The population densities of the non-agricultural people to the south are much lower, and they're not particularly trained or experienced in agriculture. Much more likely, easy and profitable to prey on other Thule....
Lands of Ice and Mice: An Alternate History of the Thule
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The population densities of the non-agricultural people to the south are much lower, and they're not particularly trained or experienced in agriculture. Much more likely, easy and profitable to prey on other Thule....
I like that idea too, but it would be more believable if the Thule had some experience with dealing with foreign powers like that. Based on their history so far, it seems the most likely reaction the Thule will have is to attack the invaders, and that strategy can only work for so long. Another possibility is trade-mediated infatuation with Europe and its culture, which is also a long-term bad idea for Thule civilization.
Would be be possible to retcon in some more nuanced politicking between Thule and neighboring peoples? Or between one Thule "state" and another?
I think that I've been making the point that Hudson Bay is a fairly nuanced place.
Let's take the Caribou Herding subculture. Here's the thing in the Thule realms, there's a perpetual low level struggle over land use and maximizing incompatible land uses. So caribou herders and farmers both seek the same productive land.
Obviously, they can't occupy the same land. That's where displacement wars come in, as each side pursues its comparative advantages, for control of land and land use. That's a simplification, but its along the lines.
Caribou herders are highly mobile, often across large distances, they can produce and sustain themselves on a lot lower quality of landscape productivity, and local adverse conditions don't really threaten them because they leave. They have lower densities, but they're able to access specialized resources across vast territories, and they're also able to use their mobility to concentrate large numbers for short periods.
On the other side, are farmers, they require a better quality of landscape but they're able to marshall extremely high productivity, to sustain dramatically larger populations. They're tied to lands however, are much less mobile and flexible, and local adversities can be catastrophic.
So anyway - that leads to displacement wars - cattlemen versus farmers.
But it's not all wars and bloodsheds. Generally, after a while, things settle out. Where one side has the clear advantage in one way or another, it wins, takes the land, and the other side goes elsewhere or dies. Hmmm. that's pretty morbid.
But things stabilize. Usually what happens is that farmers take and make use of the best land, and produce restricted areas of population density. The herders take the outskirts or outlying regions of either low yield land and isolated high yield land which is too remote to be defended.
Relegated to secondary lands and patches of good pasture, the herders have to move their herds around a lot to maintain. This is pretty standard practice.
What this means, however, is that the herders in their territories will be moving across and along the landscapes of several farming communities. So a kind of peace settles in. The herders who are able to get along with the farmers do better, they're able to trade, the farmers are less likely to shoot arrows at them, will 'lend them pasturage' and will support them in conflicts with rival herders.
Eventually, what evolves are proprietary 'herding routes' or migration routes, held by families or clans or tribes of herdsmen, which include not just the lands but relationships with a string of communities.
Now the tenor of these relationships can vary - herdsmen can be anything from no-account gypsies begging and scratching along the edges of the powerful farmers, or partners and travellers, or fearsome extortionists or tribute demanding lords.
Now, there's a couple of significant things to pay attention. One is that the herders are basically moving around a lot of meat on the hoof. Which means that if you're a farmer and you've just had a disaster, and you're on good terms with these guys... you'll be glad to see them come by.
But it also means that herders are travelling large distances with beasts of burden, and inevitably have a bit of surplus carrying or load bearing capacity. Basically, there's very little economic cost to them, in terms of their subsistence economics, to move a few tons a couple of hundred miles.... they already have the caribou, they can carry a load, and they're not carrying anything, so why not put on a pack or two...
This ability to move relatively larger or expanding quantities of items over long distances, is significant because it enhances the subsistence economy of the herders.
Instead of trade or exchange being exclusively local between neighbors, and trade movement being like a game of telephone - with goods moving through an infinitely long passage of hands, you have a class of people who are cutting out the chain of middlemen and can move goods a large distance between the producer and the consumer. More goods move, larger quantities of goods move, and they move faster. By being able to move goods between remoter distances, the 'value' of the goods increases and the herders harvest that 'value'.
A migration route evolves into a trade network, and if its valuable enough to the recipient farmers, they'll actually consent to expansion, surrendering or bargaining pastures, inviting the traders further, etc.
The Ellesmere Trading Network was the first great treading network among the Thule, and centuries later, it's still the biggest one, moving wool from Greenland, iron from Cape York, Bronze from Coppermine and Ivory from Alaska.
