Amerindian domestication of caribou and muskox--effects?

I'd say that's tricky. As I've argued, committing to one particular lifestyle will bring opportunity costs. A herdsmen culture has to stay near its animals, and its animals habitats, which can impact accessing marine mammals or fish spawning runs. You might end up with an either permanent or transient cultural subgroup. I believe, for instance, that the Italmen or Koryuk of the Kamchatka peninsula tended to partition themselves as Seal harvesters or Reindeer herders.



Reindeer are milked, but they're not particularly bountiful for milking. Of course, selective breeding over an extended period of time may change that. I guess the trick is to determine how much this particular trait may induce selection. Also, while the lactose tolerance mutation does seem to occur among the inuit, I don't know that it's prevalent in athapaskan populations.

I think the most significant potential for milk might be in reducing infant/juvenile mortality.

Hunter Gatherer populations are always low compared to the environment. Usually about 25% of what the environment seems able to support, often much less. This is because Hunter Gatherer populations are surviving on what the environment gives them at any particular moment. This means that populations are not governed by the best month, or even the average month, but by the worst months. The year round population is the population that managed to avoid starving or dying in the hungriest, leanest season, during the drought, the year the caribou didn't come, the bad winter that you couldn't catch seals.

The most vulnerable to this bad season bottleneck are infants and juveniles, the most rapidly growing, the hungriest, the least valuable members of the community. Seasonal malnutrition will kill some, and stunt the growth of others. Give this cohort a food source to help tide them through, you'll get more and healthier survivors.
I agree, also at work I was thinking about the cultural aspects of this. Many of these places were traditional animist worship that saw animals as neither good nor evil. The Navajo had that change when they started raising sheep and goats. The wolf an evil force in their culture because of that. I think because hunting and warfare would still happen we would see the development of warrior type religions that worshiped Bears, Wolves and Mountain Lions, while outside of the more male dominated aspects of life like hunting and warfare they would be demonized as threats to livestock and as it was these animals were seen as a more scary animal due to the forests that they lived in leading to surprises so now that besides their own lives and family and tribe members they would worry about they would have much more invested in other animals.
 
Here's a question: Why didn't the high latitude Norse adopt reindeer as a Domesticate? They should have been able to acquire them from the Samoy, the Nenets? What made them incompatible?
From my understanding the Vikings saw them as more primitive and not worth trading with. There was constant warfare between the two groups.
 
The trick with musk ox is that they're very well adapted for winter survival. It's summer that gets them.

Maybe a systematic combing when the weather heats up to thin their coats?

Here's a question: Why didn't the high latitude Norse adopt reindeer as a Domesticate? They should have been able to acquire them from the Samoy, the Nenets? What made them incompatible?

I think it was a class thing. As I understand it, the Saami were looked down upon as being poor, dirty and generally unpleasant by their neighbours until recently.

Impressive picture. Back home, you couldn't put together enough to fill a wheelbarrow.

The Atlantic coast of America is pretty damaged in environmental terms.

Then again, I'd have thought the Danish coast would be as bad if not worse.

fasquardon
 
Maybe a systematic combing when the weather heats up to thin their coats?

I'm thinking that.


I think it was a class thing. As I understand it, the Saami were looked down upon as being poor, dirty and generally unpleasant by their neighbours until recently.

Might be an obstacle to incorporating musk ox.


The Atlantic coast of America is pretty damaged in environmental terms.

It may have more to do with regional conditions.
 
The idea of cultural attitudes shifting with the lifestyle, and predators moving from relatively neutral to evil spirits is interesting.
 
Here's a question: Why didn't the high latitude Norse adopt reindeer as a Domesticate? They should have been able to acquire them from the Samoy, the Nenets? What made them incompatible?

