Tame the Bison

Not to sound off topic, while you pretty much hit the situation on the head along with a genetic diversion amongst the species that allows for a more calmer breed that still needs to be broken, I had a rabbit named after you.
That's funny... I once helped birth to a rabbit...

Then I accidentally ran over its mother with my car...
 
Any living creature can be tamed. If you continue to breed the tamed members to themselves, they will become domesticated. It takes generations... in most cases spanning over thousands of years. This is a great example:
Dogs have been domesticated for nearly 10,000 years. Cats have been domesticated for 7.5-5,000 (depending on the expert and species, as multiple breeds of cat were domesticated separately. While nearly all dog breeds stem from a single domesticated dog breed). And you notice the difference in their behaviors. Cattle have been domesticated but require herding, while dogs are oft used as herders.. see the difference a couple thousand years can make?

Not all animals can be domesticated. You can hand raise a tiger cub and have it imprint on you as a pet. But it's off springs will be just as wild as its ancestors.

Some animals are also easy to domesticate. Russian scientists have made little progress with elk in the last 40 years, but domestication of the silver fox has been completed in the same period of time and the program is already selling them as pets.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/03/taming-wild-animals/ratliff-text

http://www.sibfox.com/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3557085.stm
 
Heh. Okay, okay. Bison Cavalry was abit fanciful of me. I'll retcon them. Nonetheless, riding a Buffalo will be the equivalent of Awesome.
 
Assuming for the moment that the North American Bison is suitable for domestication to be able to do so you need a means for the herdsmen to keep up with their livestock. Either the camel or horse must avoid going extinct in the Americas. In order to speculate on the effects of domestication you must look at the location of the various North American Peoples at the time of European contact and extrapolate likely changes.

On the Great Plains I see no great change in how the herdsmen live in comparison to how their otl decendats did. Lack of surface water will meen that the herdsmen will likely be semi nomadic peoples leading their herds from water to water. The availability of beasts of burden my mean that the wheel is invented or copied from more settled races and the failies live in wagons.

In the lands around the North American rivers and east of the Mississippi, I see the development of the wheel and the plow as likely. Centers of trade will grow and with them organised Government with destict Priestly and Ruleing classes possibly leeding to the development of writing and money instead of barter. As to whether these North Americans will be able to resist the Europeans depends on whether they discover how to make metal tools and weapons. If they don't and remain a stoneage people then the answer is no. If they do develop at least Bronze weapons then it becomes a matter of how many people European nations are prepared to keep sending into North America with it denser and beter armed population than otl. Also the disease scyth that condemed the America's population to European domination will strike both ways now, as the Native Americans will have dieases that affect the Europeans just as much as European illnesses affected them.
 
Walking in the Hoofsteps of the Bison: History of the Native Americans
by Akira Tsunomoto
-The Chillee: People of the Little River


The Chillee people had their origins as a people living on the shores of the Great Lakes in the Upper Peninsula where prior to the Late Formative period their people mined the abundant native copper deposits in the area. This changed sometime during the Central Formative period when Algonquin speaking tribes drove out the people who would be the Chillee further south to the Chillcoot River where they conquered the prior-mound dwelling people living there and mingled until they became the famous Chillee. In the Chillee language the Algonquin speakers are symbolized by a weeping, skull showing a degree of bitter feelings over their exile from their homelands, but despite this the Chillee never expanded back to the Upper Peninsula. The obstacles and threats to the south and west more then kept their attentions away from turning north.

Chillee culture is described as being somewhat of a death oriented culture. Most popularly, even among other cultures, for their ornate death-masks. Their Death Masks had two layers. The inner layer was made from either melted metal materials for the rich or clay for the more poor. They were painted to resemble a natural human, flesh color, but noticeably the eyes were painted entirely bright red to orange-as if their eyes were pits of fire or suns. The second layer was made of wood and carved with intricate symbols and grooves, some may be also decorated with feathers or inlaid stones or other metals. Bodies were interned in family carins and tombs which are interesting historical remants as one can see the rise and fall of dynasties fairly easily, one layer may be simple dirt and the next made from stone.

The focus was that all life seeped away from the world into the underworld that overlapped the real world. Thus the ornate tombs were made so the dead could live within them and recognize family, tombs would also be inscribed with spells to make it a safe haven for vengeful or vagrant spirits. From birth to death the human soul and other souls drained into this Dead World, as one came closer to their death their forms would fill out in the next life making it more possible to interact and communicate with the dead who had already left the living world. The elderly and sick were seen as augurs and able to separate the grey veil that separated both worlds to talk with the dead through visions or dreams. Thus, a very influential death-cult religion was strong and more often then once influenced the politics of the various city-states.