But in the Hudson Bay area, a number of regional networks have emerged, collectively carrying a more intense volume of trade, and working deals out among each other for control of territory, or exchange of products. Some of these are quite ambitious...
So, as far as trading and exchange goes, the Hudson Bay Thule are not a completely naive population, but contain constituencies which can see and possibly seize the opportunities that Europeans present.
This isn't even without precedent OTL. One of the reasons that Europeans were able to build their fur trading networks so rapidly, is that these networks already existed. The Europeans were actually repurposing local trading networks, which had exchanged things like flint and obsidian, shells, beads, copper artifacts, tobacco etc. What the Euros did was tap into the far end of the networks, and start pumping in hyper-valuable goods and increasing the volume dramatically.
The Hudson Bay trading networks are not as sophisticated as the Europeans, they don't even have the concept of money per se... However, we can take it for granted that they're much more sophisticated than the southern trade networks.
twovultures
Donor
Oh yes, the existing indigenous political/economic structures are VERY IMPORTANT when it comes to setting up a colonial venture. I think that the multiple discussions that have been had on this site on Cortez and/or Pizarro failing has worked to increase awareness of this factor, at least.
This is part of what I was saying, about the Thule being proto-Smithian simple commodity producers. I note all that has been passed over in silence.
The question bothering me is, are they radically different from other peoples, simply because they are all pretty much the same people? That is, historically the familiar pattern of primitive states that formed the nuclei of empires formed when one group conquered and systematically subjugated another, creating the basis of class society. I've doubted the Thule would be as apt to do that to each other as a miscellaneous patchwork of peoples with different kinships would do, and your sketch of the cattlemen versus farmers tends to bear that out. You don't have the caribou herders using their mobility and ability to muster much force on one point to beat the farmers into being their serfs, and I feel that's realistic; the balance of power shifts back and forth. With cultural and kinship ties between the two groups of Thule, they'd tend to have recourse to negotiation before bloodshed. But that means the normal, worldwide path to state formation is stymied.
We shouldn't assume that therefore all development is arrested though! If accumulation and repurposing of wealth to allow for ever more elaborate specialization of labor is possible, than economic development proceeds apace, state or no state. Or rather we might suppose some kind of state-like organization is always needed, to coordinate things. But instead of the sorts of top-down states we are accustomed to find the Thule might do something rather different that accomplishes the same goals. They would lack the ideology of class stratification that gives a specialized class a free hand to run politics as they will, within unacknowledged, subterranean constraints that define the limits beyond which the established order breaks down in a revolutionary crisis, that outside elements might exploit to come in as a new aristocracy and perhaps resolve that way. Instead everyone has apparently as good a right as any other to horn in--or rather, there may be a hierarchy of respect, but as a continuum, not a visible, sharp division of rulers and ruled.
I've based this claim of an atypical, quasi-democratic, quasi-commercial free market Thule metasociety on two things mainly--one, this ideological notion I have that state formation as we generally know it is stillborn, or anyway stunted, by the shared social background of all the players, and by your lack of claim that something like a normal state has in fact formed anywhere. If you showed me that around Hudson Bay there are city-states where a class of nobles does lord it over a bunch of serf-peasants, or Mongol-like caribou herders sweep in to collect the tribute they've established their "right" to extort from terrorized farmers, then I'd see that the familiar patterns have in fact prevailed and we can go forward in our analogizing from there.
But you don't say this, and that suggests to me Thule are different.
Consider an advantage that a "failure" of Thule to follow such paths gives them; in a normal class-state society, with polarization between impoverished productive classes and a set of exploiting, ruling, warring classes, if an outside power can trounce the latter, the former are poorly equipped to resist the newcomers--the previous set of lords saw to that. Whereas they are accustomed to render tribute to overlords, so if the newcomers set themselves up in that niche they have at least a chance at picking up where the previous lot of lords left off. This is what the Spaniards did in Mesoamerica for instance. It's what William the Conqueror's Normans did in England. This is what we normally mean by conquest, unless we mean instead that the invaders massacre everyone and import their own working classes to exploit.
Also, if there are class divisions and resentments, a foreign conqueror can try to exploit these; they can represent themselves as a cleansing new order that will actually be better for the lowly than the last bunch was. This trick is hard to pull off as people have good grounds to be skeptical and prefer the devil they know, but it has been an element in history too.
