Quote from: Scooter on October 13, 2023, 12:33:39 PM

Quote from: LordBP on October 13, 2023, 12:30:56 PM
There were instances of Clovis and pre-Clovis points found around the Great Lakes area using obsidian from the Oregon area.

So, either trade routes were used or people walked a lot more back then than now.

There were no trade routes from the Pacific to the Great Lakes.  There WAS migration from WEST to EAST.  Hence the Oregon area obsidian points.

The city of Cahokia (close to modern St. Louis) had a population of about 15,000 centered on a 100-foot pyramid. It had many collections of seashells from the Gulf of Mexico, and copper that was from the Great Lakes region and worked into laminated artwork.

More broadly, archeology has revealed a lot of facts about the Americas that contradict the common narrative in the journals of early European explorers. Partly, the early explorers may have been biased - but also, it's important to realize that most European explorers were encountering post-apocalyptic survivors. Disease ran in advance of explorers and killed over 90% of the population and completely upended their way of life. Early theories about Cahokia had white people theorizing that giants or aliens had created the pyramids, since it clearly couldn't have been Indians.

I'd recommend the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann (ref), and also the video lecture series "Ancient Civilizations of North America" (ref).

That said, it's absolutely true that North Americans had less developed society and technology compared to Mesoamerica or the Andes. The Incans had a network of highways and rope bridges across their vast empire. They had huge trade networks of textiles and pottery along with copper and gold. Their architecture and trade networks dwarf those of Cahokia. All of this is easily confirmed with archeology.

The question is why? Did the people of South America just choose to apply themselves, and the North Americans were lazy? Was Inti worship so much superior to Red Horn worship? I find Diamond's explanation about their environment to be a lot more compelling. North America had no high-yield crops until much later in their history, when corn was adapted to the northern climate.

Quote from: jhkim on October 13, 2023, 04:15:25 PM

Quote from: Scooter on October 13, 2023, 12:33:39 PM

Quote from: LordBP on October 13, 2023, 12:30:56 PM
There were instances of Clovis and pre-Clovis points found around the Great Lakes area using obsidian from the Oregon area.

So, either trade routes were used or people walked a lot more back then than now.

There were no trade routes from the Pacific to the Great Lakes.  There WAS migration from WEST to EAST.  Hence the Oregon area obsidian points.

The city of Cahokia (close to modern St. Louis) had a population of about 15,000 centered on a 100-foot pyramid. It had many collections of seashells from the Gulf of Mexico, and copper that was from the Great Lakes region and worked into laminated artwork.

More broadly, archeology has revealed a lot of facts about the Americas that contradict the common narrative in the journals of early European explorers. Partly, the early explorers may have been biased - but also, it's important to realize that most European explorers were encountering post-apocalyptic survivors. Disease ran in advance of explorers and killed over 90% of the population and completely upended their way of life. Early theories about Cahokia had white people theorizing that giants or aliens had created the pyramids, since it clearly couldn't have been Indians.

I'd recommend the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann (ref), and also the video lecture series "Ancient Civilizations of North America" (ref).

That said, it's absolutely true that North Americans had less developed society and technology compared to Mesoamerica or the Andes. The Incans had a network of highways and rope bridges across their vast empire. They had huge trade networks of textiles and pottery along with copper and gold. Their architecture and trade networks dwarf those of Cahokia. All of this is easily confirmed with archeology.

The question is why? Did the people of South America just choose to apply themselves, and the North Americans were lazy? Was Inti worship so much superior to Red Horn worship? I find Diamond's explanation about their environment to be a lot more compelling. North America had no high-yield crops until much later in their history, when corn was adapted to the northern climate.

May have been some of the landscape altering from the glaciers and their melting with the flooding that would result down the river valley systems in the middle of the US.

Quote from: jhkim on October 13, 2023, 04:15:25 PM

Quote from: Scooter on October 13, 2023, 12:33:39 PM

Quote from: LordBP on October 13, 2023, 12:30:56 PM
There were instances of Clovis and pre-Clovis points found around the Great Lakes area using obsidian from the Oregon area.

So, either trade routes were used or people walked a lot more back then than now.

There were no trade routes from the Pacific to the Great Lakes.  There WAS migration from WEST to EAST.  Hence the Oregon area obsidian points.

The city of Cahokia (close to modern St. Louis) had a population of about 15,000 centered on a 100-foot pyramid. It had many collections of seashells from the Gulf of Mexico, and copper that was from the Great Lakes region and worked into laminated artwork.

More broadly, archeology has revealed a lot of facts about the Americas that contradict the common narrative in the journals of early European explorers. Partly, the early explorers may have been biased - but also, it's important to realize that most European explorers were encountering post-apocalyptic survivors. Disease ran in advance of explorers and killed over 90% of the population and completely upended their way of life. Early theories about Cahokia had white people theorizing that giants or aliens had created the pyramids, since it clearly couldn't have been Indians.

