America Discovered Early?
- Thread starter Othniel
- Start date
I vote for Polynesians.... Even one Catamaran, perhaps destined for Hawaii, but loaded for bear, with all the things they would need to survive on yet another Island. Pigs, breadfruit,and I can't for the life of me remember any of the rest of the crops or animals they might have introduced.
If they introduce new agricultural products, infinitely better naval technology (and the ability to trade and exchange ideas over a much longer distance), and earlier diseases to the Native Americans, they might be a bit better prepared for the Europeans.
If they introduce new agricultural products, infinitely better naval technology (and the ability to trade and exchange ideas over a much longer distance), and earlier diseases to the Native Americans, they might be a bit better prepared for the Europeans.
Well, they'd have epidemics... but what if they were discovered as long ago as by the Phoenicians? Or the Greeks, or the Shang, or something? They'd not be able to overrun the natives, even with massive epidemics. They'd also introduce a lot of Old World stuff. There would be knowledge of the New World from antiquity, nations in the New World would be basically on par with the Old, probably continuously in contact between Brazil-Africa and Scandinavia-Newfoundland, which means more capable ships, able to make transatlantic voyages reliably, from much earlier on...
I think with that much more land in the "known world", things are just going to happen at a faster pace.
I think with that much more land in the "known world", things are just going to happen at a faster pace.
I agree, things would happen faster. If trade is going on between Eurasia and Mesoamerica f.x. since the days of antiquity the countries there will get the epidemic flood in a smaller amount, eventually recover, and then just getting the plagues regularily like on the old world continent.
However, they´d need to get horses, and I still think that the Eurasians would be technologically superior. But the native cultures would have better chance of surviving, as they´d be able to resist more, and the immigrations to America would be smaller.
NapoleonXIV
Banned
Here the effect might actually be greater on the discoverer than the discovered. The Polynesians would find the Andean peoples cultivating the potato, and this new and close to 10x greater yielding crop would cause the same population explosion in Pacifica as it did in Europe. The whole Asian littoral might soon find themselves dealing with armadas of war canoes from out of the great ocean on the East.
Depending on when it happened, of course. We could see Japan and the Phillipines populated by Polynesians instead of expatriate Chinese by the 8thc, as well as Polynesian settlements in CA, CentralAm, Peru and Chile, blending, conquering or being conquered by, the native populations. It might evolve Pacifica into another major world region by the present.
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Horses would most likely arrive in short order and spread pretty quickly. You'd probably see several colonies established by the Old Worlders, bringing all their goodies over, and from there everything pretty much is going to homogenize with time. Eventually there will not be a noticeable gap.
Ok, didn't think of that: constant contact from antic times until today!
That would make MAJOR divergences!
Of course, there would be no problems with epidemics then - they would have the same as in their "contact partner", just delayed by a couple of months.
Hell, what a bunch of possibilities: potatoes in ancient rome, catholic incans, buddhist aztecs, roman colonies in the carribean, aztec cavalry, Irish missionaries in OTL Canada from 800 AD... :-D
Earlier than what?
I presume you mean 1492, although the Americas were "discovered" much earlier - by various peoples who who became the "natives" and later by the Norse who attempted to settle Vinland. Some people also claim that the Chinese may have made landfall at some point, although I am a touch sceptical regarding that hypothesis.
Given that the North Atlantic route Iceland-Greenland-Labrador was the only feasible route prior to the Late Middle Ages / Early Renaissance and that the end result of that was a cold infertile land, I can't see any real prospect of European discovery of the Americas much before what happened. There may have been some earlier mariners who managed a one way trip, albeit against prevailing winds and currents, but most likely they stayed there.
As an aside, I notice that the Europe-America-Pacific-Indian Ocean-Good Hope and thence back to Europe which was the route taken by the earliest circumnavigators is now considered the "wrong" way to go about the globe as it is against prevailing winds and currents. Whatever else, one has to admire their courage.
I presume you mean 1492, although the Americas were "discovered" much earlier - by various peoples who who became the "natives" and later by the Norse who attempted to settle Vinland. Some people also claim that the Chinese may have made landfall at some point, although I am a touch sceptical regarding that hypothesis.
Given that the North Atlantic route Iceland-Greenland-Labrador was the only feasible route prior to the Late Middle Ages / Early Renaissance and that the end result of that was a cold infertile land, I can't see any real prospect of European discovery of the Americas much before what happened. There may have been some earlier mariners who managed a one way trip, albeit against prevailing winds and currents, but most likely they stayed there.
