I mean you are obviously basing this off of the Caddoan Mound Cultural Complex no? If so than creating a earthworks based pond system seems like the best thing beyond a willow fence based system in-between the spaces to allow circulation.
Creating a weir system between pond mound borders allows for a age and sized based progression of fish species. A earthen chinampas-like keyhole design with "fingers" can be used to create more "edge" to maximize fish affluence to fertilize emergent plants like duck potato and provide mostly land for Apios and Smilax.
That seems like it could be better than the woven barricades I had planned. Probably a little later down the line though, as that would require some planning. Once the first city reaches 1000 people, innovation begins on the pond front?
I was only giving the ritual aspect of bears some context, you could honestly just have them as major fat producers that a taken annually with no rite of passage necessary sense honest killing tamed bears isn't much of a challenge you know?
Seems good. Tamed bears as a food source? Sounds cool. Would they change genetically over the years of selective breeding, or would they stay the same do you think? Like, if they were being used for fat and pelts, than the fatter bears with thicker coats would be bred, right?
Cathoula hunting dogs genetics show already in Louisiana several lines of dogs already came to North America and thus using that as an example just modify the diverged precursors.
Okay cool. I mean, still you would want something that could produce meat for the food and one that could hunt for the companion. Maybe the natives take their dogs they have and split them in two, then with the hunting dogs ad in traits of the local red wolves for hunting? Sort of a second domestication of wolves in their dogs? Then, its also 'unique' in that it isn't 100% grey wolf.
You can do the comorants if you want, but if you're trying what I think you aiming for than they are rather inefficient once you get to the population of say an empire.
I was imagining them being used early on drive fish into nets maybe, then falling out of practice later and being used for consumption or egg production and just pets.
Eastern agricultural complex is pretty interesting for that. You just need to import maize for these Indians. Sweet potatoes would also work (since they were and are a major Southern US crop), as well as regular potatoes. Sweet potatoes are probably easier, since they were evidently known in the Caribbean.
Getting it from the caribbean would be much later down the line, when boats are used more frequently on the ocean, most likely in kingdom phases.
Bobcats might work for a pest-control species, since they're apparently easier to domesticate than a lynx, and archaeologists evidently found a grave with a bobcat buried next to a human in it, hinting at how at least some people in pre-Columbian North America considered them pets. Not to mention that bobcats are very cute and all. I'd love to imagine how Europeans show up and see these dog-sized cats just hanging around and all that.
That could be really cool. Large domesticated bobcats to fill the role of europeans (smaller) cats. And maybe later we'll see the rise of 'warcats' instead of dogs, since they wouldn't be as good at following orders during hunting missions, but probably good a slicing open an attacker.
There are a lot more potential domesticates than I thought, though they still lack anything large. Bison? Would they work as a domesticate?
If anyone wants to help with more of this and maybe other things, just comment here or PM me and we can talk about it. I'm open to any suggestions, from domesticates to building to culture, whatever you've got.