WI: More "major civilisations" in the Southern Cone? Effects on the world?

[Arkenfolm]

I find it rather interesting why the American Indians of Central and Southern Chile and most of Argentina were so "small-scale" compared to the Central and Northern Andes. The potato was domesticated on Chiloé, which to this day has an insane diversity of potato cultivars. Domesticated llamas (and alpaca) are a perfect species for the region and can tolerate the cold of temperate regions. Corn has been in the Andes for over 6,000 years. Other Andean crops like quinoa are notable for their cold tolerance with the main problem being adjusting them to temperate day lengths. This shouldn't be much of a problem for domesticated plants thousands of years old. One of the major centers of agriculture was next door with proven ability to expand into temperate lands yet this region never seemed to have produced much.

How do we get more state formation in the more "solid" areas (Chiloé, anyone directly to the south of the Inca conquests i.e. the Mapuche, the Diaguita peoples) and spread "development" (read--population boom and more complex states) to more "hunter-gatherer" areas like in the Pampas and Patagonia? It seems like south and west of the Guarani, the locals did not farm and didn't seem influenced by agriculturalists. But it seems like corn, potatoes, and quinoa could thrive in Patagonia assuming irrigation networks. Patagonia is drier than the North American Plains but much less cold in the winter. As for most of Chile and the Cuyo region, these could be natural areas for state formation. The wetter areas of Argentina like the central and northeast (especially the provinces of Buenos Aires, Cordoba, etc.) could certainly support a civilisation, perhaps not just a southern extension of the Guarani but it's own culture which would interact with them extensively for mutual benefit perhaps.

From what I can tell (based on a trip through Spanish Wikipedia since I'm not too familiar with this subject other than the basics), agriculture is relatively new--maybe 3,000 years old--in many of these areas compared to the northern parts of the Andes. In the Pampas and Patagonia, it was never well established.

So if we turn back the clock a few thousand years, what do we get? Is the entire Southern Cone an area of more or less complex civilisations just like the Andes? I'd assume they'd trade their own goods (whale parts, maybe bronze tools--the more hostile environment and presence of copper and tin in proximity seems like they might work bronze far more than the Inca or other Andeans did) to the people of the Central Andes, Chaco, and modern Brazilian Southeast in exchange for yerba mate and coca (caffeine and any sort of stimulant seems vital) and perhaps some other goods.

If we cast a butterfly net on the rest of the world, do we have basis for a Patagonian civilisation to remain independent? They could control the route around Cape Horn which is critical until someone builds a canal between the Atlantic and Pacific in Panama, Nicaragua, or other locations. They could resist the Spanish in the late 16th and 17th centuries with Dutch and English help, and later remain propped up by any Spanish enemies.

Thoughts? This seems very underexplored here compared to other American Indian civilisational PODs (blame the Anglophone bias I suppose). How important can the Indians of the Southern Cone become in the grand scheme of things? Are there any crops or animals they might domesticate themselves in addition to what they adapt from the Andeans (although dogs, llama/alpaca, potatoes, quinoa, and corn is pretty solid in of itself and given irrigation can thrive anywhere in Patagonia, given North American "Indian corn" was still important enough to cultivate during the Little Ice Age in modern North Dakota and Quebec/Maritimes)?

 

[basileus]

The Mapuches are the better candidates for building a solid state and civilization.

 

[Arkenfolm]

The Mapuches are the better candidates for building a solid state and civilization.

True, but the Diaguita (and neighbours) were also strongly influenced by the developments in their north, and resisted the Inca strongly even after the Inca defeated them, and subsequently they fought the Spanish well (Calchaqui Wars), so the Mapuche aren't the only candidate. In precolonial times the Mapuche were limited to a certain part of Chile. All things considered, I don't think they would have the strength to displace people to the south of them like the Huilliches or Chonos let alone what they did on the Pampas and Patagonia later on. At the same time, the Pampas and Patagonia could have had more llama/alpaca farming (and those animals helping in the river valleys) to irrigate farmland for potatoes, quinoa, and corn instead of their reliance on hunting and gathering. If the Andean cultures are like the Mississippians, then the Pampas and Patagonia could easily have been like the pre-Columbian Plains Indians (ancestors of the Pawnee, Caddoans, Mandan, etc.) who were strongly influenced by them, but to my knowledge, there doesn't seem to be an equivalent like that in the cultures of pre-Columbian Argentina who were at best minor agriculturalists (and more linked with the Guarani or Chacoans than the Andeans). I suspect that although much of Patagonia is drier than the North American Plains, there's still the river valleys, and the Indians of the Pampas and Patagonia here would have llamas in addition to dogs (and maybe even the culpeo, see the "Fuegian dog"), and with potatoes and quinoa, a crop better than any equivalent of "Indian corn" (if attenuated to the day-night cycle of the region) which grew poorly at best in places like North Dakota (and in modern Canada only grew decently during the Medieval Warm Period).

