WI: Native Americans in the US are as advanced as Africans

well aside from the fact that they work, why exactly?

I don't know if you realize just how amazingly hard it is to control the Mississippi River (which routinely every decade massively overflows its banks), so Venice on the Mississippi seems unlikely

The Native Americans did practice ecological engineering on a massive scale (read the book "1491" sometime), but some things are set by biology. Unless you have had to carry firewood any distance, you really don't understand what a pain in the neck that is.

Central Africa is on the trade routes from Europe and Asia, with gold and other items (including slaves) making their way to Europe and the Middle East in Ancient times. It is on the periphery, but it is not by any means isolated from Europe at any point in its history.

There is no "controlling" being done. The Baure lived on a flood savannah with no hope of stopping it. They like the floodplain hopewellians adapted by creating mounds but went one step further by mounding roads and using the resultant canals for continued travel into the "dry" season allowing aquaculture and aboriculture to take form.

These novel and highly innovative forms of urban planning and engineering go beyond that of the very generalist text that is 1491, but it also shows an alternative. Eurasian city building didn't happen because it was the absolute best. Templates were made based on a number of variables and that was replicated elsewhere with many negative consequences that we see today.

I have carries firewood/stones/geophytes/acorns from mountains in bulk. I've also rowed full canoes and can say the later is much easier on still water.

Thirdly while central Africa later developed trade routes to the Indian littoral by and large the extensive routes were those of internal trade done completely on foot and were repeated by Arab and European invaders.

You don't even seem to know what you're talking about with your comparison of Venice to Baure topography and hydrology, neither the similarities in Mississippian riverine cycles.
 
I'm not sure which areas in the East Coast specifically, but the range in Minnesota would be pretty far and away from any civilization centers in North America, even for the Mississippians.
Not necessarily, at least when compared to the overall extent of the Hopewell and Mississippian cutures. The Laurel Complex in fact overlaps with the ranges. Copper was traded from the western
Great Lakes by both the Hopewell and Mississippians. As mentioned earlier, a cultural quirk in the Old Copper Complex that gradually creates a high temperature smelting tradition can be spread along the trade routes.



I think we can go pretty far if we combine the aforementioned stronger agricultural complex with an early maritime exchange system based in the Circum-Caribbean that links with the seafaring cultures of Ecuador. Through this you can get maize to appear northward sooner
from Mesoamerica as well as potatoes (and possibly quinoa) from the Andes much later. In conjunction with higher yielding indigenous crops, the high temperature smelting culture can appear on the eastern coast, to later experiment with bog iron. Meanwhile the societies of the Mississippi basin are more robust, the polities growing in order to distribute the exotic goods or control the trading hubs with access to the lands surrounding the Caribbean.
 
There is no "controlling" being done. The Baure lived on a flood savannah with no hope of stopping it. They like the floodplain hopewellians adapted by creating mounds but went one step further by mounding roads and using the resultant canals for continued travel into the "dry" season allowing aquaculture and aboriculture to take form.

These novel and highly innovative forms of urban planning and engineering go beyond that of the very generalist text that is 1491, but it also shows an alternative. Eurasian city building didn't happen because it was the absolute best. Templates were made based on a number of variables and that was replicated elsewhere with many negative consequences that we see today.

I have carries firewood/stones/geophytes/acorns from mountains in bulk. I've also rowed full canoes and can say the later is much easier on still water.

Thirdly while central Africa later developed trade routes to the Indian littoral by and large the extensive routes were those of internal trade done completely on foot and were repeated by Arab and European invaders.

You don't even seem to know what you're talking about with your comparison of Venice to Baure topography and hydrology, neither the similarities in Mississippian riverine cycles.

first,note I said Eurasian city planning,not European.

you are completely off on African trade... read up on the Indian Ocean trade routes, and the Saharan trade routes, both have existed back to Ancient times which means that Central Africa is part of the same disease pool. Luckily for Eurasia, the really nasty diseases that are endemic in Africa require insect vectors or are blood born illnesses.

Venice on the Mississippi is a not meant as an absolute based on hydrology, so lighten up dude. But a city of canals built on that river bank just wasn't going to happen because the frequently floods would bury such under massive amounts of mud.

