Did someone say Mississippian wank?
In general, there are two ways you can go— buff wild rice or the existing crops of the EAC or introduce more efficient Mesoamerican crops like maize or sweet potatoes earlier than OTL. With WTRF, I did both, with maize and manoomin (wild rice) being the two primary Mississippian crops. Also while it’s true that manoomin is typically associated with the Great Lakes, you actually had varieties of wild rice growing from Canada down to Florida and Texas. To start with manoomin agriculture, I think a good place to initiate domestication is down south along the alluvial plain of the lower Mississippi. Over time though I would expect the center of Mississippian civilization to shift north into Illinois as well as eastern Missouri and western Kentucky, since that area has some of the most fertile land in the world as well as prime access to both multiple major rivers and the Great Lakes.
As for animals, turkeys were domesticated, and I imagine you could have also theoretically domesticated ducks, geese, and rabbits quite easily. Wapiti elk and white tailed deer are more complicated. Mesoamericans kept deer and elk do have the necessary social structures, but neither were domesticated otl. In my TL, I have both as sort of uncommon semidomesticates, but if you wanted to you could develop them further. Of course, for Mississippians, the real prize would have to be bison. While bison can certainly be nasty, it’s hard to say they’re all that more deadly than the other wild bovines that were domesticated, like yaks, gaurs, water buffalo, and aurochs, although it is worth noting that European bison were never domesticated. One possibility is that, having goats and sheep, the Eurasians had the experience necessary to domesticate larger bovines, which the Native Americans lacked. Perhaps therefore a solution is to have a people out west first domesticate mountain goats or bighorn sheep.
In general, there are two ways you can go— buff wild rice or the existing crops of the EAC or introduce more efficient Mesoamerican crops like maize or sweet potatoes earlier than OTL. With WTRF, I did both, with maize and manoomin (wild rice) being the two primary Mississippian crops. Also while it’s true that manoomin is typically associated with the Great Lakes, you actually had varieties of wild rice growing from Canada down to Florida and Texas. To start with manoomin agriculture, I think a good place to initiate domestication is down south along the alluvial plain of the lower Mississippi. Over time though I would expect the center of Mississippian civilization to shift north into Illinois as well as eastern Missouri and western Kentucky, since that area has some of the most fertile land in the world as well as prime access to both multiple major rivers and the Great Lakes.
As for animals, turkeys were domesticated, and I imagine you could have also theoretically domesticated ducks, geese, and rabbits quite easily. Wapiti elk and white tailed deer are more complicated. Mesoamericans kept deer and elk do have the necessary social structures, but neither were domesticated otl. In my TL, I have both as sort of uncommon semidomesticates, but if you wanted to you could develop them further. Of course, for Mississippians, the real prize would have to be bison. While bison can certainly be nasty, it’s hard to say they’re all that more deadly than the other wild bovines that were domesticated, like yaks, gaurs, water buffalo, and aurochs, although it is worth noting that European bison were never domesticated. One possibility is that, having goats and sheep, the Eurasians had the experience necessary to domesticate larger bovines, which the Native Americans lacked. Perhaps therefore a solution is to have a people out west first domesticate mountain goats or bighorn sheep.
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