The horse survives....in South America?

[Jon the Numbat]

This is probably on the fringe for what's allowed within before 1900 but hear me out.

It is known that in OTL the horse once inhabited the Americas before dying out in its homeland, surviving in Asia and only returning during the last 500 years.

I was thinking that the survival of North American fauna in South America is more plausible than as usually thought. As evidence I'll bring up the Camelids (Llamas, Dromedaries etc), the cougar, the spectacled bear, and the tapir.

Camelids originated in North America and gave rise to numerous lineages before dying out in their homeland at the start of the Holocene. They however, survived in the Old World and South America. The Llama group (Lamini) in particular once roamed the Rockies and Central America but now only remain in the Andes and the Southern Cone.

The cougar also provides an interesting case. They also originate in North America. In another thread (Tigers in Canada) I mentioned the extinction of cougars in North America at the end of the Pleistocene and how the pumas alive on the continent today are the descendents of South American pumas. The article is called "Genomic Ancestry of the American Puma" and it posits a return of pumas to North America during the Holocene from a refuge in northern & eastern South America.

The spectacled bear, now inhabiting South America, is actually the last of a lineage of bears that inhabited North America. Short faced bears were among the top predators of the Pleistocene Americas before dying off and leaving their last representative in the Andes.

Lastly, the tapir, originally inhabiting North America from Florida to Canada as well as China, disappeared from these regions and live today in Malaysia and South & Central America.

With these species in mind, I think one can make a case for the horse to continue living in South America, at least at the Andes and Venezuela. A study on the DNA of the Pleistocene South American horse Amerhippus shows that they could in fact be the same species of the domestic horse (The study is titled: Ancient DNA clarifies the evolutionary history of American Late Pleistocene equids).

The POD I have in mind is that a group of hunters in Venezuela either spare a herd of horses or comes to revere them as sacred. Since the global human population was quite low at the time period, the possibility of this group's beliefs spreading is decent. This small culture gives the horse some breathing room, allowing them spread southward into the Cerrado, Chaco, Pampas etc. during an arid phase 11,000-10,000 years ago. The culture vanishes eventually, but thanks to them the horse population recovers and becomes analogous to the bison in North America.

All that said, how do you think the survival of the horse in South America will impact the peoples inhabiting the continent? Does the horse become a small pack animal, allowing trade to stretch from the Andes to the Atlantic? Or are they ridden by nomads in the Cerrado, Patagonia?

(If I've exceeded what's allowed for Pre 1900, I apologize and approve of moving the thread to a place more appropriate.)

 

[Escape Zeppelin]

I can't seem to find it just now but there's an very good and extensive timeline about just that.

Considering the relative speed at which the domesticated horse spread across Eurasia in a variety of roles I think it would probably be put to the same uses in Americas depending on the area's needs. It would also create dramatic changes in the culture of the Americas, promote nomadism in areas, increase labor available, and generally the same changes that it's introduction created elsewhere. Chariots are almost certain.

 

[Jon the Numbat]

I can't seem to find it just now but there's an very good and extensive timeline about just that

Pecari rex, Equus regina by Twovultures? It focuses on horse and tapir survival in North America and is a good read. Another well made and relevant timeline is Lands of Bronze and Fire by Huehuecoyotl, which brings North American llamas to the forefront.

Considering the relative speed at which the domesticated horse spread across Eurasia in a variety of roles I think it would probably be put to the same uses in Americas depending on the area's needs. It would also create dramatic changes in the culture of the Americas, promote nomadism in areas, increase labor available, and generally the same changes that it's introduction created elsewhere. Chariots are almost certain.

Indeed, this definitely changes the dynamics between the regions of South America. I can see agriculture spreading further and faster ITTL and the horse becoming very important as these societies grow. Potatoes and quinoa could find its way to the Paraná river basin and the southern Brazilian Highlands. Sweet potatoes, cassava, and cotton would reach the Atlantic forests sooner too. The extra labor, nutrition and trade would leave the Pacific coast, and especially Venezuela, Columbia and eastern South America with a series of more robust societies and interaction networks relative to OTL.

