land-going squid the size of a horse wouldn't be a squid any more. And the folks riding it wouldn't be humans. Oh, well.

How would the squid's hide handle rough roads or traveling cross-country?

Here's another really outre idea. During the dinosaur period, one species becomes sentient. They're man-sized, or a bit smaller. At the same time, you've got species like Ultrasaurus, a hundred feet long and almost a hundred feet tall. How wide were their backs? How sensitive was their skin?

Would they notice these relatively tiny creatures crawling up their tails and legs, and setting up encampments and whole villages on their backs? Maybe these would only be temporary villages for special ceremonies...or is that too outrageously ridiculous?? :D:rolleyes::eek::cool:


EDIT: The equivalent would be a half-inch bug on my foot. But Ultrasaurus didn't have hands to brush the bugs off their legs, so they might just learn to ignore such trivia...? They might have gotten used to seabirds landing on their backs looking for bugs to eat.
 
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why not? If you have cattle domesticated and no horses, the idea of riding them would arise sooner or later. After all, someone came up with the idea of riding horses with no precedent before it...
It did in southern Africa. Then again the Khoi did not have horses. What is surprising is that the Bantu did not do the same.
 
It did in southern Africa. Then again the Khoi did not have horses. What is surprising is that the Bantu did not do the same.

Hmmm. Could you throw in a little more detail there, for us what is not entirely familiar with what hijinks went on in Southern Africa?
 
Hmmm. Could you throw in a little more detail there, for us what is not entirely familiar with what hijinks went on in Southern Africa?
The Khoi were the original dweller in southern and central Africa until much of their lands got overrrun by the more technologically advanced Bantus; the latter and iron tools and agriculture whilst the Khoi were stone age hunter gatherers and herders. Have no idea how they acquire cattle but they did and apparently they used to ride them.
 
I saw the title of this thread and thought it was about alternate horse breeds. I am disappoint.

The title of this thread is meant to imply Alternate Animals that can be used and domesticated as horses were, but that was too long so I just went with Alternate Horses.

Although I feel it leaves plenty of room for interpretation, if you would like to talk about alternate Horse Breeds I wont complain! :cool:
 
The Khoi were the original dweller in southern and central Africa until much of their lands got overrrun by the more technologically advanced Bantus; the latter and iron tools and agriculture whilst the Khoi were stone age hunter gatherers and herders. Have no idea how they acquire cattle but they did and apparently they used to ride them.

African blacks never did overrun the southernmost part of Africa, though, apparently because their tropical crops wouldn't grow in the Mediterranean climate of the Cape (according to Diamond, anyway). The Khoi lived in these parts, still at a stone age culture. When the Europeans landed at the Cape, they found a climate perfect for their own crops... thus, the Khoi were nearly exterminated across the south, surviving today only as the bushmen of the Kalahari (IIRC). I think the cattle riding Khoi were after European settlement, and they got them from the Dutch, one way or another. Before the Khoi went under, some of them adopted European guns and animals (one group, the Kora took well to horses, and were proficient bandits before being wiped out)...
 
The Inca doesticate Llamas as beasts of burden (IIRC). imagine if they had combined that with the Olmec Wheel :D. Chariots powered by Llamas?:eek:
 
Didn't the Inca's have wheeled toys?

Everyone talks about what a great thing the wheel is, and yep, I agree its tops. but it's not universally applicable.

Basically, wheels seem to do well in open flat country where you've got pretty hard packed soils, or other flat and firm lands.

Or it does really well when you've got roads or hard packed pathways.

On the other hand, try shlepping those wheels over harsh broken ground, swamp, mud, sand, or mountain country and the utility goes way down. The sandy broken terrain of deserts for instance were so marginal for wheels that domesticated camels actually pushed out or replaced that tech (until internal combustion came along).

Wheels might have been practical on the American/Canadian Prairie, and indeed, were part of Metis technology.

But Inca country? No pun intended, but that's just tough sledding. You've got terraced high water agriculture, lots of mud, steep highlands, mountains, erratic passes. Did you ever see those rope bridges that the Inca's built? You're not taking wagons over those things. You're not even taking Llamas.

There's all sorts of steep rises and inclines that it would be murder to try and take a wheeled load up and down. And keep in mind, Llamas were not power-haulers. They'd be terrific for a moderate sized load on the straight-away. But for the environment and the inclines, you'd need something with real deep muscle, like a water buffalo analogue.

We kind of allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking of the wheel as all purpose. But part of that is because the Romans put a monstrous level of investment into building roads throughout their empire, and even after their empire fell, the roads kept on being used, and road networks expanded.

For the wheel to really catch on in Inca country, the Inca's would have had to have built a really extensive and comprehensive road network, and had a more powerful beast of burden.
 
Didn't the Inca's have wheeled toys?

Everyone talks about what a great thing the wheel is, and yep, I agree its tops. but it's not universally applicable.

Basically, wheels seem to do well in open flat country where you've got pretty hard packed soils, or other flat and firm lands.

Or it does really well when you've got roads or hard packed pathways.

On the other hand, try shlepping those wheels over harsh broken ground, swamp, mud, sand, or mountain country and the utility goes way down. The sandy broken terrain of deserts for instance were so marginal for wheels that domesticated camels actually pushed out or replaced that tech (until internal combustion came along).

