Even Siberians

Inspired by the "Even American Natives" thread.

It's striking to me the parallel between Spanish conquest of the Americas and the Russian conquest of Siberia. Both European conquerors were at the same level of technology and the native peoples were roughly on par as well. Granted I'm leaving out population centers like MesoAmerica and the Andeas in making the comparison.

How could the Siberian native peoples be improved technologically and organizationally to the point where they could withstand Russian expansion? As far as guns germs and steel goes they didn't fair any better than Native Americans.

It appears most died from Russian diseases despite being native to Eurasia, and that somehow horses and iron were either scarce or non-existant among many Siberian tribes. They had domesticated the reindeer and though there were some yaks in parts of Mongolia and Russia, I don't recall the Siberians domesticating them the way the Himalaysian people have.
 
Inspired by the "Even American Natives" thread.

It's striking to me the parallel between Spanish conquest of the Americas and the Russian conquest of Siberia. Both European conquerors were at the same level of technology and the native peoples were roughly on par as well. Granted I'm leaving out population centers like MesoAmerica and the Andeas in making the comparison.

How could the Siberian native peoples be improved technologically and organizationally to the point where they could withstand Russian expansion? As far as guns germs and steel goes they didn't fair any better than Native Americans.

It appears most died from Russian diseases despite being native to Eurasia, and that somehow horses and iron were either scarce or non-existant among many Siberian tribes. They had domesticated the reindeer and though there were some yaks in parts of Mongolia and Russia, I don't recall the Siberians domesticating them the way the Himalaysian people have.
ASB, IMO. You need agriculture to get the population densities you need, and most of Siberia is too cold. As i understand it.
 
ASB, IMO. You need agriculture to get the population densities you need, and most of Siberia is too cold. As i understand it.

It really depends on the definition used; if one uses the smaller definition, then yeah, it's almost all Subarctic (and some arctic) climate, however if you use the larger definition it's basically like Canada, with vast subarctic areas, but also substantial areas where normal agriculture is possible.
 
Probably more contact with the outside world. As far as I understand, the Siberian where very much locked away in their own little world, and that is why they weren't resistant to diseases.

But I don't know how to get their tech up. Probably the same way as with the diseases. More consistent contact with other cultures, either through vikings who explore the area around modern Arkhangelsk then farther inland, and have siberians develop on par with them, or have contact with the Chinese/Mongols, and develop that way.
 
Probably more contact with the outside world. As far as I understand, the Siberian where very much locked away in their own little world, and that is why they weren't resistant to diseases.

But I don't know how to get their tech up. Probably the same way as with the diseases. More consistent contact with other cultures, either through vikings who explore the area around modern Arkhangelsk then farther inland, and have siberians develop on par with them, or have contact with the Chinese/Mongols, and develop that way.

The Siberians were'nt a single group; their were of course many who remained largely isolated from the outside world, however others had semi-regular to regular contact, for instance the Khanate of Sibir, from which we derive the name Siberia, was one of the successor states of the Mongol Empires, had cultural links (its rulers converted its population to Islam) with the outside as well as trade and occasionally military links (that is it saw the occasional raid or border skirmish) as well.
 
Someone write an interesting post about Rome to China trade route around northern Europe and down the Ob and Irtysh river to Central Asia, then by caravan to western China. Perhaps a less ambitious sustained contact is possible, not necessarily as a direct trade route, but one where goods are passed from hand to hand over many years like the Silk Road.

Siberia is limited by agriculture, but a few areas like the Tomsk Oblast are exceptions where agriculture is quite possible. Combine that with fish farming and maybe they could have a population base big enough to resist a few hundred years longer.
 
The Siberians were'nt a single group; their were of course many who remained largely isolated from the outside world, however others had semi-regular to regular contact, for instance the Khanate of Sibir, from which we derive the name Siberia, was one of the successor states of the Mongol Empires, had cultural links (its rulers converted its population to Islam) with the outside as well as trade and occasionally military links (that is it saw the occasional raid or border skirmish) as well.

I kenw of Siber, but I was thinking more along the lines of the various tribes of the farther north.
 
Someone write an interesting post about Rome to China trade route around northern Europe and down the Ob and Irtysh river to Central Asia, then by caravan to western China.


I meant wrote not write. What genius put "i" and "o" next to eachother?
 

katchen

Banned
Firstly, we need to remember that Siberia is one of the cruelest regions on Earth. Siberia goes through periods in which vast areas, such as the Lena, Yensei and other river valleys can become arable. Then there will be a Little Ice Age and agriculture will no longer be possible. Which may be a major reason, by the way, for many of the vast movements of populations out of Asia. Periods in which the steppes are well watered are generally periods in which the Siberian tiaga is warmer too. When the steppe dries out and it's people can no longer make a living on the steppe where they are at, they would migrate toward settled areas, then coming as conquerers (now coming as laborers). Siberian nomads, smaller in number, forced out of Siberia, become the next steppe nomads, continuing the cycle, while hunters and gatherers from still farther north take up the places of the siberian pastoralists.
Faced with this situation, ti is interesting to look at the situation of the Yakuts just before the Russians encounter them. The Yakuts were forced into Central Siberia by the Oirat Mongols around the 1200s and have managed to multiply since then, displacing hunting and gathering Evenki tungusic peoples with Yakut pastoral lifestyle. See http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/vajda/ea210/yakut.htm
http://www.cosmicelk.net/Yakutia16c.htm
Also see http://www.cosmicelk.net/Yakutia17c.htm . This website contains a Yakut history of the 17th Century detailing how the Russian conquest of the Yakuts came about. Had the Dutch managed to contact Tygyn Darkhan before 1625, it is likely that the Yakuts might have had guns, which they would have recieved in trade for such things as reindeer antlers (valuable in traditional Asian medicine) fossil mammoth ivory and sable furs that could be traded to the Chinese or Japanese or sold in the Netherlands by the VOC. So VOC contact with the Yakuts via the Lamuts around OKhotsk. In that way, the Yakuts could resist the Russians.
Later on, as listemembes who access this site will see, the Yakuts asked the Qing Manchus for protection against the Russians but the Qing were not interested in providing them.
 
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