Lands of Nuts and Deer - a conworld with domestication of Black Walnut by Native Americans beginning in 9000 BC

[Otto Kretschmer]

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/ ... bc.517705/

Here is the work of my imagination. A Native American civilization which started growing walnut gardens and became more advanced than the Old World civilizations by 1500 BC.By 1000 BC they got deer riding.

No idea how the world might be in terms of linguistics though ;(

This is modelled after two other famous timelines - Lands of Red and Gold by Jared about an Australian Aboriginal civilization and Lands of Ice and Mice by Dennis Valdron about an Inuit civilization (based on domestication of Hedysarium alpinum, Claytonia tuberosa and a few other crops + caribou by the Inuit)

[Ares Land]

That's really nice.

Lingustically, I think you'd have to resort to conlanging If you want a real-world basis, assuming Macro-Siouan is actually a thing, the proto-language could fit your starting point.

I'm possibly coming too late, but if you're still looking for crops, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_rice
grows in the area, and was historically domesticated.

[Otto Kretschmer]

That's really nice.

Lingustically, I think you'd have to resort to conlanging If you want a real-world basis, assuming Macro-Siouan is actually a thing, the proto-language could fit your starting point.

I'm possibly coming too late, but if you're still looking for crops, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_rice
grows in the area, and was historically domesticated.

Not too late at all https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/ ... 705/page-4

Wild Rice is actually a nice addition, thanks for mentioning it. It grows in areas where the black walnut does not so it helps expand the cultivated area

[Nortaneous]

wym walnut gardens. why grow walnut gardens. there's no shortage of walnuts. more importantly why not turn cleared forest into grassland for more efficient production of meat. and eventually grains - most pre-maize eastern agricultural complex plants are pioneer species in disturbed environments, which is why so many of them are lawn weeds now, and why it isn't plausible that slash-and-burn agriculture for the purpose of trees wouldn't also result in the domestication of grains

if you insist on monocrop forests (you shouldn't; they're prone to disease and sensitive to disturbances) chestnuts seem more plausible; european chestnuts have a history as a staple food, whereas walnuts don't. another possibility is acorns

if they're planting forests anyway, growing berries on understory trees seems reasonable. serviceberries, persimmons, maybe hawthorns. blackberries grow on shade-tolerant brambles. they could also domesticate the mock strawberry, which i think would travel well. pawpaws aren't productive enough and are probably neurotoxic in large quantities.

white-tailed deer could probably be domesticated, but in current-year otl they have a ludicrously high rate (10%?) of prion disease

[Otto Kretschmer]

Perenial crops like trees have advantages over annual ones like no need to till the land and no need to devote energy and significant amount of produce to be sown each year.

Remember for most of history agriculture was not like today. Peasants did not get 10-15 wheat seeds for every sown seed. In Early Middle Ages standard was 2 seeds harvested for 1 seed sown and half of the entire produce had to be saved for sowing. It required 6-8 acres of land to support a single person on average soil, 25-30 to support a typical family. Only in the High Middle Ages thanks to the three field system, the horse collar and the heavy plough, did the areage of soil needed for to support a person drop to 3-4 acres.

Look at Ancient Greeks - perennial olive trees were a major crop in Ancient Greek, easily 2nd important one.