WI: Vinland livestock

The Viking colony of Vinland goes as well as historically (not very), but the settlers leave behind some livestock. Smaller animals, either pigs, goats, or sheep. In the case of pigs, they're hardy enough to go feral on their own, and could prove to be useful game. But lets just assume that the natives manage to domesticate/keep domesticated whatever livestock is left behind.

With this new source of nutrition and, in the case of sheep (if we go down that route), wool, what might the impact be on the Americas?
 
I think the Natives would need someone-a defector or captive-to teach them animal husbandry, assuming they even want to learn it (and why would they? it would be a massive change to their lifestyle).

(going forward, I'm assuming that "Vinland" was on mainland North America and not the Leifsbudr settlement at L'anse aux Meduse in Newfoundland).

IF goats or sheep (or even cattle) are domesticated, this is potentially a massive game changer for population numbers. The reason is that pelts are potentially a limiting factor for population growth in northeastern North America. Without winter clothes made from deer or other large animals, people freeze to death. When hunting is exhausted, people need to move or die to get access to winter clothes, and fighting over hunting grounds is an existential battle.

Whichever tribes adopt these animals now have a ready and growing supply of very warm winter clothes. Even without traditional weaving (adapted by some Native groups IOTL, but the people most known for it live in the southwest) the woolen pelts of goats and sheep keep more people warm and allow them to survive even without large hunting grounds. This in turn allows a much denser population to develop. Over the course of 500 years, the population of the Eastern Woodlands could be much higher than OTL.

That said, any population growth might start from a lower initial population than OTL due to the presence of feral pigs. These will spread ahead of the domesticates and cause great damage to the environment and to fields. Hunger caused by pigs eating maize and wild plant foods and disease caused by pigs pooping in fields where food is grown (hey, we've had outbreaks of E. coli in Spinach for the same reason within the last couple years) may cause the population to fall hard before it starts to recover.
 
Hadn't looked at skins/wool from a population perspective, interesting.

As for pigs causing e coli, I don't think that will be much of an issue. This is a technologically primitive society, after all. Their guts can take a lot more than ours.
 
Feral pigs does add a decent game animal, and unlike OTL where pigs trampling Natives's fields was a huge source of tension, there's no one to care if the pigs are all killed.

Sheep are definitely the big one. But I think you have the same issue with introducing animals to Aboriginal Australia--what stops the natives from killing the relatively small initial population in the name of food?

The textiles the Algonquian peoples might create are certain to be interesting.
 
Well the whole thing about going from a hunter-gatherer society into a agricultural society is that there has to be a need to do so. However if certain animals take little effort to feed and keep alive then they should be able to have a mix perhaps.

If they can figure out how to process wool and weave it into clothing then they might keep sheep around, maybe even if they done they could just wear sheep skins with the fur on I guess.

The second is goats, they can eat pretty much anything and have very good skins from what I hear. In my Vinland TL the Norse marked isolated craggy islands that dot the Labrador and Newfoundland coasts with goats.

And the third is chickens, now the Norse may not even bring chickens so this might be out regardless.
 
I lean toward pigs and maybe cattle being the only one able to survive going feral. Chickens will die in the area without human protection, goats and sheep are also easy pray. Pigs are goes feral well and will likely do well. Cattle and horse are too expensive to leave, but cattle are more likely to graze in the forest and to be left fast. In a north America which have a relative small mega fauna, we will likely see the feral pigs go the razorback route and become pretty big monsters.
 
I lean toward pigs and maybe cattle being the only one able to survive going feral. Chickens will die in the area without human protection, goats and sheep are also easy pray. Pigs are goes feral well and will likely do well. Cattle and horse are too expensive to leave, but cattle are more likely to graze in the forest and to be left fast. In a north America which have a relative small mega fauna, we will likely see the feral pigs go the razorback route and become pretty big monsters.

Pigs do take to going feral quite well. So do horses, due to their size and speed. But don't count out goats.
 
Could some Diamondian adaptation happen in 500 years?

Probably not, because it didn't IOTL. While the Plains Indians did capture feral horses, they initially learned the basics of horse husbandry from the Spanish, who were present in the southern plains.

Same with sheep. The Navajo and Hopi adapted sheep husbandry, but had a lot of contact with the Spanish to learn this husbandry-either from being enslaved and then escaping, from the conquest that came before and after the Pueblo Revolt, and in the case of the Navajo from capturing Spanish and later Mexican settlers who knew animal husbandry (during the same raids where they captured sheep).

IMO adapting livestock will not happen without prolonged contact in some way with the Norse settlers.
 
there's a real question of just what livestock Karlsefni's band had with them. The Saga just says vaguely that they took 'all kinds of livestock', but the only critter specifically mentioned is a bull. Would it be likely that they had smaller animals like chickens, ducks, geese, along?
 
there's a real question of just what livestock Karlsefni's band had with them. The Saga just says vaguely that they took 'all kinds of livestock', but the only critter specifically mentioned is a bull. Would it be likely that they had smaller animals like chickens, ducks, geese, along?

At this early stage (within the first 25 years of the initial settlement) the Norse had all their main livestock-cattle, pigs, goats, and sheep, with cattle being seen as the real prestige animal to own. I also recall reading that geese were brought to Greenland from Iceland. Although over the next few centuries the Norse would move significantly towards hunting and gathering most of their food, at this stage they really were farmers (also murderers. Worth keeping in mind as we discuss Norse/Native relations).

Although Iceland has some famous horses, I have yet to read about any significant horse remains found in the old Norse Greenlandic settlements.
 
Top