Plausibility check - Horses reach the Americas before Europeans

Cortes brought 13; based upon the numbers, I'd been seeking about 20, but I was afraid the 'why' would be a problem. Is there any reason whatsoever to expect any of the major (IE, capable of financing the voyage) powers of the time would be interested in outfitting an expedition of that nature?
 
Cortes brought 13; based upon the numbers, I'd been seeking about 20, but I was afraid the 'why' would be a problem. Is there any reason whatsoever to expect any of the major (IE, capable of financing the voyage) powers of the time would be interested in outfitting an expedition of that nature?

Maybe a conquistador fleet, then all the conquistadores die and the horses are taken by the natives? It's not ASB, if they find themselves in the wrong (right?) circumstances.
 
IMO, the best way to get horses into the Americas after the Pleistocene extinction is Vinland. The vikings almost certainly did go south of Newfoundland, and could conceivably bring enough horses to breed if they had a successful settlement there (getting that, now...that's a whole 'nother bucket of fish).

Within a few hundred years, I think horses would be widely but thinly spread across the eastern seaboard, with some tribes adopting them and others rejecting them. By the time European contact restarts, they would be filtering onto the plains and would become much more universally adopted. These Norse-based horses would probably be pretty inbred though, so they would probably be bred with new Spanish/French/English/whatever horses as soon as the Natives could get their hands on some. Horses would definitely give the Natives both a military and a greater numerical advantage. This could slow down European colonialism in North America, giving more tribes time to recover from the disease shock.

Horses introduced by Conquistadors would not, I think, have enough time to spread or be used as an effective cavalry.

Either that, or have mammoths not go extinct, so that a steppe habitat and steppe animals like horses continue to exist in the Arctic circle. Even if horses go extinct in the Americas in this scenario, the paleo-Inuit could still reintroduce them when they migrate into the Americas 3,000 years ago.

(I know, not what you were going for, but I couldn't resist putting it in).
 

katchen

Banned
We may be going about this back asswards. Check out Yakuts on Wikipedia and elsewhere. The Yakuts were driven out of Mongolia by the Oirats into the Lena Basin of Siberia in the 1200s. And the Yakuts turn out to be surprisingly advanced and adaptable for the subarctic. They smelt metals fro swords and arrows. They practice agriculture (and adapt to eating the cambium of pine trees were agriculture is impossible. And they raise and adapt horses to the woodland and the cold of Siberia, building barns for them for the winter and devoting a lot of energy ruing the summer to cutting hay for their horses to eat( the horses reciprocate by mares producing milk). The Yakuts can't make cattle and sheep work that far north and can barely grow a few crops. But they do hang onto their horses unless they go to the tundra where they raise reindeer instead.
And the Yakut, by the time the Russians conquer them in the 17th century are expanding into the East Siberian Mountains, driging the hunting and gathering Yukagir People out of the Indigirka and Kolyma River basins less than 500 miles from the Bering Strait. IOTL, only the Chukchi and 500 miles separate them from Alaska's Seward Peninsula and North America. The Yakut and their horses.
So ITTL, the Yakut find themselves under a lot more pressure eitner from Chingfgis Khan in the 12th Century or from the Altan Khan and his Oirats in the 15th Century. Or in between. Enough to drive Yakut across the Bering Strait in the winter. With their horses and tame reindeer.
And the Yakut King (yes, the Yakuts have their own king) sends scouts to determine the extent of this land. And exploring east and south, they discover steppe country inhabited only by hunting Native Americans..But through the Yaluts, horses have returned to the New World.
 
We may be going about this back asswards. Check out Yakuts on Wikipedia and elsewhere. The Yakuts were driven out of Mongolia by the Oirats into the Lena Basin of Siberia in the 1200s. And the Yakuts turn out to be surprisingly advanced and adaptable for the subarctic. They smelt metals fro swords and arrows. They practice agriculture (and adapt to eating the cambium of pine trees were agriculture is impossible. And they raise and adapt horses to the woodland and the cold of Siberia, building barns for them for the winter and devoting a lot of energy ruing the summer to cutting hay for their horses to eat( the horses reciprocate by mares producing milk). The Yakuts can't make cattle and sheep work that far north and can barely grow a few crops. But they do hang onto their horses unless they go to the tundra where they raise reindeer instead.
And the Yakut, by the time the Russians conquer them in the 17th century are expanding into the East Siberian Mountains, driging the hunting and gathering Yukagir People out of the Indigirka and Kolyma River basins less than 500 miles from the Bering Strait. IOTL, only the Chukchi and 500 miles separate them from Alaska's Seward Peninsula and North America. The Yakut and their horses.
So ITTL, the Yakut find themselves under a lot more pressure eitner from Chingfgis Khan in the 12th Century or from the Altan Khan and his Oirats in the 15th Century. Or in between. Enough to drive Yakut across the Bering Strait in the winter. With their horses and tame reindeer.
And the Yakut King (yes, the Yakuts have their own king) sends scouts to determine the extent of this land. And exploring east and south, they discover steppe country inhabited only by hunting Native Americans..But through the Yaluts, horses have returned to the New World.