Now suppose some ambitious Europeans try that with these differently evolved Thule I've imagined. There is no sharp class division between the aristocrats and the poor; the society is continuous and homogenous. There are specializations and local peculiarities but these are "horizontal" as it were, spread out over the land on a regional basis, not polarizations within one community. So their task is open-ended; every Thule identifies with the old order, every one is a mix between ruler and ruled. The Europeans will have to work much harder to instill in those who survive the "proper" respect of higher orders. Even those who don't actively and violently resist being subjugated will be bewildered and demoralized; they won't know what they are supposed to do or have much will to do it. The Europeans can't intelligently direct the Thule in the alien, peculiarly adapted economic activities they need to perform to survive--and to feed their conquerors.
The crops fail, the earthworks deteriorate. The trading relations with other Thule that enriched both are severed and the Europeans have no access to the unconquered, to whom many from the regions they have subjugated have fled bearing tales. The Europeans find themselves ruling over a decimated, ragtag, hungry and miserable bunch of shivering savages (who may still hide among them, fish in the sea, those with the spirit and guile to strike blows against them unpredictably). There are no cash crops to export, no furs to buy, just an expensive little frozen hell-hole to subsidize or abandon.
Whereas other Europeans, being more cautious and astute, instead cultivate relations with the Thule as they are, and are rewarded with both trade goods and markets. "Their" Thule might, under the influence and example of the Europeans, start defining a class hierarchy, but since the Thule generally are ignorant of that and not inclined to roll over on command, it seems likeliest such would take the form of a continuum of richer and poorer. Old Thule methods of arbitration might gradually evolve to more sophisticated forms, adopting European models where suitable perhaps.
We might call the result an "Empire" if we like, but it would clearly have a different dynamic than the ones we usually think of.
Against my own nightmare that they might take to slave-raiding, added to your observation that Native Americans to their immediate south are poor candidates for agricultural slaves since they are neither agriculturalists nor to be found in large numbers; they too are totally vulnerable to Eurasian diseases; indeed if the Thule by then have endured several major outbreaks of various Eurasian plagues they are more likely to die off in droves. Not such a problem if there are lots more where they came from, but there aren't.
So we are back to the question, can Thule turn on Thule to that extent? Bear in mind that Europeans and Asians in this period aren't doing much of that kind of thing themselves any more; less utter modes of dependency such as serfdom are more common. Slavery is for people taken from foreign parts.
If we have one misguided European venture that tries to subjugate their trade partners, they might create a residual serf class that other Thule can then take and learn to keep up the oppression for the sake of profits--and unlike the Europeans they can intelligently direct their new subjects to produce more effectively. But again the cultural ties between all Thule would tend to subvert this and return the annexed lands back to normal Thule patterns.
An interesting survey of 'lithic mulch' agriculture, aka stone cover agriculture.
http://maailm2.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lithic_mulch1.pdf
The thesis is that it a repeatedly independently invented method over the world, usually in dry regions for its qualities of moisture storage and accumulation and effective limitation of erosion. The quality of 'thermal retention' is also mentioned.
As discussed, 'lithic mulch' does not seem to have taken off and become widespread from its independent inventions. This seems to have been for a couple of reasons. The benefits of water retention could generally be exceeded by irrigation. If your issue was water, irrigation produced more yield. Simply put - you got a lot more benefit from putting additional water into a system, than you got from maximizing the conservation of existing water.
Lithic mulch agriculture was most successful in marginal areas, so inevitably, it would get bypassed. Marginal agricultural areas at their best were far less competitive in terms of production and sustaining population, and at worst were often abandoned in adverse situations.
The quality of thermal retention, so vital to the Thule, is barely discussed here. Most of the instances of lithic agriculture are taking place far to the south where it simply is not a vital issue.
http://maailm2.files.wordpress.com/2011/07/lithic_mulch1.pdf
The thesis is that it a repeatedly independently invented method over the world, usually in dry regions for its qualities of moisture storage and accumulation and effective limitation of erosion. The quality of 'thermal retention' is also mentioned.