Wheels might have been practical on the American/Canadian Prairie, and indeed, were part of Metis technology.

But Inca country? No pun intended, but that's just tough sledding. You've got terraced high water agriculture, lots of mud, steep highlands, mountains, erratic passes. Did you ever see those rope bridges that the Inca's built? You're not taking wagons over those things. You're not even taking Llamas.

There's all sorts of steep rises and inclines that it would be murder to try and take a wheeled load up and down. And keep in mind, Llamas were not power-haulers. They'd be terrific for a moderate sized load on the straight-away. But for the environment and the inclines, you'd need something with real deep muscle, like a water buffalo analogue.

We kind of allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of thinking of the wheel as all purpose. But part of that is because the Romans put a monstrous level of investment into building roads throughout their empire, and even after their empire fell, the roads kept on being used, and road networks expanded.

For the wheel to really catch on in Inca country, the Inca's would have had to have built a really extensive and comprehensive road network, and had a more powerful beast of burden.

Here we go again.

Incas had an extensive and sophisticated road system that stretched from Quito to Santiago. Primary roads ran along the mountains between Quito and modern Mendoza in Argentina and along the coast from Tumbes in Peru south to Santiago. Lesser roads connected the two primary systems and extended well into Bolivia and Argentina.

The Inca road system linked together about 40,000 kilometers (25,000 mi) of roadway and provided access to over 3,000,000 square kilometers (1,200,000 sq mi) of territory. These were mostly paved in stone and up to 20 meters wide, although the typical road is between 1 and 3 meters in width. Some are still in use today. The full extent of the roads is not clearly known because the Spanish destroyed many through conscious demolition or neglect of maintenance.

Steeper inclines were traversed by stone stairways (they did not need to accommodate the wheel) and waterways were crossed by ferry, floating reed bridges, stone bridges, causeways and, for narrower mountain valleys, suspension bridges. In some cases ravines were crossed by being suspended in a basket and pulled across. If they needed to get somewhere, they found a way (witness Machu Pichu).


The Inca system of runners combined with the road system was so efficient that the Inca in Cuzco could dine on fresh fish caught in Inkawasi, on the coast.

Designed for travel by foot, goods and resources were often carried by caravans of llamas, even across the suspension bridges. They were such accomplished engineers, builders and managers that if they had the need for a wheel friendly transportation systems, they would have built it. (if you haven't invented flight, why would you build an airport?)




They did indeed have wheeled toys. Why none of the civilizations in the Andes and along the coast never applied the wheel to transportation or industry is a true mystery.

It also needs to be remembered that the Inca were only the last and most familiar in a long line of civilizations that developed along the west coast of South America. They built upon the accomplishments of their predecessors and assimilated their competitors.

The first identified civilization in this region was centered near Lima at Caral and has been carbon dated by textiles to 2,800 BCE. This would make it contemporary with the pyramids and the Mesopotamian civilizations. Due to the level of sophistication found at Caral, I think the operable word here is “identified”.

Having thus defended the honor of the Andean civilizations, which domesticated the llama about 4,000 years ago, my vote still goes to the llama. Perhaps, since they had not discovered the wheel, they had no use for stronger, more robust llamas, because there was nothing for them to pull. Although I think 3,500 years is plenty of time to develop larger varieties of llama, if you feel the need.
 
Well, I didn't think I was impugning the honour of the Inca's. But geez, that was interesting. Learn something new every day.
 
More on my favorite

A bit more in promotion of the llama:

Camelids survived in NA until about 10,000 years ago.

Some were quite large.

They survived in numerous ecological niches.

A late lamine is illustrated below (the skeleton) with a modern llama scaled up to similar proportions. ( this example is from Florida).

This is a large, robust animal that relied on speed to avoid predators. They are found from Florida to the American south west. They were around when llamas migrated to South America. All camelids developed in North America, remains of lamines and camelids are found in the Yukon and are virtually indistinguishable from Dromedaries and Bactrians in our time, aside from the fact that they were larger.

Perhaps a variety of these robust lamines survives to historical times (only a few thousands of years distant) or the Andean civilizations are able to resurrect the genetic traits that made these beasts larger.

Interesting side note, in the middle east, they have crossed llamas and dromedarys successfully, i.e.viable offspring, not "mules". The point was to develop a more tractable camel, but it turned out to be a very cranky llama like hybrid. These animals are still so close that they can, with our help, interbreed.

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Not sure if there's a pre-exesting thread for somthing like this. but I was thinking... What if an ostrich-like bird evolved with the size, temperment, and intelligence to be domesticated and slowly bred over hundreds of thousands of years by people for the same reasons horses were bred?

Or any other animal for that matter... Obviously there are other factors to consider. Such as the habitat of the proposed birds and the culture of the people that share its environment. Or, somthing like what if the mongols never had horses and just had giant landbirds would be interesting too.

So whats the thought?

What is wrong with the Ostrich itself? It seems a "missed domestication" to me. Its ridable, a big part of its adult life is spend in hierachial packs with a dominant female.
It is more adaptable and easier to feed than a horse, better eating, has more useful byproducts (feathers, eggs, eggshells, leather) and in nature, the dominant female eliminates the eggs of the omega females anyway.

It looks to me like it is a significantly better domestication-candidate than the original, undomesticated horse.

Possibly less enduring as a mount, but it might still beat out the ur-horse.
 
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