The most advanced the Americas could have been?

Deleted member 67076

Technology could be much more advanced for the Natives if there was more contact between them. There wasn't much trade between the Andean Civilizations and the Mesoamericans for instance. Trade brings ideas, technology and animals with it.

A good POD I think would be to have something like the Pre-Classical Maya adopt sailing technology similar to that of Ancient Greece or Phoenicia and conduct diplomacy and trade with everyone in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and Andes.
 
Haida, Salish, and other northwest people had a long tradition of coastal sailing. Maybe they try going even further south. IOTL the Haida would regularly raid what's now called the Olympic Peninsula from their islands, which is about 800-1000km (and the Haida have been living on their islands for something like 17,000 years).

Maybe something convinces them to go even further south, they start raiding/trading with people in California and then mesoamerica. Have the Aztec emperor hire some of their warriors as a new world Varangian guard.

Edit: Also Haida vs. Polynesians would be a sweet ATL naval conflict.
 

Dirk

Banned
The Amerindians having large domesticated animals of a large variety will serve twofold by increasing the variety and virility of diseases, as well as by enabling urbanization, which increases disease spread and decreases resistance to disease, thus adapting them over thousands of years.

A good POD I think would be to have something like the Pre-Classical Maya adopt sailing technology similar to that of Ancient Greece or Phoenicia and conduct diplomacy and trade with everyone in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean, and Andes.

But there's no reason for them to. The Greeks became seafarers because most of their cities were on the coast and fishing was their livelihood in the early days. Trade over the sea and around all those inconvenient mountains and peninsulas was so much easier. The Phoenicians connected the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, thus filling a vital gap in ancient trade.

So first a POD of why they even choose to look at the sea is needed.
 
The ancient Andean civilization rose around the same time as the Mesopotamian ones. Their way of life was also coastal and centered around fishing. Arguably it makes more sense to become a more seafaring civilization than expand into the Andeas mountains. Building a mountain based empire with thousands of miles of roads cut into some of the worse terrain on Earth seems less obvious than just trading up and down the Pacific coast with a better nautical package.
 
Horses surviving in America would have been a great boon. Not only do they provide an awesome beast of burden and means of transport, having domestic horses provides a vector for disease mutations. Its possible that Equine flu could mutate to affect humans (it has recently been identified in dogs) especially if horse meat is eaten as part of the normal diet. That provides the immunity to combat the new disease introduced from the Old World.

So yes a combination of beast of burden, better transport - which would include coastal sailing and increase immunity would all contribute to more developed Americas
 
Not only do they provide an awesome beast of burden and means of transport, having domestic horses provides a vector for disease mutations. Its possible that Equine flu could mutate to affect humans (it has recently been identified in dogs) especially if horse meat is eaten as part of the normal diet. That provides the immunity to combat the new disease introduced from the Old World.

I don't think immunity works like that. Having immunity to one disease does nothing to increase immunity to unrelated diseases. A horse-based disease might cause pre-Columbian population to fall ill from that disease, but they would still be just as vulnerable to Old World diseases.
 

Deleted member 67076

But there's no reason for them to. The Greeks became seafarers because most of their cities were on the coast and fishing was their livelihood in the early days. Trade over the sea and around all those inconvenient mountains and peninsulas was so much easier. The Phoenicians connected the Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, thus filling a vital gap in ancient trade.

So first a POD of why they even choose to look at the sea is needed.
Earlier collapse might push them out to the coast.
 
I don't think immunity works like that. Having immunity to one disease does nothing to increase immunity to unrelated diseases. A horse-based disease might cause pre-Columbian population to fall ill from that disease, but they would still be just as vulnerable to Old World diseases.

not directly, but thats why I picked on Equine Influenza.

there is reasonable evidence showing that Humans picked up Influenza from either domesticated Cattle or Pigs. This zoonotic viruses mutated and crossed species to humans. If New world humans picked up an Equine influenza virus it might not be exact but it would provide enough immunity to allow quicker adaption to Old world viruses. It would still kill lots of people but may be not to the OTL extent that entire populations were lost.
 
The idea that you could have coastal sailing craft of the basic form used by early Mediterranean civilizations going up and down the Pacific coast won't work.

1. Prevailing wind/currents: Going from north to south is possible, but going south to north would be very difficult. You have current and wind against you. If you can't sail close to the wind, you'll be headed out far to sea before tacking back in. Long journeys were difficult for ancient craft.
2. Coastal refuges: There are few from Oregon down to Baja. They exist, but often have treacherous entrances due to common weather conditions over their entrance bars (and they weren't dredged back then...)
3. Weather: It often blows very strongly, creating huge seas. Combined with limited anchorages, this could be a real problem. In the Med, you generally have lots of options to find refuge if the weather turns poorly.

