Could the Mississippi-Missouri river system have become a cradle of civilization?

[Mario]

I see many problems here for such scenario to be possible:

1) Zoological: American equivalents of the horse and the ox would be required. The American horse was extinct and the only relative of the ox there, the bison, was not easy to tame. Mind that most of the bisons existing today in America, excepting the Yellowstone ones and some in Canada, are not pure and they are crossed with cattle.
2) Demographic: the American plains were too much sparsely populated in order to create enough pressure for sedentarianism (agriculture etc.) and there were rarely conflicts for hunting areas prior to Columbus.
3) Technical: Neolithic civilizations in the old Mediterranean-Iranian-Indian-Chinese axis copied a lot of technical advances ones from the others, while the Americans remained isolated from other civilizations.

 

[Aisha Clan-Clan]

Yeah. Have the eastern agricultural complex set of crops picked up earlier, so they can have time to stick/not be supplanted by corn.

This just gets you mesoamerican-equivelant level of civilization though given lack of draft animals.

 

[marathag]

I don't know what makes chestnuts more amenable to domestication (faster growth and/or edibility without treatment probably), but in the Old World, it appears that wherever there were chestnuts they ended up replacing acorns in the local diet, Korean being a notable exce

Not having to soak is a big advantage, just cooking is enough for them to:
A. Edible
B. Tasty

Oak Acorns miss out on 'B'
With the reintroduction of blight proof trees,
Deer prefer eating Chestnut over Acorns, from the lower tannin content, and has more protein, but still a good amount of starch

 

[Arkenfolm]

1) Zoological: American equivalents of the horse and the ox would be required. The American horse was extinct and the only relative of the ox there, the bison, was not easy to tame. Mind that most of the bisons existing today in America, excepting the Yellowstone ones and some in Canada, are not pure and they are crossed with cattle.

Mesoamerica's development shows they don't need large domesticated animals.

2) Demographic: the American plains were too much sparsely populated in order to create enough pressure for sedentarianism (agriculture etc.) and there were rarely conflicts for hunting areas prior to Columbus.

Also not true, there were plenty of agricultural peoples there, they just needed to move every so often to avoid exhausting the good soil in the riverbanks and because hunting was needed for protein. The Crow Creek Massacre shows there was indeed conflict over land from an early time.

3) Technical: Neolithic civilizations in the old Mediterranean-Iranian-Indian-Chinese axis copied a lot of technical advances ones from the others, while the Americans remained isolated from other civilizations.

This would be fixable assuming better trade links which assumes sailing. The Mississippi/East Coast, Southwest, Mesoamerica, Andes, and Amazon all become much better linked leading to more development.

 

[Gwyain]

It’s also worth noting that there is some evidence pointing to the possibility that Africans leapfrogged past bronze and went straight to iron metallurgy.

Do they need to have a "Bronze Age" that requires complex trade networks? Apparently some African cultures skipped that and went straight to iron instead.

This gets brought up from time to time, but there’s a huge problem with using it as an example: we have no idea if or how they did it. Without knowing how it happened it’s impossible to speculate on if it can be replicated, but we’re also not sure if it was an independent development in the first place. Trans-Saharan trade routes were well developed when iron working started to spread there, which could very easily mean the knowledge filtered through from the Mediterranean. Regardless, we’re talking about literally the only place on the planet to possibly not go through iron, using it as a roadmap is fraught with many issues.

 

[Flashman]

This gets brought up from time to time, but there’s a huge problem with using it as an example: we have no idea if or how they did it. Without knowing how it happened it’s impossible to speculate on if it can be replicated, but we’re also not sure if it was an independent development in the first place. Trans-Saharan trade routes were well developed when iron working started to spread there, which could very easily mean the knowledge filtered through from the Mediterranean. Regardless, we’re talking about literally the only place on the planet to possibly not go through iron, using it as a roadmap is fraught with many issues.

There are at least two seperate finds that date iron working in West Africa to 2000 BC, well before there was any mature industry in the Mediterraean. Granted, those datings are heavily debated.

 

[Mark E.]

I saw writings that said horses did not go extinct in North America until 10,000 years ago and if so, it would not be ASB for humans to have been able to interact and use them as they did in the old world.

