How high can we get the world population?

I think we've mentioned sweet potatoes a few times but not any other kind. Curious to hear your input on the issue.
 
Well, potatoes have very high caloric value and are very easy to grow. Add to that that they can grow pretty much anywhere, and it makes sense that an early introduction of potatoes could skyrocket the globe's population: the earlier the better. It's a long shot, but maybe an ancient Polynesian raft could float across the Pacific to what is now modern-day Chile and trade with the natives there for proto-potatoes. They could bring them back to their islands, and they could spread to Southeast Asia, then to China, then the Japan and Central Asia, and finally to Europe. Do this early enough, maybe in the early Middle Ages or late Antiquity, and you could have yourself a much higher population, especially in China.
 
I think we've mentioned sweet potatoes a few times but not any other kind. Curious to hear your input on the issue.

I think it that since its a strictly South American Crop it might violate the OP.
There is no evidence of it being cultivated outside the Andes until after the Spanish Conquest.

With the more widespread trading routes is it possible for it to be introduced to more widespread cultivation?
It is credited for helping Europe avoid a Malthusian Trap after its introduction, with obvious exceptions where overdependence occurred.
Which could also be an issue if a country is hit by a blight. However, with no Black Death and Mongol Invasions Europe could maintain the population levels that preceded these disasters with a cheap easily produced foodstuff.
This could lead to greater population pressure to expand, and for mass emigration, much earlier than historically. There are the political effects, more civil servants & more taxes to pay them, caused by a much larger, and one assumes restless, populace, that has to be better educated in order to provide administrators and tax collectors; and the need to provide goods and services, this could force industrialisation, but then technology would have to advance faster, it incites a lot of Butterflies.

In theory the countries of Europe could hit their mid 19th century populations several centuries early, and have a Medieval system trying to govern them. And as happened with Qing China, some societies might crack under the pressure.
Or a country could reach its zenith and become a Super-power entirely unexpectedly.
If for some reason it becomes popular in one nation but not another the shift in demographics could have long term consequences.
For example for most of Britain and France's 1,000 year rivalry France had the much greater population, as much as twice that of Britain. And was the most populous state in Europe until 1795, if Britain, or Spain, or the Netherlands introduces the Potato, and for some reason France does not, its not completely implausible Tomatoes were once avoided as poisonous and there were once laws allowing only grain to be planted in open fields, the balance might shift.
It has only been since the late 19th century that Britain and France have had even close to similar population sizes. France had a population of 29 Million in 1806, Britain's was around 16 Million, it did not reach 29 million until 1860; at which point the population of the United States was 31.5 million and France some 36 million. By 1909 it had slipped to behind Britain in total population.

We could be looking at anything from a larger Dutch Republic encompassing the entire Spanish Netherlands, to Britain having the Manpower to create, and ability to feed, armies capable of winning the 100 years war, which is a pretty big ASB ... in the form of a Tuber!
 
Now that's a excellent idea. The before mentioned trade routes (in place by the mid 1300's) could cause the potato to be spread rapidly over large parts of the world. Potatoes would probably spread to the North American civilizations first due to their close proximity to South America.

We really seem to be onto something at this point, liking the numbers coming out for Western Europe. How big does Eastern Europe's population get? How about the other regions in the world? Would it be more plausible for everyone to adopt the potato are roughly the same time or would it be more plausible for a significant time delay between nations? If there's a significant delay then might we be able to see the first adopters appear in the Byzantine Empire and Novgorod? OTL the Byzantines were involved with trade in Asia (where the hub of the trade network is in this timeline) and in my current draft Novgorod has a trade links with the various Siberian Kingdoms (which in that universe are also in the Asian trade route). How would that affect the survival of the Byzantine Empire? Could we see the introduction of the potato give Novgorod the edge it needs to reunite the Kievan Rus?

How would the Middle East develop with the early introduction of potatoes, no black death and a severely weakened Golden Horde (invasions only last 10 years after which they have no lasting influence). The nations in the Middle East would certainly have a big boost in manpower and wealth. How big does the population there get in this timeline?

If we introduce potatoes introduced to Australia by the trade routes would we be able to see Australian Aboriginal kingdoms emerging? Maybe they could earn money by trading their mined resources? As the region is covered with hunter gatherer communities it would be pretty slow. How many centuries would it take? How big might their population get by 1600? Is about 2.5 million too much?
 
