wolf_brother
Banned
Yes, because the Spanish expanded from their base in Mesoamerica and down the Atlantic coast into the Andes.
Would it be possible for you to cite a source online, or even one that I don't have to pay ~$150 to check?
The American Stinky Pig: Or, Not ANOTHER American Domesticates TL!
- Thread starter twovultures
- Start date
Yes, because the Spanish expanded from their base in Mesoamerica and down the Atlantic coast into the Andes.
Would it be possible for you to cite a source online, or even one that I don't have to pay ~$150 to check?
brother wolf: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/M...bian_Use_Of_Rafts_To_Transport_Goods_999.html
I'll admit that the range of trade is not a settled question, but the spread of metallurgy is good evidence for strong maritime trade between the Andes and Mesoamerica. Also, at this point I'm doing more macrohistory right now, just pointing to the 'flashpoints' in this ATL history. The bleeding fever did not appear one day in the valley of Mexico and the next day was ravaging the people of Lake Titicaca, don't worry.
Whanztastic: Wait and see. I do have plans for the Amazon, rest assured.
I'll admit that the range of trade is not a settled question, but the spread of metallurgy is good evidence for strong maritime trade between the Andes and Mesoamerica. Also, at this point I'm doing more macrohistory right now, just pointing to the 'flashpoints' in this ATL history. The bleeding fever did not appear one day in the valley of Mexico and the next day was ravaging the people of Lake Titicaca, don't worry.
Whanztastic: Wait and see. I do have plans for the Amazon, rest assured.
From what I know, smallpox preceded the Spanish to South America by some time OTL. Also, there were other things, such as crops, which were transmitted between these two regions. Though the two centres of civilization were indeed isolated, such isolation was not absolute. There were people in between who formed a daisy chain of inter-relations. I think that disease transmission in this time frame is plausible.
I'm not sure that 'pigs' alone would do that much for the N. Americans. Pigs were useful in the Old World because they were fed the byproducts of agriculture that people couldn't eat, could forage for themselves, and bred fast and in large numbers. If N. Americans still lack wheat, cattle, horses, and sheep, their civilizations aren't going to be kick started all that much. I can see pigs being useful in the farming cultures of Latin America and the southeastern USA, but not much for the nomads of the rest of the land...
wolf_brother
Banned
Disease transmission requires large groups of people throughout the entire path of the disease progress. Too little, and the disease kills off too many of its hosts, or there's simply a lack of new hosts to infect, or the people or too spread out, or they die prematurely of something ancillary to the disease, or etc; regardless the disease's path turns cold very quickly.
While there certainly were people living in *Central America and the northern Andes region in the hey-day of the pre-Colombian Americas, there wasn't nearly enough, nor enough trade, to facilitate a transfer of a major and very deadly disease which comes from 'pigs' from the very northern edge of Central America down to the heart of the Andes.
Otherwise this is a very good TL so far, and I'm liking the butterflies and I want to see where this goes. But the idea that the adoption of two varieties of peccaries as domesticated 'pigs' in the Americas two wellsprings of civilization would suddenly change the vast distances between the two and allow for communication, regular trade, and the passing of diseases between them - its purely ASB.
It's always good to see a well-done alt-domestication that's not just a nativewank. I like where this is going, two-vultures, please continue!
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Well then I guess OTL is ASB. Small Pox preceded the Spaniards by a about a decade before they reached South America. Disease spreads very easily, especially if it's contagious.
I see no reason why something very similar to what happened OTL could be considered unlikely. In fact, I hereby deem with the power vested in me (which isn't much, but still...) the spread of swine disease throughout the americas VERY possible.
wolf_brother
Banned
Citation required.
Again, asides from this one nitpick, this is a very good TL so far. But something as big as this simply can't be let go, especially as it'll affect the entire TL. I don't see what the big deal is; twovultures merely needs to change the reasoning for the fall of the Llampayec Empire tribute-system that also allows for the proliferation of Llampayec-style weapons. Simple civil war or internal collapse would suffice. No reason to take the 'everyone died because a pig coughed in the Yucatan' route.
300 AD*: The Llampayec Empire collapses under the weight of two factors. The first is disease, carried by South American ocean-rafting traders from Panama, which killed off the Apeca in droves. The second was the discovery of tin-based bronze by the Nazca. Previously dependent on imports from the north for their tools, the Nazca had tried to copy the Apeca method but lacked access to arsenic. With the discovery of tin-based bronze, the Nazca not only did not need to buy Apeca tools, but became direct competitors, breaking the previous monopoly on bronze. The Llampayec tribute system broke apart, and the empire returned to a bunch of squabbling city-states.
450 AD: The Apeca resurgence occurs as the Apeca population rebounds, led this time by the city-state of Chiclayo. Power in the city resided in the throne of the Ai Apecyep, the King of Chiclayo whose purpose was to defend the city and provide military captives to the high priests for sacrifice, although the practice had become very rare, for the same reason that it went extinct in the Mesoamerican civilizations. In fact, the rise of Chiclayo overall lowered the level of sacrifices, as perceptive priests realized that if they were the only city to do sacrifices, then they would hoard the mystic power associated with it. As a result, the Ai Apecyep banned the practice in the cities that were subjugated to his rule. Seeking to circumvent the ban, warriors from other cities began to practice head-hunting-decapitating enemies on the battlefield. This practice would stay with the Apeca for a long time.
It was also during this time that the Apeca “fleet” was developed. Coordinated from Chiclayo, the fleet consisted mostly of unwieldy rafts that moved up and down the pacific coast, plying their goods. The city of Chiclayo provided them safe port and in exchange for a cut of the merchant’s profits, provided guards to defend their cargo. Cities that did not cooperate with Chiclayo or who harmed merchants were cut off. The Ai Apecyep would order an embargo, and the city would be cut off from trade by sea and land. This ensured the cooperation of rebellious Apeca cities and created a safe environment for seafaring to develop, as merchants experimented with different types of wood and sails and developed new ways of sailing, including the discovery of the southern cross and north star as guideposts in the sky.
535 AD: The Pacific coast of the Americas is hit by a super El Niño that produces massive disruptions in the weather. Intense 30-year flooding begins on the Pacific coast, flooding made worse by the wide deforestation practiced by the bronze-age cultures hungry for wood and land.