 

[twovultures]

I have thought long and hard about this, believe me. IMO, horse survival in South America is possible (and best of all, technically does not violate having an evolutionary POD-the beasts survive, but haven't radically mutated or anything).

IMO the Andes are not a good place for survival. It is true that horses lived in the Andes in prehistoric times, but looking at the experience of the Spanish conquest and the heavy cavalry they introduced, where horses did well are the mountain valleys and plateaus. These are also the areas where humans will thrive, and will have relatively dense populations that will chew threw horses. The llamas and guanacos, on the other hand, are capable of climbing steep slopes and surviving in xeric shrublands where horses and humans have difficulty thriving. This is how they survived, while horses died IOTL. In counterargument, IIRC horses and North American camels survived longest (as far as we know) in the Colorado plateau. So we might see a surviving herd in the Altiplano.

Venezuela has some horse-friendly geography in the form of the llanos (where, incidentally, no horse culture ever formed IOTL despite this fact, but that may be for economic reasons rather than environmental). It is possible a herd would survive there. Once surviving, the motive for domestication of horse does present itself-horses would be very large animals, with only tapyrs rivaling them in size. Although a fully-grown horse is dangerous, the amount of meat present on a horse and the ability of humans to bend their social behavior to their advantage* will encourage humans to keep foals taken during hunts alive for a while. They will keep these captive foals alive for a while, killing them when they get too large to manage. However, as the practice spreads more people will keep foals for longer and longer-until the right foals with the right temperament are kept alive long enough to breed, sparking domestication.

IMO the best place for horse survival in South America is on the Pampas, temperate and tropical. These rolling grasslands have been good for horses IOTL, and have a lot of space for a herd to dodge human hunters and survive. Once their main predators have been driven extinct by humans, the horse population will grow, presenting opportunities for a domestication event like I described above. Alternatively, horses migrating northward into the drier parts of southern Amazonia (I mean the region between the Guyana and Brazilian shields, not the rainforest) may encounter manioc farmers who will domesticate them in a process similar to that of how the aurochs in the Middle East was domesticated by sedentary grain farmers.

I know that here in alternatehistory.com we like to think that historic events happen for a reason, but the truth is the POD for horse survival is simple: shit happens. Some animals went extinct, some survived the advent of the Holocene. Whether or not the horse pulled off survival in Asia or the Americas, it was just a roll of the dice. No special religion or culture needed.



*goddamn it Jared Diamond haters yes I know he was wrong on many levels, but the fact remains that an animals' social behavior in the wild will reflect in its domestication! A wildcat's social behavior is normally between mother and kitten, and this behavior is reflected in domestic cat's reactions to us (cats purr at us, rub against us, etc) so an animal with social behaviors like a horse will have behaviors that can be used by humans.

 

[Admiral Brown]

^^
Great thread and posts!

...Venezuela has some horse-friendly geography in the form of the llanos (where, incidentally, no horse culture ever formed IOTL despite this fact, but that may be for economic reasons rather than environmental).

Well, IOTL we have the llaneros, which are a sort of horse culture similar to Southern Cone gauchos...

 

[twovultures]

^^
Great thread and posts!



Well, IOTL we have the llaneros, which are a sort of horse culture similar to Southern Cone gauchos...

Good point! I was thinking of purely indigenous cultures, but when imagining alternate history OTL Euro-Colonial and Mestizo horse cultures give an excellent guideline for where and how an Alt-Hist-Horse culture could live.

 

[twovultures]

Thought I'd put a few more thoughts down while I was here.

Regarding OP's questions about what happens with nomads and pack animals, the answer IMO is "both", eventually and assuming horse domestication. Horses could make useful pack animals, and we might see some trade develop between the Andes and the Atlantic side of the southern cone or other far-flung areas. That said, horses aren't very good pack animals pound for pound when compared with llamas, though they are a bit more heat and moisture tolerant. I think we'd see the travois or something similar invented to increase the weight horses can transport. The travois will act as the analogue of the chariot wheel in the Old World, with cut logs and horse bones together creating the definitive proof of horse domestication in the archaeological record where horse corrals and butchery do not fully prove domestication.

