Guanacos and vicuñas, the ancestors of llamas and alpacas, were pretty flighty too, I believe someone already said in this thread that they are flightier than deer.
Could the Mississippi-Missouri river system have become a cradle of civilization?
- Thread starter SavoyTruffle
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I think it's definitely possible (I actually do it in my own TL). That being said, I've spent a lot of time on alternate domesticates (again, particularly in my own TL), so I'm just kind of laying out how things would be in the least case scenario. Obviously in a best case scenario you could get deer, and additionally mountain goats, bighorn sheep, bison, capybaras, elk, and maybe moose (which would be particularly useful for farming manoomin) as well as extinct beasts like the woodland muskox, the camelops, and the Hagerman horse, although I'm avoiding that rabbit hole for now. I guess I would also add ducks and geese as easy ones.
Either way, I'd say that through sheer size and land productivity, Mississippia would be a juggernaut. They would still have relative ease traversing their vast land mass which would foster unity, allowing them influence abroad particularly in Mesoamerica, the Caribbean, the Eastern Seaboard, and the Great Lakes. They would easily dwarf any of their European contemporaries at the time of colonization, and due to the stronger native states in their wake, colonization would be much more difficult. Either they would pull a Meiji and be able to industrialize using their vast resources or become a sleeping giant like China to rapidly rise in modernity back to their rightful place that they held for millennia. Famous Mesoamerican civilizations like the Toltecs, Aztecs, and Mayans if they exist would just become effectively afterthoughts to most people, who would be more interested in the vast empire to the north.
I think we should keep in mind that even if they all share a culture, the entire Mississipi system would only very rarely be unified under one polity. I think it likely for there to be at least a north/south split, and likely an eastern one too on the upper ohio
I guess I’m trying to shoot the middle gap between the minimalist and maximalist approach wrt animal domestication, I find that the most interesting scenario lies there.
I suspect that come the modern era Mississippia would end up more like China due to its immense girth promoting introspection and inertia. I also think for that reason that it will exert less influence, particularly wrt hard power, over the Caribbean region than, say, the Mayans, who I could see playing a role similar to the one the Tamil Chola Empire did in the development of Indonesia.
I think this is important to remember too. The Mississippi + Missouri river is already massive and stretches over a lot of the US, but if we include the whole watershed I don't think an area a that large would be unified even if it shared a common culture.
I don't know about that. China is quite large as well, and has often been unified throughout history. Likewise the Ganges basin, at least the sub-Himalayan portion. The easy logistics offered by the Mississippi and its tributaries are a major advantage for any group seeking to conquer the whole basin. It could plausibly go either way.
The Mississippi basin is basically a North China Plain on steroids, with a large network of navigable rivers facilitating transportation even without large draft animals though. I think there’s definitely a decent chance of it being unified more often than not.
Again I'm thinking of parallels with China where the Mississippi-Missouri civilization goes through several periods of relative unity under various dynasties and period division between different kingdoms.
I think it'd make a better story if it was divided more often than not, if only between north/south. I think Michigan & the upper Ohio Valley (meaning the part actually in Ohio & west Virginia) would more often be vassals/client states on the north's peripheries
Well I found some alternate history art by Imperator-Zor.
Perhaps with the existence of a larger more developed Mississippi-Missouri Civilization with the wider impacts it would have the Americas the Viking might stick around. It may be a bit cliche but with the widespread prevalence of cupronickel civilizations the vikings might figure there's plenty of opportunity for not just raiding but also trading goods between the old and new world. Which could be where the Amerindians pick up advance iron-working from outside of the standard bog or meteoric iron.
Though it could be possible that both the Old & New World might end up equally devastated by the exchange of disease in a bronze age collapse/dark age on steroids scenario. With the world still being firmly pre industrial by the twenty first century.
Perhaps with the existence of a larger more developed Mississippi-Missouri Civilization with the wider impacts it would have the Americas the Viking might stick around. It may be a bit cliche but with the widespread prevalence of cupronickel civilizations the vikings might figure there's plenty of opportunity for not just raiding but also trading goods between the old and new world. Which could be where the Amerindians pick up advance iron-working from outside of the standard bog or meteoric iron.
Though it could be possible that both the Old & New World might end up equally devastated by the exchange of disease in a bronze age collapse/dark age on steroids scenario. With the world still being firmly pre industrial by the twenty first century.
Or the exchange of diseases ends up doing for Europe what the Black Death did for it in terms of degrading feudalism as an economic system and paving the way for capitalism a few centuries early, and between that and the early “Columbian” exchange of food crops, we’re already on Mars by now.Well I found some alternate history art by Imperator-Zor.
Perhaps with the existence of a larger more developed Mississippi-Missouri Civilization with the wider impacts it would have the Americas the Viking might stick around. It may be a bit cliche but with the widespread prevalence of cupronickel civilizations the vikings might figure there's plenty of opportunity for not just raiding but also trading goods between the old and new world. Which could be where the Amerindians pick up advance iron-working from outside of the standard bog or meteoric iron.
Though it could be possible that both the Old & New World might end up equally devastated by the exchange of disease in a bronze age collapse/dark age on steroids scenario. With the world still being firmly pre industrial by the twenty first century.
Or European powers leverage their technological advantage over a continent in dissarray that doesn't have time for things to settle out into a natural order, creates trade concessions and factories along the coast, and their economic demands lead to perverse incentive that keep Native states from effectively modernizing while European merchants and later governments continue to leverage their gains to bring them into outright subjugation, albeit not extermination in most places (but probably some)
Well this is 1000 instead of the 1500s with Europe being far less organized and with less of a technological advantage. Who knows maybe the Mississippi-Missouri civilization ends up with their own "Vangarian guard" after contact with the norse. Though I just like the idea of there being a large native American "gunpowder empire".
Also let's not forget a few extra plants were probably also domesticated, since the Mississippi is going to be a cradle of civilization.
I'm not convinced that some moderately more advanced Beothuk are going to convince the Norse to stick it out for the long haul. The economics of a Vinland colony just don't make sense past the Medieval Warm Period.
Fair enough. Thought they might learn about the other civilizations from the Beothuk or some other indigenous tribe and try to head down to the Great Lakes to establish trade ties with the Mississippians. Though yeah whatever trade that did happen between the Old & New World through the Vikings would probably end alongside the Medieval warm period.
Yeah, i imagine that unless they can produce something valuable the norse wouldn't be that interested; there are plenty of more accessible sources of timber and furs in Europe.
I cant imagine much gold or silver would make it up to newfoundland, and the vikings probably are much interested in cupernickle jewelry and tools
The only real possibility would be some kind of imported narcotic. Stimulants are one of those things that even peripheral peoples manage to get their hands on when it's being produced in large metropolitan quantities. But then again, the Beothuk did have tobacco when the Norse met them. It'll probably be in larger quantities, but in any case I don't think it's enough. Coca leaves are again possible, but probably not enough to justify the insane costs involved.
Only means for Vinland to become viable is to have Greenland discovered earlier, and at that point you're just selectively lifting butterfly nets to reach a pre-determined (boring) outcome.
What about maple sugar? Processed Cane sugar would've only just begun trickling into to Europe at the time i think, but the rich developed a sweet tooth very quickly
Honestly, that's probably a better bet than either coca or tobacco. Still, I doubt it
Yeah i figured it'd be a stretch. Certainly i can imagine that sugar production would be higher than otl, and the peoples around the great lakes (the Anishinaabe according to Wikipedia) are especially well placed to provide it the west and to the east coast, but its probably not enough to get the norse to keep at it after the end if the warm period