The flooding would be a constant bane for the Apeca. Some of the Apeca would leave the Chiclayo Empire on their rafts, looking for safer areas to live. To the south of the empire were the Nazca, a relatively organized group of loosely aligned polities who were more than happy to unite in order to drive out perceived intruders, but to the north there were less politically organized peoples and the polities that did exist saw the Apeca as allies and a source of trade wealth rather than as competitors. Some Apeca would create successful colonies on the coast, becoming a separate people. They referred to themselves as the Mochihicans after the language of the Apeca, but their land-dwelling neighbors would often refer to them as the sea people or, less charitably, the head-hunters.
Other Apeca would stay settled in the empire, praying for the floods to cease. Their prayers would eventually be answered, but with dire consequences.
Meanwhile, in Mesoamerica, the Nahua would migrate southward into Mesoamerica ahead of their more numerous Pochutec relatives. Natives of the deserts where river fever appeared sporadically but was not endemic, they were less immune to it and so avoided the coasts and jungles where it was widespread. They attempted to settle instead in the highland valleys of Mesoamerica. Many were enslaved by the Nu’u Savi people who already lived there.
We are many. And we hunger.
For years, we lived in the guts of peccaries. We spread through their feces, moving from one peccary to the other as they stepped in each-others excrement. Sometimes, we moved into the humans who lived near the peccaries. They were less than adequate hosts, and millions of us died trying to colonize them.
Years of flood were years of plenty for us. The floodwaters carried us far, into peccaries and into humans alike. We thrived in those days, finding many new colonies.
But years of flood never last. Eventually, dryness returns, and we suffer for it. But we changed. And dryness would never be a problem again. Neither would the human colonies.
We are many, and we hunger. And we found a new way to feast, and a new food to feast on. We are survivors.
566 AD: The flooding of the past 30 years of unstable climate is replaced by drought, new problems for humans and other life forms. Specifically, it was a threat to a gastrointestinal virus similar to pestivirus. Without flooding to spread it from the dung of peccaries to human hosts, it needed a new way of transferring. It could have simply disappeared with the droughts, reappearing as new flooding inevitably happened in the future. But the virus found itself with a stroke of luck. It could cause sores on skin that came into contact with peccary dung-and it began to jump from those sores on the skin of humans to the skin of other humans. The blister-causing virus would become the last native zoonotic plague from peccaries to infect the Americas.
The virus was not an equal-opportunity killer. Peasants who handled the dung of peccaries regularly had often picked up the less lethal version of the virus from their peccaries, and were inoculated to the disease. The nobility of sedentary societies like the Nazca or the Apeca, on the other hand, were not inoculated. The resulting plague killed off much of the nobility but spared the peasantry, essentially decapitating the governments of the Andean civilizations. In the Chiclayo Empire, civil war broke out between the surviving nobles over the Ai Apecyop throne. What they fought over was mere scraps, however. Most of the peasantry moved inland, trying to settle near rivers that would help them live through the droughts.
*(wolf_brother): took about this time, maybe a century more, for copper metallurgy to spread to Mesoamerica after it became really widespread in the Andes IOTL. Consider this a reasonable compromise.
450 AD: The Apeca resurgence occurs as the Apeca population rebounds, led this time by the city-state of Chiclayo. Power in the city resided in the throne of the Ai Apecyep, the King of Chiclayo whose purpose was to defend the city and provide military captives to the high priests for sacrifice, although the practice had become very rare, for the same reason that it went extinct in the Mesoamerican civilizations. In fact, the rise of Chiclayo overall lowered the level of sacrifices, as perceptive priests realized that if they were the only city to do sacrifices, then they would hoard the mystic power associated with it. As a result, the Ai Apecyep banned the practice in the cities that were subjugated to his rule. Seeking to circumvent the ban, warriors from other cities began to practice head-hunting-decapitating enemies on the battlefield. This practice would stay with the Apeca for a long time.
It was also during this time that the Apeca “fleet” was developed. Coordinated from Chiclayo, the fleet consisted mostly of unwieldy rafts that moved up and down the pacific coast, plying their goods. The city of Chiclayo provided them safe port and in exchange for a cut of the merchant’s profits, provided guards to defend their cargo. Cities that did not cooperate with Chiclayo or who harmed merchants were cut off. The Ai Apecyep would order an embargo, and the city would be cut off from trade by sea and land. This ensured the cooperation of rebellious Apeca cities and created a safe environment for seafaring to develop, as merchants experimented with different types of wood and sails and developed new ways of sailing, including the discovery of the southern cross and north star as guideposts in the sky.
535 AD: The Pacific coast of the Americas is hit by a super El Niño that produces massive disruptions in the weather. Intense 30-year flooding begins on the Pacific coast, flooding made worse by the wide deforestation practiced by the bronze-age cultures hungry for wood and land.
The flooding would be a constant bane for the Apeca. Some of the Apeca would leave the Chiclayo Empire on their rafts, looking for safer areas to live. To the south of the empire were the Nazca, a relatively organized group of loosely aligned polities who were more than happy to unite in order to drive out perceived intruders, but to the north there were less politically organized peoples and the polities that did exist saw the Apeca as allies and a source of trade wealth rather than as competitors. Some Apeca would create successful colonies on the coast, becoming a separate people. They referred to themselves as the Mochihicans after the language of the Apeca, but their land-dwelling neighbors would often refer to them as the sea people or, less charitably, the head-hunters.
Other Apeca would stay settled in the empire, praying for the floods to cease. Their prayers would eventually be answered, but with dire consequences.
Meanwhile, in Mesoamerica, the Nahua would migrate southward into Mesoamerica ahead of their more numerous Pochutec relatives. Natives of the deserts where river fever appeared sporadically but was not endemic, they were less immune to it and so avoided the coasts and jungles where it was widespread. They attempted to settle instead in the highland valleys of Mesoamerica. Many were enslaved by the Nu’u Savi people who already lived there.
We are many. And we hunger.
For years, we lived in the guts of peccaries. We spread through their feces, moving from one peccary to the other as they stepped in each-others excrement. Sometimes, we moved into the humans who lived near the peccaries. They were less than adequate hosts, and millions of us died trying to colonize them.
Years of flood were years of plenty for us. The floodwaters carried us far, into peccaries and into humans alike. We thrived in those days, finding many new colonies.
But years of flood never last. Eventually, dryness returns, and we suffer for it. But we changed. And dryness would never be a problem again. Neither would the human colonies.
We are many, and we hunger. And we found a new way to feast, and a new food to feast on. We are survivors.