IMO the saddle will come later. Riding horses is very dangerous, and the technology to allow people to do this in greater safety and comfort will take some time to develop in South America just as it did in Eurasia. However, the need to scout for water in dry areas, chase after escaped or stolen llamas in Andean valleys and plateaus, and of course humanity's propensity for finding new and creative ways to do violence will all drive to make the invention and development of saddles and stirrups not inevitable but certainly possible. Once this happens some thousands of years after domestication, you will have mounted hunter-gatherers hunting rheas, guanacos and wild horses and fighting pastoralists over land wherever horses can be raised. The Andean peoples (as per OTL) will develop counter-cavalry measures that use their terrain against invaders, and without an organized state directing colonization the Andean peoples will mostly resist and win out against mounted flatlander's attempts to invade them.

Greater trade between the southern cone and the Andes makes the spread of agriculture possible but once again not inevitable. Californian Natives who did not practice agriculture, after all, traded with Natives who did but never adapted this way of life. If they had, the transition would likely have resulted in a lot of them starving, with potentially unreliable maize fields edging out land that could have been used for clover and acorn. If agriculture does spread, the most likely way in my opinion is pastoralists becoming part-time farmers to hedge against times of famine. Basically they'd burn some old pasture land, plant potatoes with hoes and scatter quinoa as a cover crop to avoid weeds, and then abandon the pasture land for most of the year to tend to their herds. This practice would spread, and eventually some part-time farmers would become full-time farmers.

Once adopted, the Andean crop package would allow the southern cone's population to grow. Potatoes would provide a lot of calories and most of the nutrients needed for people. Quinoa is a complete protein. Together, these foods would allow for very dense farming populations to survive at relatively high levels of health on an almost completely vegetarian diet-what resources are necessary to sustain animals would go to sustaining animals for labor rather than food. You might see a southern cone analogue to China and Mongolia, with inland nomads and the coastal farmers who outnumber them going through centuries long cycles of peace, trade, fighting, pacification, balkanization, unification and conquest.

 

[Jon the Numbat]

Forgive me if my thoughts appear jumbled or if I asked questions you already answered, your latest post is so informative and I don't want to erase or forget my previous thoughts.

I have thought long and hard about this, believe me. IMO, horse survival in South America is possible (and best of all, technically does not violate having an evolutionary POD-the beasts survive, but haven't radically mutated or anything).

IMO the Andes are not a good place for survival. It is true that horses lived in the Andes in prehistoric times, but looking at the experience of the Spanish conquest and the heavy cavalry they introduced, where horses did well are the mountain valleys and plateaus. These are also the areas where humans will thrive, and will have relatively dense populations that will chew threw horses. The llamas and guanacos, on the other hand, are capable of climbing steep slopes and surviving in xeric shrublands where horses and humans have difficulty thriving. This is how they survived, while horses died IOTL. In counterargument, IIRC horses and North American camels survived longest (as far as we know) in the Colorado plateau. So we might see a surviving herd in the Altiplano.

I'm convinced that the Andes wouldn't be the best place for horses to survive excluding perhaps the Altiplano as you said and for the reasons you mentioned. I was mostly thinking of the creation of a trade network spanning the Pacific coastal lowlands north to south via horses, and another network throughout the Andes via llamas. But having the horse hang on long enough in the region when faced with such pressure would indeed be very difficult. I was wondering if a remnant horse population in the Llanos could reach the Pacific coast? I don't know how difficult it is for horses to cross the forests/swamps that separate the Caribbean and Pacific lowlands. I'd assume it's at least easier than Panama.