You should read more on Mississippi flooding
 
first,note I said Eurasian city planning,not European.

you are completely off on African trade... read up on the Indian Ocean trade routes, and the Saharan trade routes, both have existed back to Ancient times which means that Central Africa is part of the same disease pool. Luckily for Eurasia, the really nasty diseases that are endemic in Africa require insect vectors or are blood born illnesses.

Venice on the Mississippi is a not meant as an absolute based on hydrology, so lighten up dude. But a city of canals built on that river bank just wasn't going to happen because the frequently floods would bury such under massive amounts of mud.

You should read more on Mississippi flooding

The Saharan Routes were all to West Africa and the Sahelian states, not central Africa.

The Indian ocean routes were quite new to most of central Africa (Swahili penetration in DRC didn't occur until Tippu) and predominately limited to coastal and near riverine trade around the Zambezi.

African resistance to Eurasian disease comes in from much later contacts.

Why are you posturing yourself of having any real knowledge of Subsaharan Africa when you have no clue of smallpox introduced by Portuguese killing tens of thousands in Angola? Kenya and DRC having entire communities and tribes killed in the times of European invasion? Centuries of outbreaks and massive deaths as Habesha expanded and subjugated other Ethiopic peoples.

You don't know what you are talking about, its not lightening up i just can guarentee I have more knowledge around that region of the world than you do because reading what youve typed clearly shows your cursory knowledge.

But keep on trying to give me things to read about.
 
Couldn't getting horeses come from earlier agriculture, avoiding all of the American horses being eaten? Or someone domesticating one early, so that tribe keeps them and then it spreads?

A Clovic era cache of tools from ~7600 years ago was found within which horse bone was found.

Or a horse that evolves to live somewhere where humans aren't.
 
I'm not sure which areas in the East Coast specifically, but the range in Minnesota would be pretty far and away from any civilization centers in North America, even for the Mississippians.

Mostly near the coast, but there's plenty of it. Bog iron was one of the 13 colonies primary iron sources. And don't forget how extensive overland trade was in the pre-Columbian period. Having east coast iron arrive in Mississippi is perfectly reasonable, if expensive.
 
Can lamas be introduced into North America?

as pack animals they aren't that great, but if you can transport them by sea from Peru to northern Mexico, they might do ok. Certainly they are better than dogs (which are all North and Central American peoples had)

the nasty jungle in between Colombia and Mexico is the troublesome part
 
The Saharan Routes were all to West Africa and the Sahelian states, not central Africa.

The Indian ocean routes were quite new to most of central Africa (Swahili penetration in DRC didn't occur until Tippu) and predominately limited to coastal and near riverine trade around the Zambezi.

African resistance to Eurasian disease comes in from much later contacts.

Why are you posturing yourself of having any real knowledge of Subsaharan Africa when you have no clue of smallpox introduced by Portuguese killing tens of thousands in Angola? Kenya and DRC having entire communities and tribes killed in the times of European invasion? Centuries of outbreaks and massive deaths as Habesha expanded and subjugated other Ethiopic peoples.

You don't know what you are talking about, its not lightening up i just can guarentee I have more knowledge around that region of the world than you do because reading what youve typed clearly shows your cursory knowledge.

But keep on trying to give me things to read about.

well for starters Angola is not central Africa. Its southern Africa, as part of it is in the southern temperate zone

Lighten up means climb down from your aggressive manner of speaking and either be more conversational or be more professional. In other words, don't be strident

East Africa, as far south as modern day Kenya and Tanzania and Mozambique was on the Indian Ocean Monsoonal trade routes and has been for a very long time. Which is why Islam is found in Tanzania today for example.

The area you are discussing is the area between modern day Cameroon and South Africa along the west coast, which didn't see much contact from outside that area until the Bantu peoples started moving south and they were moving on South Africa (the modern nation) at the same time as the Dutch Boers were.

