The Mississippi Mountains

Sounds a bit ASB-ish, I know, but there is a fault line in Missouri, so: WI a mountain range had been created on the Western side of the Mississippi, an Eastern Rockies, as it were, stretching perhaps from Arkansas to Minnesota? How would it help/hinder Western expansion, would there be "Western hillbillies," what would its effect be on the climate of the Plains states, etc?
 
Well, it depends on how tall the mountains are. If they are tall enough, no people. You just butterflied away humanity, and probably most life as we know it. Why, even just the fact they exist probably means things elsewhere are different.
 
Well, it depends on how tall the mountains are. If they are tall enough, no people. You just butterflied away humanity, and probably most life as we know it. Why, even just the fact they exist probably means things elsewhere are different.

???

Humanity was born South of the Sahara desert. How would a mountain range appearing right behind the Appalachian Mountains change Subsaharan Africa's weather patterns?
 
Well, these mountains would change wind patterns nearby, which change wind and water patterns elsewhere. Also, if the tectonics of North America are changed, odds are it would cause changes in tectonics elsewhere. Thus, these mountains could butterfly away humanity.
 
Well, these mountains would change wind patterns nearby, which change wind and water patterns elsewhere. Also, if the tectonics of North America are changed, odds are it would cause changes in tectonics elsewhere. Thus, these mountains could butterfly away humanity.

That's a long chain of ifs, but despite my skepticism you have a point. The PoD to get another mountain range would have to be millions, if not tens of millions of years ago. Global weather patterns are poorly understood and I can appreciate some kind of change could result.

The OP infers what I call 'Replay Bias' in that he assumes that the world will not be changed until human populations appear in North America, roughly 20,000 BC, so I would infer that he doesn't intend to butterfly the emergence of humanity. But the variations in play here--possibly changing the whole evolutionary offering of North America right from the start--mean that questions of what creatures survive and which ones don't become an issue. Does this make the Mississippi River Valley a mythical place where Sabertooth Tigers survive to the present day, or is this a stimulus for another edible grain or some kind of workhorse animal to emerge in North America?

While I think Humanity WILL appear, a different North American biosphere is going to throw a giant monkey wrench in this situation by the point of human habitation of this region, roughly 20,000 years before the OP's questions bear fruit.

Depending on things play, this could be a massive stimulus for the natives to build a Rio Grande River Civilization that rivals Europe; who knows?
 
But also, Asia was connected to North America for a long while, so animals and plants that are changed by the mountains would move to Asia, so much of the worlds plants and animals will turn out different.
 
In my opinion a Point of Divergence can be any changed detail or phenomenon, it doesn't have to be a date in history. So let's assume history had strong (but not perfect) narrative inertia and think of what the effect the presence of these mountains might have, rather than dicker over prehistoric butterflies.

For one thing, in the lower portion you'd have the Mississipian mountains on one side of the river and the Ozarks on the other, wouldn't you? That would form a notable region in itself and would likely change the character of human settlement in that area.
 
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