Venezuela has some horse-friendly geography in the form of the llanos (where, incidentally, no horse culture ever formed IOTL despite this fact, but that may be for economic reasons rather than environmental). It is possible a herd would survive there. Once surviving, the motive for domestication of horse does present itself-horses would be very large animals, with only tapyrs rivaling them in size. Although a fully-grown horse is dangerous, the amount of meat present on a horse and the ability of humans to bend their social behavior to their advantage* will encourage humans to keep foals taken during hunts alive for a while. They will keep these captive foals alive for a while, killing them when they get too large to manage. However, as the practice spreads more people will keep foals for longer and longer-until the right foals with the right temperament are kept alive long enough to breed, sparking domestication.

That's good to know. I was more or less hoping for a greater interaction between an analogous Muisca/Zenú society and the peoples of the Orinoco valley. With the horse these peoples would be able to sustain more water works as well as a higher populations and would be less vulnerable to shortages of meat. There would also be an opportunity for these cultures to influence the Caribbean region and through there Mesoamerica and Florida.

IMO the best place for horse survival in South America is on the Pampas, temperate and tropical. These rolling grasslands have been good for horses IOTL, and have a lot of space for a herd to dodge human hunters and survive. Once their main predators have been driven extinct by humans, the horse population will grow, presenting opportunities for a domestication event like I described above. Alternatively, horses migrating northward into the drier parts of southern Amazonia (I mean the region between the Guyana and Brazilian shields, not the rainforest) may encounter manioc farmers who will domesticate them in a process similar to that of how the aurochs in the Middle East was domesticated by sedentary grain farmers.

This is pretty much what I was hoping for overall. For the most part I haven't seen much focus on the indigenous societies of eastern South America excepting a thread or two on the Marajoara and "Bronze age New World." I think that a more densely populated and connected South America, with southern Amazonia, the Atlantic, the Pampas and the Brazilian highlands would be interesting to explore.

I know that here in alternatehistory.com we like to think that historic events happen for a reason, but the truth is the POD for horse survival is simple: shit happens. Some animals went extinct, some survived the advent of the Holocene. Whether or not the horse pulled off survival in Asia or the Americas, it was just a roll of the dice. No special religion or culture needed.

I'm in full agreement here. The extinction of alot of fauna, and the horse and llama in North America especially, seems pretty contrived considering where they survived. The way you explained the ecological advantages and constraints was quite insightful.

Thought I'd put a few more thoughts down while I was here.

Regarding OP's questions about what happens with nomads and pack animals, the answer IMO is "both", eventually and assuming horse domestication. Horses could make useful pack animals, and we might see some trade develop between the Andes and the Atlantic side of the southern cone or other far-flung areas. That said, horses aren't very good pack animals pound for pound when compared with llamas, though they are a bit more heat and moisture tolerant. I think we'd see the travois or something similar invented to increase the weight horses can transport. The travois will act as the analogue of the chariot wheel in the Old World, with cut logs and horse bones together creating the definitive proof of horse domestication in the archaeological record where horse corrals and butchery do not fully prove domestication.

IMO the saddle will come later. Riding horses is very dangerous, and the technology to allow people to do this in greater safety and comfort will take some time to develop in South America just as it did in Eurasia. However, the need to scout for water in dry areas, chase after escaped or stolen llamas in Andean valleys and plateaus, and of course humanity's propensity for finding new and creative ways to do violence will all drive to make the invention and development of saddles and stirrups not inevitable but certainly possible. Once this happens some thousands of years after domestication, you will have mounted hunter-gatherers hunting rheas, guanacos and wild horses and fighting pastoralists over land wherever horses can be raised. The Andean peoples (as per OTL) will develop counter-cavalry measures that use their terrain against invaders, and without an organized state directing colonization the Andean peoples will mostly resist and win out against mounted flatlander's attempts to invade them.

Greater trade between the southern cone and the Andes makes the spread of agriculture possible but once again not inevitable. Californian Natives who did not practice agriculture, after all, traded with Natives who did but never adapted this way of life. If they had, the transition would likely have resulted in a lot of them starving, with potentially unreliable maize fields edging out land that could have been used for clover and acorn. If agriculture does spread, the most likely way in my opinion is pastoralists becoming part-time farmers to hedge against times of famine. Basically they'd burn some old pasture land, plant potatoes with hoes and scatter quinoa as a cover crop to avoid weeds, and then abandon the pasture land for most of the year to tend to their herds. This practice would spread, and eventually some part-time farmers would become full-time farmers.

