WI The Horse had never died out in the America
- Thread starter RazeByFire
- Start date
Camels bred in Afghanistan have thicker 'fur??' to cope with the cold, presumably llama could be bred to better tolerate warmer climates. IIRC central Mexico is an elevated plateau and not a dank tropical jungle, nor is most of north America tropical. Once an initial breeding population is established beyond the worst tropics of central America then it won't matter if llama aren't great in the tropics because they won't be in the tropics.
Would the introduction of a large pack animal into Mexico increase the use of the wheel? Does America need draught animals? Their agriculture was already advanced enough without them that it was able to support advanced, populous societies. I think that having a herding component on the outskirts of the zone where intensive agriculture was viable wold increase the vitality of a society by providing the option for long range caravan trade.
Would the introduction of a large pack animal into Mexico increase the use of the wheel? Does America need draught animals? Their agriculture was already advanced enough without them that it was able to support advanced, populous societies. I think that having a herding component on the outskirts of the zone where intensive agriculture was viable wold increase the vitality of a society by providing the option for long range caravan trade.
Last edited:
Nice scenario. There's no reason everything is timed so close to the European arrival though. This chain of events may just as well start a couple thousand years earlier.
American big cats probably couldn't handle a pack of wild horses. In Mongolia horses are known to attack wolves. They chase them down and stomp them to death.
I like this picture.
They say not all llamas are suitable for driving, that you have to pick and choose. Also I don't know about their endurance. From what I gathered so far, they're probably not comparable to horses. None the less, it may be possible to develop a specialized draft breed of llamas over time.
What's surprising is the claim that llama driving didn't even exist a decade ago! Wonder what was keeping the idea down.
They say not all llamas are suitable for driving, that you have to pick and choose. Also I don't know about their endurance. From what I gathered so far, they're probably not comparable to horses. None the less, it may be possible to develop a specialized draft breed of llamas over time.
What's surprising is the claim that llama driving didn't even exist a decade ago! Wonder what was keeping the idea down.
Here's a pic of a llama pack team in the Appalachian trails of Tennessee. The articles says the llamas were eerily quiet, like ghosts. This reminded me that military special forces experimented with them with success, as they could move silently.
It could start a thousand years earlier. But someone mentioned that it would take Millennia for horses to reach the other continent (it NA to reach SA and vice-versa as in the scenario). I just wanted to point out that even if horses had arrived only a couple hundred years in the Great Plains before European arrival it would still make a huge difference.
But yeah they could have been there thousands of years earlier and thus it makes thing much more complicated for Europeans than what this scenario proposes.
That bloke looks be be leading at least 7 llamas, and thus 350kg or so of cargo. In my mind when faced with the choice of only transporting what you can carry yourself the load of 7 llamas would look like a freight train. In my mind this alone would energise a society which utilised such pack trains. I am picturing caravans of 500 llamas led by 70 men carrying 25 tons of trade goods between Teotihuacán and Palenque.
So we can also have lamas along with the horses. Awesome even better.
Keenir
Banned
Point Of Divergence member Dale Cozort once proposed that the North American Llama be prevented from going extinct.
Yeah but we are talking about horses. Unless there is a Plains galloping Lama/Camelid we still do not solve the mount problem.
Lamas are good and they can serve in developing a herding society. But as it has been pointed out this is not enough. Yes, even is they have huge caravans of Lamas this is still a nomadic herding culture.
Oh one more thing for the scenario I proposed a few posts ago. Once the Great Lakes cultures domesticate the horse they can move into domesticating the moose. I want to see some puny European cavalry standing up against that. Hahaha
. OK yeah I know this is not possible but if it where... damn that would be awesome!!! Even more so than the domesticated buffalo (which is much more likely to happen).I don't think the NAmerindians need to do anything as tiresome as domesticating anything themselves. Merely by some lucky event have domesticated llamas bought from Peru to Mexico a couple of millenia ago, after it had been domesticated for some millenia already.
But back to horses. I don't know if, had domesticable horses survived in America, they'd be much better than llama bought north from Peru. They certainly wouldn't be the star beast of burden for enhanced agriculture, in Eurasia that was the job for oxen/water buffalo until very recently. They could be ridden, and used to pull a reasonable chariot/cart, and pack a greater burden than llama but these are difference of degree rather than fundamental paradigm.
But back to horses. I don't know if, had domesticable horses survived in America, they'd be much better than llama bought north from Peru. They certainly wouldn't be the star beast of burden for enhanced agriculture, in Eurasia that was the job for oxen/water buffalo until very recently. They could be ridden, and used to pull a reasonable chariot/cart, and pack a greater burden than llama but these are difference of degree rather than fundamental paradigm.
Horses are extremely versatile. They excel at riding, drafting, and pack use. All that and they can plow a field and round up cattle. Its speed is unmatched by any animal that could be ridden. A horseman can cover hundreds of miles in days. The horse revolutionized the hunt and war. One factor that makes horses superior is their intelligence. They can learn to do work and follow commands that cattle could never do.
While a llama can be used as a pack animal, they are too light to ride. Both the endurance and speed of the pack team are limited by the human walking ahead rather than the beast. Therefore, while a huge step up, llamas just wont have the impact of horses.
