Ancient Hoofprints in Hahnunah - A timeline

@AvalonianDream
I know this conundrum: to be most plausible, one would have to make everything unrecognisable with such early PoDs. But then, readers would feel utterly unable to immerse themselves, given that they have next to nothing to cling to, except nature.
In my TL, where I´ve decided to go for very drastic anachronisms, I´ve decided to put them in brackets so as to signal that I´ve substituted something we wouldn`t understand for a word that wouldn`t be used in that timeline.
I just wanted to ask if you think that these groups maintained their identities continuously throughout four millennia because that would be weird. Naming ancient groups with anachronistic terms seems less a of a problem, at least for my taste.
 
@AvalonianDream
I just wanted to ask if you think that these groups maintained their identities continuously throughout four millennia because that would be weird. Naming ancient groups with anachronistic terms seems less a of a problem, at least for my taste.

I agree, that would be extremely weird. I don't expect any civilization to last that long, although there may be a certain linguistic overlap - e.g. OTL Damascus in Akkadian is Dimašqa, which clearly shares a root with the present-day name. I would maintain that the cultural identity of present-day Damascus and prehistoric Damascus is not at all continuous, even though the name has persisted. I could see a similar thing happening ITTL to some fraction of city/area names, but the civilizations living in them and the languages spoken in them will obviously be completely different.

In my mind, the Ancient Saskatchewans will come to occupy a similar cultural space for the Hahnunans as the Ancient Greeks do for Europeans - an "enlightened" precursor-civilization to be rediscovered and idealized during later eras. Given that the society I have planned to follow the fall of the Saskatchewans will not have the same traditions of writing, it is quite unlikely that the Ancient Saskatchewans thought of themselves using the name "Saskatchewans".
 
Great writing. The one thing that's breaking my suspension of disbelief is the fact that the Inuit still come and settle the Arctic and still use the same place names as OTL with a POD thousands of years earlier...... At the same time though I recognize that, as an author, it takes a lot of work to try to make up a new Native language to write place names in....
 
Great writing. The one thing that's breaking my suspension of disbelief is the fact that the Inuit still come and settle the Arctic and still use the same place names as OTL with a POD thousands of years earlier...... At the same time though I recognize that, as an author, it takes a lot of work to try to make up a new Native language to write place names in....

Sorry I realize that a bunch of what i said had already been said by others once i read page 2...
But my main point was that the Inuit were a small group in Western Alaska until really recently (1000AD) and their expansion to cover most of the arctic would probably be butterflied by an early POD
 
But my main point was that the Inuit were a small group in Western Alaska until really recently (1000AD) and their expansion to cover most of the arctic would probably be butterflied by an early POD

You're not wrong. I should probably have invented a language rather than use Inuit words to describe the "Inuit" of this timeline. OTL, North American Camelops never made it out of Canada, and went extinct around 12.000 BCE. For domestication to occur in the new world without leaving behind a "genetically domesticated" Bactrian camel to exist in the old world, the only possible source is the people dwelling in Beringia ~25.000-~15.000 BCE. OTL, these people migrated southwards, and then later some of them migrated back northwards to become the Inuit. In the Amaqit timeline, some of them instead remain in their pastoral camel- and caribou-nomad society. Caribou is not domesticated, but remains an important source of game. Naturally, these Clovis-camel-pastoralists therefore migrate eastwards with the Caribou herds, eventually covering most of Canada. Some of them stop at the Bay of Hudson and become fishermen. Together, these people form what scholars ITTL call "Inuits", with "Nunavut" - "our land" in the language of the camel-nomads - being the name used by the Saskatchewans for anything North of the Saskatchewan River. It is of course ridiculous to assume that these people speak anything resembling an Inuit language - they aren't OTL Inuits, who will never even exist ITTL!

I had a very hard time deciding whether I should invent every word in their language, or plunder the language of the OTL people who live where the Clovis-camel-pastoralists live and will never exist ITTL. In the end, I decided to be a filthy thief and steal the language, though that might have been a mistake.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
I had a very hard time deciding whether I should invent every word in their language, or plunder the language of the OTL people who live where the Clovis-camel-pastoralists live and will never exist ITTL. In the end, I decided to be a filthy thief and steal the language, though that might have been a mistake.

It's a perfectly legitimate choice, and this is coming from someone who would personally always go the other way and invent everything. Your way is far, far easier and considerably less stressful. (Also less prone to errors and confusions.) Do what works for you.
 
Perhaps do what Salvador79 has done for at least some names or other words in his Danube brass-age thread and use the present-day name or word but square bracket it? This allows readers to work out where and what you are talking about, but indicates these were not the actual terms which were used in your ATL. This may have already been suggested - I think it works quite well.
 
Perhaps do what Salvador79 has done for at least some names or other words in his Danube brass-age thread and use the present-day name or word but square bracket it? This allows readers to work out where and what you are talking about, but indicates these were not the actual terms which were used in your ATL. This may have already been suggested - I think it works quite well.

