[IW] Late arrival in New World?

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by Phil Masters

(I tend to assume that those Ice Age settlers were actually a series of waves of fairly substantial groups who were already well adapted to sub-Arctic environments, enabling them to get well established before they started expanding south into more temperate zones, in significant numbers. Dunno off-hand what genetics suggests about founder group sizes.)

This lines up with the last presentation I saw on the subject, with crossing from Russia to Alaska taking many waves and a few hundred years before there were permanent populations in NA. There are a lot of archeological finds under the ocean from the populations that spent their entire lives between the current land masses.

What I am gathering from this thread so far is that, without the ice age people crossing the land bridge, the first humans to settle permanently will be the vikings. Other groups beat them there, but had all male crews so would have died out. Presuming the vikings survive, we have a new nordic nation and a europe that's aware of a virgin continent across the atlantic well before Columbus, assuming the secret isn't kept very well. If the vikings fail, then Columbus finds a new, empty world.

This raises so many interesting possibilities. Without the natives and their wealth, would Spain even care? Without humans cultivating the wild varieties, this may be a world without any new world crops to speak of. What happens to the Irish without the potato? This is a nightmare world without chocolate, tobacco or pizza!

Edit: I got confused about the origin of sugar cane.

[dcarson]

I'd expect that a shipwrecked crew from most seafaring cultures could repair or replace the ship from local trees with the tools the ship had. So there is a decent chance they could return home with news of a new and empty for settlement land. If they stumbled across something valuable like gold or furs that raises the odds someone will do so.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by dcarson

I'd expect that a shipwrecked crew from most seafaring cultures could repair or replace the ship from local trees with the tools the ship had. So there is a decent chance they could return home with news of a new and empty for settlement land. If they stumbled across something valuable like gold or furs that raises the odds someone will do so.

I can also see some folks using the New World as a pressure valve for overpopulation or just fleeing oppression (real and perceived), much like post-Columbus Europe in OTL. On the one hand, they won't have any natives to show them the ropes, but on the other they won't have any natives disputing their land claims.

[thrash]

Originally Posted by thrash

Is there an established timeline where the Beringia land bridge was not crossed during the last glacial?

So, the answer to the original question appears to be "no." Even in fiction, the only similar scenario I've been able to find is Harry Turtledove's A Different Flesh, though this has the additional element of Homo erectus reaching the New World and surviving to the present. I welcome suggestions for a designation, but for now I'm going to go with Vinland-2 for reasons which will be come apparent later.

The important feature of this timeline is that the inhabitation of the New World by H. sapiens didn't occur during the Last Glacial Maximum. The precise divergence point would likely never be known in context, but we'll presume a tempus ante quem of ~33 kya.

Settlement of the New World began in three areas approximately simultaneously, around AD 1000. While there almost certainly were sporadic outside contacts prior to this and even some attempts at settlement, they all eventually died out.

In Alaska, the Thule (proto-Inuit) culture transitioned from seasonal hunting camps to persistent settlements (probably due to the Medieval Warm Period and population pressure in Siberia) and began expanding along the coasts.

Polynesian settlers bound from the Marquesas to Hawaii around AD 950 were blown off course and carried by the Equatorial Countercurrent to the Galapagos Islands, where they established themselves instead. Further exploration reached Central America c. 1000 and founded settlements on the coastal islands (Isla Puná in the mouth of the Guayas River, Pearl and Coiba Islands off Panama) when the mainland initially proved too challenging. Return voyages followed the trade winds and North and South Equatorial Currents to Hawaii and Rapa Nui (respectively) around 1100, establishing trade with the core Polynesian civilization. Eventually, the Polynesians were able to cross the Isthmus (more likely in Nicaragua than Panama) and expand to the entire Caribbean basin (c. 1250) before turning back to develop the mainland.

In c. AD 986, Bjarni Herjolfsson got lost on his way from Iceland to Greenland and sighted the Canadian coast, but refused to land. A few years later (c. 994) Leif Erikson led a follow-up expedition and brought along his father, Erik the Red. Erik was so impressed that he ordered the main settlement shifted south from Greenland, but died of disease before the plan can be carried out. Leif's brother, Thorvald, established a colony at L'Anse Aux Meadows c. 1000, before falling victim to a saber-tooth cat. Nevertheless, the Norse colony was so successful that when Harald Hardrada was driven into exile after the Battle of Stiklestad in 1030, he chose to seek his fortune in Vinland, rather than the Kievan Rus.

As a result, Harald (now King of Norway) was on an expedition to Vinland in AD 1066 during the succession crisis after the death of Edward the Confessor of England. Without the second front in Northubria, Harold Godwinson was able to defeat the invading Normans at Hastings, though he still lost his life in the battle. His successor, Edward's nephew Edgar Aethling, married Maria Haraldsdatter in 1067, at the age of 16. The British Isles remained firmly in the Scandanavian sphere focused on Vinland, rather than embroiled in centuries of conflict with France.

