Neanderthals and Cromagnons in the Americas

Zirantun

Banned
I am not abandoning my William will always be a bastard... timeline, I've just hit a rough spot at the moment.

Last night however I was reading some counter arguments to Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel, which I have always been rather skeptical of myself, which got me thinking about a POD sometime VERY far back in history.


I had wanted to place it some time during the Miocene, but when you go that far back it becomes very easy to butterfly humans out of the picture altogether. My friend suggested possibly preventing the evolution of grass somehow, but I think that humans still may not evolve under that scenario.


My goal in this timeline would be to get complex North American civilizations with domestic livestock while simultaneously avoiding the extinctions of a number of animals in the Americas.

I've read a lot about the Quaternary Extinction in the past, and have trouble with the idea that the Overkill Hypothesis didn't at least play a major part in the extinctions of megafauna, specifically in North America. So my idea was to get Neanderthals into North America early enough that at least some of the fauna that died in large part due to naivety of humans could get accustomed to human presence, and then later, get Cromagnons there by possibly following the migrations of Great Auks.

Idk though...

What do you guys think? How can we get Neanderthals and Cromagnons into North America and possibly avoid sections of the Qaternary Extinction?
 
One possibility is instead of Neanderthals, have Denisovans come over the Bering land bridge sometime during the Illinioan glaciation (300,000-130,000 years ago).
 

Zirantun

Banned
I have never been able to find a reconstruction of what a Denisovan may have looked like.

I already had an idea of a POD concerning Neanderthals taking up seal hunting in Doggerland about 176,000 years ago. Of course the events that take place are entirely pulled out of my ass...

This may sound a bit racist, but I had imagined the Native Americans of North America (probably mostly the northern, eastern, more temperate areas) in this timeline to be white. I was either hoping for role reversal, of whites in North America but not in Europe, or perhaps a highly divergent, yet convergent in appearance white population in North America. Similar to how we have Africans today and Melanesians, and Andamanese Islanders. I know many Melanesians have a very distinct look about them, but there are some populations in the Solomon Islands, Fiji, and Irian Jaya that could pass for Africans easily, just as the Andamanese are nearly indistinguishable much of the time. Despite their similar appearances however, these populations are the most genetically distant of any human group. I've always thought that this was fascinating, and since darker skinned peoples got to have all the fun (in this department, anyways) in our timeline, I had wanted to create a similar situation for lighter skinned peoples in this one.
 
alternatively, for ideas, you could look at the distant relations of human fossils found in the Americas. for example, Kennewick Man is believed to be most closely related to both the Ainu people of Hokkaido and to Polynesians. or they could resemble ethnic Siberians.

actually, now that i think about it, there could be an interesting difference between the Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon groups here aside from their being different subspecies of Homo: perhaps the Neanderthals could have arrived there via the Bering Land Bridge and most closely resemble Siberian natives, and the Cro-Magnons could arrive by boat from across the Pacific, as some Polynesians are speculated to have done, and therefore resemble Polynesian peoples

incidentally, i'm of the opinion that Harry Turtledove's Opening of the World series is set in prehistoric America, with the Rulers being the Clovis culture, given that they were separated from the more southerly people by an enormous glacier which eventually melted enough for a narrow pass to open up between the north and south, that a warm southerly ocean is described (the Caribbean specifically and the Atlantic in general), and some of the characters describe ground sloths and glyptodonts as living in the south (e.g., the southern US and Latin America)
 
It would be difficult to get European Cro-Magnons to the Americas, as in the time it would take to get there, they would evolve the same way as OTL due to interbreeding with other groups (and the same pressures).

Also, Cro-Magnons were medium brown to tan skinned, not pale. While the Neanderthals, if their route to the Americas was through Siberia, would have no reason to evolve a different set of physical characteristics--they were adapted to that exact type of environment (it would be like pastoralist Mongolians on the cold dry steppe deciding to become rice farmers). Plus they were already in a 'dead end' of archaicness.

If somehow both groups did get to the Americas (the Denisovans are in the way), we would probably see Neanderthals first slowly filling most of North America, then Cro Magnons wiping out all of them except for the ones in northern and northeastern Canada. The Cro Magnons would then spread through the Americas and split into several diffferent populations.
 