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Hmm, you might have a point there. Might take a while to convert hunter gatherers to an agricultural civilization and having agriculture spread from one group of hunter gatherers to those around them. There were some agricultural civilizations on the North American region though https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture#/media/File:Mississippian_cultures_HRoe_2010.jpg. Maybe we could have the majority of the trade bypass the hunter gatherers. Have explorers looking for new allies and resources go east and bump into the agricultural cultures such as the Plaquemine, Fort Ancient, Middle Mississippi, South Appalachian and Oneota Cultures. Have the majority of trade flow through these cultures. It would be much easier to introduce an already agricultural society to a new crop.

Once these societies get horses and are able to increase their food production it wouldn't be surprising to see these cultures begin conquering the surrounding hunter gatherer cultures. Once these cultures are conquered they would be forced to convert to an agricultural society. The expanding empires could eventually expand west across the Rocky Mountains until eventually a large part of the eastern coastline is under occupation of the Native American Empires. Given the lack of resistance of Native Americans to outside disease they'd probably be a plague that wipes out 90% of the population and causes these empires to fragment. By this point cultures across the Americas have already been converted to agriculture and would be unlikely to abandon it.

Maybe the plague hits before the empires can reach the Pacific coastline, the empire fragments spend a century recovering then push their collective borders the rest of the way to the west coast. Because the trade routes went straight through the area west of the Rocky Mountains the hunter gatherers there would be affected as well. In a century the numbers in the empire fragments wouldn't be back to levels before the plague but you wouldn't need many soldiers to conquer hunter gatherers.

Thinking of a scenario when Europeans do colonize North America but the situation is less the OTL USA and more like South Africa, with the Native American peoples eventually reestablishing control of their nations.

China had horses, and they tended to fail hard at conquering nomadic civilisations. Therefore, any Mississippian control of the Plains seems unlikely. Could they expand their sphere? Yes. But conquering the Plains without better technology just seems impossible, since there's going to be all sorts of nomadic civilisations to contend with. And crossing the Rockies just seems impossible.

Also, you shouldn't ignore the Mississippian-influenced cultures on the Plains in the river valleys of the Kansas, Platte, Arkansas, etc.

The best way to conquer the Plains is as in OTL--kill as many buffalo as possible (maybe for bison robes and other clothing?), and leave the locals there to kill the rest, and eventually the local peoples will starve, their numbers will be reduced, and they won't be particularly dangerous.

If we introduce potatoes introduced to Australia by the trade routes would we be able to see Australian Aboriginal kingdoms emerging? Maybe they could earn money by trading their mined resources? As the region is covered with hunter gatherer communities it would be pretty slow. How many centuries would it take? How big might their population get by 1600? Is about 2.5 million too much?

No. But if you get the potato to New Zealand, the Maori would very much appreciate it. Go look at the Musket Wars for the OTL example of what introducing the potato to New Zealand caused. At some point once the population grows high enough and the conflicts violent enough, I wonder if there'd be migrations elsewhere, including Australia where you'd see new Maori statelets emerging.
 
China had horses, and they tended to fail hard at conquering nomadic civilisations. Therefore, any Mississippian control of the Plains seems unlikely. Could they expand their sphere? Yes. But conquering the Plains without better technology just seems impossible, since there's going to be all sorts of nomadic civilisations to contend with. And crossing the Rockies just seems impossible.

Also, you shouldn't ignore the Mississippian-influenced cultures on the Plains in the river valleys of the Kansas, Platte, Arkansas, etc.
And the Mandan in the northern Plains, as well.

Pretty much this though. It would be easier for the Mississippians to conquer the Plains (read: western Mississippi watershed) if it was done before they acquired horses. IOTL, many Plains cultures were still nomadic and semi-nomadic but there was an increasing frequency of sedentism along the rivers influenced by Mississippian activity. After the initial European plagues these still existed in large numbers but the adoption of horses pretty much led them to abandon the 'experiment'. As a civilization that bases much of its logistics on water transport, if a Mississippian state or empire were to go conquering the West they would have an easier time controlling the river towns and using them as bases to control the rest of the Plains. If they have the wheel (and optionally tractable beasts of burden), but no horses or similar animals, it would be a great advantage biased more towards sedentary state-forming, as opposed to horseback riding which is suited to nearly any subsistence strategy, economy and government.
 
