Horses/Farm Animals in the Americas

[korea]

The book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond essentially details why the pre-Columbian American civilizations never really developed to the technological and political level of Europe. I read the book before, but I believe CGP Grey (in his video "Americapox") sums up the main, underlying reason of why the Native civilizations never progressed to European-level technology: the fact that there were no horses or pigs or cows or other domesticable farm animals native to the Americas. This meant that the development of agriculture was significantly hampered by not having a wider variety of animals able to be worked or consumed.

Ignoring how it would happen, I was wondering what would happen if the Americas had horses, pigs, domesticable cattle, and other farm/pack animals that Europe had. Would the Native civilizations develop to European or almost European levels of technology and political unity? Or would the North and South American climate (another issue discussed in Guns, Germs, and Steel) still post a barrier to societal development?

 

[Simreeve]

The Americas did have horses when humans first arrived there, but apparently they were hunted to extinction quite early on...

 

[twovultures]

This is without a doubt my favorite topic.

First, the obligatory: I don't think it's helpful to talk about "levels" of technology-life is not a strategy videogame with a tech tree you have to develop. Native Americans beat Europeans to discovering the numeral 0, and while Europeans had them beat in iron metallurgy, many Native cultures had accomplished great feats of engineering, plant agriculture, etc. And while I have found Guns, Germs and Steel inspirational, ultimately Jared Diamond simplifies a lot of things and gets other things wrong in the pursuit of this thesis.

However, I do think he gets the broad strokes correct as to why the dice were weighted in favor of European invaders against Native Americans. Having pack animals and livestock could have been hugely beneficial to multiple Native cultures. The labor these animals provide would eventually have translated to higher and more connected populations, which eventually leads to more innovations. This doesn't *necessarily* mean that Natives would develop, say, iron metallurgy, but it does make it *more likely*. Having animals to provide winter clothes in the form of leather or wool in temperate areas remove a potential population constraint that Native Americans faced IOTL, which was the need to hunt for winter clothing.

Regarding political unity, pack animals and cavalry certainly help with that-it helped in the Andes IOTL, after all. And while they were not nation-states in the European sense, mounted North American tribes and tribal confederacies like the Comanche and the Lakota were able to exert political and military control over extremely broad territories, arguably running empires IOTL after they gained horses. An alternate Aztec Empire where the Aztecs have a cavalry and a horse post could help them create a unitary empire which would be much more difficult to colonize for Europeans. Militarily, having cavalry and/or the experience of fighting against mounted cavalry will be a great equalizer for Native armies. Incas who had, say, experience against mounted Mapuche would have been able to avoid some of the tactical blunders they made IOTL against the Spanish which ultimately cost them their empire.

Regarding climate, it's not nearly as big a barrier to animals as it is to plants, though obviously there are limits. Take horses, for example-you won't get horses in the Amazon (outside of a few fringes, as OTL's feral Lavradeiro population in the northern edge of the Brazilian Amazon shows) but horses do fine in drier tropical savanna habitats. The Sunda Islands of Indonesia, the Venezuelan Llanos, even the African Sahel all have thriving horse cultures despite being tropical environment. Sure, you won't be able to keep and breed clydesdales in that kind of environment, but pony-sized horses do just fine.

 

[Lothal]

Considering how much horses completely changed the lifestyles of the Plains Natives from moderately sedentary farmers to nomads akin to those of the Central Asian steppe, having native horses in North America would be game changing and civilisation defining

 

[Janprimus]

Considering how much horses completely changed the lifestyles of the Plains Natives from moderately sedentary farmers to nomads akin to those of the Central Asian steppe, having native horses in North America would be game changing and civilisation defining

You mean surviving horses, which they decide to domesticate at some point instead of hunting them.

 

[korea]

This is without a doubt my favorite topic.

First, the obligatory: I don't think it's helpful to talk about "levels" of technology-life is not a strategy videogame with a tech tree you have to develop. Native Americans beat Europeans to discovering the numeral 0, and while Europeans had them beat in iron metallurgy, many Native cultures had accomplished great feats of engineering, plant agriculture, etc. And while I have found Guns, Germs and Steel inspirational, ultimately Jared Diamond simplifies a lot of things and gets other things wrong in the pursuit of this thesis.

