Challenge: Connected Americas

[0ranos]

The challenge is this: come up with a scenario in which, before the arrival of Europeans, the civilizations of the Americas are exchanging goods and ideas.

Must include: A civilization of Southern America, at least one from Meso-America, and at least two 'culture groupings' from North America.

Is it even possible? Or am I just being ridiculous?

 

[Alex Richards]

I think that it could be possible to have the Navaho trading with Mesoamerica, but South America is more difficult.

 

[Lugal]

The Taino could become a trading empire, trading with the Mississippians through Florida, the Mayas and the Chibchas or the Muisca.

Also as in OTL there was trading between the Anasazi and Mexico.

 

[AmIndHistoryAuthor]

Not only possible, IOTL it likely happened. Most scholars think the Mississippian culture had either lots of contact with or was even completely derived from the Mesoamerican. Lots of cultural and language similarities. The most obvious example is the similar snake motifs in the religious beliefs. One Cherokee I've spoken to says their oral traditions speak of the Mississippians (some of whom mingled with the Cherokee) coming from further south.

Like AR said, the problem is getting trading with S America. Perhaps a bit more time before contact with Europeans and the Incas may expand enough to do it. Perhaps averting the same civil war that crippled their state before Pizarro's invasion, putting their energies into expanding further north.

 

[jycee]

It is not impossible to have North American, Meso American, and South American cutures trading but the POD has to be decently early at least a couple hundred years.
By the time of European arrival the Incas had just suffered a tremendous civil war that preatty much destroyed them. Meanwhile in Meso America the Aztecs had conquered a big chunk in the middle and because everybody hated them it did not do much good to anyone else.
If somehow instead of having the Aztecs, whose economic system is based on war and sacrifice there had been a much more peaceful civilization with an economy based on trade this could eventually lead to trade between NA and SA.
What is really cool is that if contact had existed, American cultures would have developed a much more efficient water transportation and boating. Both on the Pacific up and down from Mexico to Peru and in the Caribbean.

 

[Sam]

The challenge is this: come up with a scenario in which, before the arrival of Europeans, the civilizations of the Americas are exchanging goods and ideas.

Must include: A civilization of Southern America, at least one from Meso-America, and at least two 'culture groupings' from North America.

Is it even possible? Or am I just being ridiculous?

Isn't this the starting point for the Bronze Age New World timeline?

 

[NothingNow]

Isn't this the starting point for the Bronze Age New World timeline?

I don't know, but it does seem like BANW fits the bill.

 

[tormsen]

There are some who claim that the Toltecs (IIRC) came from South America. I don't believe it, but the fact that the idea is thrown about suggests it's not that outlandish. I think they could have rather easily had contact and trade with their existing level of technology, but for a bunch of different reasons they didn't. I doubt that isolation would have continued for more than a couple of centuries longer if the Europeans hadn't shown up.

The fact that maize got to the Incas shows there was a bit of interaction and diffusion anyway.

 

[Umbral]

The challenge is this: come up with a scenario in which, before the arrival of Europeans, the civilizations of the Americas are exchanging goods and ideas.

Must include: A civilization of Southern America, at least one from Meso-America, and at least two 'culture groupings' from North America.

Is it even possible? Or am I just being ridiculous?

I think it is very possible. And weu only need a single POD, although how to achieve that POD...

We need better ship tech for someone. The Caribbian and Mexico Gulf is pretty ideal for a sailing and raiding/trading civilization. And a raiding people could marture into traders.

Ships trading from the South American Taironas, all the way up the Mississippi would exchange goods and ideas at a furious pace.

But we need a leap in ship tech for that. (Personally, I think their would have been more imprtant to the Americas than horses.)

How to get it? We can get it from the vikings, and that comes with a few additional bonuses. But we only get a few centuries to play with it, and that may not be enough for things to properly settle. We may get something like the sea peoples bringing civilizations crashing down, without time for things to get back into swing again, or even a situation where sailing doesn't really get out of the lag phase.

We can get it from other old world civilizations. Romans, Cartagians, or my favorites, Tartessians and Minoans.

But that may very well come with other cultural seeds, and at such an early point in the Mesoamericans history that their cultures become unrecognizable.

It would be best if it was a native development, but I am at a loss as to how to get that. Because we need a rather large improvement.