Before you guys said we could have nations forming in the Pacific Northwest of North America. To get agricultural empires spreading over the entire North America we could combine this with the spread Mississippian Empires and those cultures influenced by them. Those empires emerging on the Pacific Northwest could expand over the east coast. Like Thesaurus Rex said have horses initially not dominate in the Mississippian cultures and use the waterways to spread their empires.

Metalinvader665 tactic might help too. The empires could rapidly develop land and put many of the Buffalo into farms, pushing the hunter gatherers further and further outward. Those Buffalo that remain could be hunted to feed their rapidly growing population with meat, inadvertently starving the natives. With their food supply running out the nomadic cultures wouldn't be able to survive by simply avoiding the empires and would be forced into a fight that they would lose. Large parts of the plains would not be conquered, simply vassalized under an Empire or becoming their allies. In both cases the empires use their influence to make these cultures transition to agriculture. This would lead to a domino effect, with these new agricultural nations expanding, vassalizing other nations and making more allies. These new nations would in turn start to over hunt the Buffalo with the practice eventually spreading across the entire plains. How long might it take to deplete the Buffalo in the wild by this method?

We could have some of the vassals start in a trading relationship and become absorbed into the larger empires similar to the relationship between Britain and India OTL. Areas with gold may be of particular interest to expanding empires or the cultures there once developed into agricultural nations may actually become the centers of new empires.

Some of the nomadic peoples that China had trouble with were troublesome due in part because they had better horses than China did and better mastery over horse riding. It gave them great mobility and made hit and run techniques much more effective combined with their mastery of horse archery. If we give the North American empires horses later on (when sedentary state-forming is more ingrained into their cultures) and if we have limited uptake of horses in the hunter gatherers then it may tilt things towards the empires. Particularly in the wide open spaces you can find on the great plains, a nomadic culture trying to assault one of the empires on foot in a hit and run tactic might find themselves being run down by cavalry. The empires might get intelligence on the rough areas frequented by nomadic populations and could use trackers to help locate them. If they can get good enough intelligence the ability of the nomadic peoples to relocate would be much slower than the ability of the empires to track down and chase after them.

Metalinvader665, good point about the Rocky Mountains being impenetrable by the Mississippian Cultures alone. Does anyone have any ideas of how the mountains cultures can be plausibly converted to agriculture? What if we get the civilizations east and west of the Rockies to both start expanding into the Rocky Mountains? Instead of trying to attack the nomadic peoples there directly we could have the empires begin to develop what farmable land can be found and start to terrace small amounts of the area. Communities around these farming communities could also start hunting the surrounding wildlife to supplement their diet and to sell. Maybe once huntable wildlife starts to run low outside the mountains hunters may start relocating from across the continent to the mountain communities and start depleting the wildlife there. Once the governments on the North American continent start to realize that certain species are on the verge of extinction might we see them starting to restrict hunting in certain regions?

Would we see a situation where the before mentioned domino effect spreads into the Rocky Mountains, with the remaining communities there vassalized or made an ally with one of the Empires. We could have blocks forming allied to the east and west North American empires. Maybe the mountains are developed despite there being vast tracts of land available for agriculture because the North American power blocks see the mountains as a useful defensive barrier that they wish to gain control of? They might both be afraid of each other after seeing their rapid expansion.

Thesaurus Rex, how high might we be able to get the population of New Zealand by the year 1600?

Edgeworthy, i'm quite interested in having industrialization occur early and having technology advance faster. What do you think is the earliest that industrialization could occur in this situation? What would be the earliest century that humans could plausibly develop computers, land on the moon or create airplanes?
 
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This might be off topic but given the technology at the 1700's could we ever see the population growth tapering off in a more modest version of that we're seeing today? Due to the lower quality of living and tech at the time it would be a very small tapering off if at all. It may be ASB but if there was a government at the time that was committed to improving sanitation and quality healthcare (by that time's standard) for it's populace, providing education to all of it's citizens, giving the people control over the government and giving all citizens the opportunity to move up in wealth and social status would that be enough for a very small tapering off?
 
Metalinvader665, good point about the Rocky Mountains being impenetrable by the Mississippian Cultures alone. Does anyone have any ideas of how the mountains cultures can be plausibly converted to agriculture?
Let's not get too hasty -- if we get to the point where there are truly powerful states capable of projecting their power that far, anything is possible. Remember it happened IOTL, albeit with more guns and locomotives. If states or other powerful polities start cropping up everywhere though they may have geography to their advantage.

