For those of you who are not aware the Solutrean Hypothesis is an increasingly discredited human migration model that states Mesolithic Europeans from modern day France were able to hug the Glacial coast across the north Atlantic and populate the Northeast North American continent some 5-6,000 year prior to the arrival of Ancient Native Americans.
With recent DNA studies it has become increasingly clear that the Solutrean Hypothesis is just that. This alternate history timeline however will take a look at how North American history may had been different had European Cavemen settled North America from the East.
There are some misnomers when it comes to how we think of the Solutreans. Racists on the internet tend to depict their hypothetical North American cousins as blonde haired, blue eyed Celts being mercilessly slaughtered by Indian Savages in the stone age. However, we know that the Solutrean Culture was ancestral to Western Hunter Gatherers. Yes, Western Hunter Gatherers were overwhelmingly blue eyed but they were dark skinned people.
Fantasy
Reality
The point of divergence in this scenario is about 20,000 BCE. These North American Solutreans (NAS) would live similar hunter gatherer lives to their European cousins for about 6,000 years with the Laurentide Ice Sheet to the North, the Gulf of Mexico to the South and the Great Plains to the West forming natural barriers. However, around 16,000 BCE a first wave of Ancient Native Americans (ANA) took a coastal route south along the west coast of the Americas populating South and Central America as well as the California Coast.
This first wave would not have had contact with the NAS population yet. The first time that would occur would be 2,000 years later with a second was of ANA taking an overland route south down through the great plains. Some of these 2nd wave ANA would mix with our NAS population before continuing south, forming what I'm calling Laurentide Hunter Gatherers (LHG).
One of the reasons geneticists believed there was potential validity to the Solutrean Hypothesis was a slight genetic affinity between Native Americans and Europeans of today. Now we know this is due to a ghost population known as Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) this population developed in Northwest Russia, some went west mixing with Early European Farmers (EEF) to form modern European populations & some went east mixing with Ancient East Asians forming what became Native Americans.
As stated above Europeans are a mix of 3 ancestral populations: Western Hunter Gatherers, Ancient North Eurasians and Early European Farmers. However, our Laurentide Hunter Gatherers would be the result of Western Hunter Gatherers, Ancient North Eurasians and Ancient East Asians mixing. This LHG population would continue an isolated hunter gatherer lifestyle for about 7,000 years with the domestication of the Caribou being the first major development in LHG history. In our own timeline the Reindeer was domesticated several times from Scandinavia all the way through Siberia. It's actually an anomaly that the American Caribou was not domesticated. Call it space bats or magic but for some reason our LHG were able to domesticate the Caribou around 7,000 BCE (basically because I want these people to be the North American equivalent to Sami/Finns 😝).
Another unintended consequence of the domestication of the Caribou would be a selection pressure for lactose tolerance. These LHG would eventually try to get all the protein they could out of the Caribou & that includes their milk. I subscribe to the theory that the genes for Blonde hair are to some degree tied up with those for lactose tolerance. They are both neotenous traits meaning they are common in juveniles but often fade with maturity. We also know from our own history that Blonde hair originated from Ancient North Eurasians which is one of the 3 legs that make up our LHGs. So we could possible start to see small rates of Blonde hair developing within our LHG population. Sexual selection pressures could have the rate of Blondism up to roughly 25% by the historical period.
The next game changing event in North American history would be farming techniques originating from Mesoamerica reaching the Great Lakes region around 3,000 BCE. One effect of an agricultural revolution in North America would be new selective pressures for lighter skin among the population. True UV radiation plays an important role in selective pressures in skin pigmentation but diet is also a large factor. Farming relative to Hunting is actually a poor substitute for getting many crucial nutrients & vitamins particularly Vitamin D. This is why today's Inuit who maintained a hunter gatherer culture until the recent past are darker skinned than Europeans despite inhabiting a far higher latitude.
a Sami couple - an idea of how LHGs might look
Also around this period we would see a 3rd wave of Native Americans from Siberia who would continue settling the Arctic coast of North America & become known as the Inuit just as in our timeline. During this migration we could also see Central American Native Americans gradually migrate northeast along the Gulf of Mexico coast all the way to Florida. Our LHG population would only inhabit the Eastern Woodland area of North America with Inuit populations to their north and Native American populations to their south.