However, I do think he gets the broad strokes correct as to why the dice were weighted in favor of European invaders against Native Americans. Having pack animals and livestock could have been hugely beneficial to multiple Native cultures. The labor these animals provide would eventually have translated to higher and more connected populations, which eventually leads to more innovations. This doesn't *necessarily* mean that Natives would develop, say, iron metallurgy, but it does make it *more likely*. Having animals to provide winter clothes in the form of leather or wool in temperate areas remove a potential population constraint that Native Americans faced IOTL, which was the need to hunt for winter clothing.

Regarding political unity, pack animals and cavalry certainly help with that-it helped in the Andes IOTL, after all. And while they were not nation-states in the European sense, mounted North American tribes and tribal confederacies like the Comanche and the Lakota were able to exert political and military control over extremely broad territories, arguably running empires IOTL after they gained horses. An alternate Aztec Empire where the Aztecs have a cavalry and a horse post could help them create a unitary empire which would be much more difficult to colonize for Europeans. Militarily, having cavalry and/or the experience of fighting against mounted cavalry will be a great equalizer for Native armies. Incas who had, say, experience against mounted Mapuche would have been able to avoid some of the tactical blunders they made IOTL against the Spanish which ultimately cost them their empire.

Regarding climate, it's not nearly as big a barrier to animals as it is to plants, though obviously there are limits. Take horses, for example-you won't get horses in the Amazon (outside of a few fringes, as OTL's feral Lavradeiro population in the northern edge of the Brazilian Amazon shows) but horses do fine in drier tropical savanna habitats. The Sunda Islands of Indonesia, the Venezuelan Llanos, even the African Sahel all have thriving horse cultures despite being tropical environment. Sure, you won't be able to keep and breed clydesdales in that kind of environment, but pony-sized horses do just fine.

Interesting. I know you mentioned how it's not really helpful to talk about levels of technology (which in hindsight is probably correct), but do you think that the presence of horses and farm animals would have enabled the Natives over time to develop some of the technology that was only available in Europe (guns, certain houses, ports, large ships, etc.)?

 

[twovultures]

Interesting. I know you mentioned how it's not really helpful to talk about levels of technology (which in hindsight is probably correct), but do you think that the presence of horses and farm animals would have enabled the Natives over time to develop some of the technology that was only available in Europe (guns, certain houses, ports, large ships, etc.)?

It's more plausible with livestock, but like I said it's not guaranteed. A lot of what you're describing would flow from earlier, more Eurasian-style metallurgical technology, which plausibly could develop thanks to the cultures that would arise around livestock.

Let's say we have a domestication of buffalo in North America thousands of years ago. While those wouldn't do so well in Mesoamerica proper, you could conceivably have a southern pastoral culture in the Mexican grasslands just north of Mesoamerica, where there's a lot of metal ores. A larger population with more people having chances to think (IOTL there were a lot of hunter-gatherer cultures in this area, ITTL they have the calories of bison meat and milk and labor of bison driving their population), a more connected population trading in caravans with the cities in Mesoamerica and getting ideas from them, pressure to create new goods to trade, erosion caused by bison grazing and hooves exposing more ores than IOTL, the need to create weapons to fight other bison pastoralists, it could very well all come together and create an American bronze age thousands of years before contact, leading to thousands of years of building off that metal technology to create large ships and maybe even some sort of firearms, whereas IOTL true bronze metallurgy in Mexico occurred only a few centuries before Columbus.

But ultimately, this is storyteller fiat. The domestications make it more plausible, but whether or not it happens is really if it serves the timeline you're writing.

 

[HARRY]

It may actually make the conquest of north america easier with pre-existing roads for Europeans to follow. The inca & Aztec had roads that lead to their cities & wealth so got taked over by the spanish relatively quickly.

 

[twovultures]

It may actually make the conquest of north america easier with pre-existing roads for Europeans to follow. The inca & Aztec had roads that lead to their cities & wealth so got taked over by the spanish relatively quickly.

That's true, political centralization can be a double-edged sword in some cases.

 

[CountDVB]

This is without a doubt my favorite topic.

First, the obligatory: I don't think it's helpful to talk about "levels" of technology-life is not a strategy videogame with a tech tree you have to develop. Native Americans beat Europeans to discovering the numeral 0, and while Europeans had them beat in iron metallurgy, many Native cultures had accomplished great feats of engineering, plant agriculture, etc. And while I have found Guns, Germs and Steel inspirational, ultimately Jared Diamond simplifies a lot of things and gets other things wrong in the pursuit of this thesis.