The Rockies aren't even a barrier in the way you're thinking. People can still go around it for trade, travel and other forms of transport. This was also done IOTL with Pueblo and other Southwestern cultures involved in trade routes that brought corn, beans and other goods to the Eastern Woodlands.

For the actual Rockies themselves, especially the high plains and valleys interspersing them, introduction of the potato or a similar tuber (possibly a native one, but I'm not awake enough to dig through candidates) would definitely be a boon to the region. Chenopods (and other amaranths), as well. These plants are remarkably efficient and versatile and can be used as both a grain crop and a leaf vegetable. There is a plant called kaniwa in Peru (not to be confused with quinoa, a related chenopod) which grows in some of the highest regions of the Altiplano and is remarkably cold hardy. A similar chenopod could be used, perhaps a cold-hardy cultivar of Mississippian goosefoot or Pueblo pigweed (or going even further south, Mexican grain amaranths which are quite superior to the ones grown in the Southwest US).

Isolated inventions of agriculture are rare, though I understand we may be trying to bring about as many as possible. Instead, the practice spreads from its point of inception and cultures use the idea to domesticate more species. In this case we may have fringes of Mississippian and/or Pueblo-derived intensive farming cultures brushing up against the Rockies and the practice slowly trickling up the mountains into small homesteads or farming communities. Outside of the river, they can terrace to add surface area and preserve runoff (be mindful that it's runoff the rivers won't get). At its highest estimate for population parts of the Rockies may resemble some parts of the Alps. Except a little colder, a little drier and actually a little higher for the farmland.

Speaking of the Alps, while farming grain and other vegetables is present in the alpine valleys a major part of alpine agriculture is actually sheep and cows; pastoralist transhumance, in other words. If they have domestic ungulates, much of the agriculture in the Rockies may consist of ranching, herding or seasonal transhumance from the mountains to the lower plains and valleys. If bison are domesticated (would probably take the action of a state, or at least farmers with previous experience of raising ungulates like in the Near East) and herded in the Rockies, I wouldn't be surprised if woolly varieties are bred (since they already have short, but usable wool, it would be faster than if they domesticated actual sheep) that can take the colder winters. Perhaps they could be a yak equivalent; imported llamas would also work well here. In OTL much of the agriculture in western Colorado is indeed ranching for horses and cattle.

Past the Rockies, much of the Colorado Plateau and Great Basin reminds me of western Asia -- especially the areas around Iran. Neither of these places support very large populations even today, but are the birthplace of most Old World herding cultures. Bighorn sheep could be more intensively herded to something at least resembling goatherding, or outside domesticates can be brought in. The initial crop package can consist of a mix of original EAC crops such as little barley (already present in wild/feral form in the Southwest IIRC), sunflower, maybe goosefoot, and drought-tolerant Puebloan corn, squash, tepary beans (IIRC, one of the most drought-tolerant bean varieties out there), and maybe their varieties of amaranth but you should aim to get a Mexican grain amaranth there eventually. They'd definitely do well with Southwest dry farming techniques as well. The ease of growing corn will make a good gateway drug for agriculture, but you should at least introduce beans soon so they don't exhaust the nitrogen too quickly.

You can't go wrong with orchards of mesquite trees either, providing you with plenty of nutritious beans for years and minimal irrigation. Cacti as well; including prickly pear and barrel cactus.

The desert cottontail is also an attractive domestication candidate; unlike European rabbits, they don't burrow and can be given artificial shelter. They are much more social than other cottontails and can be kept in large groups, and of course are adapted to arid plants. They would make a nice microlivestock available as a cheap source of animal protein.
What if we get the civilizations east and west of the Rockies to both start expanding into the Rocky Mountains? Instead of trying to attack the nomadic peoples there directly we could have the empires begin to develop what farmable land can be found and start to terrace small amounts of the area. Communities around these farming communities could also start hunting the surrounding wildlife to supplement their diet and to sell. Maybe once huntable wildlife starts to run low outside the mountains hunters may start relocating from across the continent to the mountain communities and start depleting the wildlife there. Once the governments on the North American continent start to realize that certain species are on the verge of extinction might we see them starting to restrict hunting in certain regions?