Even then there was indirect trade from Zimbabwe and Eurasia (through the Indian Ocean)

I encourage you to read this work as a good starting point

https://www.amazon.com/Splendid-Exchange-Trade-Shaped-World/dp/0802144160

Guns, Germs and Steel is a splendid work for general readers on how civilizations developed, while 1491 is a wonderful book on pre contact Americas, and 1493 is an amazing work on the Colombian Exchange

There are more specialized academic works out there, but these are easily found online for order and excellent introductions to historical anthroplogy
 
Kenya was in contact because of Lamu and Mombasa. The Kikongo lived in DRC and Northernmost Angola, with a central African Bantu society.

The precursors of The Kingdom of Zimbabwe lay in the Kingdom of Mapungunwe a Khoisan society with a very strong transhumant population and yet smallpox absolutely devastated these peoples.

This is what I mean by you not knowing what you are talking about. Professionalism? If it means people spouting patchy and incorrect information yet speaking with any sort of authority, I want no part of it in this conversation.
 
Kenya was in contact because of Lamu and Mombasa. The Kikongo lived in DRC and Northernmost Angola, with a central African Bantu society.

The precursors of The Kingdom of Zimbabwe lay in the Kingdom of Mapungunwe a Khoisan society with a very strong transhumant population and yet smallpox absolutely devastated these peoples.

This is what I mean by you not knowing what you are talking about. Professionalism? If it means people spouting patchy and incorrect information yet speaking with any sort of authority, I want no part of it in this conversation.

you should probably read this

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/indiansubcontinent/ss/Indian-Ocean-Trade-Routes.htm

and regarding smallpox... it used to regularly hammer English colonies in North America because the population pool wasn't big enough for it to remain endemic so that children could catch it early (when its more survivable). Hence the hurried embrace of inoculation when it became available. It hit the American colonies about every generation from the early 1600s until the early 1800s (when they were the US at that point)

also have you read any of the books I cited or comparable works?
 
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you should probably read this

http://asianhistory.about.com/od/indiansubcontinent/ss/Indian-Ocean-Trade-Routes.htm

and regarding smallpox... it used to regularly hammer English colonies in North America because the population pool wasn't big enough for it to remain endemic so that children could catch it early (when its more survivable). Hence the hurried embrace of inoculation when it became available. It hit the American colonies about every generation from the early 1600s until the early 1800s (when they were the US at that point)

also have you read any of the books I cited or comparable works?
What books? 1491 and about.com articles? You're not posting anything of merit as far as I am concerned.

Moving goalposts doesn't change the fact you're incorrect in your extremely simplistic views. Smallpox resistance was not a given, entire tribes and towns in Central Africa were wiped out, the internal trade of African population was far more extensive and ancient compared to Eurasian trade.

But go ahead and post a Wikipedia article next.
 
What books? 1491 and about.com articles? You're not posting anything of merit as far as I am concerned.

Moving goalposts doesn't change the fact you're incorrect in your extremely simplistic views. Smallpox resistance was not a given, entire tribes and towns in Central Africa were wiped out, the internal trade of African population was far more extensive and ancient compared to Eurasian trade.

But go ahead and post a Wikipedia article next.

I recommended several books

"1491"
"Guns, Germs and Steel"
"1493"
"Splendid Exchange"

to add to that
"Justinians Flea"
anything by Brian Fagan

and you have yet to provide anything supporting your assertions, particular these new ones that a lower population area (Africa pre 20th Century) had more intense trade than high population areas (Eurasia, and for that matter most of the Americas pre contact)

besides that, your point is a little obscure.... what are you trying to prove exactly? Diseases, particularly diseases with high transmission rates, follow trade routes. Some, like the Plague, require resident populations of disease vectors (rats and fleas) to really settle in, but others, like Smallpox, simply require contaminated items (like blankets and clothing).

finally, regarding the internet article... it shows you, on a map, the historical trade routes of the Indian Ocean

are you saying those are wrong?
 

It's

Banned
I.e.
  • They use iron
  • They have organized and densely populated kingdoms instead of the chiefdoms/tribes they had irl
  • They have multiple cities comparable in size to largeish European cities, like Benin or Timbuktu in Africa (Cahokia was the only real city they had irl)
They would need proximity to the old world and its technology, as enjoyed by sub-Saharan Africans. Even the central/ South Americans did not have iron, despite their other impressive achievements, which they developed without copying anyone.
 
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