Quote:
Originally Posted by tshiggins
How did the Vikings' permanent and continuous settlement of Vinland, that began with Thorfinn Karlsfeni's 10-ship expedition of 1004 CE, with 300 men and women, plus livestock, and ample metal tools and iron ingots, change the pattern of development of the New World and Europe, given that the settlers didn't have firearms and never would, but did have the same immunological advantages as in our history?
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The Norse settlers in the north-east lacked not only firearms, but also five centuries of shipbuilding technology. Moreover, they contacted the Eastern Woodland cultures rather than the Aztecs and Incas, rich in gold. Those things combined to mean they were a lot slower in moving in to exploit the epidemics they introduced, which gave the Native American peoples time to establish immunity and recover some population. There is an ethnically- Norse/Irish enclave in the North-East, Eastern Canada, and parts of the mid-West (where-ever wheat out-grows maize), but most of the Americas are occupied by "re-growth cultures" that developed out of the post-holocaust conditions of the eleventh century and adopted iron-making and horses. There is a great deal of contact and mingling along the approximate border: the two peoples have in approximate technological equilibrium for centuries, and politico-military issues such as aristocratic conquests, marriage alliances, and inheritances have transcended the racio-linguistic divide since time immemorial.
Q: the shortage of nitrates for explosives and propellants also means a desperate shortage of nitrate fertiliser. What are the consequences?