[New World Query] - Best places for large native civilizations?

See above. This is sparked off by the California Inca thread, but what were the best places for large native civilizations to develop, and what key technologies would be needed to effect that development? I believe a lot of older threads have pointed to the likes of the Mississippi as a potential base for Fertile Crescent style development, but what would be needed? And were there any other places of like-minded potential?

Thanks in advance.
 
An area that I have yet to see brought up is around the great lakes. I could see it being being home to a rome like state, that uses the interconnected waterways to link its empire almost like a freshwater Mediterranean sea. A sufficiently powerful state located here may be motivated to make a canal connecting these lakes to the Atlantic if they grew beyond the lakes and needed better access to outside waters.

Other areas I have not seen before are at the mouth of the Amazon river which is likely much safer then the interior and as the state grows stronger and deforests more of the jungle thus eliminating breeding grounds for hostile wildlife over time they would expand down the Amazon rivers. Such a state may bind together logs vertically so as to make enclosed settlements if to protect them from wildlife, this is likely if a settlement is close to the jungle but as the frontier gets pushed further away, new inland settlements away from the jungle likely will not need walls. Also based on how the Mayans and the Aztecs lived around jungles we may need to look at there way of life to see how they coped with mosquitos amongst other issues. We really may need to look at a more river based Mayan civilization specifically to see what it may look like.

Lastly I have not heard anyone suggest around the Nicaraguan freshwater lakes which could get you another central American Mesoamerican civilization. If such a state were to expand south to around southern Panama it could serve an intriguing by being in range of the Incas in the south and the Aztecs and Mayans to the north which could allow for this state to act as a middleman for trade between the native civilizations.
 
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Kaze

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How about the Arizona / New Mexico Desert areas? Pueblo architecture could become more wide-spread.
 
I second the idea of a Great Lakes centered civilization. If agriculture and the potato makes it there early enough they could support a really large population.
 
How about southern Appalachians? By the time of the DeSoto expedition there were some proto-kingdoms there such as Tuskaloosa's one. The upper areas have a relatively mild and stable climate, enough for agriculture to appear or spread here without much effort. Also it would have access to trade routes both through the Mississipi and the Atlantic, as well as access to the Mexican Gulf so a trade net could eventually be formed with Mesoamerica.
 
An area that I have yet to see brought up is around the great lakes. I could see it being being home to a rome like state, that uses the interconnected waterways to link its empire almost like a freshwater Mediterranean sea. A sufficiently powerful state located here may be motivated to make a canal connecting these lakes to the Atlantic if they grew beyond the lakes and needed better access to outside waters.

Other areas I have not seen before are at the mouth of the Amazon river which is likely much safer then the interior and as the state grows stronger and deforests more of the jungle thus eliminating breeding grounds for hostile wildlife over time they would expand down the Amazon rivers. Such a state may bind together logs vertically so as to make enclosed settlements if to protect them from wildlife, this is likely if a settlement is close to the jungle but as the frontier gets pushed further away, new inland settlements away from the jungle likely will not need walls. Also based on how the Mayans and the Aztecs lived around jungles we may need to look at there way of life to see how they coped with mosquitos amongst other issues. We really may need to look at a more river based Mayan civilization specifically to see what it may look like.

Lastly I have not heard anyone suggest around the Nicaraguan freshwater lakes which could get you another central American Mesoamerican civilization. If such a state were to expand south to around southern Panama it could serve an intriguing by being in range of the Incas in the south and the Aztecs and Mayans to the north which could allow for this state to act as a middleman for trade between the native civilizations.
I second the idea of a Great Lakes centered civilization. If agriculture and the potato makes it there early enough they could support a really large population.

Civilization, yes,but you'd run into issues if you're trying to establish large scale polities. One issue you run into is the fact the areas on the shores of the lakes themselves, at least in many areas, aren't very condusive to developing dense population centers. Irrigation isent very viable, as the lakes are low lying glacial melt remnants rather than the usual freshwater system of being fed off mountain snowmelt, and has the duel issues of having very low density of fish and other aquatic life as well as being too large/tidally and climaticalty testy to be the ideal ground for staples like wild rice. I'd be curious to see how enough large settlements emerged to make the trading prospects even be substantial enough to be an attractive feature in and of themselves
 
In terms of the Amazon river, it could have been an excellent location for civilization, and indeed was for quite a while. The main issue was Aedes Aegyptus, which bred like wildfire through the amazon basin, spreading malaria everywhere it went. IIRC the first explorers to head upriver found great ruins of civilizations that had been destroyed before they arrived.
 
Civilization, yes,but you'd run into issues if you're trying to establish large scale polities. One issue you run into is the fact the areas on the shores of the lakes themselves, at least in many areas, aren't very condusive to developing dense population centers. Irrigation isent very viable, as the lakes are low lying glacial melt remnants rather than the usual freshwater system of being fed off mountain snowmelt, and has the duel issues of having very low density of fish and other aquatic life as well as being too large/tidally and climaticalty testy to be the ideal ground for staples like wild rice. I'd be curious to see how enough large settlements emerged to make the trading prospects even be substantial enough to be an attractive feature in and of themselves

I think that in a situation with higher N.A. population overall that Chicago is still the idea site for a major trade city as it's on the east-west cross roads but also the best point for trade between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi. I do agree that the terrain isn't particularly good but an increased reliance on canals in a lifestyle more like SE Asia would go a ways toward using the fairly low-lying and swampy terrain to their advantage, further improving trade and logistics.
 