 

[anotherlurker]

This gets brought up from time to time, but there’s a huge problem with using it as an example: we have no idea if or how they did it. Without knowing how it happened it’s impossible to speculate on if it can be replicated, but we’re also not sure if it was an independent development in the first place. Trans-Saharan trade routes were well developed when iron working started to spread there, which could very easily mean the knowledge filtered through from the Mediterranean. Regardless, we’re talking about literally the only place on the planet to possibly not go through iron, using it as a roadmap is fraught with many issues.

One of the theories i've come across trying to explain how copper smelting was discovered argued that someone used some mineral with a good amount of copper in it to confine a hot fire and later discovered this new material that seemingly formed. Now accidentally discovering iron smelting needs a lot higher temperatures, but that too could happen. For example a stone house with lots of wood inside that has hematite rich walls or some art object made out ot it burning down. House fires can reach temperatures well in excess of what's needed to smelt iron.

 

[Mario]

I saw writings that said horses did not go extinct in North America until 10,000 years ago and if so, it would not be ASB for humans to have been able to interact and use them as they did in the old world.

Well, apparently first humans interacted with them...but for hunting for meat instead of riding. As most of American megafauna, human expansion in the continent was a key factor for their extinction, along with climate changes.

 

[Mario]

Mesoamerica's development shows they don't need large domesticated animals.

Mesoamerica's development was not comparable to Egypt or Mesopotamia, more in the likes of the Empire of Mali. They could not even use wheels.

Also not true, there were plenty of agricultural peoples there, they just needed to move every so often to avoid exhausting the good soil in the riverbanks and because hunting was needed for protein. The Crow Creek Massacre shows there was indeed conflict over land from an early time.

Agriculture was quite underdeveloped there, to say the least.

This would be fixable assuming better trade links which assumes sailing. The Mississippi/East Coast, Southwest, Mesoamerica, Andes, and Amazon all become much better linked leading to more development.

They should know how to sail first, because they didn't.

 

[pattontank12]

So would this mean other civilizations would pop up in North America too? I'd say maybe one further west either in California or along the Colorado river would be possible here. Which could lead to some interesting interesting trade ties if Maritime travel is further expanded, with Mesoamerica acting as a semi intermediary between the civilizations on the Eastern and Western sides of the continent.

 

[The Tai-Pan]

The Mound Builders already existed though?

 

[Gwyain]

There are at least two seperate finds that date iron working in West Africa to 2000 BC, well before there was any mature industry in the Mediterraean. Granted, those datings are heavily debated.

Those sites are more than just heavily debated, they're extraordinarily suspect. Both sites are in highly disturbed areas which renders typical dating techniques almost worthless and no other sites around the two have material dated remotely as old as them. Aside from those two sites, the oldest finds date to 1000-900 BC, which gives ample time for it to have filtered down. The other thing that should cause an eyebrow or two to be raised is that 2000 BC would place that as the first location in the world to use hot ironworking (earlier Iron finds in Egypt for example are made from meteoric iron, which is cold workable), and not only that, but earlier by several hundred years. Until we make finds from less disturbed sites that also date to that period, those two sites are anomalous.

One of the theories i've come across trying to explain how copper smelting was discovered argued that someone used some mineral with a good amount of copper in it to confine a hot fire and later discovered this new material that seemingly formed. Now accidentally discovering iron smelting needs a lot higher temperatures, but that too could happen. For example a stone house with lots of wood inside that has hematite rich walls or some art object made out ot it burning down. House fires can reach temperatures well in excess of what's needed to smelt iron.

Iron is much more oxidizable under heat than copper is though, which makes control of oxygen critical for it. A lump of iron in a heat source without oxygen control is just going end up a useless lump of slag. Pottery kilns provide enough heat and oxygen control to smelt copper (which is quite possibly how it developed), but to get useful iron you need to more fully understand both those facts, making accidental discovery both unlikely and extraordinarily difficult to replicate.

I really do think focusing on North American Bronze is the way to go for metallurgy, there may be difficulties to it, but arsenic bronze and later trading for tin aren't a problem, that's how it developed in the Old World too.

Mesoamerica's development was not comparable to Egypt or Mesopotamia, more in the likes of the Empire of Mali. They could not even use wheels.

