More use of reindeer in Northern Europe?

So is there a way to get reindeer domestication to spread beyond the Sami and into the Finns, Scandinavians, and possibly Slavs/Baltic peoples? Or for any of those groups to independently domesticate the reindeer at an early phase in their development, like preferably pre-Christianity? I don't mean 19th/20th century experiments and use of reindeer, by the way.

What might the effects of this be? Reindeer are more efficient than cattle (except for milk production) in cold climates like much of Scandinavia. This could help lead to slightly larger settlement in much of Scandinavia and northern Russia. Could this lead to a stronger Nordic nations or even early displacement of the Sami from much of their territory? And what might happen if it spreads to the Slavs? Would Russia be stronger early on, or might it give Novgorod (or other northern principalities) more of a fighting chance against the southern Russian states?

And finally, is it really plausible for the reindeer to spread beyond the Sami? Could another group like the Nenets introduce it into Northern Europe?
 
The thing is that the "usage" of reindeer differed over time periods, as before the 16-17th century the Sami would follow the Reindeer flocks where ever they went, using enticed reindeer to hunt wild reindeers. It was only towards the 16-17th century, when Norway, Sweden and Russia began asserting their borders that we begin to see domesticated reindeer outside of the enticed ones.
 
Yeah, that's an issue, I was going to mention that but I wasn't sure where I read that. But it also seems like the reindeer was independently domesticated in Siberia much earlier? If the process of reindeer domestication occurs 1000 years earlier or so, would that help? Maybe the early Finns adopt reindeer usage pre-Christianity, it diffuses to the Pomors and other Russians of the far north from their Finnish/Karelian neighbours, and with Christianisation and conquest of Finland ends up being used by Sweden or Norway in time?

I think the Russians will get the most use out of reindeer though. More incentive to conquer Siberians (steal their herds), plus more manpower and productivity in the north in general, if only a slight increase.
 
Also reindeer are a bit more heat sensitive than other forms of livestock, you would have to have the idea of farming deer much earlier than what it is historically
 
Reindeer are primarily browsers rather than grazers, as I understand it, and that has some consequences. The key human crops to the south were all grain based - barley, wheat, sorghum, millet. Grains crops are essentially grasses. So there was strong selection bias for grazers or grass eaters, rather than browsers. Cows and horses had a competitive advantage in that they dovetailed nicely with agriculture.

The result was that Agricultural, or Horticultural societies like the Norse, or the Pomors, tended to get their agriculture from the south. They basically extended grain growing as far north as they could manage. As grain grew more difficult and impoverished, they adjusted by substituting or increasing the share of other parts of their agricultural package. This didn't just mean planting more turnips, although they did that. The most important thing was that they increased the share of food taken from domesticated animals. Sheep, goats, horses and cattle, particularly cattle, became more and more important. Unproductive grain fields made productive hay fields, you'd raise a lot more cattle and you'd go with meat and milk.

On a level playing field, of course, raising grain feeds a lot more people than raising cattle. But if grain is doing badly, then cattle is where its at. You feed fewer people, but between milk and meat (particularly more milk during the childhood and adolescent phase) you get big robust people. The Vikings were consistently described as big strapping sons of bitches, by southern Europeans whose diets included mostly grains, much less meat, and erratic malnutrition during childhood.

Of course, there was a northern limit to cattle - but if you look at the culture, the Norse and Baltic peoples were making massive cultural investments in defending their cattle, goats, sheep etc., from winter. They were building barns, harvesting and storing hay, etc. They were so successful at this, that they maintained a cattle culture in places like Iceland and Greenland, where grain failed almost completely.

So what does this mean for Reindeer? Well, the milk issue is a killer. Milk was pretty damned vital, and cows, goats and sheep were all highly refined milkers. Then there's the fact that all the work, the cultural and economic long term investments in domestication had already been made - they were 'off the shelf' technology. Creating a new domesticate would be a major cultural investment. Not impossible, but definitely harder to do when you already have acceptable off the shelf stuff.

As I said, Reindeer were browsers, not grazers, and they occupied territories where the agricultural package failed completely. Absent a viable alternative agricultural package suited for the north - you won't get the domestication of reindeer past herding. Go further south, and you have an agricultural package which already has better suited domesticates. There's no window.