Other areas I have not seen before are at the mouth of the Amazon river which is likely much safer then the interior and as the state grows stronger and deforests more of the jungle thus eliminating breeding grounds for hostile wildlife over time they would expand down the Amazon rivers. Such a state may bind together logs vertically so as to make enclosed settlements if to protect them from wildlife, this is likely if a settlement is close to the jungle but as the frontier gets pushed further away, new inland settlements away from the jungle likely will not need walls. Also based on how the Mayans and the Aztecs lived around jungles we may need to look at there way of life to see how they coped with mosquitos amongst other issues. We really may need to look at a more river based Mayan civilization specifically to see what it may look like.

A lot of people actually think that there may have been extensive settlement along the Amazon, which would have been managed and less heavily forested (mostly based on the widespread distribution of terra preta, which is basically 100% certainly man-made. There's also more direct evidence of large civilizations, which may have been collapsed by disease, the survivors turning to migratory hunter-gatherer-ing and the rainforest rapidly reclaiming agricultural land and city sites.
 
Civilization, yes,but you'd run into issues if you're trying to establish large scale polities. One issue you run into is the fact the areas on the shores of the lakes themselves, at least in many areas, aren't very condusive to developing dense population centers. Irrigation isent very viable, as the lakes are low lying glacial melt remnants rather than the usual freshwater system of being fed off mountain snowmelt, and has the duel issues of having very low density of fish and other aquatic life as well as being too large/tidally and climaticalty testy to be the ideal ground for staples like wild rice. I'd be curious to see how enough large settlements emerged to make the trading prospects even be substantial enough to be an attractive feature in and of themselves
I imadgen whatever the lakes could not provide could be made up by hunting wildlife like like the other natives of North America such as deer, moose, elk, caribou or even bison as shown below by this map showing the traditional range of bison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_bison)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_bison_belt)
515px-Bison_original_range_map.svg.png

Beyond hunting Don't don't know about the viability of domestication of all the previously mentioned animals with a window of a few hundred/thousand years. Outside of wildlife, it seems that it is possible for agriculture to occur by working up the saint Lawerance river or down the northeast Mississippi river which may also provide routes for future expansion as shown below.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c3/Mississippiriver-new-01.png) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippi_River)

1920px-Mississippiriver-new-01.png


There are even a few rivers around the western lakes that it might be possible to build a canal to just by looking at the distance that could connect them to the wider network. With these southern food sources, they can probably carry food to the northern half of the lakes for trade which may have hunting but less stability in agriculture I dont know what the north could provide but based off of what was historically valuable pelts of animals not common on the southern half of the lakes like bever might be used based on the prevalence of them on the north side of the lakes as shown below.
(https://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/1lapsf/north_american_beaver_range_and_historical/) (http://i.imgur.com/O07uI0u.jpg)
O07uI0u.jpg
 
If you think of it, the Mississippi basin is practically China. Two vast rivers and many smaller yet still grand rivers make for perfect transport networks and could allow for an empire from between the Rockies, Appalachians, Great Lakes, and Rio Grande. The north is too cold for agriculture and the residents savages not worth conquering--perhaps like China and Siberia. The east coast is too remote to exert much control, but will be culturally similar--like China and Korea/Japan. The west is too dry for much agriculture and the soil rough and rivers seasonal. It's like Mongolia or Central Asia. The south is also too dry and too rugged, and part of a different cultural area--like Tibet and India.

With a POD far enough in the past, you could probably assemble this great empire. I'd go with an Eastern Agricultural Complex wank, although it might take surviving American horses since deer probably aren't a substitute and elk, moose, and reindeer can't survive outside of the more northern parts of this range, while bison can't survive in captivity without modern medicine.

What I could see is that within this region, you might have a division comparable to North and South China. The north is somewhat agriculturally poorer, but much wealthier in resources, with plenty of copper and iron. The south is rich in agricultural potential, but has a relative lack of iron (although if/when coal comes into prominence, things will change). The south also has great trade potential.

So the north conquers the south, and over the centuries assimilates the ethnic groups there into the culture and language of the northerners. Gradually the economic and political center shifts south thanks to demographics and trade with Mesoamerica.

Best capital would probably be something centrally located, not on the fringes, while also at a good river crossing. While there will be a ton of capitals (look how many China went through), I'd pick a site at St. Louis first as my "Beijing", assuming the Plains aren't full of horse nomads. If they were, then St. Louis isn't as good (but still very nice) and Muscle Shoals, AL might be nicer due to more protection. Any good site on the Tennessee, Cumberland, or Lower Ohio, provided flood protection doesn't need too much investment and it controls a good crossing, would be a great capital in this case.
 
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