The wheel is not the end all be all of technology and its not as if it was unknown to the Americas, the Inca had developed it but found it useless for anything more than toys - which should not come as a surprise given they developed it in one of the most rugged mountain ranges in the world. It should also be remembered that the wheel wasn't developed until ~4000 BC, or 5000 years after the development of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent. Agriculture in Mesoamerica meanwhile is dated to only 5000 BP and, much to my amusement, that figure comes from a Jared Diamond Article no less! I'll go ahead and reasert my thesis from earlier in the thread: the biggest disadvantage the Americas has is everything they do is coming later than Afro-Eurasia.

 

[pattontank12]

So basically they need a bit of an earlier start to agriculture by at least two thousand years.

 

[SunKing105]

Do they need to have a "Bronze Age" that requires complex trade networks? Apparently some African cultures skipped that and went straight to iron instead.

IIRC we're not sure exactly how these societies skipped bronze and went to iron, of even if they did, that we just haven't discovered any prior metalworking with bronze or other metals first. I'm not sure such circumstances could be repeated, as any society capable of stumbling upon iron and using it would also be capable of using bronze first.

 

[Skraea]

There were Native American domesticates in both continents. The Andeans had guinea pigs,llamas,alpacas and chinchillas,the Mesoamericans had ocellated turkey, muscovy duck, iguanas and potentially peccary while the Cliff Dwellers(ancestral Puebloans) had muscovy ducks,parrots and might'v raised rabbits while the Arawak kept iguanas,parrots and hutias. Now on llama and alpaca,those would be hard to spread throughout the Americas without a more intensive trade system and greater migration. However,the peccary,muscovy duck and ocellated turkey could easily spread north to the Mississippi/Missouri rivers, they could domesticate the prairie chicken a galliform and there were other bovids outside the bison to domesticate. Bighorn sheep, mountain goat and muskox. Bighorn sheep and mountain goats are too far west and the muskox too far north. However, the muskox had extinct kin that were better adapted for a temperate climate like the shrub-ox and wood-ox. Larger than the muskox and probably more docile than the bison with a herd mentality that was key to the domestication of sheep, goats, cattle, water buffalo, yak and pig in the Old World. As for crops, the Mound Builders had the Eastern Agricultural Complex which did include some grasses like Little Barley and others. Thing is, the Mound Builders were a very successful culture in their region, going through several stages, had complex agriculture and were the dominant culture in their regions. Outside of metallurgy and domesticates, they were near the level of Mesoamericans and Andeans.

 

[Denliner]

I hate how people always try to point towards Eurasian models of technology to denote what is progress, which is completely unfair on the Native Americans. Mesoamerica and the Andes are NOT the same as the flat riverine civilizations that emerged in Eurasia or the Indo-Europeans of the steppes, both of which had beasts of burden like oxen or horses that made the wheel valuable, which led to the development of roads which only further increased its value.

Native Americans had none of these, which is why wheels were only used for toys in Andean or Mesoamerican societies. Why bother making carts when human porters or dogs are easier forms of transport?

 

[SunKing105]

The Mound Builders already existed though?

We're looking for a full-scale civilization, a state-level society, beyond OTL Mississippians and much more advanced, and also one that will not collapse completely. At the very least it would be similar to Aztec or Inca levels of population and political centralization, though many posts here suggest it could be much more.

 

[SunKing105]

I hate how people always try to point towards Eurasian models of technology to denote what is progress, which is completely unfair on the Native Americans. Mesoamerica and the Andes are NOT the same as the flat riverine civilizations that emerged in Eurasia or the Indo-Europeans of the steppes, both of which had beasts of burden like oxen or horses that made the wheel valuable, which led to the development of roads which only further increased its value.

Native Americans had none of these, which is why wheels were only used for toys in Andean or Mesoamerican societies. Why bother making carts when human porters or dogs are easier forms of transport?

This. Every time a discussion like this arises, people just regurgitate the same old GGS bullshit and the actual implications are often left untouched. I think truly interesting possibilities abound for such a civilization, that is often unexplored.

 

[Mark E.]

The Mound Builders already existed though?

The Cahokia Mounds (regional for me) were a city from 1050 to 1350 AD. That was rather late in pre-Columbian history. They were most likely abandoned when a major earthquake (New Madrid) happened during an annual flood, the typical event that probably inspired the construction of the mounds near the point where the Illinois, Missouri and upper Mississippi Rivers meet.