Now, if we add that with a surviving and expanding Vinland is it possible for the two groups to meet up?
 
So ITTL, the Yakut find themselves under a lot more pressure eitner from Chingfgis Khan in the 12th Century or from the Altan Khan and his Oirats in the 15th Century. Or in between. Enough to drive Yakut across the Bering Strait in the winter. With their horses and tame reindeer.
And the Yakut King (yes, the Yakuts have their own king) sends scouts to determine the extent of this land. And exploring east and south, they discover steppe country inhabited only by hunting Native Americans..But through the Yaluts, horses have returned to the New World.

That's fascinating. I looked into it and they have a breed of Yakutian cattle as well. What kind of agriculture did the Yakutians practice, and could it adapt to more temperate climates?

About your crossing of the Bering, are you saying the strait freezes over in the Winter, or do they use boats?
 

katchen

Banned
Now, if we add that with a surviving and expanding Vinland is it possible for the two groups to meet up?
Always possible. And a lot easier for horses to be ridden across the Bering Strait in winter than to be shipped across the Atlantic in any number in knorrs.
 
We may be going about this back asswards. Check out Yakuts on Wikipedia and elsewhere. The Yakuts were driven out of Mongolia by the Oirats into the Lena Basin of Siberia in the 1200s. And the Yakuts turn out to be surprisingly advanced and adaptable for the subarctic. They smelt metals fro swords and arrows. They practice agriculture (and adapt to eating the cambium of pine trees were agriculture is impossible. And they raise and adapt horses to the woodland and the cold of Siberia, building barns for them for the winter and devoting a lot of energy ruing the summer to cutting hay for their horses to eat( the horses reciprocate by mares producing milk). The Yakuts can't make cattle and sheep work that far north and can barely grow a few crops. But they do hang onto their horses unless they go to the tundra where they raise reindeer instead.
And the Yakut, by the time the Russians conquer them in the 17th century are expanding into the East Siberian Mountains, driging the hunting and gathering Yukagir People out of the Indigirka and Kolyma River basins less than 500 miles from the Bering Strait. IOTL, only the Chukchi and 500 miles separate them from Alaska's Seward Peninsula and North America. The Yakut and their horses.
So ITTL, the Yakut find themselves under a lot more pressure eitner from Chingfgis Khan in the 12th Century or from the Altan Khan and his Oirats in the 15th Century. Or in between. Enough to drive Yakut across the Bering Strait in the winter. With their horses and tame reindeer.
And the Yakut King (yes, the Yakuts have their own king) sends scouts to determine the extent of this land. And exploring east and south, they discover steppe country inhabited only by hunting Native Americans..But through the Yaluts, horses have returned to the New World.

I like this.
 
One problem I have with this scenario is we don't know if the Pleistocene horses were suitable for domestication. If they're anything like Zebras they wont be. Maybe the Native Americans didn't domesticate them for a reason.

Seconded. We shouldn't assume surviving Ice Age fauna would be domesticable: the overwhelming likelihood, given the statistics of domestication of OTL megafauna, is that they would not be.
 
I see two problems with the Yakuts proposal; first, the Bering Strait (AFAIK - inform me if I am wrong) doesn't freeze over in the winter. Second, the Mongols were in between the Yakuts and the Strait, so you'd need a pre-Mongol PoD to get them across (again, even if it were possible).
 
I see two problems with the Yakuts proposal; first, the Bering Strait (AFAIK - inform me if I am wrong) doesn't freeze over in the winter. Second, the Mongols were in between the Yakuts and the Strait, so you'd need a pre-Mongol PoD to get them across (again, even if it were possible).