As discussed, 'lithic mulch' does not seem to have taken off and become widespread from its independent inventions. This seems to have been for a couple of reasons. The benefits of water retention could generally be exceeded by irrigation. If your issue was water, irrigation produced more yield. Simply put - you got a lot more benefit from putting additional water into a system, than you got from maximizing the conservation of existing water.
Lithic mulch agriculture was most successful in marginal areas, so inevitably, it would get bypassed. Marginal agricultural areas at their best were far less competitive in terms of production and sustaining population, and at worst were often abandoned in adverse situations.
The quality of thermal retention, so vital to the Thule, is barely discussed here. Most of the instances of lithic agriculture are taking place far to the south where it simply is not a vital issue.
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This is part of what I was saying, about the Thule being proto-Smithian simple commodity producers. I note all that has been passed over in silence.
So much is passed over. That there are Inukshuks thirty feet tall or more, standing vigil, testaments to regional ambitions.
Interesting question. The Thule culture is diverging all over the place in all kinds of ways. But they're still only a few centuries divergent in most ways. We're talking seven hundred years now since a relatively small group spread cross the north.
In OTL, the various inuit peoples maintained a fairly strong linguistic and cultural commonality. I think that in the ATL cultural centrifugalism is much stronger, but there's relatively less time, and cultural innovations are spreading fairly uniformly.
The Sea Thule and Siberian Thule when they meet can recognize each other as the same kind of people, despite being quite different, and despite their dialects diverging. Their languages when they speak to each other are full of unfamiliar words and syntax, but they can muddle through.
That's the thing - primitive empires are usually about subjugating other peoples. But here the peoples are the same...
Well, its in the range of things that does happen, but its not the only outcome, and its not a particularly stable outcome. Local solutions take place, power shifts back and forth.
I don't think we preclude violence as the foundation of organization as attenuate it.
Well, the common theoretical model. I think that human society offers multiple routes to various outcomes.
I think I've alluded to both of these things, but as I've said, they are attenuated. The 'mongol' herders are not broadly or uniformly dominant, but hold sway where they have clear advantages. The serf/noble model does occur other places. The scale of violence and coercion, and its broad applicability is more subtle.
So when do we get those discussions of the Siberian Thule culture, state formation, and the pacific northwestern Thule-hybrid culture... I know you wan't to tie this up, but I am dying for more TL!
I do recall someone volunteering to talk about the Pacific Northwest hybrid culture.
Define "other peoples"...
There certainly are counter-examples; e.g. Ancient Egypt or the original Chinese state formation in the Yellow River basin consisted of ethnically and linguistically identical or at least closely related people. Another example for state formations without a foreign ethnicity conquering but purely based on what I remember a Polish historian calling "internal conquest" are the Medieval Polish and Scandinavian kingdoms (although here you could argue that they were inspired by neighbouring states that were based on the "one people conquers another" mode.) Certainly there's nothing in history that would make me assume that people aren't happy to subdue and exploit their co-ethnics!there's probably a dialect continuum, like there was in say the 500s proto-Romanian Latin to the east and proto-Portuguese to the west.
Hmmm. Have I made them sound too much like the Tsalal?
Let me think. We know that in OTL, the Inuit largely wiped out the Dorset from the entirety of their range, had long running border conflicts with southern peoples like the Dene and the Cree, and in fact there are several records of Inuit kidnapping or attacking members of early expeditions like Frobisher or Hudson.
But does that define the entirety of OTL inuit? There were also civil meetings with Europeans, or periods where European explorers co-existed amicably with the inuit before relations broke down.
In this timeline we can grant that the Thule largely wiped out the Dorset from the entirety of their range.
They almost certainly had long running border conflicts with southern peoples like the Dene or Cree whose lifestyles as hunter-gatherers were extremely different from the agricultural and herding Thule (a similar situation to Bantu vs Pygmy in Africa) whose lands and resources they coveted and in which there was at least one major violent population movement south.
And its reasonably likely that there would be violent confrontations with European explorers.
But then again, (1) the Sea Thule aren't really warlike, because their response to social conflict has simply been for one of the disputing parties to move to new lands and let the two sides settle down; (2) South of Alaska and the Yukon, we've had hybridized societies emerging; (3) In Greenland the Thule made contact with another agricultural civilization operating on roughly similar levels of sophistication nonviolently, and were able to generalize that to a far reaching cultural transference, as well as continuations of contact in Greenland and Iceland; (4) Even the Siberian Thule did not start off as the warlike bastards they became, they initially rubbed shoulders with the Chukchi for a while before the frictions turned to fire.