Would we see a situation where the before mentioned domino effect spreads into the Rocky Mountains, with the remaining communities there vassalized or made an ally with one of the Empires. We could have blocks forming allied to the east and west North American empires. Maybe the mountains are developed despite there being vast tracts of land available for agriculture because the North American power blocks see the mountains as a useful defensive barrier that they wish to gain control of? They might both be afraid of each other after seeing their rapid expansion.
This would work, and you don't even need to aggressively destroy a hunter-gatherer's livelihood. Simple expansion and increased influence in these areas will make for more attempts at agriculture, especially through more direct trade and marriages allowing for flow of information.

Also, restricting hunting on areas as large as the Rockies is something that only very advanced states can do...and even then, it's still difficult to enforce. Switching to agriculture in this extent would only occur if the animals are nearly hunted to extinction, which would take a large population density, especially for the Plains.

Remember the mountains (and plateaus west of them, and pretty much anywhere else on Earth) have a finite carrying capacity, and the biggest limitation here is fresh water. Aquifers can be easily drained or contaminated, rivers can be diverted to the point of drying up and ponds generally don't make for good drinking water. If population density goes out of control it can destroy carrying capacity, at least momentarily.
Thesaurus Rex, how high might we be able to get the population of New Zealand by the year 1600?
Human history is a delicate interplay of nature, culture, and individual choice. Here, however, nature has more of an upper hand in deciding the fate of the Polynesians. New Zealand before people was essentially an Eden; abundant wild food, no land predators, and consequently game that's easy to hunt. In turn the proto-Maori concentrated less on elements of Polynesian agriculture and opted to eat the horse-sized ducks running around.

After the moas went extinct, you see increased competition for food but even in many of these areas it's still easy to get wild food. It's going to be difficult to get them to transition to wholly intensive systems of agriculture. You could perhaps have a region of NZ just barely touching the carrying capacity of the current methods of subsistence, coinciding with a politically powerful hapu whose chief calls for agricultural and political reforms that try to push agriculture beyond subsistence farming, creating increased social stratification and complexity.

They'd definitely need to keep chickens past the moa extinction. If this isn't possible, they can domesticate wekas. They aren't as prolific as chickens, but having fowl like that around the towns will definitely help. Waterfowl such as paradise shelducks and Pacific black ducks might have potential. The Maori's kunekune pig has a unique ability among pigs in being able to live almost entirely off of grazing; rather than keeping them by the subsistence farms, the tending of large herds of kunekune could be a professional activity like shepherding.

They're definitely gonna need to go beyond digging sticks. Some kind of hand plough or hoe will be more effective for large fields. Necessity will create the best tool for the job. But the way they did it IOTL is going to be very strenuous just by using digging sticks. What will really help them is more crops and domesticates like wheat, rice, sheep and water buffalo. Your global trade routes might do that.

The most realistic estimate for precolonial NZ's population seems to be about 100,000. I'm no agricultural scientist so it would be hard for me to crunch the numbers on just how many people can be fed by traditional Maori agriculture etc. But taking colonial NZ's population in mind (using them as a template for advanced agricultural techniques and management), Europeans went from 2,000 people in 1840 to 770,000 by 1901. Taking account of things like more advanced agricultural techniques in the 1800s, I imagine a souped-up Maori might reach a conservative estimate of 250-350,000 people by 1600, provided wars don't contribute to a significant amount of deaths.
This might be off topic but given the technology at the 1700's could we ever see the population growth tapering off in a more modest version of that we're seeing today? Due to the lower quality of living and tech at the time it would be a very small tapering off if at all. It may be ASB but if there was a government at the time that was committed to improving sanitation and quality healthcare (by that time's standard) for it's populace, providing education to all of it's citizens, giving the people control over the government and giving all citizens the opportunity to move up in wealth and social status would that be enough for a very small tapering off?
This is exactly how you increase population growth, not decrease.
 
There's also the need for a domesticated animal in indigenous North America. Unfortunately, there aren't any really good candidates. However, there is the caribou and the moose. IMO the caribou is easier to domesticate, since it has been OTL in limited numbers, and of course other subspecies are domesticated and we know them as reindeer. Caribou herding would be useful for northern groups beyond the zone of agriculture and would increase their number. I suspect it would also lead to muskox domestication as well.