I don't mean to diss the Mapuche in any way, but they would be one of several civilisations emerging along with the peoples in the Atacama and especially the locals of Chiloé (seems to be mixed Chono and Huilliche) and the Diaguita. In that environment, I don't see the Mapuche being particularly special, since these are only the ancestors of the Mapuche of the 16th-19th century (like how early 2nd millennia Shoshone ancestors aren't the same as the successful early 18th century Shoshone horsemen, let alone the Shoshone splinter group the Comanche).

 

[P L Richards]

This is a fascinating question, and one I think hardly explored on this forum. I get the feeling that these southern peoples were simply a bit late in getting started on the road to 'advanced civilisation', and got knocked off course, first by the Incas, and then (worse) by the Spanish conquest. You need an earlyish POD, say 12th century if not before, and perhaps it helps to have at least two polities 'competing' with each other, rather than a single point of development.

I think you are using the term Mapuche too narrowly. It should refer not just to the central Araucanian Mapuche but to all the Mapudungun speaking peoples, including Picunche, Huilliche and Cunco. (Of course we mustn't make the opposite mistake of assuming every people with a Mapuche name was ethnically and culturally Mapuche when, like the Tehuelche, they weren't.) In this wider sense the Mapuche are definitely the largest and most populous people in the central Chilean Andes. Somehow some of their family-based tribal groups have to coalesce into a larger polity or polities. I like the idea of the potato being important; and the Cunco people of Chiloe seem to have had quite servicable boats. If these can be developed they can trade up north along the Pacific coast.

But if you don 't want to diss the Mapuche, I don't want to diss the Diaguita. They appear to have had effective agricultural practices and a fighting spirit. Their problem is that living in numerous isolated valleys there is little incentive to form larger polities. Perhaps a population explosion in their valleys (due to efficient agriculture) leads them to spread out east and south east into Western Argentina where they either defeat or absorb and assimilate the local peoples. They are certainly in pole position to introduce settle agriculture to the pampas. They can certainly introduce irrigation techniques and also domesticated llamas. A settled 'state' could then develop there. Then trade routes need to develop from Mapuche to Diaguita to the Guarani peoples.Not sure how far south yerba mate grows in the wild - perhaps mate can be traded by the Guarani?

Yes your idea has possibilities. Maybe the Atacama peoples can also be brought in, perhaps through trade links.

 

[Ricardolindo]

It could lead to a more indigenous Chile.
Note: However, IOTL, Chileans are not really white, they are mestizos and castizos, but are often considered white, because they have more European DNA than, their neighbouring, Peruvians and Bolivians have, and the Indigenous of Chile are not very dark-skinned.

 

[Gloss]

It could lead to a more indigenous Chile.
Note: However, IOTL, Chileans are not really white, they are mestizos and castizos, but are often considered white, because they have more European DNA than, their neighbouring, Peruvians and Bolivians have, and the Indigenous of Chile are not very dark-skinned.

It's all a question of definitions, given there is no objective definition you cannot really say someone "is not really" X ethnicity or part of X racial group

 

[twovultures]

Thoughts? This seems very underexplored here compared to other American Indian civilisational PODs (blame the Anglophone bias I suppose).

Ugghh, tell me about it. It took a lot of digging on my part in the footnotes of Spanish Wikipedia when I was researching this, my Spanish is apparently demasiado gringo to make scholar.google.es work.