Now, hypothetically, there's all sorts of ways that Hudson and Co. could go.
a) Straight xenophobic, kill on sight. I don't know how natural a reaction that is. The Europeans won't fit the obvous profile of the traditional enemies to the south. No bows and arrows, no skulking through the woods, family groups, history of mutual ambushes, etc. Obviously, we know that some of the early contacts OTL were violent, so this is not out of the question.
b) Manupataq derived xenophobia - kill on sight. Definitely not out of the question. Manupataq's disciples have travelled far and wide, and the experience of Greenland and Labrador have gotten around. On the other hand, those catastrophes are far away and long ago.
c) There is a history of contact within the Thule realm of very remote groups, directly and indirectly. And while Hudson Bay hasn't had direct contact before, there's an accumulated lore that's passed down from the Norse interchange, and from sporadic subsequent encounters in Greenland, Labrador, with Frobisher and Davies. And despite Manupataq and rumours of plagues, the results have not been bad - the Thule acquired carrots and onions, sheep and milk, wool and weaving, writing, bog iron, sails, nets. Norse artifacts travelled a long long way. So there might be some substantial receptiveness.
d) The contact is pretty much unprecedented for the Hudson Bay Thule - a craft immensely larger than anything they've seen before sails into their waters, instead of being made of hide it is composed of an awesome quantity of wood, there are no oars but rather it seems to travel drawn by clouds tethered in harness, the people within are dressed in utterly unfamiliar ways and look alien, the only analogues are a few stories of moss-faced men. In the face of so much strangeness.... violence isn't necessarily reflexive.
Of course, it depends on how Hudson and company behave...
Well I can see similarities, but I don't think the Thule are unrealistically violent. As far as I can tell, a lot of OTL first-contact situations ended up with both sides killing each other. A friendly exchange of goods and ideas takes a lot of preparation and know-how and luck on both sides.
So I suppose the question is do the Thule and Hudson's people have that know-how and luck? And is it in their interest to talk and trade rather than kill and steal?
My favorite scenario for peaceful, trade-based contact is an end-run by merchants around the authorities. Perhaps one of those caribou caravan-lords has the wit to see the potential and the power to amass a usefully large load of roseroot or whatever.
Someone asked me to fill in the trilogy of Thule diseases.
Bruce
I believe I've already covered Bruce, which is a species cross of Brucellosis which has adapted to humans. Bruce is a sexually transmitted disease with a relatively high mortality rate. Survivors and carriers experience swollen joints and inflamed cartilage, notably enlarged noses and ears, and will be socially ostracized.
European traders because of certain aspects of facial features and colouration will be widely suspected of Bruce, which gives some credibility to the belief that they are disease carriers.
Bruce will also cross frequently into Europeans, given their relative naivete and the fact that Thule will often believe they have it. If they're looking for concubines, they may be pointed towards the local Bruce sufferers.
It will make it eventually back to European seaports, where it will be a particularly nasty venereal disease. It's principal problem is that the initial infection proceeds relatively rapidly and the long term syndrome is highly visible. Once you know what you're looking at, you learn to stay away.
Mona
After Brucellosis, the next likely cross species disease variant is a pneumonia, which does strike Caribou.
Basically, air transmission. All you need is a sick Caribou coughing it up steadily, infects the rest of the herd, they're all coughing on the humans....
Not sure about the mortality rate, but the impression is that if you kick it, you get on with your life. So this may simply be part of normal background mortality for the Inuit/Thule, as the collective immune systems slowly step up, and the weaker or vulnerable immune systems die off.
As a relatively easy to transmit crossover disease, the likelihood is that it will jump species within the first century after domestication of Caribou, and thereafter will rise or fall regularly, particularly among large populations of caribou in regular contact with each other and humans.
This means that the Hudson Bay area is the homeland of Mona, since a large part of the landscape is devoted to Caribou herding as well as agriculture. Herding means a large animal population, and a mobile animal population. With the disease jumping back and forth.
The result might be occasional more lethal outbreaks of pneumonia burning down the south from time to time, with it being relatively less noticeable among the Inuit. I can see the Cree and Dene around the Hudson Bay area being occasionaly battered by Mona epidemics.