Once adopted, the Andean crop package would allow the southern cone's population to grow. Potatoes would provide a lot of calories and most of the nutrients needed for people. Quinoa is a complete protein. Together, these foods would allow for very dense farming populations to survive at relatively high levels of health on an almost completely vegetarian diet-what resources are necessary to sustain animals would go to sustaining animals for labor rather than food. You might see a southern cone analogue to China and Mongolia, with inland nomads and the coastal farmers who outnumber them going through centuries long cycles of peace, trade, fighting, pacification, balkanization, unification and conquest.

This is essentially what I was looking for and more. Do you think that the societies you describe in the Southern Cone could arise in southern Amazonia, the Cerrado/Caatinga, and the Atlantic forests as well? Also, what technologies do you feel are most likely to reach the Atlantic from the Andes across the Southern cone?

 

[twovultures]

I'm convinced that the Andes wouldn't be the best place for horses to survive excluding perhaps the Altiplano as you said and for the reasons you mentioned. I was mostly thinking of the creation of a trade network spanning the Pacific coastal lowlands north to south via horses, and another network throughout the Andes via llamas.

Pacific coastal lowlands appear pretty horse friendly, at least between the Gulf of Guyaquil and the Atacama. I think such a network would certainly develop.

But having the horse hang on long enough in the region when faced with such pressure would indeed be very difficult. I was wondering if a remnant horse population in the Llanos could reach the Pacific coast? I don't know how difficult it is for horses to cross the forests/swamps that separate the Caribbean and Pacific lowlands. I'd assume it's at least easier than Panama.

If The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, horse trails have been developed in the Darien Gap that are so well made Narcos can send riderless horses with payloads of drugs on their saddles to drop-off points. I'm afraid I can't give you a scientific breakdown of how long it would take horses to spread through those areas, but I think it is possible. My rule of thumb was 1km/year through "horse unfriendly" terrain from point of domestication, 3km/year in horse friendly terrain like the Pampas. This is based on a rough reading of Jared Diamond who is, frankly, highly unreliable. The archaeological record does show a pretty rapid initial spread of the horse from about 2500 BC though, into far flung and environmentally inhospitable areas like Egypt and India.

That's good to know. I was more or less hoping for a greater interaction between an analogous Muisca/Zenú society and the peoples of the Orinoco valley. With the horse these peoples would be able to sustain more water works as well as a higher populations and would be less vulnerable to shortages of meat. There would also be an opportunity for these cultures to influence the Caribbean region and through there Mesoamerica and Florida.

It's true that horses on the Llanos pretty strongly butterfly human settlement in the Caribbean since northeastern South America is where the Taino and Carib appear to be from, though horses are unlikely to affect that migration directly.

This is pretty much what I was hoping for overall. For the most part I haven't seen much focus on the indigenous societies of eastern South America excepting a thread or two on the Marajoara and "Bronze age New World." I think that a more densely populated and connected South America, with southern Amazonia, the Atlantic, the Pampas and the Brazilian highlands would be interesting to explore.

Oh for sure.

This is essentially what I was looking for and more. Do you think that the societies you describe in the Southern Cone could arise in southern Amazonia, the Cerrado/Caatinga, and the Atlantic forests as well? Also, what technologies do you feel are most likely to reach the Atlantic from the Andes across the Southern cone?

Modern day Brazilians do not eat a lot of potatoes despite having a decent opportunity to grow them in some areas like the Atlantic forests. Manioc works fine there, and despite being nutritionally less valuable I don't see much motive to stop using it. Quinoa could become a useful supplementary crop in the Atlantic Forest, though, and allow the development of denser farming settlements there. The Cerrado and southern Amazonia, however, would be a patchwork of semi-nomadic pastoralists, hunter-gatherers and manioc or maize farmers, somewhat like pre-colonial Kenya and Tanzania.