The problem with both the caribou and the muskox is that they're northern species. The muskox cannot survive in warmer climates, which I believe is anywhere south of southern Canada or so. The caribou can't survive anywhere south of the northern United States (or the Rocky Mountains), in large part because many deer species are not only competitors for food, but also carry a parasite which can decimate reindeer herds. Sure, reindeer herders can cull as many deer as possible, but that's not all the deer, and wouldn't allow for the reindeer's range to go much further south.

Moose (which have a similar problem regarding parasites as reindeer) are bigger, but harder to domesticate. But because moose are water animals, they might be useful as a sort of water buffalo of North America. There's a few waterplants often used by indigenous people which would be good for domestication, like the wapato, and I can't help but think that and moose might go well together.

Regarding caribou, caribou herders coming from the north could easily dominate the Rocky Mountains north of New Mexico, or otherwise be incorporated into a society there.
 
There's also the need for a domesticated animal in indigenous North America. Unfortunately, there aren't any really good candidates. However, there is the caribou and the moose. IMO the caribou is easier to domesticate, since it has been OTL in limited numbers, and of course other subspecies are domesticated and we know them as reindeer. Caribou herding would be useful for northern groups beyond the zone of agriculture and would increase their number. I suspect it would also lead to muskox domestication as well.

The problem with both the caribou and the muskox is that they're northern species. The muskox cannot survive in warmer climates, which I believe is anywhere south of southern Canada or so. The caribou can't survive anywhere south of the northern United States (or the Rocky Mountains), in large part because many deer species are not only competitors for food, but also carry a parasite which can decimate reindeer herds. Sure, reindeer herders can cull as many deer as possible, but that's not all the deer, and wouldn't allow for the reindeer's range to go much further south.

Moose (which have a similar problem regarding parasites as reindeer) are bigger, but harder to domesticate. But because moose are water animals, they might be useful as a sort of water buffalo of North America. There's a few waterplants often used by indigenous people which would be good for domestication, like the wapato, and I can't help but think that and moose might go well together.

Regarding caribou, caribou herders coming from the north could easily dominate the Rocky Mountains north of New Mexico, or otherwise be incorporated into a society there.
Really, pretty much any of the large herbivores in North America are feasibly domesticable in some form, save for pronghorns and moose*; those two animals just don't hold well in captivity or in large numbers, and moose especially are hard to feed. For everything else, you just need the right culture in the right situation. Even bison seem to be just a bit more tractable than the aurochs. Elk are orders of magnitude easier to handle than moose and are farmed in large numbers today, sold for velvet and elk burgers at your local Fuddrucker's. You should be careful when using Diamond's criteria of an ideal domesticate because for the most part he's describing animals that are already domesticated, not their wild progenitors.

Regardless, the OP gives globalized trade routes by the 1300s - just this date alone would be enough to cause population explosions in some places, especially if they're trading large animals.

It would be interesting if domestic caribou and muskox could recreate lush mammoth steppe like they did at Pleistocene Park. Would they need heavier animals?

*I always forget about mountain goats -- them too.
 
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These are all awesome ideas for agriculture in North America. Perhaps once the civilizations are discovered people could start selling domesticable animals to the North Americans. You've mentioned quite a few options for what the North American civilizations could use from their local environment but perhaps this could be their starting point, with them transitioning to animals sold to them from outside North America? Would there be any animals from outside North America that would be a better alternative?

Thesaurus Rex and MetalInvader665, love your suggestions on how we could get agriculture in North America. We could really get a population boom in that region.

Would it be reasonable to have explorers in the region recognize which creatures from outside North America would help them the most? Would there be enough profit selling these creatures to the North Americans to lure private merchants this far away from their home countries? There would also be a bit of money selling potatoes to the North Americans. Might selling a variety of steel tools to the North Americans, including those associated with farming be quite profitable?

Would there be enough to attract traders at the early stages of contact? If explorers had already mapped out the region and collected information about societies west of the Rockies (including what they might possibly have had a demand for) and changes hadn't taken hold yet. Gold as been found in the Rockies by explorers travelling through the region. Perhaps the availability of food from trade causes many societies to experience an initial population boost but the increasing cost of feeding their populations causes some to transition to agriculture? Some animals would be worth significantly more in North America than they would be in Asia and if this fact is noted it could be an incentive for early traders to make the trip?

