Transparent Blue sent me an idea for switch the fates of the Old and New World, and it seems fairly interesting. I feel the idea could use more discussion though. I'm trying to work out a not totally ASB way to do it. My best efforts are sort of ASB (needing some plant based diseases and bad climate luck), but I'm hoping for more creative plausible ideas.
Stopping/Severly Slowing Old World Agriculture
- Thread starter Beedok
- Start date
The main issue here is that the Old World had a wider selection of plants to choose from so it was easier for them to develop agriculture. They also had a wider selection of animals to choose from, especially as the locals did not wipe out all the useful species.
To improve New World agriculture you need a cereal like wheat that is easy to domesticate and store in contrast to maize (it is amazing how it was ever domesticated), maygrass (very small seeds) or potatoes (shorter life). You also need a bovine with a better temperament than a bison so that you have an animal to draw plough; hoe agriculture is fine for gardens, but very labour intensive for fields. The catch here is that unlike bison cattle ancestors do not have appeared to have migrated to North America.
Both are possible, but seem to be on the ASB side of things. I am open though to alternative views on this subject.
Would the Americans have been better off if they continued to work on Little Barley instead of changing to Maize?, say due to more evolutionary luck with it early on (leading it to be obviously superior outside Mesoamerica) and/or later (or no) domistication of Maize.
If maize was more productive then that would account for the switch. The Wikipedia page uses the words tiny seeds. If there are no mutations (ASB) to incease the size then I can understand why it was eventually dropped.
ComradeHuxley
Donor
Exactly. Anything that can be influenced by human action either directly (plant/animal domestication) or indirectly like the weather (butterfly effect) are not ASB.
In the same vain I would suggest looking at the potential of the Tse-Tse fly as the carrier of the "sleeping sickness" trypanosomes parasyte. It wrecked the agriculture of the Old World continent of Africa, quiet severely. An interesting discussion on the topic can be found here:
Tsetse Fly dies out
But even if it is not the tse-tse fly that spreads, a mutated form of trypanosomes or a analogues mutated form of malaria might do the job as well.
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Why would you need a bovid to do that, when you could just breed horses to do it? That would only require equines not to go extinct in North America, and remain in large enough numbers. Domestication would probably follow the same pattern as it did in the Old World, and it would spread around the majority of North America. Then you just need to breed some horses for bulk and strength, and others for meat/milk etc.
wouldn't Canine actually be strong enough to run it ... i remember someone mentioning (DValdron in LoIaM i think?) that Dogs by weight is the close to being as strong as the work animals in the Old World, so it should 'merely' be a question of building the plough with a lower center of pull, no clue if its actually possible but i'd think it should be possible with a bit of tinkering
Because until you have collars for them horses make lousy draft animals. Physique is all wrong for a yoke so historically a strap was put around their neck half straggling them in the process.Analytical Engine said:
If you want a beast to pull a chariot fine, but not if you want to pull ploughs or wagons.
Dogs are too small and anyway compete with humans for food. The beauty of bovids is that they eat foliage that humans do not.Sian said:
Quinoa and amaranth were psuedocereals that were developed by the Aztecs and Incas. Their only draft animals the llama and alpaca would've done well in North America, but couldn't thrive in the Amazon. So there would have to be better trade routes and navigation for an agricultural exchange between the Americas on the same scale as in Europe,Asia and Africa. Also Europe,Asia and Africa are very close together, with shared history and extremely easy for intercontinental travel. It was inevitable that the Old World would have the agriculture that they did.
If you'd only domesticated horses, how on earth would you end up with a yoke appropriate for a cow?
one of the things you could do to slow down Old World agriculture is to scatter the wild ancestors of our domesticates around the world. In OTL, humans left Africa and wandered right into the Fertile Crescent, where the wild ancestors of wheat, barley, peas, cattle, pigs, sheep, and goats were all in one handy place. Hardly surprising that agriculture developed there and boomed. Scatter all of those plants and critters around, and it gets harder... which is what the Native Americans faced. Maize (IIRC) was in northern Mexico, potatoes were in the Andes... not sure about beans and squash...
Spreading around is not the answer. For, example in Mexico the farmers had maize, beans and squash at in the same place, and that is as good a mix as the Fertile Crescent. What they don't have is a better domestic animal than a turkey plus the local cereal took longer to domesticate that their Old World rivals. If you switched proto-maize and -wheat round you would slow down the Fertile Crescent and speed up Mexico. However to fully achieve meeting this PoD, you need to also slow down China with its rice and millet and the Sahel with sorghum and rice.
On our time level the Fertile Crescent went into agriculture around 8500 BC, China 7500 BC, the Sahel 5000 BC and the two Americas 3500 BC. Because wheat and millet are interchangeable and sorghum nearly so you have to slow down not one region but three.
As for spreading the critters around, wild cattle could be found in places as diverse as Europe, North Africa and India. What you need are less bovids in total. Sheep and goats were originally more restricted, but the other hand they are perfect for domestication.
For regular agriculture, yes, it's an issue. Dogs are pound for pound, the strongest domesticate. But in order to get those pounds, you'd have to wrangle an entire team of them. That's got inherent difficulties.
And their diets overlap considerably. That's why dogs were domesticated, they loved our garbage. They're broader in their appetites, much like pigs. But you'd lose out to grass eaters.
The other problem is that Eurasia runs East-West, the Americas run North South.
So. If the Chinese domesticate rice and millet and the Fertile Crescent domesticates wheat and oats, they can 'immediately' swap crops.
It took thousands and thousands of years for Maize and beans to get from Mexico to Ontario, because you had to rebreed new varieties to handle the shorter seasons. As mentioned above, too, getting llama/alpacas north to North America never happened 'cause they couldn't handle the jungle between.
So. If the Chinese domesticate rice and millet and the Fertile Crescent domesticates wheat and oats, they can 'immediately' swap crops.
It took thousands and thousands of years for Maize and beans to get from Mexico to Ontario, because you had to rebreed new varieties to handle the shorter seasons. As mentioned above, too, getting llama/alpacas north to North America never happened 'cause they couldn't handle the jungle between.
Maize was domesticated in the Mexican highlands. Those are what they call a temperate zone, with oaks, junipers, pine trees, even some fir species (albeit admittedly the range of the latter is limited). You can grow peaches, apples, plums and cherry trees in that climate; all these are far more sensitive cultivars than cereals. Compare that to Japonica rice, it originates from a variety domesticated on the Pearl River valley, and spread to both tropical and temperate enviorments.
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