Could an advanced civilization develop in Rio de la Plata - Patagonia?

Considering that this region is ideal for agriculture, minerals are found in the Andes and Amazon rainforest prevent the contact with northern rivals, could a civilization develop in the basin of Rio de la Plata? What if they experienced some development similar to India or China? (for this to work they would need a lot of manpower but the pampas can fed them)
 
Having a useful crop like Corn (Mesoamerica), Wheat (Fertile Crescent), Rice (East Asia) or Potatoes (Andes) would certainly help.
 
Sure. The earliest date for Human habitation in the Americas gets pushed back all the time. Now there's compelling evidence of us being in the Americas as early as 75,000 BC in the vividly named Pendejo Cave, because fuck you history nerds I guess. You just have to mess with climate and food growing enough to allow for centralized bubbles of civilization. Having the American climate stabilize would also help.
 
They need some cereal crops, domesticable animals, same for any other place. But yes it is very suitable for a civilization around the Pampas.
 
The biggest problem appears to be the slow diffusion of civilization southwards. Despite having potatoes domesticated right next door, and other suitable crops like quinoa, maize, other Andean crops in general, and cassava (for the northern parts of the area), the locals never developed much on their own and mostly ended up getting swept away by the Mapuche OTL.

If crops/cultural ideas diffused earlier could be a highly successful region though. In the La Plata basin, the locals could develop a strong river civilization. The best way would be getting maize there a millennia earlier and give it more time to evolve and diffuse. That way whoever's in the Uruguay/Buenos Aires area (call them the alt-Charrua for simplicity) will be able to adopt it. Then we need to get llamas to spread to the temperate lowlands, although I'm not sure if llamas or their close kin could thrive in Uruguay. Maybe they'd domesticate the rhea instead. Civilizations like this could spread all over the Pampas/southern end of the Chaco and perhaps carry on a thriving trade with the Andes and Amazon in rhea leather and yerba mate. This could maybe be comparable/evolve like an alt-Mississippian sort of culture.

South of them in Patagonia they'd grow less maize due to the climate and be more confined to river valleys, but grow potatoes and quinoa and most definitely herd llamas and alpacas in addition to rheas. Coastal groups may import a fishing/whaling culture from TTL's stronger sailing cultures of Tierra del Fuego/Chonos and settle the Falklands assuming the Fuegians don't get there first.

Outside of the La Plata basin it's likely civilization would be rather marginal (and a transition between TTL's larger civilization in central/southern Chile, the Andes, and La Plata) but still much larger and vibrant than OTL. It's likely in Patagonia and much of the Pampas it gets swept away by horse nomads, much as they dominated the more settled peoples of the Great Plains, but perhaps a long history of utilizing the llama and rhea would help them out.

Yeah I do not know where you got the idea that Patagonia was ideal farming land from. It is one of the coldest regions in the Americas.
It's like the Great Plains in many ways. There's no reason you can't have a sizable amount of people living around the rivers farming quinoa and potatoes (domesticated right next door in the Chiloe archipelago, although quinoa would need a cultivar adapted to the day length) or indeed maize and trading with llama herders who use the land unsuitable for farming. Same goes with the Pampas.
 
I feel like the pampa is like the Asian Steppe, you could have a pretty big civilization here, but you need horses to make it viable, without that the places it´s just too huge and deprived of easy access to civilized crops to be Viable,
 
I feel like the pampa is like the Asian Steppe, you could have a pretty big civilization here, but you need horses to make it viable, without that the places it´s just too huge and deprived of easy access to civilized crops to be Viable,

There is a lot of variation between the Northeastern and Southwestern Pampas, but the Pampas can be considered as consistently hotter and wetter than the Asian Steppe. A better comparison would be the China Plains around the River Yellow.
 
There is a lot of variation between the Northeastern and Southwestern Pampas, but the Pampas can be considered as consistently hotter and wetter than the Asian Steppe. A better comparison would be the China Plains around the River Yellow.
I was thinking more in the southern pampas- Patagonia, for the comparison with the Asia Stepper, And you are right Northern Pampas around the Uruguay river are more like the yellow river. why there was never a civilization here I don´t know
 

Kaze

Banned
The Inca did have parts of Argentina. A larger Incan Empire might include the Rio de la Plata.
 
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