Going from the scholarly articles on archaeology I found in the footnotes of Spanish-language Wikipedia on Chile pre-ceramica, the "culturas cazador-recolector" in the lowlands did not fully adopt agriculture until 600 AD! Potatoes were being grown in the mountains before then, but the indicators of active agriculture in the lowlands (maize and chenopodium/goosefoot/quinoa whatever you want to call it) were very late to the party, and it would take being spread through the lowlands for an agricultural revolution to take hold.

I think that different varieties of goosefoot could provide the basis of a civilization in the southern cone if domesticated earlier, creating an earlier shift to farming and from there creating civilizations which probably go in weird, unexpected directions due to their isolation until contact with Andean civilizations from the north and west (who were pretty weird and isolated in their own right) give opportunities for a cultural shift and exchanges.

Alas, I don't think an agriculturalist civilization is in a good position to resist the Spanish-quite the opposite, the Spanish looked to conquer agriculturalists and replaced their elite, and in the southern cone IOTL basically ignored hunter-gatherers who were too difficult for them to control. Instead of the pitiful and failed initial Spanish settlements in the Tierra de Fuego, we may see a conquista similar to that in Mexico or Peru early on.

If agriculturalists do manage to survive Spanish conquest in Patagonia, I would put good money on them being the first 'Spanish' colonists to the Falklands. Perhaps Catholic converts along Patagonia's waterways appeal to the Spanish authorities because they are being attacked by rising horse cultures, much like IOTL in the Great Plains agriculturalists like the Mandan had conflict with nomadic horse cultures which had appeared after European contact. Unable to defeat the mobile horse raiders, the Spanish give the farmers land in the Falklands, thus creating a Spanish-managed Native American colony on the remote islands.

Alternatively, the Spanish could be smart and launch some targeted retaliatory raids and then cut off the riders from trade, forcing them to come to the bargaining table and establish a lasting peace like was done (IIRC) between their colonies in New Mexico and the Comanches IOTL. This would allow old school agriculturalists and horse-riding nomads to co-exist peacefully on the southern cone, and ultimately create a Mestizo nation with a strong native-American cultural influence in Patagonia and the Pampas immediately north of it.

 

[Arkenfolm]

I think you are using the term Mapuche too narrowly. It should refer not just to the central Araucanian Mapuche but to all the Mapudungun speaking peoples, including Picunche, Huilliche and Cunco. (Of course we mustn't make the opposite mistake of assuming every people with a Mapuche name was ethnically and culturally Mapuche when, like the Tehuelche, they weren't.) In this wider sense the Mapuche are definitely the largest and most populous people in the central Chilean Andes. Somehow some of their family-based tribal groups have to coalesce into a larger polity or polities. I like the idea of the potato being important; and the Cunco people of Chiloe seem to have had quite servicable boats. If these can be developed they can trade up north along the Pacific coast.

Regarding the people of Chiloé (and south), they definitely had a strong maritime tradition. The problem was that sails were rare in pre-Columbian America so that's a bit limiting. With sails/evolution of naval tech they could launch larger fishing/whaling expeditions (immediate benefit) and eventually trade more up the coast. There's probably some solid plants in the region which could be used to make sails.

The other potential with sails is to borrow it from the Polynesians, but this would take more than the incidental contact OTL. This is where a Polynesian settlement of the Juan Fernandez Islands would come in handy. These Polynesians could import potatoes from Chiloé (or elsewhere) to get a solid civilisation going that could trade with the mainland and have some cultural mixing. Problem is this settlement would come rather late if we accept that the nearest Polynesian island, Rapa Nui, was only settled around 1200 AD. If we assume that around 2-3 generations in some Rapa Nui settle Juan Fernandez, and then 1-2 generations later the mainlanders/Chilote adopt sailing, then we're already in the late 14th century.

But if you don 't want to diss the Mapuche, I don't want to diss the Diaguita. They appear to have had effective agricultural practices and a fighting spirit. Their problem is that living in numerous isolated valleys there is little incentive to form larger polities. Perhaps a population explosion in their valleys (due to efficient agriculture) leads them to spread out east and south east into Western Argentina where they either defeat or absorb and assimilate the local peoples. They are certainly in pole position to introduce settle agriculture to the pampas. They can certainly introduce irrigation techniques and also domesticated llamas. A settled 'state' could then develop there. Then trade routes need to develop from Mapuche to Diaguita to the Guarani peoples.Not sure how far south yerba mate grows in the wild - perhaps mate can be traded by the Guarani?