The Norse and Inuit met in the vicinty of Hudson's Bay around 1100. but mostly left one another alone. Norse contacts with the Polynesians occurred at Assateague Island on the Atlantic coast and near Baton Rouge (since longboats on the Mississippi had trouble negotiating a log raft that dammed it and created a bayou and confluence with the Atchafalaya River), both around 1250. Extensive trade and cultural exchange developed in parallel with frequent but small-scale conflict.

In August 1274, Kublai Khan's army succeeded in securing a beachhead on Kyushu before the typhoon season set in. From there, they proceeded to conquer the remainder of Japan in a series of campaigns that culminated (in 1338) with the destruction of the Hōjō clan and the establishment of the Ashikaga shogunate as nominal vassals. This relationship survived the replacement of the Mongol Yuan dynasty by the Ming emperors in 1368.

With the advent of the Little Ice Age (c. 1300), Norse attempts to hold Greenland were abandoned and the island fell within the Inuit sphere. Scandanavian trade routes shifted south to avoid the encroaching sea ice.

Abu Bakr II abdicated his throne as Emperor of Mali in 1311 in order to find "the limits of the ocean." His fleet followed the North Equatorial Current southwestward, but had run out of fresh water without sighting land. They were rescued by a Polynesian crew, who were able (through gestures and demonstrations) to convince them to draw a bucket of seawater and try it. As the Polynesians (who were returning along the Brazilian coast) knew, the outflow of the Amazon meant that the water was fresh many miles out to sea. Abu Bakr followed his benefactors to Trinidad, learned their language, and concluded a trade treaty before sailing back to Africa.

In 1425, a treasure ship carrying the annual tribute from Osaka (including rice, horses, katana, and concubines for the Imperial Court) was captured by wokou pirates in the Seto Inland Sea and sailed south towards the Ryukyu Islands. The pirates were not skilled in handling a vessel of this size, however, and battle damage compounded by a sudden squall cost the ship its rudder and five of its eight masts. The ship drifted on the Kuroshio current (assisted by sails but unable to maneuver) for two months before running aground in the mud flats at the mouth of Willapa Bay. The survivors used the enormous (100 x 40 yd) hull as a citadel and salvaged its fittings to equip smaller craft for fishing and explorations up and down the coast. Starting in 1427, they also dispatched on ship each year to attempt the return crossing and bring rescue. Only the fourth (1430) was ever heard from again, making landfall in the Philippines before making their way on a merchant ship to Nanjing. They were brought to the Imperial Governor of Nanjing, who dispatched a rescue fleet on his own authority. The fleet returned in 1431 with details of the newly discovered lands -- called Fusang -- just in time to save the head of the Governor. Contact and development continued, if only as a means of disposing of troublesome rivals and factions at court.

Portugal had been incorporated (however restively) into the Crown of Castile in the 1380's. Without Prince Henry the Navigator, Castilian efforts at exploration along the North African coast and across the Atlantic starting around 1450 were haphazard and hampered by attempts to keep the results secret.The Mali Empire fell into internal divisions in the late 15th century that weakened it considerably, but not before colonizing the Cape Verde islands. This helped serve as a barrier to European ambitions further south.

[thrash]

In this outline, I have deliberately avoided discussing how colonization attempts proceed on the mainland. In part, I believe this would resemble a milder (i.e., no kaiju) version of an evolved dungeon fantasy setting. Settlements would have to be fortified, at least initially, to prevent becoming all-you-can-eat buffets for the more aggressive carnivores. Over decades or centuries, these become less important as the megafauna (both carnivorous and the herbivores they normally prey on) are hunted out of "civilized" regions.

An interesting variant, borrowed from the Harry Turtledove stories mentioned above, would be allowing non-human hominins (H. erectus, etc.) to survive in the New World to the present. How would pre-gunpowder societies deal with packs of social, tool-and-fire using indigenes, who are demonstrably smarter than wolves? Together with monstrous animal life, you could have the makings of a no-magic dungeon fantasy setting.

[dcarson]

OK, Vinland-2 goes on my long list of campaigns to run someday.

[AlexanderHowl]

One of the current theories is that the massive kill off of the natives of the Americas triggered or worsened the Little Ice Age because so much agricultural land rewilded that global CO2 levels dropped 4%. Without the natives of the Americas clearing wild lands for agriculture (and burning forests to maintain grasslands for bison) from 4000 BC on, Europe would have been much colder, preventing the development of large societies like Rome and Medieval Europe. In effect, Europe depended on the natives of the Americas for climate regulation for thousands of years before Europeans were aware that the Americas existed.