The Native American's Farm

What would the Americas be like if they had domesticated more animals
(like domesticating horses and possibly a few medium sized animals in the background before their extinction)?
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Wait, whats the POD here? Is it a few centuries pre-Columbian or outright stone age?

Early formative/Late Archaic depending on who you ask - so about 10-12 thousand years ago before the american horse went extinct and when the first agricultural sites show up.
 
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We still don't know for sure what killed off so many species, so the POD will need to take that into account.

Wait, whats the POD here? Is it a few centuries pre-Columbian or outright stone age?

Aren't uncontacted Amazonian tribes still technically in the stone age?
 
Something I haven't seen before: have Homo Erectus (i.e. Turtledove's Sims) colonize America, only to be replaced by "our" Native Americans much later. That might give some American megafauna enough time to evolve the "avoid humans" trait, before having to deal with much more competent hunters. (The biggest question I had with A Different Flesh was why some Homo Sapiens hadn't moved in from Asia and taken over.)

OK, I admit one if not two points that verge on ASB.:eek::D
 
One thing about the Younger Dryas sediments. They are littered with impact diamonds. There is speculation that a body may of impacted on North America circa 11000 BCE. The impact may of actually of been on the ice sheet itself there by leaving no crater behind. Although there are reports of an impact structure on the bottom of Lake Ontario
 
What would the Americas be like if they had domesticated more animals
(like domesticating horses and possibly a few medium sized animals in the background before their extinction)?

As has been said it has been done before. It is worth noting that Llamas/Alpacas where semi-domesticated although not in the sense you mean (not used as draft animals). There is also some theory to suggest that North and South America where Terraformed in such a way as to encourage the nomadic hunter-gatherer lifestyle of the plains as well as in other parts such as the Upper amazon basin and the Malpas (sp?) of Central America. The point is that the native americans found a way to get along with out widespread domestication. They did have concepts of landownership and other concepts that suggest a high degree of sophistication (at least by western standards). Although I am extending outside of the OP what exactly are we trying to accomplish? If it is some sort of disease immunity that is almost impossible without long term AND consistent trade contact between America and Eurasia. If we want a society that is as sophisticated then I would argue the natives did achieve that sophistication or possibly surpass their Western European conquerors.
 
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