First of all this image we have of the Saami as reindeer herders are a pretty modern one, don't get me wrong reindeer was herded by the Saami at the time of the Vikings. But the vast majority of Saami wasn't reindeer herders, they was mostly hunters and fishermen (usual a mix) until the 19th century, where these was assimilated into Norwegians (it was a longer process). This left the reindeer herders as unassimilated Saami, giving rise to the modern Saami identity. So why didn't these other Saami adopt reindeer? The answer is that reindeer are a migratory species, if you have to hold reindeer on a basis where you can live of them, you need so many of them, that they have to migrate, which mean that you have to adopt a nomadic lifestyle. Also the areas where the Norse lived where reindeer could have been useful (Iceland and Greenland), Iceland was much warmer in the Viking Age, removing a reason to introduce Reindeer to Iceland, while Greenland already had a population of caribou. Also while cattle clearly doesn't do well in places like Iceland and Greenland, the rest of Norse Scandinavia was in the range of the auroch so it really wasn't a major problem to hold cattle in those areas, while the sheep did pretty well even in worst areas populated by Norse, as long as there was human protecting them from predator, they could dwell anywhere where grass exist.

Muskox on the other hand are mostly non-migrating, their migrating is limited to travel between the valleys in summer and the hills in winter. This mean that muskox fit better into the Norse lifestyle, but there's also the element, that reindeer produce little of value which cow and sheep didn't produce better. The meat and milk have less calories, leather and wool are more valuable than reindeer fur. Muskox on the other hand produce a very valuable fine water resistant wool. Even better muskox can graze in areas, which wasn't used by sheep already.
 
First of all this image we have of the Saami as reindeer herders are a pretty modern one, don't get me wrong reindeer was herded by the Saami at the time of the Vikings. But the vast majority of Saami wasn't reindeer herders, they was mostly hunters and fishermen (usual a mix) until the 19th century, where these was assimilated into Norwegians (it was a longer process). This left the reindeer herders as unassimilated Saami, giving rise to the modern Saami identity. So why didn't these other Saami adopt reindeer? The answer is that reindeer are a migratory species, if you have to hold reindeer on a basis where you can live of them, you need so many of them, that they have to migrate, which mean that you have to adopt a nomadic lifestyle. Also the areas where the Norse lived where reindeer could have been useful (Iceland and Greenland), Iceland was much warmer in the Viking Age, removing a reason to introduce Reindeer to Iceland, while Greenland already had a population of caribou. Also while cattle clearly doesn't do well in places like Iceland and Greenland, the rest of Norse Scandinavia was in the range of the auroch so it really wasn't a major problem to hold cattle in those areas, while the sheep did pretty well even in worst areas populated by Norse, as long as there was human protecting them from predator, they could dwell anywhere where grass exist.

Muskox on the other hand are mostly non-migrating, their migrating is limited to travel between the valleys in summer and the hills in winter. This mean that muskox fit better into the Norse lifestyle, but there's also the element, that reindeer produce little of value which cow and sheep didn't produce better. The meat and milk have less calories, leather and wool are more valuable than reindeer fur. Muskox on the other hand produce a very valuable fine water resistant wool. Even better muskox can graze in areas, which wasn't used by sheep already.

That is very, very interesting.

Thanks! I learned some things.

fasquardon
 
This is the historical range of Muskox in the modernera.

M36.jpg


Note that it's remote from all the areas of known Norse contact - the Southern tip of Greenland, Labrador, Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland.

So Arguably, we'd need human intervention to dramatically expand the area of distribution of Musk Ox to overlap with areas of likely Norse contact.

So Muskox domestication would need to substantially precede the era of Norse Contact, which was also roughly the same era as that of the decline of the Dorset and emergence of the Thule (Inuit).

It would probably need to emerge among either the Dene or the Dorset. Say somewhere between 500 and 200 years before Norse contact, in order that expansion of range.

It's unlikely the Dene or Dorset would be weaving, or have looms. So what are they doing with the Qviat?

We'd also have the question of how readily the Norse would adopt the Muskox, since they're likely to have similar attitudes as they did towards the Sammi.

If there is contact, we can assume that they get looms from the Norse.
 
