So they can reach that level of selective breeding in only ONE generation?
That's impressive.
How well could native Americans reverse engineer European innovations?
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That's impressive.
yes, historically that is how its been done, granted if you wanted to breed something like a Shetland that will take longer, but if you are going for colors and patterns or characteristics yeah that won't take too long.
The comment I quoted was that the natives would breed small horses for herding and large horses for plowing. Can that be achieved in one generation?
size differences will take much longer, decades, but with in a human life span, not that of any one horse
The Norse will have a smaller disease portfolio, particularly if contact between Vinland and the old world is sporadic. Still bad.
The Aztecs though... the Spanish beat them because all their neighbors hated them. I think they were a pretty tottering setup to begin with. Even with no spanish in the mix, they were just too hated to keep it up. And they were centuries after the vikings too.
I agree and I was thinking that said disease could evolve and be lethal to the Europeans as well. Otherwise I agree with you Europe is going to come back even if they manage to defeat the Spanish and find the Aztecs wiped out. Plagues that would wipe out 50-75% of the population, uprising of peoples under them, enemies at the outsides of their empire and a high likelihood of a multi-way civil war, and the Aztec losing a massive number of their finest warriors to a technologically superior foe. There are not going to be any Aztecs.
Love the tension of an escaped or freed slave trying! And please remember, slavery was not as terrible as it would become in the American South in the 1700s and 1800s, as well as sugar plantations in Brazil, although obviously still plenty terrible enough.
Let's say the guy had seen ships being built, and was confident he could do it except for the pitch and chalk. And let's say this native group had a stolen Spanish ship . . .
Napoleonrules
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Obviously there was lots more easily reached iron and I'm not versed on the history of it, but I am well versed in the US regarding iron and how little there is today in the US, but research where and what quality is mined today. Good quality iron in North America isnt common. For example those steel jobs aren't EVER returning, not because cheap Chinese steel dumping, but because there's so little iron mining left and it's poorer quality.
Metalworking is a key. Absent metalworking you can't build ships - sure can make small vessels with trunnels but anything of any size needs nails, etc. Some Mesoamericans worked gold, but that is way easier than bronze or iron and the whole find the ore, smelt the ore, get rid of impurities etc etc is a huge jump. Even for small levels of production there is infrastructure - charcoal or coal, crucibles, etc. Another major issue with Native American technology transfer is the reality that most Native American societies did not have much agricultural surplus. Taking workers away from growing food or hunting to make stuff more complicated than the tools/weapons they have and you don't have enough food. To increase agricultural production need to make plows, use horses etc. Another problem is that resources needed to make even basic iron implements are in areas controlled by different and often hostile tribes, and the trsade roputes for other goods that were in existence were simply not set up to move coal or ore distances and across tribal boundaries.
This is only a small sample of the sorts of issues you have here trying to boost the Native Americans. At the same time they are doing this the Europeans are advancing, and nothing can stop the advance of the germ allies of the Europeans. IMHO given maybe 100 years of time to absorb these new technologies and manage the societal and political changes necessary to make them work, the Native Americans could be able to force a place at the table, but giving the Europeans the boot - nope.
This is only a small sample of the sorts of issues you have here trying to boost the Native Americans. At the same time they are doing this the Europeans are advancing, and nothing can stop the advance of the germ allies of the Europeans. IMHO given maybe 100 years of time to absorb these new technologies and manage the societal and political changes necessary to make them work, the Native Americans could be able to force a place at the table, but giving the Europeans the boot - nope.