Zirantun

Banned
I had actually imagined both groups arriving via migrations out of Europe by following the ice caps for seal hunting.

I have a POD in mind for when and how the Neanderthals learn to hunt seals, but I am unsure of the consequences that this will have on the rest of the world. With a seal-hunting Neanderthal POD, it might be proper to have a group of Cro-Magnons, perhaps mixed with Denisovans arrive in North America via Siberia.
 
I remember the claims that:

A. Clovis flint tools are found mostly in eastern North America & are rare in the west or northwest.

B. The Clovis flints are similar to contemporary style European flints, but have little in common with Siberian or Asian flints of that era.

Anyone know if there is any accuracy in those two claims :confused:
 
Cro-Magnons DID make it to North America. Cro-magnons are modern humans.

Denisovans are probably your best bet to get non sapiens sapiens humans into the Americas. Bighorn sheep crossed the land bridge 600,000 years ago, so perhaps a more northern Denisovan culture could follow them, which would cure North American animals of their naivete pretty quickly. You might want to look for inspiration here

Zirantun said:
I have a POD in mind for when and how the Neanderthals learn to hunt seals, but I am unsure of the consequences that this will have on the rest of the world.

That could have some pretty major effects. Seal hunting will provide a lot of food security in the Arctic and near-Arctic (and near Lake Baikal too, I guess). It's possible that seal hunting Neanderthals will actually survive in the high arctic, which would make for an exciting POD.


alternatively, for ideas, you could look at the distant relations of human fossils found in the Americas. for example, Kennewick Man is believed to be most closely related to both the Ainu people of Hokkaido and to Polynesians. or they could resemble ethnic Siberians.

The whole measuring skulls thing is not an exact science, despite the Smithsonian cheerleading for it. Honestly, looking at the reconstruction of Kennewick Man's face, on full frontal he looks like a painting of Chief Black Hawk, and at a 3/4 angle he looks like Patrick Stewart-neither of which would be mistaken for, say, a Native Hawaiian if you saw them on the street.

Carl Schwamberger said:
A. Clovis flint tools are found mostly in eastern North America & are rare in the west or northwest.

B. The Clovis flints are similar to contemporary style European flints, but have little in common with Siberian or Asian flints of that era.

The first I don't think is true. They've found abundant caches of Clovis tools in Colorado, I believe.

The second may or may not be true, but honestly there's only so many ways you can knapp flint, so just like with prehistoric Japanese and Ecuadorean pottery or the Aztec/Egyptian/Mississippian/Cambodian pyramids, the similarity between the archaeological finds does not necessarily show any significant cultural interaction.
 
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Zirantun

Banned
Denisovans are probably your best bet to get non sapiens sapiens humans into the Americas. Bighorn sheep crossed the land bridge 600,000 years ago, so perhaps a more northern Denisovan culture could follow them, which would cure North American animals of their naivete pretty quickly. You might want to look for inspiration here


Hmmm... do we really think that Neanderthals reaching North America via following the ice caps is impossible? If so that would be sad, since I had a pretty awesome POD (at least I think) almost finished that actually has NOTHING to do with people. The whole chain of events is set off by a ptarmigan that got away from a fox...

I am also familiar with that timeline... I don't think he mentioned how the Neanderthals got to North America?
 
Living on ice caps is not that easy. You'd have to climb down to the water's edge over the sheer edge of cliff-ice to get your food-it's not easy.

Maybe European seal-hunting and whaling Neanderthals figuring out how to build an umiak would allow them to island hop to the New World, but that is extremely advanced watercraft for Pleistocene hominids to build.
 

Zirantun

Banned
Maybe European seal-hunting and whaling Neanderthals figuring out how to build an umiak would allow them to island hop to the New World, but that is extremely advanced watercraft for Pleistocene hominids to build.
Why? Eskimos and the Dorset people were hunter gatherers who lived lifestyles not at all dissimilar from the kind that I'm picturing neanderthals switching to. We already know that neanderthals rafted as far as Crete without a shift to marine mammals as a primary food source, and since whatever rafts/boats they built were probably made out of skin/wood, they have long rotted away. Just as well, something like an Irish currach could easily get them to Iceland, although where to go from there...