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This is the historical range of Muskox in the modernera.

M36.jpg


Note that it's remote from all the areas of known Norse contact - the Southern tip of Greenland, Labrador, Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland.

So Arguably, we'd need human intervention to dramatically expand the area of distribution of Musk Ox to overlap with areas of likely Norse contact.

So Muskox domestication would need to substantially precede the era of Norse Contact, which was also roughly the same era as that of the decline of the Dorset and emergence of the Thule (Inuit).

It would probably need to emerge among either the Dene or the Dorset. Say somewhere between 500 and 200 years before Norse contact, in order that expansion of range.

It's unlikely the Dene or Dorset would be weaving, or have looms. So what are they doing with the Qviat?

We'd also have the question of how readily the Norse would adopt the Muskox, since they're likely to have similar attitudes as they did towards the Sammi.

If there is contact, we can assume that they get looms from the Norse.
which is smaller than during the ice ages however it did contract some from that peak for them, also where are they going to get the wood for looms to begin with? Trees are not a thing in the regions where musk ox are.
 
I assume that if you had the conceptual framework and technical skill to build a loom, you'd probably cobble together something from bone.

But the big obstacle is that conceptual framework and technical skill doesn't exist.

How long would it take it to come into being?

More likely, it would or could be acquired from a Norse interchange.
 
One problem for muskox is that they may be an immunologically vulnerable population. I believe that sheep in particular carry a virus which is lethal to species like Muskox. This may pose a challenge for Norse adoption. Although the issue would simply be whether the Muskox survivors, if any, can develop an immunity.
 
This is the historical range of Muskox in the modernera.

M36.jpg


Note that it's remote from all the areas of known Norse contact - the Southern tip of Greenland, Labrador, Baffin Island, Labrador and Newfoundland.

So Arguably, we'd need human intervention to dramatically expand the area of distribution of Musk Ox to overlap with areas of likely Norse contact.

It's more or less given that muskox would spread to all area with Inuit or pre-Inuit population, including Baffin Island, who the Norse traded with, it's important to look at the range of the muskox and see their inability spread on Baffin, Greenland and the North Alaska coast was because these area was because they was heavier settled by human, and muskox have a lousy defence strategy against human (not running away or hiding, but stand their ground)

So Muskox domestication would need to substantially precede the era of Norse Contact, which was also roughly the same era as that of the decline of the Dorset and emergence of the Thule (Inuit).

It would probably need to emerge among either the Dene or the Dorset. Say somewhere between 500 and 200 years before Norse contact, in order that expansion of range.

Yes seem likely.
It's unlikely the Dene or Dorset would be weaving, or have looms. So what are they doing with the Qviat?

They likely use a spindle, it's a pretty simple tool, and both Eurasians and Andeans developed it.

We'd also have the question of how readily the Norse would adopt the Muskox, since they're likely to have similar attitudes as they did towards the Sammi.

The different are that reindeer are mostly worthless for the Norse, while muskox would be a source of high quality wool, who doesn't suffer from the negative effects of water as sheep wool does.

If there is contact, we can assume that they get looms from the Norse.

and knitting.
 
One problem for muskox is that they may be an immunologically vulnerable population. I believe that sheep in particular carry a virus which is lethal to species like Muskox. This may pose a challenge for Norse adoption. Although the issue would simply be whether the Muskox survivors, if any, can develop an immunity.

One thing that may help, is the relative small population of Greenlandic sheeps and their isolation from other herds, this mean that epidemic diseases have a hard time surviving and spread. So if a virus hit, it will likely burn itself out. The problem happens when the muskox are introduced on Iceland, but at that point their wool will be a very valuable product, so they will likely not giving them up, which would give them time to develop an immunity, before they're introduced to Scandinavia. Another important factor are that muskox will likely graze on different land than sheeps, as they're hardier, prefer colder climate and are specialised in lichen and moss, so they also have less contact with sheep, especially as the risk of them getting diseased, when they're together with sheeps.
 
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