Native Americans domestic American Bisons?
- Thread starter Paradoxer
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Paradoxer
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So your saying it possible? Cows are basically bulls and look what we did to them. Or how with selective breeding with turn wolf to dog to pug.
Early humans are likely thinking about few things outside of survival early on. It’s basically what can I eat and won’t kill me? Preferably taste good. Think of first people to figure out cow milk and keep drinking until they built endurance to it. Humans can be stubborn and persistent. I can’t imagine earlier cows/bulls just let us go up and squeeze them like that causally.
Yes, but not for early Native Americans.
Firstly, it needs to be said that you're approaching domestication as if it is entirely a top-down, human-controlled process and it is not. The animal's brain chemistry and group structure are the greatest factors in determining whether or not domestication can be achieved.
Secondly, and more to your point, bison are famously aggressive and energetic beasts, thus making them dangerous with which to deal. Even today, bison have been domesticated only in small numbers. Now consider how this would be done by early Native Americans, who would have to do it entirely on foot as they had no horses with which to herd the animals. It is an impossible task.
Paradoxer
Banned
I imagine you need more militaristic or at least authoritarian culture preferably a somewhat developed and settled one who does not care about basically enslaving animal over generations and picking big but submissive ones to breeds. Capture female breed/bison and males will naturally come to you.
From my understanding native Americans were not that brutal towards animals even ones they hunt.
The concept of domestication isn’t too far off from slavery especially early on with maybe exception of more cooperative ones where you just feed dog or animal taking care of it and sending time with it to point you consider it companion. But dogs do have pack mentality and can be social.
It would probably take civilization to develop along Mississippi and Ohio river systems maybe along Great Lakes too. Bisons use to be very widespread and numerous before Europeans came
Slavery is actually a good deal different from domestication. If it was, there would never be a slave revolt.
MANY animals are simply impossible to domesticate. You can tame a individual example, you will see this with animals as different as African Lions and Zebras, but all attempts to domesticate them have failed. Zebra, thanks to their similarity in appearance to horses (and even closer) to donkeys and their near total immunity to diseases found in sub Saharan Africa that drop horses in their tracks, were identified as potential domestication targets centuries ago. Despite the best, centuries long efforts by Europeans to make it happen, there was zero success.
There is also the reality that domestication requires generation after generation of selective breeding, something that was being done far before there was a term for it. Not all animals respond to that the same way (as an example all efforts to domesticate foxes when the fur trade was still a thing, failed because the results were, based on appearance and changes in coat, more or less, dogs).
And yet the difference between them is quite important to cattle farming, I believe.
If you want domesticated bovids in the Americas, the musk ox is probably your best bet.
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For reasons mentioned above, it would be exceedingly difficult without the ability to herd the animals. It's also pretty hard to start off domesticating a large animal, and there were no domesticated animals north of Mesoamerica besides dogs.
Incidentally, the vast majority of today's bison have between 1-10% cattle genes.
Incidentally, the vast majority of today's bison have between 1-10% cattle genes.
I don't think this is necessarily true, but certainly domesticating some species is far more difficult than others to the point where it simply won't happen without knowledge of modern genetics and how domestication works where like the Russian fox experiment, you breed out the aggression and other undesirable traits over many decades and generations.
A muskox isn't a bovine, it's more closely related to goats and sheep (and to a lesser degree antelopes) than it is to cattle or bison.
dcharles
Banned
Somebody already gave you some shit for saying that "cows are basically bulls," so I won't pile on. It's making me laugh though.
As to whether it's possible, no, not really. For comparison:
Now, those are European Bison, and that picture was taken in Poland. North American Bison are usually a little shorter and a lot more heavily built. Problem is, bison are not nearly as placid as cattle, and the American Indians didn't have horses to ride so they couldn't lasso and capture them. To try and force a bison to do something it didn't want to do without a horse and a lasso to back you up would be--with the medical techniques available to the pre-Colombian Indians--suicidal. Not a good way to die, either. Getting trampled to death by a beast that everyone told you not to mess with would be a great way to go down in tribal history as a legendary jackass.