Yes, the Pacific is also perfectly calm for days. I've motored from Oregon to Seattle for two days on mirror smooth water. But, that's not the prevailing conditions - and they didn't have motors...
 
Actually, I think Diamond was pretty much right. The fact that Eurasia stretches east west in a zone of broadly similar climates fostered development and contact among multiple early civilizations that were not widely separated by less hospitable barriers. This allowed the much more effective cross fertilization of ideas and faster development of secondary centers of civilization...

The bold is the right part. Essentially, the "Old World" wins the advancement game because the Tyranny of Numbers. The more people that can think crap up over a long time, the more advance they become.

This I think is the sole and only determiner of Old World advancement ahead of the New World. Jared Diamond argues that it was germs and geography. This is nonsense. Even the worst plague in history by the most liberal standards killed 1/3rd of the world. That's the black death. The Native Americans were not hit worse than that in all liklihood. They still outnumbered the Spanish a million to one. They could have drowned the invades with their dead bodies if it was that simple.

As for geography, the continental US, Latin America, and parts of South America have the best growing conditions on Earth. Even without wheat, corn and potatoes are to this day competitors with wheat and rice as global staples. They are every bit just as good. Geography did not offer any major disadvantages to the Old World. Perhaps one can argue that if backward and dangerous tribes controlled present day Panama, it would stifle trade (unlike in the Old World) where there are many paths all around.

The differences in climate asserted by Diamond are way overstated. Alabama and Florida are not much different that Costa Rica or Belize. Men, with the will, can transverse the differences and burn down the trees for agriculture if they so decided to.

The guns and steel part was right. It gives the Old World superiority to exert themselves.

But, how did the Old World get this advantage? Simply, they had more people screwing around coming up with stuff longer. If a super plague killed 99% of the Old World in the year 5,000 BC, all of the sudden we would likely have the New World discovering and occupying the Old World a couple hundred years from now. They already started devising written languages and some good canoes. It was a matter of time.
 
I was playing around for a while with the idea of creating a super advanced new world. Here are some ideas I came across and archived:

1. Earlier Steenblik Coils

“A steenblik coil is a spiral mirror that can focus the sun. A good mirror like gold (gold foil is cheap for optics because it can be beaten to a micron thick between calfskin and it reflects very, very, well) would heat an area a few feet across to the melting point of glass or metal very quickly for six to ten hours every day …...” wkwillis
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=24090

"The earliest stone mirrors in Mesoamerica pre-date the rise of the Olmec civilization, with examples being dated as far back as the middle of the 2nd millennium BC. From early in Mesoamerica's history, the use of iron ore mirrors was associated with a hereditary elite class. At Paso de la Amada, a Mokaya site in the Soconusco region of southern Chiapas, iron ore mirrors were excavated that have been dated to between 1400 and 1100 BC ........"

2. THE FIRE PISTON: ANCIENT FIRE MAKING MACHINE

How does it work?
Air gets very hot when it is compressed under high pressure. A classic example would be the heat that is created when one uses a bicycle pump. But when the air is compressed in a firepiston it is done so quickly and efficiently that it can reach a temperature in excess of 800 degrees Fahrenheit. This is hot enough to ignite the tinder that is placed in the end of the piston which has been hollowed out to accept it.

Ancient examples of the tube itself are of hardwood, bamboo, or even horn. It is closed on one end, very smooth inside and accurately bored. Equal care is taken in the creation of the associated piston. A "gasket" of wound thread, fiber, or sometimes leather insures a proper seal for successfully creating the compression. This gasket is "greased" to help with the seal and to allow free travel of the piston. Those pacific natives I told you about earlier believed that the firepiston wouldn't work unless it was greased with dog fat. The natives of the Philippines say to use the grease of a wild pig from the jungle. But if you don't have time for a wild pig hunt, or the money to lipo-suction Fido , shortening has been shown to work. You might also want to try a combination of bacon fat mixed with a little candle wax, which is what outdoorsman John Rowlands used on his firepiston.
An article by Richard Jamison in a 1994 issue of Woodsmoke contains a nice description of how to operate a firepiston:

"...the cylinder is held firmly in the fist of the left hand: a small piece of tinder...is placed in a cavity on the point of the piston, which is just entered into the mouth of the bore; with a sudden stroke of the right hand the piston is forced up the bore, from which it rebounds slightly back with the elasticity of the compressed air, and on being plucked out, which it must be instantly, the tinder is found to be lighted."