Thesaurus Rex, mountain goats sound like an excellent choice for starting up Rocky Mountain civilizations. They're real tough can eat pretty much anything. Those Chenopods would be quite valuable to the folks in the Rockies. It can't hurt to introduce heavier animals. If there are traders willing to bring in elephants, which areas of America would be able to support them and would you even need that much lifting power?

Edgeworthy, in this situation what do you think is the earliest we could get an Industrial Revolution? 1600's? Possibly the 1500's?
 
Thesaurus Rex, mountain goats sound like an excellent choice for starting up Rocky Mountain civilizations. They're real tough can eat pretty much anything.
No no, I said mountain goats were among the exceptions. Not as hard an impossibility as the other two, but still unfeasible for the average culture. Their social structure doesn't lend themselves to be easily managed or herded (they're pretty much always fighting, even the nannies), and they breed much more slowly than other goats. It would be hard to lead them around and keep up demand, and even harder to turn them into a tractable beast of any kind. People used to follow them around and collect their sheds; you could maybe have herds that tolerate humans but it would be difficult to get any kind of intensive agriculture going. You'll also have to watch out for them treating you like the rest of the herd and attacking you. They're just on the edge of feasible domestication.
Those Chenopods would be quite valuable to the folks in the Rockies. It can't hurt to introduce heavier animals. If there are traders willing to bring in elephants, which areas of America would be able to support them and would you even need that much lifting power?
Bigger animals need bigger food, and their slower growth rate often means you're using up that grazing land in favor of more efficient animals. An unlikely prospect as it is, if Asian elephants were to be shipped across the Atlantic to the Americas, they'd probably do best in the southern Eastern Woodlands, parts of California and much of South America. The most important thing for elephants is heat and grazing/browsing land. Elephants have a lot of lifting and pulling power, but in ideal conditions a team of draft horses could do many of their jobs. But they are good for logging, and can probably carry goods across wetlands and brush more easily. Being tall might give a sight advantage in some situations.

Note that elephants can alter their environment in ways much more visible than other animals. A feral elephant population can be a big problem in more ways than one.
These are all awesome ideas for agriculture in North America. Perhaps once the civilizations are discovered people could start selling domesticable animals to the North Americans. You've mentioned quite a few options for what the North American civilizations could use from their local environment but perhaps this could be their starting point, with them transitioning to animals sold to them from outside North America? Would there be any animals from outside North America that would be a better alternative?

Depends on how early the domestication was. If an animal is domesticated really early, then both artificial and natural selection will have shaped the animal to be useful and efficient within its geographic context (with some exceptions). If something like elk is just starting to be domesticated for pulling sleds, packs and perhaps riding, then a horse would be a better replacement since it's been selectively bred for longer.

Chickens are a really, really good domesticate with a nice balance of food production and resource input. They won't outright replace animals like turkeys in some places but are good, moderately cheap sources of food; especially with their egg production. Ducks can eat almost any source of food from pond life to grass, and geese are pretty much grazers. Both exist in North America so they may have already been domesticated ITTL.

But there are some American (in this case South American) domesticates that just can't compare. I think OTL missed out on guinea pigs; they might have been like the animal version of potato; even the poorest peasant can keep a colony of guinea pigs to supply a cheap source of animal protein. They can be fed on mostly grass supplemented with scrap fruit and vegetables. They breed just a little slower than rabbits, but need much less space which may be a vital factor for lower classes and allows for higher guinea pig population densities elsewhere.
Would it be reasonable to have explorers in the region recognize which creatures from outside North America would help them the most? Would there be enough profit selling these creatures to the North Americans to lure private merchants this far away from their home countries? There would also be a bit of money selling potatoes to the North Americans. Might selling a variety of steel tools to the North Americans, including those associated with farming be quite profitable?

To a point. They're probably not going to get as technical as we are in this thread, but things such as care requirements and fecundity are definitely going to be talked about when selling them. As for explorers wondering which animals would help, that depends on if they have prior experience with them.

Note that these kinds of people don't always have good ideas about animal introduction and are sometimes just sentimental. One guy thought he'd love to see his favorite European rabbits running around in Australia, and, well...things happened.

Long-distance trading of plants can be done relatively easily, but animals may depend on the selling ability of the merchant and how bad the customers need them. If they already have similar animals with similar enough characteristics, they may not buy them. Where transport of large animals is feasible and the animal is desirable enough this kind of trade is most likely to occur. But once an animal gets traded and has a breeding population, short-distance trading will cause the animal to spread much more easily.