However, I do think he gets the broad strokes correct as to why the dice were weighted in favor of European invaders against Native Americans. Having pack animals and livestock could have been hugely beneficial to multiple Native cultures. The labor these animals provide would eventually have translated to higher and more connected populations, which eventually leads to more innovations. This doesn't *necessarily* mean that Natives would develop, say, iron metallurgy, but it does make it *more likely*. Having animals to provide winter clothes in the form of leather or wool in temperate areas remove a potential population constraint that Native Americans faced IOTL, which was the need to hunt for winter clothing.

Regarding political unity, pack animals and cavalry certainly help with that-it helped in the Andes IOTL, after all. And while they were not nation-states in the European sense, mounted North American tribes and tribal confederacies like the Comanche and the Lakota were able to exert political and military control over extremely broad territories, arguably running empires IOTL after they gained horses. An alternate Aztec Empire where the Aztecs have a cavalry and a horse post could help them create a unitary empire which would be much more difficult to colonize for Europeans. Militarily, having cavalry and/or the experience of fighting against mounted cavalry will be a great equalizer for Native armies. Incas who had, say, experience against mounted Mapuche would have been able to avoid some of the tactical blunders they made IOTL against the Spanish which ultimately cost them their empire.

Regarding climate, it's not nearly as big a barrier to animals as it is to plants, though obviously there are limits. Take horses, for example-you won't get horses in the Amazon (outside of a few fringes, as OTL's feral Lavradeiro population in the northern edge of the Brazilian Amazon shows) but horses do fine in drier tropical savanna habitats. The Sunda Islands of Indonesia, the Venezuelan Llanos, even the African Sahel all have thriving horse cultures despite being tropical environment. Sure, you won't be able to keep and breed clydesdales in that kind of environment, but pony-sized horses do just fine.

While the animals would be different, classic beasts of burden and so on would help alot the Amerindians here though now I'm wondering if a unique disease here would be created as a result and would be spread over to Eurasia at some point. Maybe with enough mutations

 

[Dave Howery]

I'd think the Americans would make further technological strides than in OTL, but it would still be at a slower rate, and they'd be somewhat behind Europe by the 15th Century. One reason is simply time... modern humans were in the Middle East since they first left Africa, but didn't arrive in the New World for a very long time after that. Second is concentration of resources... Diamond notes that the wild ancestors of pigs, cattle, sheep, wheat, barley, and peas were all handy in one place in the Fertile Crescent. The New World is somewhat of a disadvantage, where maize arose in Mexico, potatoes down in Peru, etc. There's also the question of metals... are tin and copper in the New World close together anywhere to facilitate in discovering bronze? OTOH, if not, maybe they would jump straight to an Iron Age?

While the animals would be different, classic beasts of burden and so on would help alot the Amerindians here though now I'm wondering if a unique disease here would be created as a result and would be spread over to Eurasia at some point. Maybe with enough mutations

urgh. If Old World diseases spread through the New World, and vice versa, people are likely to be thin on the ground everywhere for a while...

 

[Arkenfolm]

It may actually make the conquest of north america easier with pre-existing roads for Europeans to follow. The inca & Aztec had roads that lead to their cities & wealth so got taked over by the spanish relatively quickly.

Not sure if that has anything to do with those reasons given that Europeans (and later the US) extensively used native scouts in most of the Indian Wars as well as in times of peace to discover the optimal roads to a given location. A lot of modern roads and highways still use these old native trails.

There were also a few even more well-defined roads like the Chacoan roads in the Southwest which are about a thousand years old.

While the animals would be different, classic beasts of burden and so on would help alot the Amerindians here though now I'm wondering if a unique disease here would be created as a result and would be spread over to Eurasia at some point. Maybe with enough mutations

It depends on the sort of animal, because most human diseases that occurred because of animal domestication emerged in pigs, cattle, and horses. Very few came from, say, sheep and goats.

 

[twovultures]

While the animals would be different, classic beasts of burden and so on would help alot the Amerindians here though now I'm wondering if a unique disease here would be created as a result and would be spread over to Eurasia at some point. Maybe with enough mutations

More people+more connectedness+more zoonotic contact definitely weighs the scales in favor of creating an "Americapox", in whatever form that may take.