Though, their society was entirely life and death. They were notable for their development of a complex society. The sizes of these Mound-oriented city-states shifted and changed based on family and political alliances as the people shaped the lands to either lead to better communication with their neighbors or cut them off if relations were sour. Making use of tame bison to haul large loads and clear out land for building and development. Not to mention large amounts of 'fertilization'.

The political system of the Chillee was characterized by warring city-states and tribes that inhabited the region. Only a handful of times being united into one political unit, but was rather like the Holy Roman Empire and the leader was a weak figure head. The aforementioned Priesthood had waxing and waneing fortunes and control over events and figures. They resurfaced at their most powerful during the Hoshanka Empire where they lead efforts to breakaway out of the wandering, bison lords. Though following the collapse of the empire their fortunes turned sour as the Chillee broke up into numerous feuding groups once more.

The death spiral and collapse of the Chillee people was the encroachment of the Usonagee people from the south-eastern region of North America who crossed the river. A few surviving native groups claim ancestry from the Chillee, but their most noticable legacy lies with their name of the Chillcoot River and the technological advances and development the Usonagee absorbed.
 
Peg: A fairly nice prediction on things. Though, for herd sizes it will likely vary on location. East of the Mississppi with its many rivers and dense space will lead to well watered herds, but will be more controlled. Likewise to the west the people and herds can congregate around the river valleys such as the Missouri and Red River. Though even OTL the Bison herds were quite massive, numbering in millions, prior to the arrival of the horse and gun.


http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1615&context=greatplainsresearch
Though this article makes some interesting thoughts on the Human-Buffalo population relations and notes "Migratory" and "Resident" Buffalo herds. In this I think humans will take more direct and commanding methods to control the population size of Bison stabilizing their numbers and not letting them go crazy.

Oh wow, you actually turned this into a TL instead of just discussion:D

The discussion and TL sorta go hand in hand. Like the Usonagee, People of the Aligator God.
 
The discussion and TL sorta go hand in hand. Like the Usonagee, People of the Aligator God.

Cool. But before we get too far into the TL, in terms of just the discussion I was wondering if bison could have been tamed without long ago genetic alterations. Could they have been tamed like the herds of the Asian steppe tribes after the introduction of the horse?
 
Cool. But before we get too far into the TL, in terms of just the discussion I was wondering if bison could have been tamed without long ago genetic alterations. Could they have been tamed like the herds of the Asian steppe tribes after the introduction of the horse?

probably not. They are kinda/sorta semi-tamed today because we can confine them for generations on end inside strong fences. But you can't herd them out on the open range like you can with our current big domestic animals... which is a non-starter for stone age peoples, so far as domestication goes...
 
probably not. They are kinda/sorta semi-tamed today because we can confine them for generations on end inside strong fences. But you can't herd them out on the open range like you can with our current big domestic animals... which is a non-starter for stone age peoples, so far as domestication goes...

:( I was hoping this would develop in my TL, but even I knew it was a long shot.
 
Cool. But before we get too far into the TL, in terms of just the discussion I was wondering if bison could have been tamed without long ago genetic alterations. Could they have been tamed like the herds of the Asian steppe tribes after the introduction of the horse?

If the process starts long enough ago I don't see why not. If the European Aurochs can over thousands of years into domestic cattle the same should hold true for the North American Bison. I would think there would be two distinct types of domestication. The Bison on the Plains would become managed but still at least semi wild herds lead in their migrations by the herdsmen. Further east the Bison would become what we would consider fully domesticated cattle. I know the last statement could be controversial but the European Bison live fairley settled lives in the forrests of Eastern Poland and Western Beylorussia (sp). Their North American cousins in simmilar terrain should five simmilar lives and form a reasonable starting point on the road to domestication. As I said in my earlier post for these changes to happen the the horse and or camel would have to survive and be domesticated themselves to allow the herdsmen to control their herds of cattle.
 
One of the key figures in preserving the remnants of the North American bison herds at the end of the 19th Century, "Buffalo" Jones, set up the first known buffalo ranch in Oklahoma (he's the one who rode a buffalo in "Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show" and was the first to crossbreed them with domestic cattle but you get a non-reproducing 'mule'.) He did manage to ride a few of his in several years of working with them daily, pull a wagon short distances (more of a training project/stunt), and did herd them on horseback around his ranch. So domestication to a surprising extent and in a very short period is OTL-proven more than any of us would expect although no one has had Jones's success since.

Several hundred thousand buffalo are commercially ranched in the U.S. now but the buffalo ranchers tell me even a big horse isn't much to herd buffalo with while just fine for cattle.