566 AD: The flooding of the past 30 years of unstable climate is replaced by drought, new problems for humans and other life forms. Specifically, it was a threat to a gastrointestinal virus similar to pestivirus. Without flooding to spread it from the dung of peccaries to human hosts, it needed a new way of transferring. It could have simply disappeared with the droughts, reappearing as new flooding inevitably happened in the future. But the virus found itself with a stroke of luck. It could cause sores on skin that came into contact with peccary dung-and it began to jump from those sores on the skin of humans to the skin of other humans. The blister-causing virus would become the last native zoonotic plague from peccaries to infect the Americas.
The virus was not an equal-opportunity killer. Peasants who handled the dung of peccaries regularly had often picked up the less lethal version of the virus from their peccaries, and were inoculated to the disease. The nobility of sedentary societies like the Nazca or the Apeca, on the other hand, were not inoculated. The resulting plague killed off much of the nobility but spared the peasantry, essentially decapitating the governments of the Andean civilizations. In the Chiclayo Empire, civil war broke out between the surviving nobles over the Ai Apecyop throne. What they fought over was mere scraps, however. Most of the peasantry moved inland, trying to settle near rivers that would help them live through the droughts.
*(wolf_brother): took about this time, maybe a century more, for copper metallurgy to spread to Mesoamerica after it became really widespread in the Andes IOTL. Consider this a reasonable compromise.
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We are germs...your cells will be assimilated.
I like the butterflies here with the political, cultural, and climactic changes.
Q: why did the practice of human sacrifice fall off ATL?
I like the butterflies here with the political, cultural, and climactic changes.
Q: why did the practice of human sacrifice fall off ATL?
Because plagues in Mesoamerica means life is considerably less cheap, which means you don't ritualize killing your hostages to keep the population down.
I had the impression that a good part of the human sacrifice going-on was due to the lack of protein. That is, there was a heavy amount of consumption going on.
The lower population densities should actually retard civilization in some ways (but on the balance?). Whatever shakes out will be much more robust to outside insults in most cases.
The lower population densities should actually retard civilization in some ways (but on the balance?). Whatever shakes out will be much more robust to outside insults in most cases.
I love this TL, but I have one problem: What about Venereal Diseases?
Of course, they wouldn't start out as VDs, but likely started out as tropical Skin diseases, which 'set their sights on a warmer wetter part of the body' as it spread into cold or dry areas.
I'm not too familiar with Pig diseases, but perhaps a similar situation that causes the Gastrointestinal disease that eliminates the Elite Andean Nobility, a skin-turned-Venereal disease makes it's way into the population.
Of course, they wouldn't start out as VDs, but likely started out as tropical Skin diseases, which 'set their sights on a warmer wetter part of the body' as it spread into cold or dry areas.
I'm not too familiar with Pig diseases, but perhaps a similar situation that causes the Gastrointestinal disease that eliminates the Elite Andean Nobility, a skin-turned-Venereal disease makes it's way into the population.
Well, for the purposes of realistic portrayal of disease cultures that's possible. For the purposes of the story, though, it's redundant-syphilis already (most likely) started in the Caribbean IOTL. That's still going to happen, and it may possibly spread through the Americas, but I have spent a little too much time thinking up horrible new diseases to really want to work on even more.
Sol Zagato-you're right, but remember, populations do recover (I have more on the disruptions caused by unstable climates and disease in upcoming posts)
Of course the populations recover. I'm mainly wondering about the effects on technology on average. Do the diseases prevent the OTL degradation of Mayan farmland?
600 AD: The pest arrives in Mesoamerica, carried on rafts from the equator to the edge of the land bridge, and spreading north along the coast. As in South America, the disease decapitated the leadership of the more advanced societies. Unlike the Apeca, most Mesoamerican civilizations were not that centralized. So, even though the disease killed many in the nobility and vacated many thrones, there was less civil war. The nobles of the city-states sometimes fought, but more often cooperated in the emergency, lest they be attacked by a neighboring city state and conquered through their division. It was a time of advancement for the craftsmen who survived the plague, as their smaller number meant that there was an excess of demand to supply. They were bolstered by the arrival of bronze tools, long delayed by the trade disruptions in the south, and in the new era of experimentation craftsmen began to smelt arsenic-based bronze. The plague also gave peasants an opportunity for advancement. The drop in population among the ruling class meant that families looking to bolster their numbers would sometimes ‘adopt’ members of the lower classes who distinguished themselves.
The only place where a social breakdown could truly be said to have occurred was among the Be’ena’a civilization in the southernmost part of the Mesoamerican highlands. Their Nahuatl slaves revolted as the plague hit, killing nobility and looting their homes. The Be’ena’a peasants joined in, not wanting to be left out of the looting of wealth. As the social order broke down, the Nahuatl assumed control over one of the cities, and a mass migration of nahua speakers moved to the city. While the other civilizations would look down on these upstarts, seeing them as barbarians, they could not ignore them. The Nahua city, Teposcopula, sat on a massive source of newly-vital copper ore.
The Nahua’s cousins, the Pochutec and Pipil, were somewhat less lucky. These nomads did not keep peccaries and so did not have a chance to be inoculated to the pest. As they migrated southward, many died as soon as they made contact with the Mesoamerican civilizations. Broken by the disease and victim of attacks by Mesoamerican peasants looking to drive them off their farmland, the Pipil and Pochutec retreated northward to the deserts, passing the pest with them.
European copy of Teposcopulan depictions of people suffering from the pest.
800 AD: In southeast North America, Caddoan farmers develop a new strain of corn that thrives in the relatively colder northern climate. A population boom occurs, as the new strain feeds more people.
This population boom lead to the creation of a more sedentary and stratified society, lead by bloodlines of warrior nobles as well as priests who were placed in charge of the sacred drums and pipes of the Caddoan peoples (and in some cases given the responsibility of human sacrifice). These new leaders built impressive monuments to show their power, but not mounds. The mound-building native societies of the Woodland and Hopewell periods had stopped the practice due to cultural disruption caused by disease. Instead, the Caddoan chieftains had large stones brought into their towns and arranged in different areas, often corresponding symbolically to celestial figures considered important in their religion. The stones were often painted or carved by the Caddoans, the stones becoming silent witnesses to their village history.