I mean, I doubt they were talking about alternate history and intersectionality, but I'm sure they led rich and meaningful lives. Fell in love, raised kids, carried out blood feuds and communed with the divine. Same basic stuff.
I think it's probably the other way around. That is, no amount of milk consumption can cure a person of lactose intolerance. In this case, familiarity breeds contempt and not proclivity. It's more likely that the mutation spontaneously developed, and its usefulness was discovered during a time of food shortage.
The idea that humans can ingest poison and therefore become immune to it is the basis of homeopathy. The idea is wrong, but nonetheless stubborn and persistent, especially among humans.
Wild yak is big, fierce and dangerous animal. Sometimes calf of wild yak is captured by Tibetans and incorporated into their herds, but once such calf grows up it is unmanagable. Wild yak is practically impossible to tame, yet it was somehow domesticated centuries ago, because domestication is project taking generations of selective breeding. If it worked with yak, it is not given it would faill with bison if someone tries really hard for long enough time.
And those that are being armed on the Great Plains have far more. I visited a Buffalo (technically Beefalo) ranch for a grad class I was in once and the rancher explained that most were about 50-75% cattle (if memory serves me right) because this made them more docile as well as produced better meat.
Paradoxer
Banned
Always been curious what pure Buffalo meat taste like. Didn’t even know they could mate and breed with other cattle
The results would probably be something like on-foot herding cultures elsewhere. See the Masai, for instance. Riding buffalo isn't going to be a thing.
I assume, just like aurochs -> cows, the domesticated buffalo are going to be smaller.
What will be interesting is the effects outside the plains. You will probably see lots of forest clearance and basically sedentary pastoralism. Enough forest clearance to change worldwide climate? Of course OTL there was also a lot of clearance with agriculture so it depends on when the domestication happens.
Depending on how long ago the domestication occurred, you may see the emergence of some kind of dairy culture.
Oxen equivalents? If so, there may be a transportation revolution and even an agricultural revolution.
I assume, just like aurochs -> cows, the domesticated buffalo are going to be smaller.
What will be interesting is the effects outside the plains. You will probably see lots of forest clearance and basically sedentary pastoralism. Enough forest clearance to change worldwide climate? Of course OTL there was also a lot of clearance with agriculture so it depends on when the domestication happens.
Depending on how long ago the domestication occurred, you may see the emergence of some kind of dairy culture.
Oxen equivalents? If so, there may be a transportation revolution and even an agricultural revolution.
I think that many answers here are missing the point, cows were never domesticated by humans, humanity domesticated aurochs, and from them we created cattle. Aurochs were not placid creatures, much to the contrary, they were dangerous, probably as much as buffalo or bison are. Is it easy to domesticate them? No, but that is not the question either. Is it possible to domesticate them? Yes, but it is something that doesn't happen quickly, it would take centuries or even millennia.
The process of domestication would probably start with humans hunting bison, like they did IOTL. Then those groups would follow the herd making them more accustomed to the animals, and that is even more important than accustoming the animals to humans. Next step, those groups would need to start managing the herd, like killing the older, weak, sick and most important the more agressive ones, also protecting the animals from other predators. Next step, they would control the movement of the herd, taking them as a group to beter grasslands or safer places. After that, the last step would be to effectively herd the animals, bringing the animals together or separating them, taking specific individuals from the middle, even enclosing them. After that last step, breeding specific characteristics would be much easier and the animal is practically domesticated, or at least very tamed.
The process of domestication would probably start with humans hunting bison, like they did IOTL. Then those groups would follow the herd making them more accustomed to the animals, and that is even more important than accustoming the animals to humans. Next step, those groups would need to start managing the herd, like killing the older, weak, sick and most important the more agressive ones, also protecting the animals from other predators. Next step, they would control the movement of the herd, taking them as a group to beter grasslands or safer places. After that, the last step would be to effectively herd the animals, bringing the animals together or separating them, taking specific individuals from the middle, even enclosing them. After that last step, breeding specific characteristics would be much easier and the animal is practically domesticated, or at least very tamed.