Estimates are 30-100 million bison roaming North America still by mid 19th century and they're ideally adapted to the Great Plains and virtually no inputs, which seems more like a breeding program like many Native agriculture practices (plant and forget then harvest instead of endlessly weed and feed). Bison are so low input, low maintenance that our assumptions about what domestic animals require make them hard to imagine and presumed entirely wild, just as Indians harvesting 40-60% of their daily calorie intake from plants in the river valleys that they'd seeded but didn't till or put in neat fields like Europeans would be no-till farming instead of lucky foraging (and the women did all the farming work so it didn't interest male observers much as important compared to hunting stories.) Cattle are much more vulnerable to predators than bison who can stop a grizzly bear attack head-on or a wolf pack so there's just not much for a herdsman to do. Herding buffalo to a valley or spot, to then drive them over a cliff to let the fall kill them by the dozens, goes back thousands of years including erecting corrals/fencing to do it so workarounds for the lack of a cowhorse are legion already.

At 600lbs. to 2,000 lbs. per animal they dress out at about 60% usable meat as proportion of total body weight and it's 50% higher in protein than beef, so the bison-eaters were as much as a foot taller, more muscular, and longer-lived than the white invaders or coastal Indians with primarily fish diets, from both early visitors accounts and their own remarks about losing substantial lifespan and height switching to the European diet in the 1860's-1890's. If you're fighting with muscle-powered weapons where reach matters, that's a big advantage.

As for protein I'm surprised at the oversight in the discussion of the tens of millions of deer, millions of elk (early explorers describe watching thousands of elk in a single herd pass them by frequently, only the bison more numerous and impressive as an individual herd could be 3 million bison and take several days to walk past.) Salmon (caught with nets, fishing weirs, elaborate systems in rivers/coasts/lakes, and smoked for months of eating), millions of tasty passenger pigeons, vast quantities of rabbits and other small mammals...varied protein sources weren't an issue and were probably superior in range and access to anywhere in European or Asian civilizations of the time (or now.) For that matter beans, in many varieties and grown far into North America are a crop staple just like sunflower seeds, acorns ground into flour, pinon nuts, walnuts, grasshoppers, ants, beetles, snakes, alligators, clams, oysters, lobsters, crab, shrimp, crawfish, pike, trout, sturgeon, bass, catfish, bears, beavers, etc. were all common protein sources depending on region and season.

Deer and elk are ranched too so certainly could have been then...putting out crop-based feed such as dried corn that the animal can't find in the wild seems to be a key (just like domestic dogs chose our butchering scraps by a nice fire over searching for carrion in the wilderness all day.)

While bison are ridable, like a beef bull or oxen is, they're too wide for comfort and too moody. Like oxen, training them to pull wagons, wood sledges carrying stones/bricks/ores/ice/wood, chariots, powered machinery seems very doable given enough time and breeding. So while bison cavalry would be nearly unstoppable short of a .50-70-500 chambered Gatling Gun (1866-1873), bison war chariots or bison-drawn artillery/siege engines would be much more doable with enough time and breeding. With wagons or sledges or sleighs (bison move through heavy snow very well) you'd change transportation to far heavier cargos and greater ranges (in endurance, hydration, calorie-burn while grazing, foraging ability etc. a bison is quite a bit closer to a camel than a modern cow.

The big bison populations are out on the Great Plains, along the river valleys as these are big animals that prefer quite a bit of water every day and their herd size and movement requires rivers. The tribes stick to the river valleys for the same reason as does much of the game, trees, and edible plantlife so irrigation isn't as required at this stage as thought. There were elaborate irrigation canals in place long ago that caused the City of Phoenix, Arizona to locate there, others in N. America long mistaken for rivers/natural channels (despite being straight), and especially vast systems with the Mayans, the pre-Aztec tribes like the Mexica, and the pre-Incan tribes.

The brucellosis in the modern bison population goes by many names and was apparently contracted from modern cattle herds. The elk have it too. Horses, sheep, pigs, dogs, and people can get it (does species jump and kills several Americans every year as Undulant Fever.)
 
Facts and figures to the max.

Though a good point is made. That Bison have 'Sub-Species' and that they ranged from the northwestern Canada, to the woodlands east of the Mississippi.