It was around the discovery of the new breed of corn that the pest worked its way into the southeast. The Caddoans were hardly affected, compared to the Mesoamericans or South Americans. Their society had only begun to stratify above the level of chieftainships. Chiefs either worked with their own peccaries often enough to become inoculated, or had close friends and relatives who did (and so could take over without causing too much of a succession crisis for the societies affected). Out of the southeast, where it was too cold to keep peccaries on the other hand, the population plummeted as the disease scythed through them. The pest had the odd effect of, in the long run, strengthening trade in North America. With their populations lowered, the people living near Caddoan communities focused more on their immediate survival and traded with the Caddoans for crafts rather than spending time making their own. Groups that traded were constantly re-exposed to the pest, and developed immunity over time. Groups that withdrew from the trade networks or became isolated would lose their immunity over successive generations. Upon being inevitably re-introduced to the disease, they would die off in large numbers, and either join the trade network permanently or be conquered by peoples who already had.
The Caddoans traded with the Muskogeans and the Oneotans; the Oneotans and the Muskogeans traded northward with the Algonquins; the Algonquins traded east and west, from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. These 4 language groups would come to dominate North America east of the Great Plains and south of the tundra, their placement on the trade trails giving them a germ weapon against other groups. The cultures on the trade routes would adopt the habit of raising stones as monuments from the Caddoans, creating the Stone-Raiser cultural horizon that over a 600 year period would spread to cover a huge part of North America.
Old Stone-Raiser monument.
815 AD: Major droughts begin in the Mayan lowlands, causing a rapid decline of the Mayan civilization. As droughts hit the various city-states and end their ability to feed themselves, the Mayans enter a period of political turmoil, warring with each-other and disrupting their own trade networks.
833 AD: The city of Teposcopula begins the conquest of the valley of Oaxaca under its leader Bundle of Reeds. An astute military genius, Bundle of Reeds had his men organize into units armed with long spears, giving them a greater reach than the soldiers armed with short bronze swords. He combined this with great political skill by reaching out to the cities he conquered by removing recalcitrant leaders and replacing them with more reasonable relatives rather than his own men. Through this method, he conquered the entire Oaxaca valley within his lifetime, as cities either fell before him or surrendered. Bundle of Reeds would name his empire the Zapotec empire, after the fruit trees that grew in the region (a poetic way of saying that his political union would bear great fruit).
850 AD: The southernmost Mochihican colonies are attacked by the Chimu, the landbound descendants of the Apeca. The Chimu wanted to reassert what they felt was their rightful control over the coast. Some of the Mochihican cities submitted to Chimu authority, but others fought. Some were initially successful, but the constant pressure of the united Chimu land forces against the scattered Mochihican cities drove many northward to the equatorial settlements.
By this time, the Mochihicans had become quite adept at living in the hot coastlines north of the relatively cool coast of their former empire, though they had to give up their llama herds, as these animals did very poorly in the tropical heat. However, trade with the Andean Cañari people ensured access to llama wool.
The exodus of Mochihicans to the equatorial settlements prompted a further expansion northward, as the heads of the independent cities resettled northward, past the cliff lands.
The geography of the area pushed the Mochihicans further north than they might otherwise have been expected to go. As the name suggests, the cliff lands had very little habitable coastlines. They were mostly sheer cliffs, with small patches of swamp between them. The Mochihicans found some river mouths to colonize, but there was often room for little more than a village in these areas.
867 AD: Threatened by Bundle of Reed’s rise in Oaxaca and fearful of the stories told of the “barbarian” raiders of the north (a threat greatly exaggerated by political leaders to gain loyalty, as the raiders had no bronze weapons at the time), a confederation of peoples form in the North valley. Named for the dialect they spoke, the Tu’un Daavi elected the king of Tollan 6 Jaguar to be their first leader. As the Mayan civilization fell apart in the south, in the north new political unions rose.
It would be wrong to claim that the Mayan culture had ended, however. The Mayans had developed their own rafts using metal technology, and their cities on the Yucatan were developing a new, sea-based trading network that would allow them greater access to gold, obsidian, cacao, and other goods. The new technology spread to other coastal peoples, and would be the start of the bronze-age Caribbean trade.
897 AD: The search for a large amount of habitable land that drove the Mochihicans northward finally brings them to an isthmus named Pisisi by the local people. On the mouth of the Uraba river, the Mochihicans explored ways to make the area more agriculturally viable.
Their most successful method was to build rafts carrying mounds of soil, on which they could grow their crops. With this technique, the Mochihicans were able to create a permanent colony at Pisisi. The colony would rise to prominence some decades later, when gold was found along the banks of the Uraba River.
942 AD: The Pisisi explorer Nechyep (roughly translated, “Born to the River”) becomes intrigued by the metal goods traded southward to his people. They were the only evidence that the Mochihicans had of any civilization to the north, the goods were very popular among the peoples of the Uraba. Nechyep wanted to find their source.
For this reason, he put together an expedition northward, hoping to find the source of the intricate metalwork.
946 AD: After finally organizing his expedition, Nechyep sails northward. He arrives to a large settlement which he dubs “Panama” after a local word. From this base, he sailed northward before arriving to the southern tip of the Mayan sphere of influence.
By this time, the Mayan civilizations in the region were greatly reduced, but they had maintained their craftsmanship of bronze tools. Nechyep gladly made repairs in the area, loading his raft with bronze tools before sailing back south to Pisisi. Upon reaching Pisisi, however, he compared the tools to other bronze goods and found them to be relatively utilitarian in design to what most of his people bought. He concluded that a second source for bronze must exist.
950 AD: A strange visitor and his retinue are brought to the court of the Zapotec emperor Hummingbird Feather. The stranger speaks a language completely unknown to any of the translators in the court. He calls himself “Nechyep”, and was captured along the Pacific coast by allies of the empire. He had with him an abundance of goods normally traded from the fishermen who lived to the south.
This curiosity lived at the emperor’s court for several years, learning the Nahuatl and Be’ena’a languages. He told them his life story, and about the lands that he came from, how his people plied the seas from city to city trading goods. He also taught the Zapotecs how to build their own rafts.
"Neo-classical" Zapotec vase depicting Nechyep's meeting with Humingbird feather, circa 1050AD. The unknown artist copied hieroglyphs, probably from old stone monuments, in the design. Possibly meant to show the divine providence associated with the event.