Among the Thule, particularly in Hudson Bay, it'll be a seasonal thing. Maybe once ever generation a particularly bad Mona will run through and kill people. Mostly its one of those things.
It will also probably hit Europeans pretty hard, though Europeans are used to this kind of thing. The challenge will be whether the Inuit Pneumonia's will be able to last through the boat trip back to Europe and infect the populace there.
Maybe one in five chances. But even if they do, it'll just be another damned outbreak, fairly common in Europe along this time.
Joan
Also known as Mycobacterium paratuberculosis infection, this disease causes chronic debilitating enteritis. Symptoms include chronic or intermittent diarrhea and emaciation. Johne’s disease is usually found in reindeer that are in close association with contaminated cattle or livestock facilities. Although no diagnostic tests or treatments have been development specifically for reindeer, control methods recommended for cattle should be followed.
Bruce
I believe I've already covered Bruce, which is a species cross of Brucellosis which has adapted to humans. Bruce is a sexually transmitted disease with a relatively high mortality rate. Survivors and carriers experience swollen joints and inflamed cartilage, notably enlarged noses and ears, and will be socially ostracized.
European traders because of certain aspects of facial features and colouration will be widely suspected of Bruce, which gives some credibility to the belief that they are disease carriers.
Bruce will also cross frequently into Europeans, given their relative naivete and the fact that Thule will often believe they have it. If they're looking for concubines, they may be pointed towards the local Bruce sufferers.
It will make it eventually back to European seaports, where it will be a particularly nasty venereal disease. It's principal problem is that the initial infection proceeds relatively rapidly and the long term syndrome is highly visible. Once you know what you're looking at, you learn to stay away.
Mona
After Brucellosis, the next likely cross species disease variant is a pneumonia, which does strike Caribou.
Basically, air transmission. All you need is a sick Caribou coughing it up steadily, infects the rest of the herd, they're all coughing on the humans....
Not sure about the mortality rate, but the impression is that if you kick it, you get on with your life. So this may simply be part of normal background mortality for the Inuit/Thule, as the collective immune systems slowly step up, and the weaker or vulnerable immune systems die off.
As a relatively easy to transmit crossover disease, the likelihood is that it will jump species within the first century after domestication of Caribou, and thereafter will rise or fall regularly, particularly among large populations of caribou in regular contact with each other and humans.
This means that the Hudson Bay area is the homeland of Mona, since a large part of the landscape is devoted to Caribou herding as well as agriculture. Herding means a large animal population, and a mobile animal population. With the disease jumping back and forth.
The result might be occasional more lethal outbreaks of pneumonia burning down the south from time to time, with it being relatively less noticeable among the Inuit. I can see the Cree and Dene around the Hudson Bay area being occasionaly battered by Mona epidemics.
Among the Thule, particularly in Hudson Bay, it'll be a seasonal thing. Maybe once ever generation a particularly bad Mona will run through and kill people. Mostly its one of those things.
It will also probably hit Europeans pretty hard, though Europeans are used to this kind of thing. The challenge will be whether the Inuit Pneumonia's will be able to last through the boat trip back to Europe and infect the populace there.
Maybe one in five chances. But even if they do, it'll just be another damned outbreak, fairly common in Europe along this time.
Joan
Also known as Mycobacterium paratuberculosis infection, this disease causes chronic debilitating enteritis. Symptoms include chronic or intermittent diarrhea and emaciation. Johne’s disease is usually found in reindeer that are in close association with contaminated cattle or livestock facilities. Although no diagnostic tests or treatments have been development specifically for reindeer, control methods recommended for cattle should be followed.
Not much on it, but its a known species jumper, at least among cervids, and its likely messy.
Probably spreads by close contact, though not necessarily sexual transmission. More likely saliva, untreated meat, exposure or contact with sores, physical contact with the infected or with objects contaminated by the disease.
The bacteria can survive in the enviroment for a time and thus infection can be passed indirectly, simply by living in the same environment, or even visiting.
Joan is a dramatic and virulent disease, once it is known and the symptoms are known to the culture, the response to it is to simply abandon the afflicted. Even persons with similar symptoms will be abandoned and must demonstrate their recovery and go through ceremonial cleansing.
Communities which experience outbreaks are shunned, and buildings or camps will be burned down. It can exist asymptotically in Caribou or Humans and can unpredictably jump to virulence. It's progress is relatively rapid once it starts to burn like wildfire.