I'd recommend the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann (ref), and also the video lecture series "Ancient Civilizations of North America" (ref).

That said, it's absolutely true that North Americans had less developed society and technology compared to Mesoamerica or the Andes. The Incans had a network of highways and rope bridges across their vast empire. They had huge trade networks of textiles and pottery along with copper and gold. Their architecture and trade networks dwarf those of Cahokia. All of this is easily confirmed with archeology.

The question is why? Did the people of South America just choose to apply themselves, and the North Americans were lazy? Was Inti worship so much superior to Red Horn worship? I find Diamond's explanation about their environment to be a lot more compelling. North America had no high-yield crops until much later in their history, when corn was adapted to the northern climate.

Greetings!

Good stuff, Jhkim! Yes, the North American Indians were less developed and organized than the civilizations throughout Central America and South America, much less than the Europeans, of course. Despite their primitive technology and simplistic organization--yes, they were making progress, changing, adapting, and innovating. Just at a slower pace than other cultures. The North American tribes did have long range, extensive trade networks, stretching from the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes, the Southwest, and everywhere in between. Fish, furs, beads, seashells, all kinds of products.

There are many documentaries and books that discuss how varied, and vibrant North American trade was. Anthropologists and Archaeologists have been teaching and talking about this kind of stuff for *decades* now. I was also introduced to some of this knowledge when I was in college. I had two different Anthropology professors that were experts in North American Indian cultures.

It does boggle the mind, of yes, what existed before the plagues annihilated 90% of the native tribal populations? What existed before the arrival of the Europeans, and what might have developed if such an encounter had not occurred? Smallpox, in particular, introduced by the arrival of the Europeans--was especially devastating to the Native Indian populations.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Quote from: SHARK on October 13, 2023, 07:38:54 PM

Quote from: jhkim on October 13, 2023, 04:15:25 PM

Quote from: Scooter on October 13, 2023, 12:33:39 PM
There were no trade routes from the Pacific to the Great Lakes.  There WAS migration from WEST to EAST.  Hence the Oregon area obsidian points.

I'd recommend the book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus by Charles Mann (ref), and also the video lecture series "Ancient Civilizations of North America" (ref).

There are many documentaries and books that discuss how varied, and vibrant North American trade was. Anthropologists and Archaeologists have been teaching and talking about this kind of stuff for *decades* now. I was also introduced to some of this knowledge when I was in college. I had two different Anthropology professors that were experts in North American Indian cultures.

Good to hear, SHARK. Any suggestions of books for laypeople / gamers? I thought Charles Mann gave a very engaging and readable overview in his 1491 book, but it's not my field.

I've been thinking about a Savage Worlds swashbuckling-ish game set in medieval Cahokia at its height, so that would be my greatest interest personally, but other people might be interested in other time periods and regions.

QuoteThe problem with guns, germs and steel is that our ancestors in the old world had to domesticate bison and cattle.  North America had access to bison and could have started the domestication process, they never did.  North America has the best navigable water ways in the world with ample access to salt and iron, the natives never built upon it.  A better way of looking at it is one tribe had an ancestor who had an idea and followed through, the North American tribes did not.

QuoteAnd Europeans didn't domesticate the bison, they domesticated the aurochs; European bison survived in captivity when the wild ones were exterminated, and have since been reintroduced into the wild, but being captive in a zoo is not the same thing as domestication.

I'd point out that wisent or European bison was never domesticated properly just like his American counterpart.
Neither were European aurochs IIRC - cattle came generally from West Asian populations (Syria specifically) (now that I think of it aside of buffalo - all bovid domesticated animals came from same region).
I guess Mediterrean climate herds are more mellow.

QuoteBison are mean, but any creature with selective breeding can be domesticated with time and willpower taking centuries.

Yes with modern level of technology.
With stone age level of technology - taming one of wildest and strongest bovids is gonna be basically impossible.

And due to geographical differences you lacked such intense hotspot of farming sheparding as our Middle-East-Anatolia.
Most proficient farming Americans lived thousands miles from suitable animals.

We have wild sheep living in warm climate in Eurasia, in smaller mountain ranges. In America sheeps and goats lived in much more severe places, and they never spread much further - because well - all Asia is great link of various bigger and smaller mountains - while America is build extremely different.

QuoteGood stuff, Jhkim! Yes, the North American Indians were less developed and organized than the civilizations throughout Central America and South America, much less than the Europeans, of course. Despite their primitive technology and simplistic organization--yes, they were making progress, changing, adapting, and innovating. Just at a slower pace than other cultures. The North American tribes did have long range, extensive trade networks, stretching from the Pacific Northwest to the Great Lakes, the Southwest, and everywhere in between. Fish, furs, beads, seashells, all kinds of products.