954 AD: Hummingbird Feather dies. Among the recipients of his largesse in his detailed will, he names Nechyep, who was to be given whatever tools he needed to build a new fleet of rafts and leave with his men, as well as gifts of gold, quetzal feathers, live turkeys, and whatever supplies he needed. Impressed by the emperor’s goodwill, one of Nechyep’s men carves a statue of Ai Apec to be placed in Hummingbird Feather’s grave. Nechyep then sailed back to Pisisi, spreading the word of his discovery of a new civilization to the north and, in the final years of his life, establishing a school in Pisisi to teach merchants an alphabet he called “Chapotlo” (his own somewhat butchered pronunciation of tzapotl, or sapote). Permanent Pacific trade is established between the peoples of South America and Mesoamerica.
Chimu sculpture of a turkey, circa 1015 AD
The only place where a social breakdown could truly be said to have occurred was among the Be’ena’a civilization in the southernmost part of the Mesoamerican highlands. Their Nahuatl slaves revolted as the plague hit, killing nobility and looting their homes. The Be’ena’a peasants joined in, not wanting to be left out of the looting of wealth. As the social order broke down, the Nahuatl assumed control over one of the cities, and a mass migration of nahua speakers moved to the city. While the other civilizations would look down on these upstarts, seeing them as barbarians, they could not ignore them. The Nahua city, Teposcopula, sat on a massive source of newly-vital copper ore.
The Nahua’s cousins, the Pochutec and Pipil, were somewhat less lucky. These nomads did not keep peccaries and so did not have a chance to be inoculated to the pest. As they migrated southward, many died as soon as they made contact with the Mesoamerican civilizations. Broken by the disease and victim of attacks by Mesoamerican peasants looking to drive them off their farmland, the Pipil and Pochutec retreated northward to the deserts, passing the pest with them.
European copy of Teposcopulan depictions of people suffering from the pest.
800 AD: In southeast North America, Caddoan farmers develop a new strain of corn that thrives in the relatively colder northern climate. A population boom occurs, as the new strain feeds more people.
This population boom lead to the creation of a more sedentary and stratified society, lead by bloodlines of warrior nobles as well as priests who were placed in charge of the sacred drums and pipes of the Caddoan peoples (and in some cases given the responsibility of human sacrifice). These new leaders built impressive monuments to show their power, but not mounds. The mound-building native societies of the Woodland and Hopewell periods had stopped the practice due to cultural disruption caused by disease. Instead, the Caddoan chieftains had large stones brought into their towns and arranged in different areas, often corresponding symbolically to celestial figures considered important in their religion. The stones were often painted or carved by the Caddoans, the stones becoming silent witnesses to their village history.
It was around the discovery of the new breed of corn that the pest worked its way into the southeast. The Caddoans were hardly affected, compared to the Mesoamericans or South Americans. Their society had only begun to stratify above the level of chieftainships. Chiefs either worked with their own peccaries often enough to become inoculated, or had close friends and relatives who did (and so could take over without causing too much of a succession crisis for the societies affected). Out of the southeast, where it was too cold to keep peccaries on the other hand, the population plummeted as the disease scythed through them. The pest had the odd effect of, in the long run, strengthening trade in North America. With their populations lowered, the people living near Caddoan communities focused more on their immediate survival and traded with the Caddoans for crafts rather than spending time making their own. Groups that traded were constantly re-exposed to the pest, and developed immunity over time. Groups that withdrew from the trade networks or became isolated would lose their immunity over successive generations. Upon being inevitably re-introduced to the disease, they would die off in large numbers, and either join the trade network permanently or be conquered by peoples who already had.
The Caddoans traded with the Muskogeans and the Oneotans; the Oneotans and the Muskogeans traded northward with the Algonquins; the Algonquins traded east and west, from the Atlantic to the Rocky Mountains. These 4 language groups would come to dominate North America east of the Great Plains and south of the tundra, their placement on the trade trails giving them a germ weapon against other groups. The cultures on the trade routes would adopt the habit of raising stones as monuments from the Caddoans, creating the Stone-Raiser cultural horizon that over a 600 year period would spread to cover a huge part of North America.
Old Stone-Raiser monument.
815 AD: Major droughts begin in the Mayan lowlands, causing a rapid decline of the Mayan civilization. As droughts hit the various city-states and end their ability to feed themselves, the Mayans enter a period of political turmoil, warring with each-other and disrupting their own trade networks.
833 AD: The city of Teposcopula begins the conquest of the valley of Oaxaca under its leader Bundle of Reeds. An astute military genius, Bundle of Reeds had his men organize into units armed with long spears, giving them a greater reach than the soldiers armed with short bronze swords. He combined this with great political skill by reaching out to the cities he conquered by removing recalcitrant leaders and replacing them with more reasonable relatives rather than his own men. Through this method, he conquered the entire Oaxaca valley within his lifetime, as cities either fell before him or surrendered. Bundle of Reeds would name his empire the Zapotec empire, after the fruit trees that grew in the region (a poetic way of saying that his political union would bear great fruit).
850 AD: The southernmost Mochihican colonies are attacked by the Chimu, the landbound descendants of the Apeca. The Chimu wanted to reassert what they felt was their rightful control over the coast. Some of the Mochihican cities submitted to Chimu authority, but others fought. Some were initially successful, but the constant pressure of the united Chimu land forces against the scattered Mochihican cities drove many northward to the equatorial settlements.
By this time, the Mochihicans had become quite adept at living in the hot coastlines north of the relatively cool coast of their former empire, though they had to give up their llama herds, as these animals did very poorly in the tropical heat. However, trade with the Andean Cañari people ensured access to llama wool.
The exodus of Mochihicans to the equatorial settlements prompted a further expansion northward, as the heads of the independent cities resettled northward, past the cliff lands.
The geography of the area pushed the Mochihicans further north than they might otherwise have been expected to go. As the name suggests, the cliff lands had very little habitable coastlines. They were mostly sheer cliffs, with small patches of swamp between them. The Mochihicans found some river mouths to colonize, but there was often room for little more than a village in these areas.
867 AD: Threatened by Bundle of Reed’s rise in Oaxaca and fearful of the stories told of the “barbarian” raiders of the north (a threat greatly exaggerated by political leaders to gain loyalty, as the raiders had no bronze weapons at the time), a confederation of peoples form in the North valley. Named for the dialect they spoke, the Tu’un Daavi elected the king of Tollan 6 Jaguar to be their first leader. As the Mayan civilization fell apart in the south, in the north new political unions rose.
It would be wrong to claim that the Mayan culture had ended, however. The Mayans had developed their own rafts using metal technology, and their cities on the Yucatan were developing a new, sea-based trading network that would allow them greater access to gold, obsidian, cacao, and other goods. The new technology spread to other coastal peoples, and would be the start of the bronze-age Caribbean trade.