I might go back and update with a combination of invented names and bracketed present-day names. Will probably keep a couple of the stolen words, as I like them too much - e.g. Hahnunah is completely wrong as it actually has an Iroqouis root completely unrelated to the [Not-quite-Inuit] language and Algonquian-Cree language continuum which will mostly dominate North America ITTL.

On an unrelated subject, I'm trying to make a decision on New World agricultural history that could potentially influence the rest of the story quite heavily. The Ancient Saskatchewans at this point subsist primarily on fish, caribou-and camel-meat, and wild rice. They (or more likely their southern neighbors - trying not to give anything away) will be experiencing a minor population explosion due to their relative prosperity that drives them to seek out an additional source of food. The "three sisters" present in most Amerindian diets - corn, winter squash, and green beans - have at this point all been domesticated in Mesoamerica, but they have not yet made it to North America. Given the reverence of trade in Saskatchewan society, it is almost plausible for an expeditionary trade caravan to make it far enough down the coast to bring back one of the three, at least if some luck and chance is involved. On the other hand, if this doesn't happen, you might expect more organized cultivation of rice to farm - actual domestication, rather than gathering from the banks of the many rivers and lakes. There are also IRC undomesticated variants of green beans around, although they are much less likely to be domesticated than rice. Which is more plausible? One of the three sisters makes it that far north this early, or someone starts cultivating rice?
 
On an unrelated subject, I'm trying to make a decision on New World agricultural history that could potentially influence the rest of the story quite heavily. The Ancient Saskatchewans at this point subsist primarily on fish, caribou-and camel-meat, and wild rice. They (or more likely their southern neighbors - trying not to give anything away) will be experiencing a minor population explosion due to their relative prosperity that drives them to seek out an additional source of food. The "three sisters" present in most Amerindian diets - corn, winter squash, and green beans - have at this point all been domesticated in Mesoamerica, but they have not yet made it to North America. Given the reverence of trade in Saskatchewan society, it is almost plausible for an expeditionary trade caravan to make it far enough down the coast to bring back one of the three, at least if some luck and chance is involved. On the other hand, if this doesn't happen, you might expect more organized cultivation of rice to farm - actual domestication, rather than gathering from the banks of the many rivers and lakes. There are also IRC undomesticated variants of green beans around, although they are much less likely to be domesticated than rice. Which is more plausible? One of the three sisters makes it that far north this early, or someone starts cultivating rice?

Probably the cultivation of rice, and maybe green beans, followed not that long after by the three sisters. Their spreading (as in the three sister's) could rely on who else adopted the camelops. If they have spread to the Great Plains tribes and the Mississippi* cultures, than its likely that these ones can be the ones making contact with Mesoamerica. Then the crop package can work its way back North, with wild rice and green beans travelling south.
 
It's squash or rice, and the latter's Potential caloric value is higher if i remember correctly...

That seems most likely to me as well. The problem with squash is that the original plant is native to an arid climate, and so far as I know the variants that grow in wetter areas are all offshoots of domesticated plants - they are likely being farmed in Mesoamerica and California at this point in time, having possibly already spread up the West Coast, but they would have to either cross the Great Plains or make it around the Great Plains, in which case I think maize is a more likely candidate.

Domesticated rice is in my opinion the most logical option, but it comes with a significant side-effect on Amaqit history, so I wanted to make sure my intuitions weren't completely wrong. Of the four options, rice is the only one that is land-intensive enough that it - factoring in the availability of large domesticated animals - almost guarantees the invention of the plough.
 
What does this result in old world?

I don't think it's been heavily covered but by the looks of the chat on the first update we can assume:

Cultural exchange with the Vikings that also leads to - Vikings Breath (New World disease spread to Old World) and its far reaching repercussions; exchange of goods, plants and animals

Something something Mongols are different here but Europe still finds a way to make Spain, France, Britain, and Portugal similar to OTL?


Also loving this TL so far
 
What does this result in old world?

I don't want to give too much away. The two big points which I think are kind of inevitable given large cities with plenty of animals in North America is the transition of at least one animal-origin disease from the New World to the Old World, and a different Vinland given that the natives here will have vastly more things to sell and buy.

I'm working on the next update. It'll probably be out next week or the week after, depending on how much time my current Caddo WC in EU4 ends up taking (hopefully not too long, given this overpowered monster of a nation I'm working with).
 
For example?

Just from what I gathered from the first post; we can see three major things that are gonna happen when Leif Erikson finds/runs into the New World:

Eriksonian exchange (so trade between old world and new world along the North Sea trade routes; unsure if it will be uninterrupted from contact or not though)
American camelids being transported to the old world (see Siberian settling)
Vikings Breath- a New World epidemic that will travel along with the trade and camels to wreck Europe along with the Black Plague (chuckling a bit at how absolutely unlucky this is for poor Europe)

But other than knowing these events happen we can only speculate/wait for an update. Because at the point of contact and the butterflies escape the Americas; anything and everything is up for play
 
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