From what I understand horses didn't do the plow until the last few hundred years, for 4000 years they were a riding/cart-chariot/pack animal. What's more there are no cattle, or other domesticable herd animals, in America to round up which would foster the development of horse nomads. Thus I think the horse would be underdeveloped in America compared to Eurasia if it survivied.
However, as I said in an earlier post, the horse nomad/farmer divide is one of the great energising factors in human history. Robert Oconnell credits it as source the extreme violence of warfare in Eurasia compared to pre Columbian America.
However, as I said in an earlier post, the horse nomad/farmer divide is one of the great energising factors in human history. Robert Oconnell credits it as source the extreme violence of warfare in Eurasia compared to pre Columbian America.
Stephen
Banned
Pre Columbian warfare was extremely violent. The empires of the Aztec and Inca were not made by gift giving. Warfare/Murder is the leading caurse of death in tribal societies. Malthusian factors make all societies violent. The last half century is an aberation which will soon come to an end.
I don't deny that Pre Columbian warfare was violent, the Aztecs were genocidal on the scale of the Nazis and Communists. But according to Oconnell the farmer/horsemen divide gave rise to the concept of psuedo-speciation, where niether side saw the other as human and thus reduced the inbuilt aversion to killing other humans that people innately have.
The horsemen saw the farmers as animals who dug in the dirt, and thus could be preyed upon without a second thought using their immense military advantage of mounted mobility and composite bow firepower. On their part the farmers saw horsemen as vermin/predators like locusts, jackals or wolves, a pest to be dealt with. Oconnell suggests that to deal with these pests the societies closest to the steppes became more warlike, they developed powerful standing armies, ruthless warfighting strategy/tactics, fortifications etc. These societies then found themselves at a military advantage over their farming nieghbours who, as a result of their lack of exposure to the inhuman horsemen, weren't as militarised. So these farming societies have to militarise themselves as well or face conquest by their hard-arse farming nieghbours, and so on in a domino-effect fashion. And, as we know from the Mongols and Huns a millenia apart, a distrubance on the steppes can lead to horsemen eruptions into Korea and China through India and Mid East to Europe, which militarises vast tracts of Eurasia.
Oconnel theorises that without the horsemen/farmer psuedo-speciation the Americas didn't reach Eurasian level of violence in warfare. Mexico and Peru are studded with walled towns, there is a tradition of 'flower wars' (while not typical still exist and thus bring the level of violence down a notch on average), and a lack of ruthless craftyness in warfare compared to the Spaniards are some examples he uses to illustrate this point.
Fascinating book, I really liked it.
The horsemen saw the farmers as animals who dug in the dirt, and thus could be preyed upon without a second thought using their immense military advantage of mounted mobility and composite bow firepower. On their part the farmers saw horsemen as vermin/predators like locusts, jackals or wolves, a pest to be dealt with. Oconnell suggests that to deal with these pests the societies closest to the steppes became more warlike, they developed powerful standing armies, ruthless warfighting strategy/tactics, fortifications etc. These societies then found themselves at a military advantage over their farming nieghbours who, as a result of their lack of exposure to the inhuman horsemen, weren't as militarised. So these farming societies have to militarise themselves as well or face conquest by their hard-arse farming nieghbours, and so on in a domino-effect fashion. And, as we know from the Mongols and Huns a millenia apart, a distrubance on the steppes can lead to horsemen eruptions into Korea and China through India and Mid East to Europe, which militarises vast tracts of Eurasia.
Oconnel theorises that without the horsemen/farmer psuedo-speciation the Americas didn't reach Eurasian level of violence in warfare. Mexico and Peru are studded with walled towns, there is a tradition of 'flower wars' (while not typical still exist and thus bring the level of violence down a notch on average), and a lack of ruthless craftyness in warfare compared to the Spaniards are some examples he uses to illustrate this point.
Fascinating book, I really liked it.
Valdemar II
Banned
Quite likely the only difference the horse will do, is that it give the plains indians another prey, interesting I think in South America the domestication is more likely, while this will change little for the Incas (Llamas is superior pack animals in the mountains), it could lead to more contact with Indian tribes south of the Amazona and the spread of the potato to Argentina, Uruguay and Southen Brazil, which would create agricultural societies there. From there we could easily see a domestication of the Capybara (it's easy to tame and breed in captivity). So a quite likely result is third area of civilisation in Americas.
To the horse I doubt it will breed fast enough to riding before the Europeans arrive, but with a little luck we could se the Indian chariots.
To the horse I doubt it will breed fast enough to riding before the Europeans arrive, but with a little luck we could se the Indian chariots.
According to some accounts that I have seen recently, there may have been a comet or meteoroid strike in the northern latitudes of North America about 13,000 years ago that, if not driving the megafauna extinct, certainly endangered them enough so that either hunters or too much distance between pockets of survivors could spell their doom. What isn't realized is that the Clovis culture disappeared around this time as well and it would be almost 1,000 years before the next stoneworking culture took its place.
Agreed. There might have even been worse diseases going back to Europe, which was an hygenic cesspool.
I was thinking of some of the worse types of African diseases to come back to play with the crowded European cities and towns. Think another round of some disease as deadly as the Black Death, maybe sexually transmitted, killing off a large percentage of the adult population.