WI no human pre-columbian settlement of the Americas

Forgot about the subsequent Na-Dene occupation. Also aren't the Inuit much still later arrivals from NE Asia?

That's a lot of invasions-through-Alaska to prevent.
 
...indeed according to the fount of all knowledge there were at least three pre-columbian settlements of the Americas: the ancestors of the large majority of Native Americans coming first, then the Na-Dene and kin, then the Inuit and kin.
 
And the 10k Year migration has been thoroughly debunked. At the moment actual discussion and valid theories have the initial migration occurring over land or by coast hopping somewhere around 40k years ago, as proven by carbon dating of various materials like wood found at Archaeological sites.

This is not accurate. I don't think there was ever a 10,000-year migration theory: I think it has always been a 13,000-year migration theory, and it has recently been extended to about 16,000-17,000 years. There are only two sites in the New World that are noticeably older than that, and one of them (the Topper site in South Carolina) is almost certainly not legitimate. And these dates all come from bits of charcoal, nothing more. And, in the intervening 30 years, no new sites have been found that would help support the extremely ancient origin of Native Americans: so, I personally regard the 50,000-year-old Pedra Furada sites as an anomaly, one that may either prove invalid or prove to be a failed colonization that would have little consequence for this proposed timeline.


Furthermore, genetic studies demonstrate pretty conclusive that the ancestral population for all modern Native Americans was Beringian, and that it was about 10,000-15,000 years old. So, even if there were people in Brazil 50,000 years ago, they died out and never had the impact on the Americas that the Clovis culture did. So, really, there's not much reason to even discuss them for the purposes of this timeline.
 
Anyway, it is maybe also not just one case... I saw a few 'No Amerindians' threads here (not saying any was racist per se)...

If someone is looking to make a big prehistoric splash, where else can they look? The New World provides a simple opportunity to have a massive, pristine paradise completely untouched by humans. What other continent could you realistically expect to keep human-free into the modern era?

The sensitivity to this kind of stuff is ridiculous.
 
Hmm. Well, I guess that's slightly more understandable. But it still sounds more like laziness than outright malice. And a lot of published "alternate history" isn't terribly rigorous to start with. I guess I'll reserve final judgement until I come across a copy of the book in question...

Anyway, back on topic: no Native Americans mean no corn or potatoes. That will have some serious effects in the Old World, down the line. Gold and silver can be found and mined eventually, but, as Bujold says, all true wealth is biological. All the mammoth steaks in the world won't compensate for the hardy, hearty potato...

The potato, corn, etc. might exist eventually w/ genetic engineering speeding up the domestication process.
 
The potato, corn, etc. might exist eventually w/ genetic engineering speeding up the domestication process.

They may not have even the idea of doing it... Look at the ancestor of corn by example, Creosynth(?)... its... so different, I am not sure it would even be considered useable for such gen. manipulations.

I don't know about the ancestors of potatoes much. or tomatoes, chilis, etc....


There is something.. weird in thinking of Americas as pristine.... 'if only no natives where there,..'
 

NothingNow

Banned
This is not accurate. I don't think there was ever a 10,000-year migration theory: I think it has always been a 13,000-year migration theory, and it has recently been extended to about 16,000-17,000 years. There are only two sites in the New World that are noticeably older than that, and one of them (the Topper site in South Carolina) is almost certainly not legitimate. And these dates all come from bits of charcoal, nothing more. And, in the intervening 30 years, no new sites have been found that would help support the extremely ancient origin of Native Americans: so, I personally regard the 50,000-year-old Pedra Furada sites as an anomaly, one that may either prove invalid or prove to be a failed colonization that would have little consequence for this proposed timeline.
Well, the Clovis theory is still full of holes (really, they only teach it because it's what they were taught,) and it's not like it's that uncommon for differing varieties of the Y-chromosome to replace other varieties in populations, so you know, the one bit of evidence for it that can't be chalked up to bad practices isn't really fucking evidence in the first place. But you know, having Cactus Hill, Monte Verde 1, Topper (where the "controversial" artifacts were a good 4m under the Clovis ones,) Old Crow flats, and just about every other Anomalous site out there, obviously doesn't mean anything, regardless of them all easily exceeding the Clovis dates that it must automatically be wrong.
 
edit -- Also what other animal is supposed to have entered the Americas at the same time as humans that could have been responsible for the mass extinction? I'm not aware of any: the first Americans came alone without any other animals.

Insects, rodents, migratory birds, zoonotic diseases.

Current science shows the American megafauna was already going extinct due to climate change when humans starting hunting them. There were probably a host of causes for their extinction. Human migration was probably just a nail in the coffin.
 
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Hi, NothingNow.

I seem to have struck a nerve and elicited an overreaction from you. Since I have no desire to get involved in another nerd war, I'll back out now.
 
Insects, rodents, migratory birds, zoonotic diseases.

Current science shows the American megafauna was already going extinct due to climate change when humans starting hunting them. There were probably a host of causes for their extinction. Human migration was probably just a nail in the coffin.

Are you proposing the same for for the magafauna of Australia? Tasmania? New Zealand? Madagascar?

...everywhere humans moved to, where the animals hasn't evolved alongside them (i.e. everywhere except tropical and temperate Africa and Eurasia) there were mass extinctions. Why would we expect anything different in the Americas?
 
Are you proposing the same for for the magafauna of Australia? Tasmania? New Zealand? Madagascar?

...everywhere humans moved to, where the animals hasn't evolved alongside them (i.e. everywhere except tropical and temperate Africa and Eurasia) there were mass extinctions. Why would we expect anything different in the Americas?

That's a philosophical argument. I'm saying the science shows American megafauna was already dying off when humans got there. It could be argued that without humans some of the endangered species may not have gone extinct, but this thread supposes the die-off wouldn't occur at all without humans, and that is incorrect.
 
I'm not knowledgeable on the subject to argue whether-or-not the American megafauna were already headed for extinction: anyone else care to chime in?

It strikes me as way too coincidental to be credible, given repeated climate cycles they took in stride, the fact that NA and Eurasia were liked at numerous points beforehand, that the shock of the Panama exchange didn't do this, etc, etc.
 
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