Questions about Native Americans

Llamas are pretty poor to do anything with but making them pull things and of course their coats. No doubt the Navajo will appreciate them.
That's a very odd statement. You mean to say people don't eat Llama meat? Their manure isn't any use in fertilizing land?

The only things they're NOT good at (afaik) is producing milk and being ridden. And if any native culture WANTED milk production, they'd breed for it. Heck, the Mongols used horses for milk production, which are most assuredly not a 'normal' dairy animal.
 
That's a very odd statement. You mean to say people don't eat Llama meat? Their manure isn't any use in fertilizing land?

The only things they're NOT good at (afaik) is producing milk and being ridden. And if any native culture WANTED milk production, they'd breed for it. Heck, the Mongols used horses for milk production, which are most assuredly not a 'normal' dairy animal.

You are correct, but compared to Eurasian draft animals and some potential domesticates I've seen hypothesised here (moose, reindeer/caribou), they're pretty inferior. But I suppose that if they're you're only option, then they're only option, and you will use them to the fullest possible extent. I was comparing them to horses and other Eurasian domesticates.

But if we're getting into domesticates, I have a fascination with moose domestication, in which case if it occurred in North America, I could imagine the settled peoples of the Plains using them like war elephants in battles as well as in peace (plowing), thanks to their potential. But that's a far off hope from OTL history, the most likely domesticate would be caribou which probably wouldn't amount to much outside the northern regions/Rocky Mountains. You won't be able to replicate the horse culture of the Great Plains with caribou, sadly.
 
I always had this weird notion of Native Americans breeding dogs to use to pull carts. Similar to dog sleds, only with wheels rather than skis. For some reason, the image of chariots being pulled by packs of war dogs is just too ... cool.
 
I always had this weird notion of Native Americans breeding dogs to use to pull carts. Similar to dog sleds, only with wheels rather than skis. For some reason, the image of chariots being pulled by packs of war dogs is just too ... cool.
Well, they DID use them for pulling travois. Add wheels, and voila.

In fact, in Cree and, iirc a few other languages, 'horse' is 'big dog'.
 
Well, they DID use them for pulling travois. Add wheels, and voila.

In fact, in Cree and, iirc a few other languages, 'horse' is 'big dog'.

In some Lakota languages, I think. (I used to devour the Indian trilogy (warning: link in Polish) by the Szklarski husband and wife - I have no idea if it was available in any language other than Polish, but it contained a ton of footnotes, including notes on Lakota languages, Plains Indian Sign Language and the Wahan Tanka (which was mentioned upthread).

The only English source on the trilogy I could find is: https://books.google.pl/books?id=DQaMEqlhom0C&pg=PT167&lpg=PT167&dq=złoto+gór+czarnych+trilogy&source=bl&ots=JvuYtoMDip&sig=KwLkajmfSe6pAoHQ9ItffqKAIwk&hl=pl&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwik_rr9o-zOAhUBniwKHWYQCKA4ChDoAQgzMAU#v=onepage&q=złoto gór czarnych trilogy&f=false

EDIT: And regarding the OP's question about the Plains, the easiest way for the Plains to get those things is to get within Mesoamerica or South American Indian sphere of influence. From south to north, obviously, and then spread all over. Don't underestimate cultural transfer - there was a TON of it going on.
 
A variety of maps and star charts were made by indigenous American cultures.

Honestly, I'd just recommend you read Guns Germs and Steel, and don't worry about all the grief it gets. It does an excellent job as an introductory to questions like yours, and while it doesn't have everything right it's incredibly easy to look up where Diamond got things wrong.
But if we're getting into domesticates, I have a fascination with moose domestication, in which case if it occurred in North America, I could imagine the settled peoples of the Plains using them like war elephants in battles as well as in peace (plowing), thanks to their potential. But that's a far off hope from OTL history, the most likely domesticate would be caribou which probably wouldn't amount to much outside the northern regions/Rocky Mountains. You won't be able to replicate the horse culture of the Great Plains with caribou, sadly.

Can't really be feasibly done. Moose are finicky eaters that are hard to get their diet right, they can be kept in some small groups, but they're still solitary and need to be let alone to forage for long periods of time. They also don't like to be kept in stalls, though that might not be an issue in some circumstances. You can still tame them and potentially make domesticates out of them, but it'd be far from straightforward. If they were domesticated they'd fill more of a 'water buffalo' position than that of a horse; they take more to swamps and shallow water than the open plains -- though they can run pretty fast they're not exactly as cursorial as a horse, either.

Don't sell yourself too short on reindeer; they may not be able to fulfill a Great Plains horse culture...but you have most of Canada and some parts of the United States to work with, too! There's lots of stuff you can do with that and horses are hard pressed to occupy many parts of cold Canada. There's some examples on what you can do with them here, like Ice and Mice. If you really want a Great Plains domesticate, try elk! Highly cursorial, highly social, highly adaptable, highly generalist feeders, and they're already farmed here IOTL. You can ride the bulls (semi-castrating them like reindeer so they still grow large but don't experience rut aggression is a good idea), but selective breeding is required to get the cows from pack to riding animals. It may also change behavior so that bulls tolerate and maintain their bachelor groups longer.
Well, they DID use them for pulling travois. Add wheels, and voila.
Sleds, too; the Inuit weren't the only ones. They were common in parts of the northern U.S that froze during winter.
 
On weapons in the Great Lakes they did start smelting copper in small amounts, there was exposed copper beds and were able to exploit them. That was rare enough in the Americas that it just did not happen else where.
 
On weapons in the Great Lakes they did start smelting copper in small amounts, there was exposed copper beds and were able to exploit them. That was rare enough in the Americas that it just did not happen else where.
Smelting? Or just cold working?
 
That's a very odd statement. You mean to say people don't eat Llama meat? Their manure isn't any use in fertilizing land?

The only things they're NOT good at (afaik) is producing milk and being ridden. And if any native culture WANTED milk production, they'd breed for it. Heck, the Mongols used horses for milk production, which are most assuredly not a 'normal' dairy animal.

I was recently in Peru and it surprised me to learn that llama meat (unless there's a famine of course) isn't eaten, as it makes horrible steak. Alpaca on the other hand is eaten all over the highlands (I had some and it was great).

I was once making an ASB TL with a friend about the Americas of 1491 being ISOT'd to 1200 BCE, but with some Old World diseases so their population is crazy when continental contact is made, and we speculated that, based on the time at which the llama and alpaca were domesticated and what they were like before domestication, that should the Inka/their descendants breed for it (and I don't see why they wouldn't after making such an empire and needing better transport), llamas could be similar to early ridden horses in roughly another millennium. Of course that's based on somewhat arbitrary values and spotty historical records, but it's an estimate at least.
 
Okay, but that's not smelting. Smelting involves the actual process of burning the ore out of the rock. You don't have to do that with native (occurring in pure elemental form) metal.
True I got that from the description, I think it might have been possible to make that leap eventually though
 
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