As you can probably see, this ancient firemaking machine is utilizing the Diesel principle.

History

By 1865 European explorers had reached the jungles of Indonesia where they found firepiston use well established and widespread. Areas of distribution included Burma, the Malay Peninsula, French Indo-China and Borneo. From some of these areas it made its way to the East Island Archipelagos and the Philippines.
One thing I'd often pondered was the discovery by essentially stone-age people of a technology with such meticulous conditions for successful operation. I finally decided that it could have been an accidental discovery somehow connected to blow gun manufacture. The Woodsmoke article came to the same conclusion adding that perhaps during the process of boring or gauging them, there may have been compression of air that ignited material in the bore or perhaps on the rod. Reference was also made to the fact that oriental blow guns often occur in the same areas where the firepiston is found.
In addition, speculation was made that perhaps when making blow guns of bamboo they would use a rod to pop out the nodes between the sections and that the discovery was accidentally made during this operation. In any event, the discovery was made. The distribution of firepistons was so widespread by the time of those first European explorers that it indicates knowledge of the necessary technology for ages. It continues to be used in some are.

The full article by W.R. Knapp can be found here:
http://www.onagocag.com/piston.html

Fairly plausible that the American natives invent something similar.

3. Cultivation of Stevia Plant

A less labor intensive, more robust and healthy way to get sugar (Until the Europeans arrive and even then it has the all these advantages mentioned.) The only thing comparable sweetener South America had is honey as far as I am aware of. Stevia is easier to produce and also much sweeter than honey thou.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stevia

4. Gun Powder
Already explored in this timeline:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=11479

5. How to Downsize a Transport Network: The Chinese Wheelbarrow

“For being such a seemingly ordinary vehicle, the wheelbarrow has a surprisingly exciting history. This is especially true in the East, where it became a universal means of transportation for both passengers and goods, even over long distances.
The Chinese wheelbarrow - which was driven by human labour, beasts of burden and wind power - was of a different design than its European counterpart. By placing a large wheel in the middle of the vehicle instead of a smaller wheel in front, one could easily carry three to six times as much weight than if using a European wheelbarrow.
The one-wheeled vehicle appeared around the time the extensive Ancient Chinese road infrastructure began to disintegrate. Instead of holding on to carts, wagons and wide paved roads, the Chinese turned their focus to a much more easily maintainable network of narrow paths designed for wheelbarrows. The Europeans, faced with similar problems at the time, did not adapt and subsequently lost the option of smooth land transportation for almost one thousand years."
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html
Very Inca friendly.

Sorry for the jumbled post, but those are just some notes I copied together for my own reference. :)
 

Dirk

Banned
5. How to Downsize a Transport Network: The Chinese Wheelbarrow

“For being such a seemingly ordinary vehicle, the wheelbarrow has a surprisingly exciting history. This is especially true in the East, where it became a universal means of transportation for both passengers and goods, even over long distances.
The Chinese wheelbarrow - which was driven by human labour, beasts of burden and wind power - was of a different design than its European counterpart. By placing a large wheel in the middle of the vehicle instead of a smaller wheel in front, one could easily carry three to six times as much weight than if using a European wheelbarrow.
The one-wheeled vehicle appeared around the time the extensive Ancient Chinese road infrastructure began to disintegrate. Instead of holding on to carts, wagons and wide paved roads, the Chinese turned their focus to a much more easily maintainable network of narrow paths designed for wheelbarrows. The Europeans, faced with similar problems at the time, did not adapt and subsequently lost the option of smooth land transportation for almost one thousand years."
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/12/the-chinese-wheelbarrow.html
Very Inca friendly.

Wow, that's very interesting! I didn't know about this Chinese variation of the wheelbarrow, and it is indeed ideal for the narrow mountain paths of the Andes. Are the wheels wider so that balance is easier?
 
Wow, that's very interesting! I didn't know about this Chinese variation of the wheelbarrow, and it is indeed ideal for the narrow mountain paths of the Andes. Are the wheels wider so that balance is easier?

It's secret it's just a large diameter wheel located at the center of gravity, there's also a kickstand to keep it up when the man needs a break. I brought this up before, that the Chinese wheelbarrow would be ideal for the Americas, not just the Incas as it allows one man to do the job of a mule.

The firepiston is fasinating, but I can't see it being a game changer. There are some native tribes in Argentina that didn't have fire who would benefit of course.
 
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