The Wood Bison of Canada (and formerly Alaska) is quite set apart from the Plains Bison.

http://alaska.fws.gov/fisheries/endangered/pdf/wood_bison/faq.pdf


What are the main differences between wood and plains bison?
There are two closely related subspecies of bison: the wood bison and plains bison. Physical and genetic differences distinguish the two subspecies. The wood bison is the largest living, native
terrestrial mammal in North America. The average weight of mature males is approximately 1 ton (2,000 pounds). A wood bison has a large triangular head, a thin beard and rudimentary throat mane,
and a poorly-demarcated cape. The highest point of the hump of these animals is forward of their front legs; they have reduced chaps on their front legs, and their horns usually extend above the hair on their
head. In contrast, the plains bison, the wood bison’s closest relative, has a thick beard and full throat mane and well-developed chaps. The highest point of the hump is over the front legs and horns rarely extend above their bonnet of dense, curly hair. Plains bison are smaller and lighter in color than wood bison.

Where were wood bison found historically, and what is their range today?

Historically, the range of the wood bison was generally north of that occupied by the plains bison and included most boreal regions of northern Alberta; northeastern British Columbia; a small portion of
northwestern Saskatchewan; the western Northwest Territories south and west of Great Slave Lake; the Mackenzie River Valley; most of The Yukon Territory; and much of interior Alaska. In Canada today herds are found in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, and the Yukon and Northwest Territories.
There has not been a wild population in the United States for the last few hundred years.

What kind of habitat do wood bison require and what do they eat?

The foraging habitats most favored by wood bison are grass and sedge meadows occurring on alkaline soils. These meadows are typically interspersed among tracts of coniferous forest, stands of poplar or aspen, bogs, fens, and shrublands. Wet meadows are rarely used in the summer, probably because of the energy required to maneuver through the mud, but they are used in late summer when they become drier, and in the winter when they freeze. In the summer, daily access to water is also important.
During late summer and fall, wood bison disperse into small groups for breeding. Forests are used as travel corridors between meadows, for summer shade, and for shelter in winter storms. Little foraging
occurs in the forest.

Now, a question arises 'How Different were the Bison who lives East of the Mississppi?' This I am not sure, as the population east of the Mississippi was extinct by the early 19th Century and how different they were has not to my knowledge been recorded or found.
515px-Extermination_of_bison_to_1889.svg.png


Therefore, the Bison of this TL or any other must have certain physical and habitat characteristics that differ from OTL.
 
If the process starts long enough ago I don't see why not. If the European Aurochs can over thousands of years into domestic cattle the same should hold true for the North American Bison. I would think there would be two distinct types of domestication. The Bison on the Plains would become managed but still at least semi wild herds lead in their migrations by the herdsmen. Further east the Bison would become what we would consider fully domesticated cattle. I know the last statement could be controversial but the European Bison live fairley settled lives in the forrests of Eastern Poland and Western Beylorussia (sp). Their North American cousins in simmilar terrain should five simmilar lives and form a reasonable starting point on the road to domestication. As I said in my earlier post for these changes to happen the the horse and or camel would have to survive and be domesticated themselves to allow the herdsmen to control their herds of cattle.

IIRC, people domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats before they had horses. The main reason they could do this is because it's possible to dominate the young of all those animals, and people on foot can herd them out on the open fields and control their movements. I don't think you can do that with bison; ranching of bison pretty much consists of putting them inside fences and letting them eat/breed on their own. It might be that we'll have fully domesticated bison after generations of confining them and gradually breeding all the bad traits out of them. In fact, I've wondered if this is how pigs were domesticated, because the wild ones are about as vicious as they come, and they don't herd at all.
 
IIRC, people domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats before they had horses. The main reason they could do this is because it's possible to dominate the young of all those animals, and people on foot can herd them out on the open fields and control their movements. I don't think you can do that with bison; ranching of bison pretty much consists of putting them inside fences and letting them eat/breed on their own. It might be that we'll have fully domesticated bison after generations of confining them and gradually breeding all the bad traits out of them. In fact, I've wondered if this is how pigs were domesticated, because the wild ones are about as vicious as they come, and they don't herd at all.

This is assumed from Plains Bison. The so called Eastern Bison through both genetic and domesticated PODs would have different traits that would make them easier to be domesticated or as domesticated animals.
 
The Usonagee of the Late Formative Period

The Usonagee is the native for several groups of south-eastern Native Americans that lived in the central to northern regions of the south-eastern woodlands. Distinguishing them from Native Americans of this period who lived in the coastal regions of the south-eastern woodlands region. Usonagee originally meant 'The People' in the dialect of the Early Usonagee, but overtime gradually shifted to specifically mean 'The People of the Bywaters'. The Usonagee Civilization had existed as early as 1000 BC, but did not take off until 300 BC and even still did not rise to prominence until 100AD where their rise and fall would usher in the North American Classic Period until the arrival of Europeans.