 

[Jon the Numbat]

If The Wall Street Journal is to be believed, horse trails have been developed in the Darien Gap that are so well made Narcos can send riderless horses with payloads of drugs on their saddles to drop-off points. I'm afraid I can't give you a scientific breakdown of how long it would take horses to spread through those areas, but I think it is possible. My rule of thumb was 1km/year through "horse unfriendly" terrain from point of domestication, 3km/year in horse friendly terrain like the Pampas. This is based on a rough reading of Jared Diamond who is, frankly, highly unreliable. The archaeological record does show a pretty rapid initial spread of the horse from about 2500 BC though, into far flung and environmentally inhospitable areas like Egypt and India.

If it's possible then I'm ok with the spread of the horse into Central & Mesoamerica taking quite a while. The knock on effects on the societies over there when the horse arrives would be pretty major of course. I can see Central American cultures greatly influencing Mesoamerica, really shaking up the societies there and Mesoamerican societies doing the same further north eventually.

It's true that horses on the Llanos pretty strongly butterfly human settlement in the Caribbean since northeastern South America is where the Taino and Carib appear to be from, though horses are unlikely to affect that migration directly.

So I'm guessing a migration occurs similarly to OTL but eventually there's more waves due to denser settlement and technological transfer?

Modern day Brazilians do not eat a lot of potatoes despite having a decent opportunity to grow them in some areas like the Atlantic forests. Manioc works fine there, and despite being nutritionally less valuable I don't see much motive to stop using it. Quinoa could become a useful supplementary crop in the Atlantic Forest, though, and allow the development of denser farming settlements there. The Cerrado and southern Amazonia, however, would be a patchwork of semi-nomadic pastoralists, hunter-gatherers and manioc or maize farmers, somewhat like pre-colonial Kenya and Tanzania.

So essentially, the tropical area would resemble the Southern Cone you posited, but less dense and more diffuse? The line between the settled agricultural polities and the pastoralists being much more blurry and mosaic-like. Maybe with the Atlantic farming societies being more vulnerable to population movements from the Cerrado than say the peoples between the Paraná river and coastal Uruguay. There's certainly alot of room for these cultures to influence each other indirectly. I guess the largest settlements within the Atlantic forests at their height would resemble Engaruka.

Curiously, while reading about the geography of Brazil, I learned that the country contains vast reserves of iron ore and is one of the worlds major exporters of the metal. Particularly high reserves can be found in Pará and Minas Gerais. Might it be possible for the denser farming societies to stumble upon iron working, possibly even skipping an exclusive bronze using period similar to West Africa?

 

[twovultures]

Curiously, while reading about the geography of Brazil, I learned that the country contains vast reserves of iron ore and is one of the worlds major exporters of the metal. Particularly high reserves can be found in Pará and Minas Gerais. Might it be possible for the denser farming societies to stumble upon iron working, possibly even skipping an exclusive bronze using period similar to West Africa?

It's not impossible, but IMO it's not likely. Here's why: There doesn't seem to be much other ores usable to non-industrialized people in lowland South America. Believe me, I have scoured the mining reports, and most easily-accessible metals like copper, tin and silver are in the Andes as far as I can tell. Without something like copper to develop a smelting tradition with like the West Africans did IIRC, the lowlanders are not likely to ever develop the technology to smelt iron, or at least realistically wouldn't until well after 1492. A more likely scenario is the rise of a bronze age, with denser populations on the Altiplano developing more advanced copper smelting and develop more versatile bronze tools earlier than they did IOTL.

If, by the way, your motivation is giving Natives a military edge being able to smelt iron isn't really going to help too much with that. They're still not likely to have weapons with as high-quality steel as the Spaniards. Looking at OTL, a successful Native resistance would need a) a light cavalry or infantry capable of hitting and running away from European military camps b) drilling and training to stand against a cavalry charge, using pikes, arrows or atlatl spears to break up the charge or c) a practice of total warfare, where enemies were not just captured and enslaved but killed to the last man.

If the saddle is invented in this scenario, the rise of cavalry does make the above practices significantly more likely to develop.

