Jefferson's other dream comes true

NapoleonXIV

Banned
In 1806 Mastadons survive in large numbers but, for some reason, have a range fairly strictly limited to the Oregon country and inland as far as the Missouri Breaks.

The Nez Perce and some other tribes have tamed them, and use them for draft and war. Others hunt them but also regard them as sacred.

How does Lewis and Clark report this? What will happen in the 19thc and beyond?
 

rewster

NapoleonXIV said:
In 1806 Mastadons survive in large numbers but, for some reason, have a range fairly strictly limited to the Oregon country and inland as far as the Missouri Breaks.

The Nez Perce and some other tribes have tamed them, and use them for draft and war. Others hunt them but also regard them as sacred.

How does Lewis and Clark report this? What will happen in the 19thc and beyond?
Click to expand...
Hahahaha! I love the way that's worded... As if mastodons could go from non-existing for thousands of years to surviving in large numbers during the year 1806.
Lewis and Clark would probably ride a mastadon home, for effect.
 

EvolvedSaurian

Lewis and Clark would do their best to take hides, tusks and skulls, reporting them as giant hairy elephants.

By the 20th century the Desert Mastodon is a protected species, having been hunting nearly to extintion in the Nez Perce Wars.
 

Nekromans

What, mammoths?

Well, buffalo - assuming they aren't butterflied away - have a harder time, what with TWO giant hairy man-Trampling species going around eating all the grass.

If not, then America simply becomes a LOT more interesting. And Circus guys in Yankland who can't afford Elephants just get a Shaved Mastadon.
 

Mark

Why would butterflies do in the bison? Bison (a larger species), mastodons, and mammoths survived together before humans arrived in the Americas.
 

Keenir

Banned
Mark said:
Why would butterflies do in the bison? Bison (a larger species), mastodons, and mammoths survived together before humans arrived in the Americas.
Click to expand...

their populations were kept low by many species of large-bodied carnivores back then.....without all the predators, the mastadons/mammoths (there is a difference) and bison would have very large populations and would come to compete for dwindling resources.

(the Great Plains might be the Great Scrublands, or the Great Almost A Desert)
 

Dave Howery

if mastodons were like modern elephants, they wouldn't compete with bison much. Bison are grazers, elephants are browsers... you'd find bison on the grasslands and mastodons in the open forests...
 

Keenir

Banned
Dave Howery said:
if mastodons were like modern elephants, they wouldn't compete with bison much. Bison are grazers, elephants are browsers... you'd find bison on the grasslands and mastodons in the open forests...
Click to expand...

mastadons aren't like modern elephants....even mammoths had some differences.

I don't know the specifics, but I know that there were a number of differences.

ps: also, in OTL, elephants eat mostly grass. otherwise they'd never be found in a desert or a grassland.
 
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CalBear

Moderator
Donor
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Given the importance of the Buffalo to the Plain's Indian culture, what would the presence of Mammoth/Mastadons, with the likely imact on herd size, cause the Indian population. I am especially curious about the Sioux/Dakota culture which had only arrived in the region in the 15th/16th century. What does the change is food & shelter/clothing availability have on the newcomers.

I am assuming that the Buffalo/Bison range is altered by the competition from the Mammoth herds & the likelyhood of larger predators (due to the larger prey animals) than those present IOTL. This could have an effect on the French trapper presence & even on the arrival of homesteaders from the Eastern U.S. in the 19th Century.

INTERTESTING POD!
 

Paul in Saudi

I read somewhere that the last mammoths were hunted to extinction in Siberia in Biblical times. The last populations were on some sub-arctic island.

As is common with island variants, these mammoths were very small, horse-sized I think.

We came within a CH of having the Lone Ranger on a mammoth.
 

Dave Howery

Keenir said:
mastadons aren't like modern elephants....even mammoths had some differences.

I don't know the specifics, but I know that there were a number of differences.

ps: also, in OTL, elephants eat mostly grass. otherwise they'd never be found in a desert or a grassland.
Click to expand...
actually, elephants are notorious for tearing up trees and eating them. They do eat some grass, but are not really grazers, like buffalo... otherwise, they'd never be able to coexist with so many true grazers in Africa. Elephants are technically browsers... they eat trees, shrubs, and brush along with grass. Wooly mammoths in Siberia are also known to have been browsers, as remains of their meals were found in the stomachs of those famous frozen ones. It's thought likely that mastodons and American mammoths were also browsers, mainly because they were so large and didn't have the proper teeth and muzzle for true grazing. If they were still alive in the US, they'd be living along river bottoms, draws, etc... anywhere where there abundant trees and brush... not out on the open prairie...
 
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