Beringia: Alternative Natural History

[oshron]

ive been bouncing this idea around in my head for a while now. how do you all think civilizations and colonies in america would have developed had there not been any bering land bridge? for those who dont know, the bering land bridge is either a land bridge or expanse of ice (no one is quite sure, iirc) that once connected russia and alaska and allowed for the migration of eurasian fauna, including human beings, from russia into the americas.

these are some conclusions or assertions that ive already come up with:

fauna in many parts of the world would be considerably different. for one, there's no camels in the old world; they originated in teh americas and later migrated to afro-eurasia, and died out in the americas entirely (except for camelids like llamas, which continued to survive in south america). there would be none of the well-known big cats of both the present day and the prehistoric era, so there's no saber-tooths, american lions, mountain lions, jaguars, bobcats, or any predators like that, and there would be no mammoths, which also migrated over from eurasia. ones that im not entirely sure about are beavers, pigs, horses, and bears because im not too familiar with their fossil records. consequently, this means that its entirely possible the dominant animals in the americas by the time the europeans arrive would be meridiungulates (such as this Toxodon and Macrauchenia, armadillos, possibly anteaters, ground sloths (some of which could reach elephantine sizes), predatory marsupials (such as Thylacosmilus) and the famous terror birds. however, i wouldnt expect giant birds like Argentavis because they had virtually no competition OTL and still died out

its also possible that humans DO still exist in the new world in spite of there being no bering land bridge because of the theory that at least some of teh american aboriginals are descended from polynesians. for what ive thought of so far (in a rather romanticized sense), the aztec and incan empires and the natives between them still appear, possibly with beliefs in theriocephalic gods similar to those of the egyptians (though this is rather unlikely from a realistic standpoint). because of this, the colonization of the americas by the europeans could be considerably more difficult in the more northerly regions because there's no friendly natives to help them get through the winters

thoughts, anyone?

 

[MNP]

More than polynesians. There's some evidence that Ainu-like (genetically similar) people arrived in the Americas in the north, purely by boat, without using the land bridge.

 

[archaeogeek]

There would potentially be one problem with the polynesian connection: the first polynesian settlers would not have reached the continent before, more or less, the year 1000, probably not even until the 14th century.

However, it is possible (there's fairly good evidence of it even) that the arrival of the Na-Dene (Athabaskan, Navajo, Apache, etc) and Inuit peoples may have been after the end of the land bridge; the inuit still maintained contacts by sea with Asia, and shipbuilding is one of the technologies they never lost (after losing the bow, metallurgy, etc - one of the problems of the founder effect, polynesians seemingly had this problem too). Some of the Na-Dene peoples on the west coast did develop the beginnings of a settled, hierarchical society, and not competing with the older group to the south may have resulted in Navajo rather than Nahuatl being the lingua franca of the Andes or the Mexican plateau. They still had a couple thousand years to settle the continent, all told.

Of course there's so many butterflies involved though...

 

[Tobit]

for those who dont know, the bering land bridge is either a land bridge or expanse of ice (no one is quite sure, iirc) that once connected russia and alaska and allowed for the migration of eurasian fauna, including human beings, from russia into the americas.

People do know and have known ever since the theory of Beringia was first considered. It was more than just a thin bridge connecting Asia and America it was an entire subcontinental landmass. Sea levels were low and temperatures were much warmer when Beringia existed. An entire savannah like ecosystem carried on for thousands of years allowing animals, plants, and eventually people to cross and recross that region.

As to your WI scenario the way see it, that water has to be displaced somewhere. So perhaps there is a chain of islands across the south atlantic. Putting Africa and Brazil within distance of each other for the sake of species transfer.

After all a similar chain of islands is what allowed Old World Primates to cross historically. Perhaps Humans find their way to the Americas along the same route.

 

[david31]

There is also some genetic evidence that ice age hunters from Europe migrated in small numbers, hunting along the edge of the ice sheets, to North America.

And now that I think about it there was nothing to hinder ice age nomads in Asia doing the same thing from the other direction.

 

[oshron]

human arrival in the americas i have no doubt of, the main thing with there being no land bridge is that there could be significantly less aboriginals as well as an entirely different native fauna, because the paleo-indians certainly werent bringing mammoths and sabertooths over the sea in boats

 

[archaeogeek]

human arrival in the americas i have no doubt of, the main thing with there being no land bridge is that there could be significantly less aboriginals as well as an entirely different native fauna, because the paleo-indians certainly werent bringing mammoths and sabertooths over the sea in boats

The paleo-indians, though, were only one of the migration waves, there were at least three; and local megafauna may have mammoth replacements on hand. The inuit most certainly came after the extinction of the mammoth and there's a strong chance the Na-Dene also did, at least if you consider localized extinctions.

And there's a lot of indications that the main reason they didn't go south was because the area was already populated within capacity for the technology; when there was a power/demography void because of the viral shock and the drying up of the great basin, you saw the Navajo and the Apache move in and take over a large part of Pueblo lands.

