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Old 01-05-2014, 12:17 PM   #1
Humabout
 
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Default Potential Pleistocene Mounts

I'm wondering what the hivemind thinks of various Pleistocene animals as potentially domesticated mounts for combat. I'm eyeballing some of the smaller species of rhino and larger deer/elk/moose species right now. Any potential issues or better suggestions?
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Old 01-05-2014, 12:37 PM   #2
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

Given enough time, a civilization could probably domesticate any mammal species. I mean, look at the ancestors of the cow!

Only real problem is ensuring you set the first attempts to domesticate animals several generations back.
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Old 01-05-2014, 12:46 PM   #3
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
Only real problem is ensuring you set the first attempts to domesticate animals several generations back.
Good point. I'm envisioning enough time to bread a couple subspecies. Essentially a warhorse variant, a draft animal, and a generic riding animal.

In terms of actually attempting such a hair-brained idea, which do you think would be most attractive? Riding moose or rhinos? Also, are there animals I'm overlooking? Pleistocene is not my specialty, to say the least.

Also, which do you think is the most awesome regardless of practicality/attractiveness?
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Old 01-05-2014, 12:53 PM   #4
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

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Originally Posted by Humabout View Post
Good point. I'm envisioning enough time to bread a couple subspecies. Essentially a warhorse variant, a draft animal, and a generic riding animal.

In terms of actually attempting such a hair-brained idea, which do you think would be most attractive? Riding moose or rhinos? Also, are there animals I'm overlooking? Pleistocene is not my specialty, to say the least.

Also, which do you think is the most awesome regardless of practicality/attractiveness?
Depends on your continent of choice. Ya gotta specify where the setting is first!
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:02 PM   #5
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

Doh! I'm using North America as a model, though I'm not against just yoinking something iconic from elsewhere. This has an air of DF sensibility to it, though I prefer to err on the side of "realism."
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:08 PM   #6
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

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Originally Posted by Humabout View Post
I'm wondering what the hivemind thinks of various Pleistocene animals as potentially domesticated mounts for combat. I'm eyeballing some of the smaller species of rhino and larger deer/elk/moose species right now. Any potential issues or better suggestions?
It's dependent on personalty and structure, but the Pleistocene is recent enough that we can guess based on modern relatives, there's a reason we domesticated the animals we did, and pretty much everything we've domesticated today existed during the Pleistocene (including horses in North America, they only died out about 12,000 years ago). Various extinct bovines, camelids, and mammoths might also be suitable, deer can be domesticated but generally aren't as useful as competing animals, and it's unlikely (though not impossible) that rhinos are suitable for domestication, they generally have nasty tempers.
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:08 PM   #7
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

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Originally Posted by Nereidalbel View Post
Given enough time, a civilization could probably domesticate any mammal species. I mean, look at the ancestors of the cow!

Only real problem is ensuring you set the first attempts to domesticate animals several generations back.
Nope. Out of all of the large mammals, we've only managed to domesticate some 15-ish major species.

It's the "Anna Karenina principle." There's a list of attributes that a species needs, if it's going to be domesticated. (I'd have to pull out my copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel to get the list.)

But the basic principle remains: since the advent of the Scientific Revolution, how many species have we managed to domesticate? I mean, you don't see people trying to domesticate rhinos, for instance.

Edit: Launched Kindle-for-PC, so bear with me here...
From the book (Guns, Germs and Steel):
Quote:
Let’s define a “candidate for domestication” as any terrestrial herbivorous or omnivorous mammal species (one not predominantly a carnivore) weighing on the average over 100 pounds (45 kilograms).

Diamond, Jared (2009-10-23). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (p. 162). Norton. Kindle Edition.
Quote:
In the 19th and 20th centuries at least six large mammals— the eland, elk, moose, musk ox, zebra, and American bison— have been the subjects of especially well-organized projects aimed at domestication, carried out by modern scientific animal breeders and geneticists.

Diamond, Jared (2009-10-23). Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (p. 167). Norton. Kindle Edition.
Things that have to all line up:
Diet. From plant to herbivore, expect a 10% conversion (10,000lb of corn to get 1000lb of cow). From herbivore to carnivore, expect the same inefficiency (10,000lb of corn to get 1000lb of cow to get 100lb of carnivore). And the animal can't be too finicky (try domesticating a koala, for instance). The only carnivore we domesticated for food was the dog (and it's more an omnivore...).

Growth rate. If it takes 10 years to reach harvestable age, it's not worth the effort. (E.g., elephants and gorillas)

Problems of captive breeding.

Nasty dispositions. (E.g., zebras get MEAN when they get older, and injure more zookeepers than tigers)

Tendency to panic. If they form herds and stand their ground, good. If they panic and bolt, bad.

Social structure. Gives humans a chance to take over the dominant position. Not just that, but some species have varying tolerances for other groups (e.g., during non-breeding season, they all get along fine. During breeding season, each herd considers other herds to be threats).

Anyway, good book, well recommended.
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:19 PM   #8
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

How about proto-camels? They are even native to the Americas, which is an added bonus. Examples that were substantially similar to modern camels existed (such as camelops). But mega-camels existed too, including one that weighed up to four tons.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Arctic_Camel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanotylopus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megacamelus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelops

Pleistocene mammals were weird and wonderful.
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:19 PM   #9
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

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Originally Posted by Pragmatic View Post
There's a list of attributes that a species needs, if it's going to be domesticated. (I'd have to pull out my copy of Guns, Germs, and Steel to get the list.)
I'd love to see that list. It would help me out a lot when doing this sort of speculative stuff.

So you all think domestication would still be relegated to bovids, caprids, camelids, canids, and equines? Based on the equines around, I don't think horses would really get domesticated - they were too small then. That pretty much leaves llama and buffalo cavalry, if any.

Also, would you say that we have domesticated elephants at all, or are they merely trained but still wild?

[EDIT]
Titantylopus and Camelops are in the right timeframe. These would be possibilities and well-suited to the arid conditions of an ice age.
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Last edited by Humabout; 01-05-2014 at 01:23 PM.
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Old 01-05-2014, 01:36 PM   #10
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Default Re: Potential Pleistocene Mounts

Posted the list. :-)

But out of the 190-ish species that meet the criteria for domestication (first quote from the book), only 14 of them actually were domesticated.
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