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I’m sure different scenarios for how Amerinds could fare better in Columbian Exchange and domesticating American megafauna have been discussed extensively. However, the question that’s been lately on my mind is how Eurasia would be affected in return.

POD: What if the Bering Strait was narrower, shallower, and formed a land bridge more often during the history? Perhaps even a permanent isthmus, or perhaps it was located a little more to the south?

Hominids colonise Americas in several waves (say, Homo Erectus, maybe Neanderthals in North America). Local megafauna have more time to adapt. When modern humans arrive, they still displace other hominids (as they did elsewhere), but more of the American megafauna survives, leaving Amerinds more domesticable species. Herding develops in several areas. Agriculture is still slower to develop than in Europe (due to the North-South orientation of the continent), but once it does, they have animals for traction, manure and cavalry. States develop quicker than OTL, populations increase—and diseases develop.

There will be some trade across the Bering Strait/Isthmus, but it’s still located in the sparsely populated northern taiga/tundra. Will this be enough to exchange Eurasian and American diseases and allow the immune systems of both populations to develop in tandem? Or, once Europeans cross Atlantic, will they export small pox and import something equally deadly in return? Will the ship crews be decimated and leave the survivors stranded (people at home assume they sailed right off of the edge of the world; or that there was nothing but ocean there and their supplies ran out; or anything in between)? Or will they make it back home and bring about a second Black Death?

1) Eurasian and American diseases are exchanged over the Bering Isthmus. When Europeans arrive, they find larger numbers of people accustomed to fighting cavalry and resistant to germs. Europeans are at the end of very long supply lines and find Amerinds much harder to displace. As a result, instead of the African slave trade, the American operation resembles something like the East Indian spice trade. What would this mean for Europe’s politics and economy? Would they still be able to get American silver to trade to China?

2) Eurasian and American diseases are exchanged in the 15-16C. Amerind populations are decimated. Europe is visited by a pandemic to rival the Black Death. What would be the effect of a pandemic in 16C on economy and politics in Europe? If a 14C pandemic caused wages to rise and resulted in the end of manorialism in Western Europe (but serfdom in Eastern Europe), what would happen two centuries later?

3) The pandemic in Eurasia reaches Ming China, killing indiscriminately, causing social upheaval, upsetting the economy, and increasing wages. Would this be enough to get China out of the high-level equilibrium trap and push them on a trajectory leading to industrialising? Likely this would also lead to a dynasty change; the Ming having lost their Mandate of Heaven.

4) Colonisation of the Americas is pushed back by [how much?] because of the difficulties of getting the first crews to survive and then the pandemic at home. But now Europe is ready to try again. How would that go, with so many things changed, both in Europe and the Americas?
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