POD where Aztecs or Incas discover Europe ?

Hi everybody,

Do you have any scenerii/POD that allows Europe to be discovered by precolombian civilizations ?

What would be the outcome of this reverse discovery ?

Thanks by advance for your brilliant thoughts !
 
As any realistic PoD would involve bronze and iron working, it would butterfly the known OTL civilizations.

Unless you're suggesting a discovery with a flotilla of Kon-Tiki that actually work, unlike the famous experiment.
 
I believe that Orson Scott Card has actually explored this idea in his book Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus. You might want to look into that.

As for my opinion on this scenario...well, that's highly unlikely even with PODs that advance Native American civilizations, (which would have to be agricultural ones, alternate plant and animal domesticates that allow the Native civilizations to develop faster). The Americas were smaller than Eurasia, which would mean a generally smaller population. This means less societies to develop new ideas, less innovators to advance technology. So even if Native Americans began practicing agriculture as early as Europeans and Asians, it would be unlikely that their technology would advance further fast enough so that they could discover Eurasia first.

Assuming it did happen? At very least, great upheaval and change for both sides of the Atlantic (or Pacific). Possibly less bloody than OTL, but there is nothing to indicate that these Alt-Indian explorers would be any kinder than European explorers.
 
If it happened on their trip back the explorers would die of smallpox or measles or the plague or tuberculosis or some other equally dangerous disease (or diphtheria, etc...).
 
Why wouldn't the PoDs needed to get Amerindian seafarers also produces epidemic diseases native to the Americas?
 
Why wouldn't the PoDs needed to get Amerindian seafarers also produces epidemic diseases native to the Americas?

Assuming an agricultural POD, like General Finley's From Blight We Rise, yes, it does make it quite likely-though there's no guarantee that the New World would evolve anything as virulent as smallpox or measles, aside from authorial fiat.
 
Big Hurdles to Overcome

Peoples of the Americas had a few key disadvanges from those in Eurasia. Due to migration paterns and the overal shape of the two continents people had to settle down on different latitudes. This already compounded the defusion of basic agricultural ideas, ecspecially for domesticating cereals since corn is harder to domesticate then wheat, since it is harder to for people to adjust farming for different seasons along with climates. It is amazing certain civilization such as the Toltec, Olmec, Maya and Irriquos accomplished what they did.

One exception to the above would likely be Mesoamerica where a high concentration of settled civilizations indeed flourished. So perhaps if they did come up with bronze and subsiquently iron working somehow perhaps they could have become seafaring even though due to the geography of their cities and abundance in their location they had little reason. Unless the theories behind the Mayans decline are true which is due to scowering resources so perhaps a POD like England or Portugal can be established where they explore to seek ways to fuel their burgeoning cities.
 
Perhaps some of the crops that were exported from the America's (such as maize and other crops) would be able to be now grown in Europe sooner, and the Europeans would not have to have treate the native americans as badly as they did, due to the fact they would already have the crops to supply and the cash crop hat they need. The whole eurpean economy could change just by the this discovery Also, I think that they would have sadly died off from disease due to lack of immunity to the European disease.
 
The easiest way would be a transfer of ship tech from the Norse to the natives. Not easy, but not impossible. You're still not going to get Incas or Aztecs crossing the Atlantic though. The Incas were way to recent, and would in any case have been more intersted in the pacific. The Aztecs were so unstable any tech diffusion would have toppled them.

But whatever native group gets the Norse tech will have a sci-fi tech advantage on other natives, and is likly to expand fast. American longships landing in Iceland or Irealnd 2-300 years after the initial Norse-Amerindian meeting is not imossible.

Meanwhile, other natives would be doing a "sea peoples" on the mesoamericans.
 
Wasn't the land itself overstretched though?
"Hummingbird and the hawk" makes the case that the Valley of Mexico had by the early 1500's greatly exceeded its carrying capacity and was on the verge of, if not collapse, then famine.
 
Top