Now we find ourselves on the doorstep of historical period, the first Europeans to make contact with our LHGs would be the Vikings around 1,000 CE. Much like Columbus mistaking Native Americans as Indians perhaps the Norse would mistake the LHG tribe of Newfoundland as Lapps (today's Sami). The LHG would most likely speak a Native American derived language rooting back to the initial mixing between ANA & NAS. This Asiatic sounding tongue to the Norse could have easily been mistaken for the language of the Laplanders.
True there would have been stark cultural differences between these LHGs and the Norse but perhaps the Norse finding a lactose tolerant more phenotypically similar population in North America would make assimilation both ways more feasible. A Vinland colony might have survived in this timeline for a few hundred years in Newfoundland introducing animal husbandry and metal working gradually throughout the eastern woodlands.
I suspect all of this would have been for not however once the English and French arrive like in our own timeline. The English & French would most likely not have respected the sovereignty of these people and instead have seen "Sami pagans" in need of religious conversion. I think it's time to assign these LHGs an arbitrary collective exonym bestowed upon them by Europeans.. um... lets go with Mah'kani. In our own timeline there was deep prejudice amongst the English settlers against miscegenation with Native Americans. Perhaps a perception of relative sameness would be extended to the Mah'kani that was not to otl's Native Americans.
There would still most likely be a geopolitical struggle between the UK and France for North America just as in our timeline and like our timeline I believe the British would have won. However given the presence of the Mah'kani and their easier assimilation into the British colonies resulting in the earlier settlement of the Ohio country I don't believe the American revolution would have occurred. In this timeline the Great lakes region remains part of the British Empire earning its independence much later similar to Canada.
The Russians would settle Alaska just as in our own timeline however in this timeline there not being a United States to balance British influence would have no third party to sell it to in the 19th century. Alaska remaining part of Russia may become interesting especially if something like the Soviet Union immerges in this timeline. Let me know how you think world history would play out into the modern era?
With recent DNA studies it has become increasingly clear that the Solutrean Hypothesis is just that. This alternate history timeline however will take a look at how North American history may had been different had European Cavemen settled North America from the East.
There are some misnomers when it comes to how we think of the Solutreans. Racists on the internet tend to depict their hypothetical North American cousins as blonde haired, blue eyed Celts being mercilessly slaughtered by Indian Savages in the stone age. However, we know that the Solutrean Culture was ancestral to Western Hunter Gatherers. Yes, Western Hunter Gatherers were overwhelmingly blue eyed but they were dark skinned people.
Fantasy
Reality
The point of divergence in this scenario is about 20,000 BCE. These North American Solutreans (NAS) would live similar hunter gatherer lives to their European cousins for about 6,000 years with the Laurentide Ice Sheet to the North, the Gulf of Mexico to the South and the Great Plains to the West forming natural barriers. However, around 16,000 BCE a first wave of Ancient Native Americans (ANA) took a coastal route south along the west coast of the Americas populating South and Central America as well as the California Coast.
This first wave would not have had contact with the NAS population yet. The first time that would occur would be 2,000 years later with a second was of ANA taking an overland route south down through the great plains. Some of these 2nd wave ANA would mix with our NAS population before continuing south, forming what I'm calling Laurentide Hunter Gatherers (LHG).
One of the reasons geneticists believed there was potential validity to the Solutrean Hypothesis was a slight genetic affinity between Native Americans and Europeans of today. Now we know this is due to a ghost population known as Ancient North Eurasians (ANE) this population developed in Northwest Russia, some went west mixing with Early European Farmers (EEF) to form modern European populations & some went east mixing with Ancient East Asians forming what became Native Americans.
