Re: Alternative histories and paralele universes

Interesting project, Carlos.

But there's an important detail you should know - unless you already
know this. I should keep in mind what made the differences in the
development of civilizations in the old world and the new in the
first place. Both worlds had their own respective "fertile
crescents" where agriculture developed. The old world had more than
one, among them are the fertile crescent in the middle east and the
Yangtze River valley. In the new world, this was meso-america. The
major difference between the old fertile crescents and the new
fertile crescent however is that the old ones had the advantage of a
number of burden animals that could be domesticated. The new one had
no such advantage. Potential burden animals were probably hunted to
extinction by the earliest Americans in Meso-Amerca. (The only
domesticated American burden animal were llamas). It is for this
reason that the plough was invented in the old world and not the new
(for Llamas are not suitable to pull ploughs). The plough gives that
advantage of a more efficient form of agriculture - giving old world
people more time to themselves and to contemplate over other things.
So while people in the old world had more time to indulge in the
further development of civilizations, the new world people had to
spend more time to tend their crops. Old world people had discovered
the use of metals long before new world people, even though they
both discovered agriculture at about the same time. [I read all this
in several anthropological texts in the library. I'm sure you'll
have read the same.]

The success of the Conquistadors is a perfect example of the
technological differences that can ultimately be attributed to the
difference in the availability of burden animals. Conquistadors
fought with horses and firearms, the Americans fought on foot with
stone-age weapons.

So basically, Hangkerim's alternative history should allow for
potential burden animals to survive into the era when agriculture
would be invented in the Americas. Perhaps a domesticated kind of
Buffalo could exist in Mexico (I seem to recall that some Buffalos
are in fact domesticated today). You could also have some kind of
extinction of burden animals occur in the old world - giving
Americans the advantage they never had in our Universe.

Regards,
-Kristian- 8-)