Unlike the other two diseases, however, it tends not to ravage the Indians in the south, simply due to its differing transmission. It is a local devastator, not a travelling one.
For Europeans, its going to be a really really unpleasant surprise. The sort of surprise you can lose an army detachment or trading post or naval group too.
Luckily, or unluckily, the mortality for Europeans will be a lot higher than for Inuit, and the risk of asymptotic carriers is therefore almost nil. Which means it would be very difficult for it to get across the ocean, it burns out so rapidly.
That doesn't mean that an ocean crossing is impossible, what it does mean is that it is almost impossible to predict when or if it makes it. It could be a hundred years after contact. But if it does make it, it will devour a city in nothing flat, and from there, its a flip of the dice every step of the way.
Joan is a wasting disease, in humans, principle symptoms are diarhea, dehydration, and emaciation, possibly nauseau and vomiting. Late stages are fever and tremors. Of the three crossovers, its the one that Inuit fear the most, because of its potential to devastate an entire community.
Probably spreads by close contact, though not necessarily sexual transmission. More likely saliva, untreated meat, exposure or contact with sores, physical contact with the infected or with objects contaminated by the disease.
The bacteria can survive in the enviroment for a time and thus infection can be passed indirectly, simply by living in the same environment, or even visiting.
Joan is a dramatic and virulent disease, once it is known and the symptoms are known to the culture, the response to it is to simply abandon the afflicted. Even persons with similar symptoms will be abandoned and must demonstrate their recovery and go through ceremonial cleansing.
Communities which experience outbreaks are shunned, and buildings or camps will be burned down. It can exist asymptotically in Caribou or Humans and can unpredictably jump to virulence. It's progress is relatively rapid once it starts to burn like wildfire.
Unlike the other two diseases, however, it tends not to ravage the Indians in the south, simply due to its differing transmission. It is a local devastator, not a travelling one.
For Europeans, its going to be a really really unpleasant surprise. The sort of surprise you can lose an army detachment or trading post or naval group too.
Luckily, or unluckily, the mortality for Europeans will be a lot higher than for Inuit, and the risk of asymptotic carriers is therefore almost nil. Which means it would be very difficult for it to get across the ocean, it burns out so rapidly.
That doesn't mean that an ocean crossing is impossible, what it does mean is that it is almost impossible to predict when or if it makes it. It could be a hundred years after contact. But if it does make it, it will devour a city in nothing flat, and from there, its a flip of the dice every step of the way.
On the whole, no. Lower population densities for both animals and people. However, I do note that in the 17th century, there were siberian movements, in and around the Taymyr Peninsula and the Barents sea from tribal peoples trying to escape Reindeer pandemics. They themselves were not much affected, but the Reindeer were sickening and dying in such numbers that the people who depended on them fled with their herds. It's impossible to say with certainty what the epidemic was but it may well have been Johne's disease. Whatever it was, it appears to have eventually burned itself out, but not before triggering substantial population movements.
In this timeline, the crossovers of Caribou diseases were based in part on the Caribou stock being far more migratory north and south than the reindeer, being exposed to a wider variety of pathogens, and having a larger and more flexible disease reservoir. Agriculture brings large numbers of caribou and large numbers of humans into continuous intimate contact through use as draft labour so crossovers are more likely to happen.
I'd say that with respect to the Yakut, Nenets, Samoyed etc., with lower population densities and more formal contact on each side, there's a lot less chance of disease exchange. Phneumonia might cross back and forth, but that's about it.
By the way, in the vein of shameless self promotion, I'm doing a quick throwaway timeline for Bear Cavalry. It's kind of fun, pretty experimental. I'm structuring it as a documentary film by Morgan Spurlock. It's in ASB, but there is absolutely nothing ASB about it.
Go check it out.
Go check it out.
Hi there. Just a quick note to say that I'm having difficulties in my personal life, and working 16 hour days, which is why my posting has declined. I will return to finish (or at least bring to a satisfactory state) the timelines. Please bear with me.
No worries man; we've all been there! Don't worry; we'll still be waiting when you get back!
Hope things settle down for you and get better.
No worries man; we've all been there! Don't worry; we'll still be waiting when you get back!
Hope things settle down for you and get better.
Indeed, that goes ditto for all of us other readers too
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