How?This is ASB material.
I don't aim for anything like native wank, I just want thought experimentPart of the reason there were not the massive number of diseases in the Americas compared to Eurasiafrica is the lack of close contact with domesticated animals. Horses MAY, and that's a big may, then cause the Americas to have one or two extra viral diseases that will then be sent back to Europe post-1492; but will do nothing to give Native Americans any type of immunity against the diseases Europeans will bring. And that's if they are domesticated. If they are you will see vastly different ecosystems. The Great Plains exist SOLELY because of Native's mass burning huge swaths to drive entire herds off cliffs (just because you have a use for every part of the bison, does not mean you use every part of every bison; even "benevolent" stereotypes are harmful to history); they won't need to do so if they have horses; the Great Plains would not be as Great in size. Depending on where the domestication is made and how far it spreads you may not see the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois to who haven't caught up to 21st century) conquer as far as the Illinois and Ohio rivers and pretty much depopulate Ohio except for some tributary tribes and turn it into their own private hunting ground by the 1740's; all by benefit of literally walking 500 miles.
I doubt you see horses on even the largest of Caribbean islands such as Cuba, Hispaniola, or Jamaica; but maybe the Spanish are surprised by cavalry in Mexico and Cortes is slowed down (guns are very primitive at this point, but they still have crossbows, and disease will quickly spread). As guns continue to improve and disease spreads the over all history of Conquest through the Americas as a whole might be slowed by maybe 20 to 50 years but no more. You'd need more domesticated animals (creating more native diseases that will attack the Europeans) and then you have a chance to delay some regions indefinitely and have native ruled and populated states remain; if you want to have a real chance for the natives to beat back Europeans give them an incentive to have built ocean going ships (ocean going boats like the Polynesians are not the same as actual ships like Chinese junks or European vessels) and that almost certainly requires at least copper metallurgy if not bronze and iron technology.
Evolutionary and prehistoric PODs are all ASB. Also, horses did not go extinct simply by human action, but also climate change (according to most specialists) so this may also qualify as a POD changing global long-term climate, also generally considered ASB.How?
This is ASB material.
Evolutionary and prehistoric PODs are all ASB. Also, horses did not go extinct simply by human action, but also climate change (according to most specialists) so this may also qualify as a POD changing global long-term climate, also generally considered ASB.
I.. didn't even said it's totally human action. And how this is evolutionary? This prevent a species to extinct, not creating another speciesEvolutionary and prehistoric PODs are all ASB. Also, horses did not go extinct simply by human action, but also climate change (according to most specialists) so this may also qualify as a POD changing global long-term climate, also generally considered ASB.
That's why I wrote "survived and domesticated"Also not all or even most horse species are domesticatable. Consider zebra. Odds are they just get hunted to extinction like most other big fauna.
The Great Plains exist SOLELY because of Native's mass burning huge swaths to drive entire herds off cliffs
My take:
The agricultural package DValdron described in "Land of Ice and Mice" is developed during the first peopling of the American Arctic in the mid-late fourth millennium BCE, and in turn kicks the development of a Boreal wetland parallel package also discussed in that timeline, with domestication of moose, wild rice, cattails and arrowhead. Say the Dall sheep is also domesticated in the Arctic, creating another local domesticate that can in time adapt to more southerly climes (good for the Southwest when they get there together o slight after maize, for instance).
By 2000 BCE you have the northern half of North America as agricultural perhaps with bronze and experimenting with iron, connected with the nascent civilizations of mesoamerica by trade routes through the Southwest and along the Mississippi, which disseminate crops and tech all over the continent. Coastal sea trade develops all along the Pacific coast and bring contact with the Andes, all the western face of the Americas gets potatoes and metallurgy, as large polities develop in the Mississippi basin thanks to enviable trading position. Naval technology passes to the Caribbean and the Atlantic, maybe through Mesoamerica. By 1000 BCE, you have settled or semisettled, somewhat metal-using societies from Greenland to Cape Horn (some already having decent iron), all interconnected by coastal navigation and big river basins, with cities in every region and diverse packages of crops and domesticates.
The POD also affects Arctic Eurasia, however, with cascading changes to the Old World. And needs lots of luck (early arctic peoples won't be as quick to develop metallurgy as DValdron's deems his Thule likely to, for example, which is a problem for the scenario).
POD: In the 6th to 9th centuries AD, the proto-Yakuts get an early push north, courtesy of aggressive neighbors. They suffer terrible losses in adapting to the harsh tundra, but as they did in OTL, they survive, and the technological advantage provided by iron and horses enables them to occupy the lower Lena basin.
By the 13th century, they are many and strong: too many, in fact, to easily survive the pressures of the Little Ice Age. They need new territories, and individual clans begin moving east. About 1350 to 1375, they reach the Kolyma.
On the other side are mountains, which are nothing - they've crossed mountains before. But there are also the Chukchi, a warlike people who in OTL were able to stand off the Russians during the 18th century, and who won't simply stand aside for the Yakuts in TTL.
The Yakuts lose the first few battles - they may be better acclimatized than the Russians, but they're also less numerous and less well-armed. But their technology is attractive to the Chukchis, and after a few false starts, Yakut traders begin a process of cultural assimilation. Or maybe a Yakut adventurer manages to install himself as head of a Chukchi clan, and with the aid of loyal supporters, becomes head of a Yakutized Chukchi empire with Yakut blood strong among the upper class. Regardless, the Yakut cultural package reaches the Bering Strait by the end of the 15th century, although the people who carry it there are as much or more Chukchi as Yakut.
Summer, 1519: Aytal crouches in the prow of the boat, cursing his cousin who usurped the clan leadership from him. The winds are strong, the seas heavy and the sky forbidding, and the men are nearly as terrified as the horses and calves trussed in the bottom. But anything would be preferable to living - or more likely dying - under his cousin's rule, and ahead is the eastern land that he has heard of from fishermen. Surely there will be something for him there...
Incorrect sir! Part of the reason, yes. But much more of the damage was burning from lightning strikes, strikes that would create giant fires that burned tens of thousands of acres of land and only peter out when the fire encountered an area of no fuel due to the devastation caused by a wandering buffalo herd.
How?
I don't aim for anything like native wank, I just want thought experiment
So, a smaller Great Plains then. And larger Iroquis. Would the moundbuilders affected too? And trading with Mesoamerica? Can a civilization breed horses there?
No. Lightning strikes resulted in fewer prairie fires than previously thought and the Great Plains have been proven to be human made, as is most of "nature". Please don't join the pre-21st century thinking of pristine "natives" who are incapable of living "outside nature" and somehow lack free will to master their environment. People do them a disservice with such nature talk.
No. Lightning strikes resulted in fewer prairie fires than previously thought and the Great Plains have been proven to be human made, as is most of "nature". Please don't join the pre-21st century thinking of pristine "natives" who are incapable of living "outside nature" and somehow lack free will to master their environment. People do them a disservice with such nature talk.
Otherwise, labelling everything 'pre-historic' as ASB simply amounts to prejudice against non-literate societies.