So you think that Asia might have a million or so more people? Not much more?
Also do you think that Vinland would have failed do to undomesticated plants
WI: Humans never crossed Beringia
- Thread starter Gurroruo
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So you think that Asia might have a million or so more people? Not much more?
Also do you think that Vinland would have failed do to undomesticated plants
At absolute minimum, you have 'most Indians', 'Athapaskans' and Inuit.
Actually 'Inuit' may be two waves, themselves, as there seems to be little genetic continuity between Dorset and Thule cultures.
Basically, to stop the settlement of the Americas from Asia, you need a geographical PoD, which, in turn may mean no horses or camels in the Old World, etc., etc.
Driftless
Donor
Does the idea that the proto-Inuit were maritime cultures predispose them to maintaining that settling pattern? Basically do they focus on continually moving down coast for expansion, rather than moving inland?
Heck, there's good reason to believe the initial English settlement of NE North America woould have failed without Native crops and crop knowledge. French colonization was based on trade for native resources. No natives no trade. Any expansion of Viking settlements (or others) would be much slower without Native resources and the knowledge of native crops provided by Indians.
Lateknight
Banned
What native crops? Without natives you would only the much less productive wild cousins to domesticated crops.
Exactly. I'm saying there would be no "native crops" and that attempts to raise European crops would be largely unsuccessful.
isn't the current theory that people came to the Americas by boat as well as the classic 'walked across Beringia"? So Siberians would still likely populate the New World, maybe just a bit slower?
Yes, the whole question does require a geologic PoD, most likely one that completely eliminated the "ice free corridors" in the Pleistocene that allowed Beringian hunters and gatherers to filter south exploiting continental game (large mammals) and plant resources. The initial Pleistocene/late Holocene settlement of the Americans in the 40,000-15,000 time frame was amazingly rapid and this occurred because people were essentially funneled south with a resource adaptation strategy (big game, and plant resources) that was based on a continental, not coastal specialization. There would still be the spread of circum-polar peoples and possibly other maritime people if the ice-free corridors never opened until around 9,000 BP, but they would arrive later and with a fully developed culture based on technologies and adaptations for the exploitation of maritime and polar resources. There is good reason to believe this would be a much more marginal and far less intrusive human presence on the Americas in general.
Norse colonization of empty Iceland succeeded, so colonization of empty Newfoundland also should. Altought if Northeastern Siberia is populated, crossing of Bering Strait is unlikely to be avoided.
More like less. Far less as in "no more" Your assumptions on population growth seem to rest on the notion that there is unlimited space to grow into and so an intital population of 70 people would grow to one or more million people.
In reality, there already were as many people as their hunting and foraging techniques could support in Asia, and the excess starved to death. Sometimes pushing other tribes or species off the ice. For generation upon generation.
If you want more people in Asia, you need to somehow postulate more food -more space, better hunting or fishing techniques, more edible plants, earlier advanced hunting techniques, etc.
I think Vinland would have been a roaring success! Absolutly massive. The Norse made good goes of far more marginal environments like Iceland or even Greenland. With no native domestic crops in sight. Give them the far more clement Vinland, with no competing humans, and a packed biosphere full of animals that had never seen humans and had no instinctive fear of man?
Not only would the settlers have prospered, the palce would have become a big draw for second and later sons in Scandinavia.
Sorry if this is a silly question, but: Would the Viking Age even be possible?
Without Native Americans working to clearing forests in the New World, there ought to be some climatic effects. Now, I'm no expert, but it seems possible that these effects might include the blutterflying of the Medieval Warm Period, which was probably a necessary precondition for the large Norse populations that exploded out of Scandinavia in the eighth century.
Without Native Americans working to clearing forests in the New World, there ought to be some climatic effects. Now, I'm no expert, but it seems possible that these effects might include the blutterflying of the Medieval Warm Period, which was probably a necessary precondition for the large Norse populations that exploded out of Scandinavia in the eighth century.
I'm surprised posters in this thread are even considering a Viking Age at all; I mean with a POD of ~18,000 ago, with humans never crossing into America (which ultimately means a totally altered Old World), the the history of the Earth as we know it wouldn't be possible at all (unless you intended to set up some of the largest butterfly nets known to man).
Right you are, but I assume they are happy enough to deploy such butterfly nets so that there is something to talk about (at least without just making stuff up out of nothing.)
That is an unnecessary apostrophe. Americas is plural. America's indicates America possesses something.
Meanwhile, without a firmer grip on the true number of Native Americans there were pre-Columbian, and the exact impact on nature you're suggesting, it's rather impossible to detail. Would you be able to elaborate?
I can't imagine why it would. The theories don't have massive migrations, but merely small bands moving over time.
Nah, that's just silly. Though no Skraelings...
Why? Did they OTL in any number? Or really at all?
Bingo. It took them long enough to island-hop that I don't see it being a major impact.
That's... what?
A bit of digging shows me this old thread, which, while not precisely on the same topic, may shed some light on things (I'm granting for the sake of argument the idea that the Medieval Warm Period will be butterflied or lessened.)
Some highlights:
-In terms of habitability, North Africa is a big winner (wetter/better for agriculture) and North Europe is a big loser (colder/subject to more destructive weather events.)
-Population growth in China may be stunted some--the north will be colder and the south will have to deal with more extreme weather events
-The Polynesians may have a harder time of it: someone asserts the Pacific will be stormier/choppier
Puzzle
Donor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age#Decreased_human_populations
After checking the ever reliable wikipedia this turned up. I remembered reading it and thinking it was a weird effect, if it was one. When a lot of Native Americans died off due to plague, forests came back where they had previously been cut. This sucked carbon out of the atmosphere leading to cooling. If that was the case the forests never having been cut could lead to a lower global carbon level and a cooler earth.
It is my understanding that Tropical rain forests represent the most significant carbon sink, not temperate North American forests. There was only minimal deforestation in the Amazon basin prior to the arrival of Europeans and deforestation in the Maya lowlands was probably of generally limited duration during the Classic period. The extent and impact of native deforestation practices in North America is debatable. Since all American civilizations were pre-industrial and did not use carbon-rich fossil fuels I frankly doubt that they had much impact on global climate and temperature one way or the other.