I'd note that despite spread of iron-warfare, the cultures of Northern Europe were also woefully underdeveloped until they decided to really dig Roman and Greek achievements.
Germanic people did it first, while Celts shunned it (maybe still remembering how once they bossed other people around as Iron Age warlords) - and well we can clearly see how Germanic based countries (including Romance ones) are faring compared to once mighty Celts. (And of course iron smelting also came from Mediterrean-Middle Eastern region).

His book is ideological, anti-scientific propaganda for the same reasons as Nazi academic works; he takes half of the equation, and makes the conclusions fit his preconception.

With the Nazi's (really any of the old-timey racial science) the preconception was that Aryans were genetically superior to every other race, so any factors such as geography or past disaster were ignored for a blanket "they were always going to be more primitive than us, because we're Ubermensch!"

With Diamond and his ilk of modern Western academics, Tabula Rasa is the lens everything MUST be viewed through.  All human groups are completely equal in capabilities and potential. So when you have one civilization with aeroplanes, and another still using spears, the explanation has to be completely environmental/some sabotage by the more advanced society.

Groups have observable differences in physical potentials, which we acknowledge, but the concept of difference in intellectual and social abilities are too scary to consider, so we bury them.  I understand why they're scary, but science is supposed to be courageous.

It's not like Asia, Europe and the Middle East didn't have environmental disasters and horrific warfare. Yet somehow groups in these regions advanced so beyond groups in other regions, to the point that advanced groups may as well have been aliens, or time travellers, from the less advanced groups POV.

Never read it. Wonder what REH would say on the matter, hyboria appears to be proto-ancient earth, with stygians and or vanir being proto-egyptians for example. If cimmerians had had a better environment would they have conquered aquilonia and nemedia?

I think anyone with at least one playthrough of a Civilization game would consider it self-evident that one's starting resources have a noticeable impact on how a society develops.  But several important hallmarks of societies that were necessary for success, such as writing, were developed separately in multiple places and didn't require any special abundance of crops or domestic animals.  Some people simply had a bright idea, and others didn't, and that's that.  Of course, proximity is a factor, because good ideas like writing spread through travelers and traders being exposed to it, but you still need someone with the will to act on it.  Written language spread throughout the Mediterranean area in next to no time, for example, but while the Mayans seem to have had writing over two millennia ago, it didn't really take to the groups living elsewhere in the Americas even though others must have been exposed to it.

Quote from: Slipshot762 on November 11, 2023, 06:28:50 PM
Never read it. Wonder what REH would say on the matter, hyboria appears to be proto-ancient earth, with stygians and or vanir being proto-egyptians for example. If cimmerians had had a better environment would they have conquered aquilonia and nemedia?

He's snigger at the news that a lot of post ww2 anthropological canon was disproved by modern genetics confirming that the anglo-saxon invasions did take place.
Then he'd probably shoot himself again.

QuoteIt's not like Asia, Europe and the Middle East didn't have environmental disasters and horrific warfare. Yet somehow groups in these regions advanced so beyond groups in other regions, to the point that advanced groups may as well have been aliens, or time travellers, from the less advanced groups POV.

Horrific warfare all things altogether usually encourages growth.
The difference does not lie in extraordinary events but in basic resources and geography.

Like come on, even from very racist perspective Native Americans came racially from mixture of East Asian stock and Native Siberian stock - and Siberians were main dominant group that later formed Indoeuropeans. They are basically same blood. Unless Asians had custom to banish only dumbasses through Beringia for many centuries, explanation based on biology simply won't work. Even remotely.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 13, 2023, 07:01:24 PMHorrific warfare all things altogether usually encourages growth.
The difference does not lie in extraordinary events but in basic resources and geography.

Except some of the warfare in Europe, Middle East and Asia was at times so brutal that it set whole populations back. Europe had to rediscover everything it lost from the Dark Ages, not to mention events like the Hundred Years War draining countries white over multi generations.

Yes competition and cultural exchange tends to put pressures on peoples to advance, but there's something to be said for sitting pretty on an isolated landmass full of virgin resources.

Also The Americas had civilizations that warred on each other regularly, yet the military advances were rather limited. Europe and Asia were using siege engines thousands of years before contact with the Americas, yet when the Spaniards turned up with firearms, they didn't get crushed by mangonels or speared by ballistae.

Quote from: Wrath of God on November 13, 2023, 07:01:24 PMLike come on, even from very racist perspective Native Americans came racially from mixture of East Asian stock and Native Siberian stock - and Siberians were main dominant group that later formed Indoeuropeans. They are basically same blood. Unless Asians had custom to banish only dumbasses through Beringia for many centuries, explanation based on biology simply won't work. Even remotely.

This paragraph is so disingenuous and ideological I can't do anything with it.