 

[Jon the Numbat]

It's not impossible, but IMO it's not likely. Here's why: There doesn't seem to be much other ores usable to non-industrialized people in lowland South America. Believe me, I have scoured the mining reports, and most easily-accessible metals like copper, tin and silver are in the Andes as far as I can tell. Without something like copper to develop a smelting tradition with like the West Africans did IIRC, the lowlanders are not likely to ever develop the technology to smelt iron, or at least realistically wouldn't until well after 1492. A more likely scenario is the rise of a bronze age, with denser populations on the Altiplano developing more advanced copper smelting and develop more versatile bronze tools earlier than they did IOTL.

I was expecting the ores to be relatively inaccessible for a non industrial society to use but wasn't sure how to find out by how much. I'm grateful for the thought you put into finding out.

If, by the way, your motivation is giving Natives a military edge being able to smelt iron isn't really going to help too much with that.

Fully agree here. Any technological disparity wasn't particularly important IMO and organized enough resistance and a favorable political situation is probably enough to thwart any would be expedition. Any tools and techniques could be picked up and copied later if these societies are able to take advantage of the breathing room they have.

I will admit I'm more interested in the possible dynamic between the regions/communities of Lowland South America if they were relatively larger and had a greater opportunity to interact, not so much rushing them to have steel or so by 1492.

However they develop, it does not have to be linear nor rapid. I'm mostly trying to visualize the directions they would take and how they utilize what they have with any OTL contact suspended indefinitely. The technological tree of these societies is not likely to have an exact analog to OTL.

They're still not likely to have weapons with as high-quality steel as the Spaniards. Looking at OTL, a successful Native resistance would need a) a light cavalry or infantry capable of hitting and running away from European military camps b) drilling and training to stand against a cavalry charge, using pikes, arrows or atlatl spears to break up the charge or c) a practice of total warfare, where enemies were not just captured and enslaved but killed to the last man.

If the saddle is invented in this scenario, the rise of cavalry does make the above practices significantly more likely to develop.

If cavalry becomes widespread I can see the interior being unexplored by any would be Europeans for quite a while and any direct control further away still. With native cavalry/anticavalry measures in the interior, and densely settled populations/polities along the coast, I feel as though successful resistance by at least one polity or people to any European conquest is entirely possible. Granted, introduced diseases would leave the population much lower than in pre contact days and the political situation would be quite unstable and exploitable. The continent would be a very tough nut to crack either way and even areas conquered could have long lasting rebellions that may prove successful.

As an aside, do you feel that the Amazon rainforest societies would be relatively unaffected? The increased trade could spare a Marajoara analog and the other causeway building cultures but I'm not sure.

 

[twovultures]

As an aside, do you feel that the Amazon rainforest societies would be relatively unaffected? The increased trade could spare a Marajoara analog and the other causeway building cultures but I'm not sure.

Higher populations and more centralized societies outside of the Amazon could very well trigger the earlier development of centralized Amazonian societies, and greater resistance to European colonialism in South America could allow these dense, centralized societies to survive longer than they did IOTL. And trading for horse manure with dryland pastoralists could certainly make Terra Preta agriculture little more efficient to set up.

On the other hand, maybe dense, centralized societies outside of the rainforest will see rainforest peoples as targets for conquest and enslavement just as the European colonizers did, strangling the ATL analogue of the centralized Amazonian societies in the crib.

 

[Johnrankins]

Evolutionary TL's belong in ASB.

 

[Jon the Numbat]

Higher populations and more centralized societies outside of the Amazon could very well trigger the earlier development of centralized Amazonian societies, and greater resistance to European colonialism in South America could allow these dense, centralized societies to survive longer than they did IOTL. And trading for horse manure with dryland pastoralists could certainly make Terra Preta agriculture little more efficient to set up.

On the other hand, maybe dense, centralized societies outside of the rainforest will see rainforest peoples as targets for conquest and enslavement just as the European colonizers did, strangling the ATL analogue of the centralized Amazonian societies in the crib.