For the record, I did a timeline in which the ancestors of the Inuit developed an arctic agricultural package and went on to fully domesticate the reindeer and musk ox as draft labour animals. You might find it interesting. 'Land of Ice and Mice'
 
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So is there a way to get reindeer domestication to spread beyond the Sami and into the Finns, Scandinavians, and possibly Slavs/Baltic peoples? Or for any of those groups to independently domesticate the reindeer at an early phase in their development, like preferably pre-Christianity? I don't mean 19th/20th century experiments and use of reindeer, by the way.

And finally, is it really plausible for the reindeer to spread beyond the Sami? Could another group like the Nenets introduce it into Northern Europe?

Thinking out loud here. To really move reindeer up the next level, from simply herding lifestyle to draft labour domesticate, you really need either a new agricultural package. Or you need to displace the existing suite of domesticates - sheep, goats, cattle and horses in use. Pigs, no problem. Pigs lost out, the further north. But as I said, the cultures which used them invested heavily into extending their viable range.

So you have to do something about them. Possibly a viral or bacterial contagion which brings about a population collapse of cattle? The culture then needs to grab and adapt a new domesticate quickly to fill the space, and the reindeer are moved up?

The trouble is, that if a cattle disease just wipes out cattle - its unlikely to touch sheep, goats or horses. What kills horses off may leave cattle untouched. The goat plague will have no effect on sheep or cattle. So the most likely outcome of a devastating plague which takes out one of the four domesticates, is that the remaining domesticates just expand to take up the space. No new domesticate needed.

Also, huge butterflies - a cattle disease that leaves the north desperately training up a new domesticate is probably going to devastate the south. Not good.

A wide spectrum disease that takes out two or three or more domesticates, leaving genuine room for reindeer to come in.... good chance that's going to keep crossing the species barrier, and it will hit humans. That's going to complicate things everywhere.

I'll keep thinking.
 
Oh, I'm very aware of Lands of Ice and Mice. I've been reading it this past month, and it somewhat inspired me to make this thread. Very, very good timeline, and I'll say I want more of it, because it's awesome! But anyway, I came up with the idea because I'm aware that in US history, cattle-raising in places like Montana and North Dakota was always pretty questionable because cattle are not suited to extreme cold, and Norse culture relied on cattle to a certain extent. Horses can have issues too, since the Blackfoot and other Plains Indians had to replenish their herds new horses every spring. Northern Scandinavia/Karelia is comparable to the cold winters of those places. So I figure, why not an animal that can tolerate that to make agriculture better/easier/more efficient there?

I recall reading multiple times that the ancestors of the modern Finns moved to modern Finland about 2000 years ago. They displaced (or assimilated) a native population around the same time the Proto-Germanic speakers did the same in modern Sweden and Norway. So what if we moved up domestication of the reindeer in Scandinavia about 1,000 or 1,500 years? Reindeer were domesticated in Siberia separately from the Sami domestication of reindeer, after all. There's definitely the issue that much of Scandinavia is at the very edge of traditional agriculture (mainly rye), and it seems the range of reindeer overlap at the very edge of that. But I figure that certainly you could see reindeer instead of cattle in much of that range, and because you're having Finns/Swedes/Russians co-opting the Sami lifestyle, those cultures will be pushed further north. I don't think that this necessarily involves the agriculture seen in Lands of Ice and Mice (although roseroot would be an awesome addition)--after all, those cultures have no reason to incorporate it. I mean, the Finns were able to settle Kainuu which was once inhabited by mainly the Sami, and I think if the Finns had a reindeer herder lifestyle, then Kainuu would be far more populated and the Finnish expansion into the region would occur far earlier. But forget the Finns, the Russians will be the ones to get the most use out of it. Of course, I'm only giving examples off the top of my head. And weren't oxen more common than horses in Northern Europe anyway? Though reindeer might find it difficult much further south than say, Estonia.

A livestock plague would definitely be bad, and an interesting way to get a culture to shift around their traditional lifestyles to incorporating new ideas, but maybe a bit different than what I might be thinking at first. But interesting too.
 
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