As stated above Europeans are a mix of 3 ancestral populations: Western Hunter Gatherers, Ancient North Eurasians and Early European Farmers. However, our Laurentide Hunter Gatherers would be the result of Western Hunter Gatherers, Ancient North Eurasians and Ancient East Asians mixing. This LHG population would continue an isolated hunter gatherer lifestyle for about 7,000 years with the domestication of the Caribou being the first major development in LHG history. In our own timeline the Reindeer was domesticated several times from Scandinavia all the way through Siberia. It's actually an anomaly that the American Caribou was not domesticated. Call it space bats or magic but for some reason our LHG were able to domesticate the Caribou around 7,000 BCE (basically because I want these people to be the North American equivalent to Sami/Finns 😝).
Another unintended consequence of the domestication of the Caribou would be a selection pressure for lactose tolerance. These LHG would eventually try to get all the protein they could out of the Caribou & that includes their milk. I subscribe to the theory that the genes for Blonde hair are to some degree tied up with those for lactose tolerance. They are both neotenous traits meaning they are common in juveniles but often fade with maturity. We also know from our own history that Blonde hair originated from Ancient North Eurasians which is one of the 3 legs that make up our LHGs. So we could possible start to see small rates of Blonde hair developing within our LHG population. Sexual selection pressures could have the rate of Blondism up to roughly 25% by the historical period.
The next game changing event in North American history would be farming techniques originating from Mesoamerica reaching the Great Lakes region around 3,000 BCE. One effect of an agricultural revolution in North America would be new selective pressures for lighter skin among the population. True UV radiation plays an important role in selective pressures in skin pigmentation but diet is also a large factor. Farming relative to Hunting is actually a poor substitute for getting many crucial nutrients & vitamins particularly Vitamin D. This is why today's Inuit who maintained a hunter gatherer culture until the recent past are darker skinned than Europeans despite inhabiting a far higher latitude.
a Sami couple - an idea of how LHGs might look
Also around this period we would see a 3rd wave of Native Americans from Siberia who would continue settling the Arctic coast of North America & become known as the Inuit just as in our timeline. During this migration we could also see Central American Native Americans gradually migrate northeast along the Gulf of Mexico coast all the way to Florida. Our LHG population would only inhabit the Eastern Woodland area of North America with Inuit populations to their north and Native American populations to their south.
Now we find ourselves on the doorstep of historical period, the first Europeans to make contact with our LHGs would be the Vikings around 1,000 CE. Much like Columbus mistaking Native Americans as Indians perhaps the Norse would mistake the LHG tribe of Newfoundland as Lapps (today's Sami). The LHG would most likely speak a Native American derived language rooting back to the initial mixing between ANA & NAS. This Asiatic sounding tongue to the Norse could have easily been mistaken for the language of the Laplanders.
True there would have been stark cultural differences between these LHGs and the Norse but perhaps the Norse finding a lactose tolerant more phenotypically similar population in North America would make assimilation both ways more feasible. A Vinland colony might have survived in this timeline for a few hundred years in Newfoundland introducing animal husbandry and metal working gradually throughout the eastern woodlands.
I suspect all of this would have been for not however once the English and French arrive like in our own timeline. The English & French would most likely not have respected the sovereignty of these people and instead have seen "Sami pagans" in need of religious conversion. I think it's time to assign these LHGs an arbitrary collective exonym bestowed upon them by Europeans.. um... lets go with Mah'kani. In our own timeline there was deep prejudice amongst the English settlers against miscegenation with Native Americans. Perhaps a perception of relative sameness would be extended to the Mah'kani that was not to otl's Native Americans.
There would still most likely be a geopolitical struggle between the UK and France for North America just as in our timeline and like our timeline I believe the British would have won. However given the presence of the Mah'kani and their easier assimilation into the British colonies resulting in the earlier settlement of the Ohio country I don't believe the American revolution would have occurred. In this timeline the Great lakes region remains part of the British Empire earning its independence much later similar to Canada.
The Russians would settle Alaska just as in our own timeline however in this timeline there not being a United States to balance British influence would have no third party to sell it to in the 19th century. Alaska remaining part of Russia may become interesting especially if something like the Soviet Union immerges in this timeline. Let me know how you think world history would play out into the modern era?