897 AD: The search for a large amount of habitable land that drove the Mochihicans northward finally brings them to an isthmus named Pisisi by the local people. On the mouth of the Uraba river, the Mochihicans explored ways to make the area more agriculturally viable.
Their most successful method was to build rafts carrying mounds of soil, on which they could grow their crops. With this technique, the Mochihicans were able to create a permanent colony at Pisisi. The colony would rise to prominence some decades later, when gold was found along the banks of the Uraba River.
942 AD: The Pisisi explorer Nechyep (roughly translated, “Born to the River”) becomes intrigued by the metal goods traded southward to his people. They were the only evidence that the Mochihicans had of any civilization to the north, the goods were very popular among the peoples of the Uraba. Nechyep wanted to find their source.
For this reason, he put together an expedition northward, hoping to find the source of the intricate metalwork.
946 AD: After finally organizing his expedition, Nechyep sails northward. He arrives to a large settlement which he dubs “Panama” after a local word. From this base, he sailed northward before arriving to the southern tip of the Mayan sphere of influence.
By this time, the Mayan civilizations in the region were greatly reduced, but they had maintained their craftsmanship of bronze tools. Nechyep gladly made repairs in the area, loading his raft with bronze tools before sailing back south to Pisisi. Upon reaching Pisisi, however, he compared the tools to other bronze goods and found them to be relatively utilitarian in design to what most of his people bought. He concluded that a second source for bronze must exist.
950 AD: A strange visitor and his retinue are brought to the court of the Zapotec emperor Hummingbird Feather. The stranger speaks a language completely unknown to any of the translators in the court. He calls himself “Nechyep”, and was captured along the Pacific coast by allies of the empire. He had with him an abundance of goods normally traded from the fishermen who lived to the south.
This curiosity lived at the emperor’s court for several years, learning the Nahuatl and Be’ena’a languages. He told them his life story, and about the lands that he came from, how his people plied the seas from city to city trading goods. He also taught the Zapotecs how to build their own rafts.
"Neo-classical" Zapotec vase depicting Nechyep's meeting with Humingbird feather, circa 1050AD. The unknown artist copied hieroglyphs, probably from old stone monuments, in the design. Possibly meant to show the divine providence associated with the event.
954 AD: Hummingbird Feather dies. Among the recipients of his largesse in his detailed will, he names Nechyep, who was to be given whatever tools he needed to build a new fleet of rafts and leave with his men, as well as gifts of gold, quetzal feathers, live turkeys, and whatever supplies he needed. Impressed by the emperor’s goodwill, one of Nechyep’s men carves a statue of Ai Apec to be placed in Hummingbird Feather’s grave. Nechyep then sailed back to Pisisi, spreading the word of his discovery of a new civilization to the north and, in the final years of his life, establishing a school in Pisisi to teach merchants an alphabet he called “Chapotlo” (his own somewhat butchered pronunciation of tzapotl, or sapote). Permanent Pacific trade is established between the peoples of South America and Mesoamerica.
Chimu sculpture of a turkey, circa 1015 AD
1000 AD: Mayan merchants in the Caribbean establish a permanent settlement on the sparsely inhabited island of Cuba. The Taino welcome their Mayan neighbors; they traded with them for bronze tools, and at the time there was more than enough room for both peoples. However, the Cuban Taino had never been exposed to the pest, and as an isolated people had steadily lost their immunity to bleeding fever. Disease takes its toll on the native peoples of Cuba, almost destroying the local culture. The few survivors join the Mayan settlers, forming a Taino/Mayan mixed culture that combined Mayan religion with ceremonial uses of hallucinogens.
1009 AD: The Vikings attempt to create a colony in “Vinland”. Had they arrived 2 centuries later than they did, they would have found an almost extinct people killed off by the second wave of Mesoamerican diseases, spread northward by the growing Caddo civilization. As it is they had the bad luck (for them) of arriving between waves of diseases. The paleo-Beothuk of Vinland had recovered from the first wave, spread to them by an unlucky group of Mikmaq trying to escape the plagues in their villages. Their population had recovered and at least one of the diseases, the shedding cough, was now endemic to their island home. Had the Viking colony been successful, it could have eventually transferred this disease to the Old World. However the Viking conflict with the ‘Skraelingjar’ meant that the two groups did not spend enough time in contact with each-other to transfer diseases. The Vikings left back to Greenland after a devastating raid, and ‘Vinland’ became just an odd footnote in European history.
Pretty much the entire summary of Viking/Beothuk relations.
1015 AD: Turkey cultivation begins among the Cañari. The Cañari turkey husbandry was the first of its kind in the Americas, an intense cultivation of turkeys for their eggs, feathers, and meat. Although Mesoamerican peasants raised turkeys in their gardens, and the Chimu and Mochihicans kept some as novelties, Cañari merchants hoped to gain wealth from the turkey as a commodity. They purchased large numbers of turkey from the Chimu and Mochihicans. This as well as their earlier trade contacts lead them to adopt the Chapotlo alphabet for commerce.
At around this time, the new Zapotec emperor Lightning Spear ordered the distribution of potatoes to his diplomats and soldiers. Given potato cuttings by Mochihican traders, Lightning Spear had been somewhat less than impressed with their taste. However, having been told that they were an excellent source of food capable of growing a lot of food for many people with minimal effort (and told bald-faced lies about their medicinal properties by Mochihican merchants looking to score an easy sale) he decided to grow them and use them to feed the warriors and negotiators who maintained his empire. Through the soldiers and ambassadors, the Zapotecs would spread their new crop across the Mesoamerican highlands.
1033 AD: The Ai Apecyep of Chan-Chan, leader of the Chimu, sends a llama on the perilous journey across the Pacific passage to the court of Lightning Spear. The llama is an instant sensation in the court.
1046 AD: The imperial llama dies in the Zapotec region. The creature had become so popular in the court of the emperor that an unofficial day of mourning occurred on the news of its death. Lighting Spear offered the Chimu and Mochihican merchants of his court many goods, if they would bring him other samples of this marvelous creature.
1055 AD: A breeding population of 7 male and 4 female llamas is assembled in the valley of Oaxaca by the Zapotec emperor, the founding population of the Central American llama. The little group would breed and breed. In order to get rid of his excess llamas and show favor, the emperor would give them as gifts to other nobles within the empire and even send them to other leaders in the highlands. In 50 years, many large cities kept small llama herds as curiosities.