As an aside, I notice that the Europe-America-Pacific-Indian Ocean-Good Hope and thence back to Europe which was the route taken by the earliest circumnavigators is now considered the "wrong" way to go about the globe as it is against prevailing winds and currents. Whatever else, one has to admire their courage.
It has been theorized that the Polynesians did land in S. America in pre-Columbian days, because they have sweet potatoes, a native of that continent. It's not that farfetched... they likely wouldn't have tried to colonize there anywhere because there were large groups of people living alll over the place, and the Polynesian explorers were small groups of people looking for uninhabited islands to settle... they didn't want to or have the means to launch large conquering groups of colonists big enough to take on the natives of the Americas. It's easy to imagine a few groups of Polynesian explorers reaching the Americas, making peaceful contact, looking around to see all the people already living there, and leaving (sweet potatoes in hand), without having any influence on the natives of the Americas....
I disagree to a point, Polynesians weren't an isolated people. They had a very widespread trading network.
Just because you're in Tahiti, doesn't mean you're isolated. A trading network doesn't mean that all members are in direct contact with one another.
It's probably a bad analogy but here you go......A=south-east asia.....b= is the phillipines, c=tahiti, d= the easter islands,
e=the Inca or the Maya or whoever. The important part is to introduce these pathogens to America at an earlier date.
This premise also works with the Norse, Carthaginians, Chinese, and almost any Old World culture. Early exposure means stonger anti-bodies later on.
As long as A and B have contacts, that imply's that b and c will have contacts, and c and d etc............ Microbes aren't fussy about who they infect. It doesn't take a fancy Crusade for them to do thier work. They patiently wait for a chance to whittle down the population, and later give them the strength to resist the bugs that come along later.
Asia and Europe didn't have mutually different bugs, IMO. Its silly to say that microbes wouldn't move in very specific ways, esp. if there is a vibrant trade network.
Just my two cents
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Saving threads
Just thought to post this here rather than make a thread for it...
If Spain had remianedunited with Portugal...
And if the Chinese Ming dynasty had continued its global exploration would the Americas look like this?
Key:
Khaki=Russian
Gold=Chinese/client states
Turqouise=French
Blue=United Kingdom
Mahogany=Spanish
http://www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-C...=sr_1_1/026-3718500-2942014?ie=UTF8&s=gateway
Just thought to post this here rather than make a thread for it...
If Spain had remianedunited with Portugal...
And if the Chinese Ming dynasty had continued its global exploration would the Americas look like this?
Key:
Khaki=Russian
Gold=Chinese/client states
Turqouise=French
Blue=United Kingdom
Mahogany=Spanish
http://www.amazon.co.uk/1421-Year-C...=sr_1_1/026-3718500-2942014?ie=UTF8&s=gateway
I disagree to a point, Polynesians weren't an isolated people. They had a very widespread trading network.
Just because you're in Tahiti, doesn't mean you're isolated. A trading network doesn't mean that all members are in direct contact with one another.
It's probably a bad analogy but here you go......A=south-east asia.....b= is the phillipines, c=tahiti, d= the easter islands,
e=the Inca or the Maya or whoever. The important part is to introduce these pathogens to America at an earlier date.
This premise also works with the Norse, Carthaginians, Chinese, and almost any Old World culture. Early exposure means stonger anti-bodies later on.
As long as A and B have contacts, that imply's that b and c will have contacts, and c and d etc............ Microbes aren't fussy about who they infect. It doesn't take a fancy Crusade for them to do thier work. They patiently wait for a chance to whittle down the population, and later give them the strength to resist the bugs that come along later.
Asia and Europe didn't have mutually different bugs, IMO. Its silly to say that microbes wouldn't move in very specific ways, esp. if there is a vibrant trade network.
Just my two cents
Probem is, long voyages are bad for microbes. Once they have infected the population on a ship or canoe, there is nowhere else for them to go. When their hosts throw them off, and have immunity, it is over for them.
That varies with the specific pathogen, of course. A long incubation period would help them a lot,
There is probably a formula to be derived...number of available infection steps times the infection to immunity time or something.
Faster ships and multiple ships in fleets probably did its own to infect the americas.
HueyLong
Banned
Belongs in a different thread, really. That, and it is fairly ASB (both the map and book)
Yes, I notice a plethora of 'what if China colonised the Americas' threads...
Director-General of Virginia, I wonder what could make you think that the idea of the Chinese finding the Americas belongs in ASB....