Perhaps it is more plausible for the seal hunting lifestyle to carry them across Northern Siberia and into North America via the Bering Land Bridge...


EDIT: I guess leather can be made out of narwhal/beluga skin to make currachs, and of course whale bones could plausibly make the frame. However the tar needed to seal the areas where the skins meet would have to come from some sort of trade with other groups in Europe... which is kind of impractical. Is there any sort of substance that can be made from animal fats that resembles tar?
 
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Why? Eskimos and the Dorset people were hunter gatherers who lived lifestyles not at all dissimilar from the kind that I'm picturing neanderthals switching to.

Eskimos and Dorset are not Pleistocene hominids, they are modern humans-and by the standards of human history, a quite recent group building on hundreds of thousands of years of innovation, which the Neanderthals won't have. Like I said it's not impossible, but it is unlikely-though of course unlikely things happening is about 9/10's of what we do here.

We already know that neanderthals rafted as far as Crete without a shift to marine mammals as a primary food source, and since whatever rafts/boats they built were probably made out of skin/wood, they have long rotted away. Just as well, something like an Irish currach could easily get them to Iceland, although where to go from there...

According to Norse myths an Irish currach could reach Iceland, but that's a pretty rough voyage. Granted, during an ice age the sea level is lower and therefore the distances between land isn't as great, but I wouldn't call the voyage easy, or something that would be taken lightly. I still think the umiak is a better model for what vehicle a mass-migration across the water would use.

Perhaps it is more plausible for the seal hunting lifestyle to carry them across Northern Siberia and into North America via the Bering Land Bridge...

Quite possibly. The first modern humans to reach the Americas may very well have followed the coastline in boats rather than walking between gaps in the Ice caps. Seal hunting Denisovans or Neanderthals could very well do the same. Crossing from Europe to Siberia while seal hunting could be problematic due to the location of the ice caps blocking access to the sea, but then again there must have been inland seals somewhere due to their presence in Lake Baikal.


EDIT: I guess leather can be made out of narwhal/beluga skin to make currachs, and of course whale bones could plausibly make the frame. However the tar needed to seal the areas where the skins meet would have to come from some sort of trade with other groups in Europe... which is kind of impractical. Is there any sort of substance that can be made from animal fats that resembles tar?

The Inuit used seal fat, so no tar necessary for a skin boat.
 

Zirantun

Banned
According to Norse myths an Irish currach could reach Iceland, but that's a pretty rough voyage. Granted, during an ice age the sea level is lower and therefore the distances between land isn't as great, but I wouldn't call the voyage easy, or something that would be taken lightly. I still think the umiak is a better model for what vehicle a mass-migration across the water would use.

Well, in theory, they could just walk over the ice caps to Iceland... the migration would take somewhere around 10-20,000 years.

Quite possibly. The first modern humans to reach the Americas may very well have followed the coastline in boats rather than walking between gaps in the Ice caps. Seal hunting Denisovans or Neanderthals could very well do the same. Crossing from Europe to Siberia while seal hunting could be problematic due to the location of the ice caps blocking access to the sea, but then again there must have been inland seals somewhere due to their presence in Lake Baikal.

True. Perhaps a duel migration of Neanderthals and Denisovans, and then finally, maybe 60 or so thousand years ago so I can get the kind of genetic drift I'm after, modern humans. That gives the Pleistocene fauna around 100,000 years to get used to the presence of humans. I'm sure there'll be extinctions, but they may not be as severe.

I've been reading about Pleistocene animals as well as edible North American flora and I'm fucking fascinated by what I've read.

I'm still reading this site: http://www.northernbushcraft.com/plants/

I was thinking about the Columbia River Valley (where I grew up) being the birth of agriculture in North America, or at least a place where agriculture convergently develops with the East Coast.

I was also thinking of possible domesticates, specifically the saiga, as a replacement for sheep and goats. It's all so interesting. lol. There's a spice store a couple blocks up from my house... I wanna see if they have any of these native seasonings I've been reading about.
 
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