What happened to the Mayans?

Oh, and minor correction for Snotter's Dad; The Southern Lowland cities were the ones that fell in the Collapse. The Highlands are even further south, and they were around until conquered by the Spanish. Well, most of them, not sure what happened to Kaminaljuyu. ;)

Sorry, magnetic interference with my compass and all that...:eek:
 
I think the Vikings did...They just didn't do much with it.

Someone mentioned planks and sails. If the Chinese, or a sophisticated Asian civilization (India?, Khmer?, One of the Indonesian maritime empires?) had landed in Central America they would have brought new woodworking skills and a knowledge of sailing. If it was the Chinese, it would have been the most sophisticated knowledge of naval architecture and sailing skills in the world at the time (pre-Columbus).

Assuming that those skills pass to the Mayans, the Caribbean would have been a very different sea when Christopher arrived. Imagine a major Mayan polity on Cuba (only 130 or so miles from Tulum).

There is the potential impact of contact with the Mississippi cultures and what would happen in Mexico?

For the Mayan to get the Lions share of the benefit however, they would need to be the primary and a very early contact I think, and, assuming a Pacific crossing, that means a Central American landing. The most likely accepted route for Asian contact is via the Pacific North West and that would mean the Asians would have to travel the entire coast of North America to potentially reach the Maya. That would also place the Mexican civilizations, whichever were in ascendancy at the time, in a position to capitalize on the new technologies.

Another route is possibly across the South Pacific riding the Humboldt Current up the South American Coast. That would place the Peruvian coastal civilizations (not necessarily the Inca, perhaps Chimor, the Moche, Warii or others) in the most advantageous position to make the most of new technologies.

My current time-line make use of the third and, I think, least likely route, via the Equatorial Counter Current. That would bring Asian seafarers into the vicinity of Panama and place them in a good position to interact with the Maya. In order for that to succeed though, the current would need to be enhanced by the effects of El Nino.

In any event, contact with Asia anywhere south of the US and north of Central Chile a century or two prior to the arrival of Columbus, would have resulted in a very different world I think.
 
Anymore suggestions, what if the Chinese or the Vikings had discovered America?

Poul Anderson has an amusing short story in which the Huns discover America (and are of course too weak to conquer it). It's told from the perspective of a slider from a TL in which the Hellenistic world snowballed into a universal human culture. The slider says that while it's horrifying at first to see a syncretic Hun-Native culture with thousands of warring clan-states, at least it beats that TL with Los Angeles.
 
Ah, that's why I never heard of it, and because of the fact that one isn't going to search for 'Huns colonize America', because such a thing isn't likely to exist. Thanks!

EDIT: Your link is faulty though, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eutopia_(novella) is the true one. You missed the last ).

EDIT: Well, we have the same link, and upon clicking on my link, I also go to the wrong page. Strange...
 
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