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Trouble is, North America and Eurasia have been linked fairly reguarly either Greenland or Beringia since the Mesozoic- witness the fact that late Cretaceous Mongolia has its own collection of dromeosaurs, tyrannosaurs, and hadrosaurs, while Eocene Europe and North America are both home to primitive carnivorans (the miacids), early horses, and large flightless predatory birds unrelated to the later South American "Terror Birds".

However, for the sake of argument, let's say that North America becomes an island continent from the late Oligocene onwards. We're unlikely to see the continent being dominated by South American creatures like toxodonts and lipoterns, since North America by this point already had a diverse assemblage of grazing creatures, mostly a collection of horses, camels and rhinos. Terror birds and thylacosmilids are similarly unlikely to hold out against North America's canids, amphicyonids and nimravids any more than they did when cats invaded South America IOTL. The South American fauna that will do particuarly well will probably be the stuff that did in OTL- namely the ground sloths.

So when humans discover this North America, assuming we keep a butterfly net over the Old World, they'll find a continent free of deer, mammoths and cats, but with equivalent forms of camel, rhinoceros and nimravid instead- though the surviving nimravids may be iffy, given that they had no obvious inferiority to cats, and seem to have coexisted with them for millions of years. This megafauna will probably be wiped out as quickly as OTL North American megafauna was, due to lack of exposure to this new superpredator, and general environmental stress due to entering the current interglacial period.

I do enjoy a good geological POD...

 

[oshron]

Trouble is, North America and Eurasia have been linked fairly reguarly either Greenland or Beringia since the Mesozoic- witness the fact that late Cretaceous Mongolia has its own collection of dromeosaurs, tyrannosaurs, and hadrosaurs, while Eocene Europe and North America are both home to primitive carnivorans (the miacids), early horses, and large flightless predatory birds unrelated to the later South American "Terror Birds".

However, for the sake of argument, let's say that North America becomes an island continent from the late Oligocene onwards. We're unlikely to see the continent being dominated by South American creatures like toxodonts and lipoterns, since North America by this point already had a diverse assemblage of grazing creatures, mostly a collection of horses, camels and rhinos. Terror birds and thylacosmilids are similarly unlikely to hold out against North America's canids, amphicyonids and nimravids any more than they did when cats invaded South America IOTL. The South American fauna that will do particuarly well will probably be the stuff that did in OTL- namely the ground sloths.

So when humans discover this North America, assuming we keep a butterfly net over the Old World, they'll find a continent free of deer, mammoths and cats, but with equivalent forms of camel, rhinoceros and nimravid instead- though the surviving nimravids may be iffy, given that they had no obvious inferiority to cats, and seem to have coexisted with them for millions of years. This megafauna will probably be wiped out as quickly as OTL North American megafauna was, due to lack of exposure to this new superpredator, and general environmental stress due to entering the current interglacial period.

I do enjoy a good geological POD...

thank you very much for that i wasnt really aware of most of those animals and this helps alot with planning the fauna. with fewer aboriginals, what do you think are the possibilities of north american megafauna by the time the europeans arrive?

 

[NothingNow]

thank you very much for that i wasnt really aware of most of those animals and this helps alot with planning the fauna. with fewer aboriginals, what do you think are the possibilities of north american megafauna by the time the europeans arrive?

Terror Birds, and Glyptodonts are likely, if not that widespread, simply because no-one is really going to consider hunting them as reasonable.

 

[oshron]

doesnt mean they wouldnt eventually be wiped out. remember the tasmanian tiger?

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

Terror Birds, and Glyptodonts are likely, if not that widespread, simply because no-one is really going to consider hunting them as reasonable.

Why so? Terror bird hunting will be a prestigious activity, and who knows, the animals themselves might be pretty tasty. Glyptodonts might also be nice to eat, but I fail to see how exactly human hunters would go about killing one- it'd certainly be a painful and nasty death for the animal.

 

[oshron]

i would imagine glyptodonts to basically be less aggressive elephants: youd need alot of firepower to bring one down, but its not gonna go out of its way to bother you; if you avoid it, it wont attack. on the other hand, such animals as toxodonts may be more aggressive, and terror birds would probably attack whatever they saw fit to eat

 

[Basileus Giorgios]

i would imagine glyptodonts to basically be less aggressive elephants: youd need alot of firepower to bring one down, but its not gonna go out of its way to bother you; if you avoid it, it wont attack. on the other hand, such animals as toxodonts may be more aggressive, and terror birds would probably attack whatever they saw fit to eat

Toxodonts are just as unlikely to survive invasions of placental predators as they were in OTL. The trouble I foresaw with killing a glytodont was penetrating the animal's massive "shell". Agree about the phorusrachids though- these won't be particuarly intelligent predators, and are likely to regard anything new and small as potential prey.

 

[oshron]

well i was just using the toxodonts as an example there; you could easily substitute a different north american megafaunal animal for the toxodonts and get the same scenario