What would be the consequences of early potatoes in europe?

[Richard V]

How would the Phoenicians get to the Andes? Could they even sail that far?

There's a legend that the Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. Could they get to the Andes? Their ships were more suited for coastal sailing, but it's not ASB.

Not necessarily. I had posted a thread about Carthaginians establishing colonies in West Africa, which in turn heavily influences the natives in the region. Eventually, this leads to them establishing the Colombian Exchange before the 600s. With time, I see them bringing potatoes to Europe much earlier than OTL.

Yes I had that idea as well. It's possible, but this thread specifies the Iron Age, which is usually defined as prehistoric iron culture, as in before the adoption of writing. In Britain and France generally the end of the Iron Age is when the Romans took over. In the Mediterranean it would be a lot earlier, and in Scandinavia a lot later.

 

[Warden]

Came across this interesting article today: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-utah-home-earliest-wild-potato.html
In summary potato starch residue has been discovered on a 10.900 year old stone tool in Utah.

 

[AnonymousSauce]

Came across this interesting article today: https://phys.org/news/2017-07-utah-home-earliest-wild-potato.html
In summary potato starch residue has been discovered on a 10.900 year old stone tool in Utah.

If this tuber was fully domesticated sometime circa 7000 BC, and it had similar properties to OTL's potato and spread to Eastern North America shortly thereafter, it would probably completely rupture history as we know it. As in, the ENA native civilization that developed would probably end up colonizing Europe due to population pressures sometime during the European Iron Age and most of Europe and the MENA will be speaking Macro-Siouan languages or somesuch by present.

 

[Jürgen]

If this tuber was fully domesticated sometime circa 7000 BC, and it had similar properties to OTL's potato and spread to Eastern North America shortly thereafter, it would probably completely rupture history as we know it. As in, the ENA native civilization that developed would probably end up colonizing Europe due to population pressures sometime during the European Iron Age and most of Europe and the MENA will be speaking Macro-Siouan languages or somesuch by present.

I doubt it, the Eurasian disease packet are still pretty deadly for the native indians, and the Native Americans beside suffering from the lack of their own disease packet to strengthen them, also suffered from the fact that they had a very small genetic diversity, thanks to the low number of early settlers and the the relative short time they had lived in the Americas. This means even of they entered Europe with a superior crop packet, they would be in the same situation as pre-industrial Europeans was in Sub Saharan Africa, where the local disease decimated the Europeans.

 

[Arkenfolm]

But let's say we have potatoes successfully introduced as early as 1600. The effects would be huge, including a hyper-strong Russia since we're assuming Russian peasants can overcome their dislike of the "devil's apple".