1100 AD: Beans are traded from Mexico northward, joining corn as a staple crop of the North Americans. It is around this time that widespread bronze metallurgy develops among the Puebloan peoples of the southwest. Blessed by rich metal deposits and constantly under threat from drought and aridity, the Puebloans enthusiastically adopted a way to create better tools that would help them build better irrigation systems to water their fields.
Lacking similar access to copper deposits, the Caddoans would not adopt the same technology at this time.
At around this time, the Caribbean Maya established 3 permanently inhabited trading post in 3 different lands. The first was “Little Cuba” (OTL’s Jamaica), “Jaguar Island” (OTL’s Hispaniola, so named for the two peninsulas which the Mayan merchants saw as a large mouth) and the “Rain Land”, (the cost of OTL’s Florida). The North American southeast coast was radically different from OTL, due to several centuries of peccary infestation. Their habit of rooting, like that of the old world’s pigs, disrupted local vegetation. In the inland swamps, it increased vegetation over a long period of time. On the coast, however, it led immediately to erosion in wetland areas. As a result, the coastline had receded inward, and coastal wetlands had been replaced by coastal forests. Immediately off the coast, the dirt and rotting plant matter of the coastal wetlands had at first suffocated ocean life, then gave rise to algal blooms that suffocated ocean life, and finally had aided the rebound of ocean life when the algal blooms finally dispersed by providing a bonanza of nutrients.
1125 AD: The Tu’un Davi begin to build an extensive road system in their valley, the better to accommodate wheels for the wagons now being pulled by llamas.
Wheels were not unknown to the Mesoamericans before the introduction of llamas, but they were mostly used as toys. Peccaries made very poor draft animals, and were almost never used to pull wheeled vehicles except as a gimmick. A powerful leader might commission a wagon for his small children that would be pulled by peccaries, or a merchant selling jewelry might have his goods paraded in a peccary-pulled wagon for the amusement of the crowds. As llamas became more numerous in Mesoamerica, and were sold or trickled down to the lower classes, their value as pack animals were recognized. Merchants began to attach wagons to llamas to move their goods, although this only worked in the cities with the best roads. Widespread use of the wheel was not yet possible-jungles and mountains would prove to be powerful barriers. But among the Tuun Davi and in the Oaxaca valley region of the Zapotec empire, the smooth roads could be built between cities to facilitate trade.
1142 AD: The wagon is introduced to the Chimu people from Mesoamerica.
1150 AD: Climate change once again wracks the Americas, disrupting the more fragile agricultural communities. The large, sedentary societies around Lake Titicaca, the Puebloans, and the Caddoans all suffer radical changes as they are unable to produce enough food to feed their sedentary populations. Governments collapsed in these regions, and in the case of the Puebloans, a southward migration occurred, while hoes and axes were beaten into swords and daggers to fight new and vicious wars.
Less hierarchical societies did somewhat better in the changing climate. Ute, Paiute, and Shoshone peoples began to occupy the former puebloan territories as they were abandoned. The desert relatives of the Nahua speaking Zapotecs, immune to the Mesoamerican plagues after generations of exposure to the diseases of sedentary farmers, began to migrate into the valley of the Tu’un Davi, intermitantly warring with them and cooperating with them. Their cooperation, however, ends up undermining the region even as Tu’un Davi cities order the new immigrants to attack other cities to settle scores while maintaining plausible deniability (it wasn’t us! It was those damn barbarians!). This disrupts the Tu’un Davi confederation.
Other societies changed without suffering leadership collapse in response to the weather. Among the Cañari, a rumor began that the weather was caused by improperly performing religious rituals. At the city of Guapondelig, the Cañari queen Sliver Moon ordered priests and scribes to go out to the other Cañari groups and teach them the “correct” religious rituals. This action also spread a formalized writing system throughout the region, and began the political centralization of the fractious Cañari tribes.
1160 AD: Mayan Caribbean cultures make contact with the southernmost Caddo chieftainships. These chieftainships, suffering from the beginnings of drought, were eager to find solutions to their problems. For this reason, they were quite receptive to the bronze tools, as well as the sweet potatoes, avocados, and tomatoes the Mayan merchants introduced to them. While these crops may have aided them by diversifying their diet, in the end it was not enough to save the organized societies from collapse.
However, the desire for bronze hoes and bronze weaponry was so great that the Caribbean Mayans began a permanent trade with the Caddoan chieftainships even as these chieftainships fell apart. This allowed the creation of a small Mayan settlement on the edge of the Caddo chieftainships, serving as a link between North and Central America.
1200 AD: A new breed of peccary is developed in North America. Called the northern peccary, it is larger than its answers and covered in a dense layer of fur, making it better able to survive the harsh winters of North America. It is traded northward along the Mississippi river and east coast, becoming a common staple of farming communities as far as the southern shores of the Great lakes.
1009 AD: The Vikings attempt to create a colony in “Vinland”. Had they arrived 2 centuries later than they did, they would have found an almost extinct people killed off by the second wave of Mesoamerican diseases, spread northward by the growing Caddo civilization. As it is they had the bad luck (for them) of arriving between waves of diseases. The paleo-Beothuk of Vinland had recovered from the first wave, spread to them by an unlucky group of Mikmaq trying to escape the plagues in their villages. Their population had recovered and at least one of the diseases, the shedding cough, was now endemic to their island home. Had the Viking colony been successful, it could have eventually transferred this disease to the Old World. However the Viking conflict with the ‘Skraelingjar’ meant that the two groups did not spend enough time in contact with each-other to transfer diseases. The Vikings left back to Greenland after a devastating raid, and ‘Vinland’ became just an odd footnote in European history.
Pretty much the entire summary of Viking/Beothuk relations.
1015 AD: Turkey cultivation begins among the Cañari. The Cañari turkey husbandry was the first of its kind in the Americas, an intense cultivation of turkeys for their eggs, feathers, and meat. Although Mesoamerican peasants raised turkeys in their gardens, and the Chimu and Mochihicans kept some as novelties, Cañari merchants hoped to gain wealth from the turkey as a commodity. They purchased large numbers of turkey from the Chimu and Mochihicans. This as well as their earlier trade contacts lead them to adopt the Chapotlo alphabet for commerce.