Probably a mix of both then, with the societies along the Amazon fringe pretty much having a cyclical pattern of successful resistance and incorporation/vassalage. They could also make it their goal to control the trade traveling outside the Amazon.

The Amazon river proper is likely least affected by potential slavers/conquerors and the centralization of the polities there would be much more drawn out but relatively complete and continuous. Peoples fleeing capture and river traders could share what they know about the societies beyond the forest. The societies along the tributary rivers may seek protection and allies in the main river, or use their experience fighting against the drylanders to assert hegemony downstream. I imagine the trade in tropical goods to the temperate part of the Southern Cone would be pretty lucrative.

 

[Mario]

The main problem I see here is how horses would reach South America from North America without changing in the process.

North American horses were animals adapted to the grand prairies and open grasslands. They were not woodland animals, so they would never venture south of Central Mexico. It can't be compared to South American camelids, because they evolved from minor camelid forms that roamed the forests (North American camels were a different branch that vanished as well as horses) but once they reached South America, they adapted to the new habitat and changed again. And the same goes for other South American ungulates. Only the mammals which could adapt to different habitats including jungle can spread through both Americas, but not those not adapted to woodland. That's why South American camels did not recolonize North America, for example.

I mean that it is posible that an equid would reach South America, but would be a different species that would later evolve in a different form. It could resemble back to a horse in some way, but it would never be a true horse.

 

[Prism]

Horses could well survive in the pampas and Patagonia. Indeed the Mapuche rapidly adapted to the use of horses and developed a horse culture. So if the horse does survive in South America. The people of Patagonia and the pampas will learn to use them. They will probably develop a nomadic equestrian society that would harass the Andean civilizations perhaps akin to banditry or maybe even the steppe tribes of Central Asia. It'll lead to greater mobility and increased population. Of course, it'll spread to North America and maybe we'll see the Plains culture develop early. It'll also help in domesticating animals and herding them, so we may actually see domesticated peccaries and others this time around. Also, there are some Central Asian steppe tribes that use falconry with horse riding so maybe they'll learn that as well. Which will help with hunting.

 

[wtw]

Understand the horse can be used for milk, meat, hide, as well as transportation. The thing is you are assuming the peoples of the Pampas do not treat them like zebras. The fact that an animal exists and is domesticated else where does not necessarily mean that they will be domesticated. People have farmed bison in the US and reindeer in Europe, but they have not succeeded with caribou in North America and wisent in Europe. The aurochs did not go extinct because people tamed them all. The przewalski horse has never been tamed there is no reason why hunter-gatherers with no real means of capturing these animals.

Also there would be competition from the native predators there, not just pumas and jaguars, with what you are suggesting other predators might survive. The horse is a large animal that is a lot of meat for a predatory animal that can catch it.

 

[Escape Zeppelin]

The thing is you are assuming the peoples of the Pampas do not treat them like zebras. The fact that an animal exists and is domesticated else where does not necessarily mean that they will be domesticated.

That's a false equivalence, the horse and zebra are very different animals. There have been many attempts to domesticate the zebra and all have failed because of the zebra's natural temperament, not because of any lack of interest in domesticating them. Also taming and domesticating are different things. An individual zebra can be tamed and rode but it is not a domesticated animal. Same with bison which can even be farmed but are still wild animals, not domesticated ones.

The Americas have a long tradition of domesticated animals and I see no reason to think they'd ignore an animal like the horse.

 

[wtw]

That's a false equivalence, the horse and zebra are very different animals. There have been many attempts to domesticate the zebra and all have failed because of the zebra's natural temperament, not because of any lack of interest in domesticating them. Also taming and domesticating are different things. An individual zebra can be tamed and rode but it is not a domesticated animal. Same with bison which can even be farmed but are still wild animals, not domesticated ones.

The Americas have a long tradition of domesticated animals and I see no reason to think they'd ignore an animal like the horse.

You maybe right on that, but I have my doubts that they could catch the animal with out killing them. I think they maybe come the bison of the pampas. I am not saying that they would be ignored, I think they would be deemed vital to their survival like the bison was in the Americas. I think that needs to be considered in your op.