A wolf and a Shi Tzu are so genetically related that they can interbreed (probably involving a footstool,) but a Shi Tzu raised in the forest is probably going to die, and a Wolf is never going to make a good lapdog for a granny.

What is it about humans that make us so different from canines? No-one really argues individuals don't have different strengths and weaknesses, but expand that to groups that were genetically distinct for tens of thousands of years, with different environmental pressures, and people freak out.

Maybe group A is 10 points smarter on average, and over thousands of years that makes a societal difference. Maybe group B has lower aggression, so over time they have a very stable civilization. Maybe C are on average a little larger and stronger, so tend to solve problems with brawn, and over time the society becomes warlike.

Of course environment has a massive effect. If Leonardo Da Vinci was born an Inuit, their hunting tech may have gotten an upgrade, but he wouldn't be building any blubber-powered machines.


Swinging this back around to RPG's, we actually see the concept in TTRPGs and CRPGs. Many games have different human groups with different physical stat bonuses.

Plenty of fantasy worlds replace fantasy races with difference flavors of human kingdoms. Some big hairy barbarians to replace Orcs, rainforest dwellers replace Elves, hardy mountain folk are the Dwarves, etc.


As far as the core question about using Guns, Germs and Steel as a guide for creating rpg worlds, I'd say no. As inspiration? Sure, as good as anything else for that. But I see nothing uniquely useful about it as a resource, because I find it's conclusions to be hokey.

Quote from: Valatar on November 12, 2023, 01:26:45 AM
I think anyone with at least one playthrough of a Civilization game would consider it self-evident that one's starting resources have a noticeable impact on how a society develops.  But several important hallmarks of societies that were necessary for success, such as writing, were developed separately in multiple places and didn't require any special abundance of crops or domestic animals.  Some people simply had a bright idea, and others didn't, and that's that.  Of course, proximity is a factor, because good ideas like writing spread through travelers and traders being exposed to it, but you still need someone with the will to act on it.  Written language spread throughout the Mediterranean area in next to no time, for example, but while the Mayans seem to have had writing over two millennia ago, it didn't really take to the groups living elsewhere in the Americas even though others must have been exposed to it.

Written language originated in Sumer in 3400 BC. It also appeared in Egypt within a few centuries by 3200 BC. But the earliest Greek writing was 800 BC, over two and a half millennia later. The earliest writing in Spain wasn't until 400 BC or so, France until 200 BC, and Britain until 40 AD. So it's a stretch to say that it spread in "next to no time".

You suggest that writing doesn't require a special abundance of crops -- but that makes this timeline weird. Why would writing only develop in the Middle East exactly where wheat developed? Even with indirect contact with the Middle East, Western Europe took three millennia to develop their own writing.

I'd say that writing isn't useful unless you have a civilization that can take advantage of it -- like a specialized class of scholars. A hunter-gatherer tribe with writing has basically zero advantage over an illiterate hunter-gatherer tribe, and the same for early farmers. Without an extensive class of scholars, it's easier to teach by word of mouth. A civilization needs stable, high-yield farming to have enough manpower to spare to support that class.

Quote from: jhkim on November 13, 2023, 09:16:21 PMWritten language originated in Sumer in 3400 BC. It also appeared in Egypt within a few centuries by 3200 BC. But the earliest Greek writing was 800 BC, over two and a half millennia later. The earliest writing in Spain wasn't until 400 BC or so, France until 200 BC, and Britain until 40 AD. So it's a stretch to say that it spread in "next to no time".

Crete was using Linear A as far back as 1800 BC.

Quote from: Grognard GM on November 13, 2023, 09:30:34 PM

Quote from: jhkim on November 13, 2023, 09:16:21 PMWritten language originated in Sumer in 3400 BC. It also appeared in Egypt within a few centuries by 3200 BC. But the earliest Greek writing was 800 BC, over two and a half millennia later. The earliest writing in Spain wasn't until 400 BC or so, France until 200 BC, and Britain until 40 AD. So it's a stretch to say that it spread in "next to no time".

Crete was using Linear A as far back as 1800 BC.

Agreed. Compared to Sumer, writing appeared after a few centuries in Egypt, after 1600 years on Crete, and after 2600 years on mainland Greece and Italy. I think that still supports my point that it did not spread in "next to no time" like Valatar claims.

Valatar suggests that writing didn't spread from Mesoamerica over two millennia because "you still need someone with the will to act on it". The question is -- why did no one in Greece or Italy have the will to act on it for millennia? It seems to me that it's not about distance -- it's about the state of the rest of society - and that fits better with the hypothesis from Guns, Germs, and Steel.

The environment affects evolution, including human evolution, including cultural evolution. So eg central Asians came up with a lot of important innovations.

Diamond GGS is useful I think for thinking about the environment and how it affects the people in it. You can't domestic horses if your ancestors ate all the horses.