Clibanarius
Banned
So American history is like it is in OTL except that there's Elephants.
How's history affected?
How's history affected?
WI: Elephants in America?
- Thread starter Clibanarius
- Start date
Strange, my logic generator is more like:
Wtf. Elephants + identical history otherwise does not compute. You wouldn't have anything like Timeline Crapsack Capitalism Triumphant (Aka: OTL) with elephants.
Now, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be awesome, but it would totally change the continent's history - and probably geography, further changing it.
And for some reason, the only scenario I can think of involves an American Indian* Paul Bunyan, only instead of an ox, he has an elephant.
Now that is too badass to process.
And sadly ASB.
The OP may or may not be though, but it does have to get a pretty dang early POD for elephants to be around, doesn't it?
Wtf. Elephants + identical history otherwise does not compute. You wouldn't have anything like Timeline Crapsack Capitalism Triumphant (Aka: OTL) with elephants.
Now, that doesn't mean it wouldn't be awesome, but it would totally change the continent's history - and probably geography, further changing it.
And for some reason, the only scenario I can think of involves an American Indian* Paul Bunyan, only instead of an ox, he has an elephant.
Now that is too badass to process.
And sadly ASB.
The OP may or may not be though, but it does have to get a pretty dang early POD for elephants to be around, doesn't it?
Screw elephants! I want my mastadons, dammit!Well for now let's stick with Elephants
On Paul Bunyan and his big blue elephant?
Or on my reason for going wtf?
On the latter, since the former is too cool to explain to anyone who doesn't get it: Does America (for purposes of this, North and South America are one continent) have the conditions needed for elephants to evolve in the first place?
And if elephants exist in some area - that would entirely change its history from OTL's. It wouldn't be OTL+Elephants, it would be Nothing-like-OTL+Elephants.
Particularly since an American continent able to support elephants probably sees different cultures evolve to begin with, at least in the area with elephants.
Or on my reason for going wtf?
On the latter, since the former is too cool to explain to anyone who doesn't get it: Does America (for purposes of this, North and South America are one continent) have the conditions needed for elephants to evolve in the first place?
And if elephants exist in some area - that would entirely change its history from OTL's. It wouldn't be OTL+Elephants, it would be Nothing-like-OTL+Elephants.
Particularly since an American continent able to support elephants probably sees different cultures evolve to begin with, at least in the area with elephants.
Well for now let's stick with Elephants
How exactly did you come to the conclusion that elephants could just randomly exist? They would definitely be mammoth or mastodon. As the earth's climate coolled it's always possible that the mastodon or woolly mammoth doesn't die out and instead adapts (its summer coat becomes permnanent, for example, or disappears entirely). An elephant that is the same as the species in Asia or Africa existing in the Americas is ASB. Elephants as we know them never travelled far north enough to cross the Bering landbridge, whereas the mammoths did.
Gomphotheres, which were a member of the elephant family, survived in South America until about the 5th century AD. Apart from that, I'd say that there's a reasonable prospect of surviving Mammoths or Mastodons.
As to the butterflies.... Well, possibly likely incorporation of tamed mammoths/mastodons/gomphotheres in pre-colombian civilizations. In the old world, there were at least four separate instances of semi-domestication.
More horsepower available to these cultures. Possibly more of an investment in domestications. I've got a theory that Elephantoids were the gateway drug to smaller draft animal domestications.
See the 'American Stinky Pig' timeline.
As to the butterflies.... Well, possibly likely incorporation of tamed mammoths/mastodons/gomphotheres in pre-colombian civilizations. In the old world, there were at least four separate instances of semi-domestication.
More horsepower available to these cultures. Possibly more of an investment in domestications. I've got a theory that Elephantoids were the gateway drug to smaller draft animal domestications.
See the 'American Stinky Pig' timeline.
Clibanarius
Banned
Hmm, Ecology not being my strong suit, is there any area in America that can support Elephants?
True, but then the first settlers encountered plenty of different cultures and didn't care all that much about taking them over.
If there was, we wouldn't need to have this discussion, methinks.
Do you mean the first European settlers?
Clibanarius
Banned
European settlers.
So, if America could support Elephants how would you see the continents history unfolding?
So, if America could support Elephants how would you see the continents history unfolding?
A lot more like Africa or India.
Obviously differences in the details, but any POD far back enough for elephants would be far back enough to be hard to tell what would evolve in terms of human society more specifically.
Not to mention any butterflies or other changes would potentially reshape the world as we know it.
Looking at this in terms of climate and such - Terra would be a different planet.
Clibanarius
Banned
So lots of small kingdoms with complicated social structures and political systems?
What happens when the first europeans arrive and began colonizing?
And would the breakaways occur like they did in OTL?
The first Europeans arrive and find out that they're intruding on the land of natives sophisticated enough to fight back successfully (and probably less willing to accept them settling without permission). They get stomped on.
Literally.
Well, America could support elephants; the Mastodon was less like a woolly mammoth and more like an Old World Forest Elephant. The question is how to get the Mastodon to survive the arrival of the Indians. Old World megafauna, at least African and South Asian ones, adapted to human hunting techniques because they evolved alongside us. They learned to fear man while he was still an inefficient hunter (H. Erectus), and thus stayed out of his way when he honed his craft better (H. Sapiens). European, Siberian, Austrlian, and New World animals never had this luxury; their first exposure to Man the Hunter was in his most efficient, most deadly form, H. Sapiens with flint spears and arrows.
So, you have to find some way for the Mastodons and/or Mammoths of the New World to survive the hunters who arrive from Beringia. I don't think that's impossible; just make the tribe that arrives in Beringia somewhat lesser hunters, or have H. Erectus settle Alaska and Canada somehow, acclimating the megafauna to a new apex predator, and then have him displaced by H. Sapiens at a later date.
So, now you have your elephant-like creatures in the New World. What are they used for?
It depends on how docile they can be made. African elephants really don't help the civilizations of Africa in any way, save for some military application. Indian Elephants were a lot more useful as agricultural strength.
Let's assume an Indian-elephant-like Mastodon/Mammoth. This could result in a much stronger Native American culture developing in the Mississippi Basin or the Yucatan. These cultures would have a viable work animal, which would make them more advanced, and also equip them with a bigger disease pool to use when contact with the Old World is made (living in close proximity to animals makes diseases spread easily between humans and animals, which gives humanity whole new plagues. New World peoples were ill-equipped to deal with smallpox or flu or Bubonic Plague because they were never exposed to the animals which carried these diseases, nor to the people who eventually acquired them).