At around this time, the new Zapotec emperor Lightning Spear ordered the distribution of potatoes to his diplomats and soldiers. Given potato cuttings by Mochihican traders, Lightning Spear had been somewhat less than impressed with their taste. However, having been told that they were an excellent source of food capable of growing a lot of food for many people with minimal effort (and told bald-faced lies about their medicinal properties by Mochihican merchants looking to score an easy sale) he decided to grow them and use them to feed the warriors and negotiators who maintained his empire. Through the soldiers and ambassadors, the Zapotecs would spread their new crop across the Mesoamerican highlands.
1033 AD: The Ai Apecyep of Chan-Chan, leader of the Chimu, sends a llama on the perilous journey across the Pacific passage to the court of Lightning Spear. The llama is an instant sensation in the court.
1046 AD: The imperial llama dies in the Zapotec region. The creature had become so popular in the court of the emperor that an unofficial day of mourning occurred on the news of its death. Lighting Spear offered the Chimu and Mochihican merchants of his court many goods, if they would bring him other samples of this marvelous creature.
1055 AD: A breeding population of 7 male and 4 female llamas is assembled in the valley of Oaxaca by the Zapotec emperor, the founding population of the Central American llama. The little group would breed and breed. In order to get rid of his excess llamas and show favor, the emperor would give them as gifts to other nobles within the empire and even send them to other leaders in the highlands. In 50 years, many large cities kept small llama herds as curiosities.
1100 AD: Beans are traded from Mexico northward, joining corn as a staple crop of the North Americans. It is around this time that widespread bronze metallurgy develops among the Puebloan peoples of the southwest. Blessed by rich metal deposits and constantly under threat from drought and aridity, the Puebloans enthusiastically adopted a way to create better tools that would help them build better irrigation systems to water their fields.
Lacking similar access to copper deposits, the Caddoans would not adopt the same technology at this time.
At around this time, the Caribbean Maya established 3 permanently inhabited trading post in 3 different lands. The first was “Little Cuba” (OTL’s Jamaica), “Jaguar Island” (OTL’s Hispaniola, so named for the two peninsulas which the Mayan merchants saw as a large mouth) and the “Rain Land”, (the cost of OTL’s Florida). The North American southeast coast was radically different from OTL, due to several centuries of peccary infestation. Their habit of rooting, like that of the old world’s pigs, disrupted local vegetation. In the inland swamps, it increased vegetation over a long period of time. On the coast, however, it led immediately to erosion in wetland areas. As a result, the coastline had receded inward, and coastal wetlands had been replaced by coastal forests. Immediately off the coast, the dirt and rotting plant matter of the coastal wetlands had at first suffocated ocean life, then gave rise to algal blooms that suffocated ocean life, and finally had aided the rebound of ocean life when the algal blooms finally dispersed by providing a bonanza of nutrients.
1125 AD: The Tu’un Davi begin to build an extensive road system in their valley, the better to accommodate wheels for the wagons now being pulled by llamas.
Wheels were not unknown to the Mesoamericans before the introduction of llamas, but they were mostly used as toys. Peccaries made very poor draft animals, and were almost never used to pull wheeled vehicles except as a gimmick. A powerful leader might commission a wagon for his small children that would be pulled by peccaries, or a merchant selling jewelry might have his goods paraded in a peccary-pulled wagon for the amusement of the crowds. As llamas became more numerous in Mesoamerica, and were sold or trickled down to the lower classes, their value as pack animals were recognized. Merchants began to attach wagons to llamas to move their goods, although this only worked in the cities with the best roads. Widespread use of the wheel was not yet possible-jungles and mountains would prove to be powerful barriers. But among the Tuun Davi and in the Oaxaca valley region of the Zapotec empire, the smooth roads could be built between cities to facilitate trade.
1142 AD: The wagon is introduced to the Chimu people from Mesoamerica.
1150 AD: Climate change once again wracks the Americas, disrupting the more fragile agricultural communities. The large, sedentary societies around Lake Titicaca, the Puebloans, and the Caddoans all suffer radical changes as they are unable to produce enough food to feed their sedentary populations. Governments collapsed in these regions, and in the case of the Puebloans, a southward migration occurred, while hoes and axes were beaten into swords and daggers to fight new and vicious wars.
Less hierarchical societies did somewhat better in the changing climate. Ute, Paiute, and Shoshone peoples began to occupy the former puebloan territories as they were abandoned. The desert relatives of the Nahua speaking Zapotecs, immune to the Mesoamerican plagues after generations of exposure to the diseases of sedentary farmers, began to migrate into the valley of the Tu’un Davi, intermitantly warring with them and cooperating with them. Their cooperation, however, ends up undermining the region even as Tu’un Davi cities order the new immigrants to attack other cities to settle scores while maintaining plausible deniability (it wasn’t us! It was those damn barbarians!). This disrupts the Tu’un Davi confederation.
Other societies changed without suffering leadership collapse in response to the weather. Among the Cañari, a rumor began that the weather was caused by improperly performing religious rituals. At the city of Guapondelig, the Cañari queen Sliver Moon ordered priests and scribes to go out to the other Cañari groups and teach them the “correct” religious rituals. This action also spread a formalized writing system throughout the region, and began the political centralization of the fractious Cañari tribes.
1160 AD: Mayan Caribbean cultures make contact with the southernmost Caddo chieftainships. These chieftainships, suffering from the beginnings of drought, were eager to find solutions to their problems. For this reason, they were quite receptive to the bronze tools, as well as the sweet potatoes, avocados, and tomatoes the Mayan merchants introduced to them. While these crops may have aided them by diversifying their diet, in the end it was not enough to save the organized societies from collapse.
However, the desire for bronze hoes and bronze weaponry was so great that the Caribbean Mayans began a permanent trade with the Caddoan chieftainships even as these chieftainships fell apart. This allowed the creation of a small Mayan settlement on the edge of the Caddo chieftainships, serving as a link between North and Central America.
1200 AD: A new breed of peccary is developed in North America. Called the northern peccary, it is larger than its answers and covered in a dense layer of fur, making it better able to survive the harsh winters of North America. It is traded northward along the Mississippi river and east coast, becoming a common staple of farming communities as far as the southern shores of the Great lakes.
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Oh man, good updates. The turkey, very yes!
Also, potatoes and beans getting spread around too is very important. THe image of peccary chariots is great.
Too bad about Vinland, but that would have probably confused things too much for the purposes of this TL.
Also, potatoes and beans getting spread around too is very important. THe image of peccary chariots is great.
Too bad about Vinland, but that would have probably confused things too much for the purposes of this TL.