Not sure the Mongols were that far out in Siberia. But yeah from what I read crossing the Bering Strait in Winter involves hopping from one bloating chunk of ice to another and only a couple of people have ever done it while most who tried had to radio for helicopter rescue. Taking an expedition across with horses would require incredible luck. Perhaps the climate was more favorable in the past, but I see no evidence of this.

The Inuit did cross from Siberia to Alaska though, in their seal skin kayaks and larger whaling boats. It's unlikely they could transport animals over, unless they're foals. But what's to stop them from acquiring iron technology and taking the knowledge across?
 
Generally speaking, you need about 25 breeding pairs to maintain a healthy population for relatively monogamous species such as humans.

However, with herd animals such as livestock, the numbers skew differently, since each male maintains a harem of females. Generally speaking, a good ratio for non-isolated populations is 1 male to 25-30 females.

However, if you've got some control over the breeding, and you're starting from a small isolated population, then a closer to 1 to 1 ratio can produce satisfactory results.

Lets just look at a simple comparison:
Assume a herd of 20.

Monogamous breeding is pretty much a non-starter in this situation, so a 10/10 split is not useful with that approach. Plus, a sizable number of your potential breeding pairs in the second generation will be full siblings.

A 1/19 ratio would allow for rapid growth in population, and most potential breeding pairs in the second generation would be suitable, as they'd all be only half siblings.

Now, with a 10/10 ratio and non monogamous breeding, closely monitored, initial growth would be slower than a 1/19 ratio, but there'd be the greatest potential genetic diversity from the initial herd. Each mare could be bred by each stallion once, resulting in 100 individuals born solely from the first generation. Of course, the new generation could be bred with the non-related individuals from the first generation, after the first breeding season, as could all subsequent ones. You'll have thousands within a decade (pregnancy lasts 11 months, so just assume a little less than 1 pregnancy/mare/year).
 
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People keep talking about Vinland horses coming across the Atlantic from Europe.

?????
when you've got a large population in Iceland, and a decent population in Greenland, why the heck would they bring horses from Europe.

A small population gradually added to by a few more imports from Greenland/Iceland would do fine.

And, ya, theyd probably have to try settling the mainland for the horses to get there. Said settlement doesnt have to last terribly long.
 
My understanding, from what others had told me, was that the settlements in Iceland and Greenland lacked horses, hence continental Europe. If that's wrong, please let me know.
 
My understanding, from what others had told me, was that the settlements in Iceland and Greenland lacked horses, hence continental Europe. If that's wrong, please let me know.

Greenland seems to have lacked horses in any real numbers. Iceland has some medieval-descended horses but I'm not sure if they are a later introduction than the contact era.
 

katchen

Banned
Not sure the Mongols were that far out in Siberia. But yeah from what I read crossing the Bering Strait in Winter involves hopping from one bloating chunk of ice to another and only a couple of people have ever done it while most who tried had to radio for helicopter rescue. Taking an expedition across with horses would require incredible luck. Perhaps the climate was more favorable in the past, but I see no evidence of this.

The Inuit did cross from Siberia to Alaska though, in their seal skin kayaks and larger whaling boats. It's unlikely they could transport animals over, unless they're foals. But what's to stop them from acquiring iron technology and taking the knowledge across?
The Mongols don't have to get very far into Siberia. Maybe just to the upper Lena Valley to drive enough Yakuts farther north and east so as to pressure them into settling Northeast Siberia and displacing the Yukagirs and Chukchi in the 12th Century. Maybe all the way to what is now Yakutsk if the Yakuts displease Chinggis Khan or later, the Altan Khan enough.
The Bering Strait DOES freeze solid at least part of the time most winters. Sometimes VERY solid. Does anyone remember the stories of how iced in Nome, AK was around Christmas last year and how difficult it was for American--and Russian icebreakers to carve a channel wide enough to get heating oil to Nome to last the winter?
And by the 14th Century, we're into the Little Ice Age. And the period of time the ice is the thickest is February-March, when there is starting to be several hours of daylight to see by. And remember, the Diomede Islands break up the passage across the Strait. People and horses can get fresh water in the form of snowmelt on the Diomede Islands after 30 miles of travel and then take on the remaining 30-35 miles. So yes, as long as the group has planned ahead and harvested enough hay to feed the horses and cattle and yak and reindeer, Yakut bands or Ordos CAN cross the Bering Strait into greener and warmer pastures in North America, beginning with Alaska. If you don't believe me, wait until about the last week in February and then Google Earth the Bering Strait.
 
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