Like the rest of the Late Formative Period, the Usonagee were apart of rise and fall of various centralized or attempted centralized states that had begun with the Hoshanka Empire, only to be torn apart. They participated in the fall of the Chilliee Civilization and would tear themselves apart toward the end of the Late Formative Period, but what would come out of their ashes would drift on a stable course until the arrival of the Europeans.

The Usonagee were originally called by the Chilliee, 'Wequee', which more or less meant barbarian. Originally the inhabited a stretch of territory from the Mississippi river to the Appalachians, from southern Kentucky to central Mississippi and Alabama. This territory by the Chilliee was considered wild territory, but gradually trade began a pattern of the Usonagee adopting the customs of the Chilliee who had also adopted not only the use of corn, but many motifs from Mesoamerica starting around 300BC. This is perhaps as result of a vigorous period of trade networking by the Great Plains tribes, especially those situated in the Red River Valley who extended their control into Mexico, until the arrival of the Nadahul in 100 AD. The decline of the Olmec Civilization and the rise of cultures in the Valley of Mexico may have also played important roles.

Though unlike, or perhaps like, the other cultures they came in contact with the Usonagee were renown for their worship of the apex predator of their lands: the American Alligator. The Alligator is seen as the strongest force in Usonagee Religion and Myth, even tieing into their creation myth. The Usonagee believed that before life the entire cosmos was just one large endless body of fresh water. The only being that existed for sometime was the Spirit Father, who lived on a massive lilypad on the surface of the water. Until, oneday from the depths emerged Father Alligator who was so massive that he stretched for miles beyond the horizon. Spirit Father and Father Alligator then did battle one another, until Spirit Father emerged victorious and split Father Gator into many pieces. His scaley backside became the earth, and his underbelly became the night sky. His tears became the salt ocean and where his teeth and Spirit Father's own blood mixed emerged the living beings of the world. From his biggest teeth emerged the humans and the alligators, and from the smaller teeth the other animals of the world did so. Therefore the Usonagee viewed every living creature as having been born equally from one godly, epic period of bloodshed. They also closely viewed the Alligators as their brothers and equals, even believing that either could shape shift into the other.

Like the tribes of the western river valleys, the Usonagee conquered the Chilliee City-States and quickly adapted their culture and technology to further propel development for practically all of North America. The source of which is largely unknown. The Usonagee for ages raided and traded with the Chilliee, so much so that the phrase 'crossing the river' meant either good or ill intent. Around 300BC the Usonagee Mound-Villages formed a cohesive state, much unlike their northern neighbors. While it was as mostly do to the rise of the First King, Logosilan it may have also been due to a earlier outbreak of plague and disease which paved way for many of the formerly distinct tribes to fold in together as a united and cohesive culture and political entity. Regardless, for the next two hundred years the Usonagee encroached on the Chilliee, first taking their settlements on the southern side of the Ohio River and then after a period of crippling raids they moved north and conquered the city-states one by one.

Dominating the Chilliee over the next three hundred years the Usonagee reached a peak of civilization for North America not unlike the Mayans much further south. The Usonagee laid the foundations for the next era by literally laying down the foundations of dozens of cities and important stretches of roads. Fostering the first real empire in North America that was also a unified and codified state. The formalization of a widespread educational system and what could be called a academy of higher learning. The Usonagee left a bigger footprint then their Chilliee predecessors.

Though while they burned brightly, their civilization did not burn long. Much like the Chilliee they were pressed in on all sides and spread out. The nature meeting of the tributaries of the Mississippi river naturally brought in the local equivalent of barbarian migrations. Trade was cut off and the economy suffered due to state meddling and corruption by taxcollectors who didn't just skim off the top. Uncontrollable factors such as famine, plague, and bad weather ravaged regions. These troubles stretched and stretched the Usonagee state out until it split at the seams!

With them went out the last age and came the next. The North American Classic. Unlike the previous era it would end unknown to the millions who inhabited the Western Hemisphere, except for the few who lived to see the three ships of Spain.
 
The Era of God-Kings

Following 300BC the political trends of not only the Usonagee, but all North American Native Groups within the "Bison Zone" experiance a stark shift away from what some may call "Eglitarian" and "Democratic" Chiefdoms toward a centralized, religious oriented monarchy of sorts. Namely rulers of this era prescribe to themselves a divine heritage and a divine right to rule, undermining opposition that ranged from allied chiefs to the priest groups. The source of this shift many say is the result of trade ties with Mesoamerica that had peaked around this time. Evidence of Mesoamerican trade goods and motifs are abundant. Leading most scholars to point out that the North American groups has also imported the idea of a divine-god king prevalent in Olmec and other civilizations. While others point that it was a seperate event.
 
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