Probably, but it seems the Diaguita only got agriculture late. If they had "evolved" a few centuries earlier, perhaps local development would've led to a trend like that.

Ugghh, tell me about it. It took a lot of digging on my part in the footnotes of Spanish Wikipedia when I was researching this, my Spanish is apparently demasiado gringo to make scholar.google.es work.

Going from the scholarly articles on archaeology I found in the footnotes of Spanish-language Wikipedia on Chile pre-ceramica, the "culturas cazador-recolector" in the lowlands did not fully adopt agriculture until 600 AD! Potatoes were being grown in the mountains before then, but the indicators of active agriculture in the lowlands (maize and chenopodium/goosefoot/quinoa whatever you want to call it) were very late to the party, and it would take being spread through the lowlands for an agricultural revolution to take hold.

On the other side of South America however, the Amazonians and Guarani had maize a few centuries before, so you could have some elements (whatever can thrive in the drier, temperate zone in the Pampas/Patagonia) be introduced from that angle rather than the Andes.

I think that different varieties of goosefoot could provide the basis of a civilization in the southern cone if domesticated earlier, creating an earlier shift to farming and from there creating civilizations which probably go in weird, unexpected directions due to their isolation until contact with Andean civilizations from the north and west (who were pretty weird and isolated in their own right) give opportunities for a cultural shift and exchanges.

Which Chenopodium? One of those farmed in the Andes?

Alas, I don't think an agriculturalist civilization is in a good position to resist the Spanish-quite the opposite, the Spanish looked to conquer agriculturalists and replaced their elite, and in the southern cone IOTL basically ignored hunter-gatherers who were too difficult for them to control. Instead of the pitiful and failed initial Spanish settlements in the Tierra de Fuego, we may see a conquista similar to that in Mexico or Peru early on.

True, but there's a limit to how much Spain can conquer especially if there's no incentive for them to conquer. It's hard to say Spain exerted much control north of Florida despite messing around there a lot after all.

If agriculturalists do manage to survive Spanish conquest in Patagonia, I would put good money on them being the first 'Spanish' colonists to the Falklands. Perhaps Catholic converts along Patagonia's waterways appeal to the Spanish authorities because they are being attacked by rising horse cultures, much like IOTL in the Great Plains agriculturalists like the Mandan had conflict with nomadic horse cultures which had appeared after European contact. Unable to defeat the mobile horse raiders, the Spanish give the farmers land in the Falklands, thus creating a Spanish-managed Native American colony on the remote islands.

Alternatively, the Spanish could be smart and launch some targeted retaliatory raids and then cut off the riders from trade, forcing them to come to the bargaining table and establish a lasting peace like was done (IIRC) between their colonies in New Mexico and the Comanches IOTL. This would allow old school agriculturalists and horse-riding nomads to co-exist peacefully on the southern cone, and ultimately create a Mestizo nation with a strong native-American cultural influence in Patagonia and the Pampas immediately north of it.

A lasting peace after over a century of crippling raids, of course. Patagonia and the Pampas might be comparable to the Plains in some way, but I'd suspect in others you'd have a "Kivira" type situation where the Spanish can't really exert much rule over either the settled peoples or the more nomadic ones.[/QUOTE]

 

[P L Richards]

If agriculturalists do manage to survive Spanish conquest in Patagonia, I would put good money on them being the first 'Spanish' colonists to the Falklands. Perhaps Catholic converts along Patagonia's waterways appeal to the Spanish authorities because they are being attacked by rising horse cultures, much like IOTL in the Great Plains agriculturalists like the Mandan had conflict with nomadic horse cultures which had appeared after European contact. Unable to defeat the mobile horse raiders, the Spanish give the farmers land in the Falklands, thus creating a Spanish-managed Native American colony on the remote islands.

I don't think this would work. There is enough rain, but there are no trees and the soil is poor. The Falklands are hardly suitable for crop growing (OTL it has been all cattle and sheep), and I think such settlement would rapidly fail. The people might survive if they go over to fishing, sealing, and taking seabirds. But it would be an interesting experiment.