Steel is a lucrative trade good to people who don't have it. It was done IOTL all over the world for various trade goods such as spices, furs, food, land etc. People know the value of a good tool. But if you're trying for high populations and wide trade routes by 1300, that coincides with moderately advanced civilizations in most place and they may already know how to produce steel.
Would there be enough to attract traders at the early stages of contact? If explorers had already mapped out the region and collected information about societies west of the Rockies (including what they might possibly have had a demand for) and changes hadn't taken hold yet. Gold as been found in the Rockies by explorers travelling through the region. Perhaps the availability of food from trade causes many societies to experience an initial population boost but the increasing cost of feeding their populations causes some to transition to agriculture? Some animals would be worth significantly more in North America than they would be in Asia and if this fact is noted it could be an incentive for early traders to make the trip?

Edgeworthy, in this situation what do you think is the earliest we could get an Industrial Revolution? 1600's? Possibly the 1500's?
Gold will definitely not only attract traders, but militaries looking for ways to seize it by force. Exotic animal products such as furs, hides and feathers are also enough to attract some people. I don't know of any from the top of my head but there's more than likely some interesting spice plants in North America that can also be traded. Positive feedback loop of population and agriculture makes sense. When introducing an animal with a novel use (e.g ploughing), you have to convince the customer nation that not only is this method useful, but to change the traditional ways of farming to adopt it. Sometimes it's actually not so useful, like on the Great Plains where the wind can blow away freshly plowed soil.

(Just a tip: If you want to address someone, like @edgeworthy, you can add an @ to their name and it'll show up in notifications)

I think we need to acknowledge the serious ecological ramifications of an ultra high world population, especially early on. A highly populated society that has begun to industrialize, yet has not developed far enough in science to understand climate change, would be devastating.
 
@Thesaurus Rex good point about the goats. Misread that. Thanks for the hint on the notifications.

I was thinking that maybe this situation would result in scientific advancement across the board. Industrialization would free up a large proportion of the population from food production which could vastly increase the percentage of people working in the sciences. Increased production could also boost how much resources the scientists and society at large could have access too. A large population boost alone might be able to result in proportionately more scientists. More open sharing of discoveries and breakthroughs between cultures could result in faster advancement of humanity as a whole. Chinese tech from the 1300's could be dispersed to the world so other scientists have a better starting point for their own research. Would it be possible in this situation that industrialization would be followed by an understanding of climate change like in our world?
 
Okay, taking everything into consideration could we get North America up to about 100 million by 1600? This would include disease being introduced into North America and the locals recovering from it. How long would it take for disease to start devastating populations in North America after first contact with China is established? Is about 100 years about right? How about for the peoples of Siberia?
 
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Over to another area,

What is the most plausible way we can turn Iceland into a Singapore like city? What I mean is a highly prosperous trading city with a population whose food requirements are beyond what they can grow themselves. Perhaps they can become a trading hub between the Americas and Europe early in the timeline?
 
Over to another area,

What is the most plausible way we can turn Iceland into a Singapore like city? What I mean is a highly prosperous trading city with a population whose food requirements are beyond what they can grow themselves. Perhaps they can become a trading hub between the Americas and Europe early in the timeline?

OTL is enough of an Iceland wank as it is given Iceland has several hundred thousand people (compared to similar places like the Falklands with a few thousand and Kerguelen with just a few visiting scientists), is one of the most prosperous countries on Earth, has a history of powerful cultural output from the Norse sagas to Bjork, and defeated the Royal Navy with its tiny Coast Guard which is legally a civilian police force.

Iceland is too far off the main shipping routes. Singapore has the Strait of Malacca, Iceland has nothing. If ASBs moved Iceland a thousand miles south and a thousand miles west of Ireland, then you might have something, but otherwise, you can't really have a Singapore-style city there since Iceland has neither the location nor the resources nor really much of anything to warrant it.
 
How can we boost the population of Finnish people? Would it be possible to see one of Sweden's enemies providing assistance to help significantly boost the Finnish population or defend them against Swedish expansion? I've got potatoes and rice entering Europe a couple of centuries early so perhaps those are provided to the Finnish.

When industrialization reaches Europe perhaps their neighbors could push the Finnish to industrialize so they can more effectively fight Sweden?
 
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