Iron Revolution in Michigan 2500 BCE

[Chiron]

As the tin says: The Indigenous People of Michigan, here and after referred to as the Michiganders, use their established copper trade to begin mining the Iron Ore and Coal deposits of the Upper Peninsula in an organized way to create iron tools and maintain it to form an Iron Revolution. Historically the Michigander Tribes were doing limited mining in the UP, but around the time of the Bronze Age Collapse in Europe, they stopped, its a mystery why and too politically a hot potato in Archaeological circles to touch.

But instead of historical route, a Leader we will call the The Great Michigander will inspire his people to invest heavily in Iron Working and create a vision larger than himself that fires the people to carry it out even after his death.

This enables them to form a strong naval presence on the Great Lakes, gain a decisive military advantage over the other tribes and create a Michigander Civilization which if sustained and able to domesticate Bison into draft animals, would present a tougher nut for the Europeans to crack and potentially sail across the Atlantic in an organized fashion.

Thoughts?

 

[Agent23]

As the tin says: The Indigenous People of Michigan, here and after referred to as the Michiganders, use their established copper trade to begin mining the Iron Ore and Coal deposits of the Upper Peninsula in an organized way to create iron tools and maintain it to form an Iron Revolution. Historically the Michigander Tribes were doing limited mining in the UP, but around the time of the Bronze Age Collapse in Europe, they stopped, its a mystery why and too politically a hot potato in Archaeological circles to touch.

But instead of historical route, a Leader we will call the The Great Michigander will inspire his people to invest heavily in Iron Working and create a vision larger than himself that fires the people to carry it out even after his death.

This enables them to form a strong naval presence on the Great Lakes, gain a decisive military advantage over the other tribes and create a Michigander Civilization which if sustained and able to domesticate Bison into draft animals, would present a tougher nut for the Europeans to crack and potentially sail across the Atlantic in an organized fashion.

Thoughts?

How suitable are Bison for domestication?

Also, tame buffalo, which is basically a huge cow from what I understand, will be nice, but horses will be a lot more useful.
I was actually flirting with an idea about a scenario where the Chukchi illegal immigrants somehow manage to bring some horses with them from Siberia to North America.

Frankly, though, I am very much illiterate where pre-Collumbian America is concerned.
IMHO they will also need improved housing and storage, which means rocks or wood housing, as well as a writing and numbers systems, then they will need to spread out more for more manpower and resources.
Depending on the river systems around the lakes, they could probably build more advanced and larger ships.

Basically North American vikings?

From there on out it depends if they can spread their civilization and improve their tech, but it is not impossible if the draft animal problem, the writing problem, and the move from a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle are possible.
North America had a lot of high carb cultures that might get the Michigander AmeriViking civilization's transition into a sedentary civilization happen faster, but IMHO what will make them advance the most is the development of alcohol.

One theory states that the reason why the early Eurasian civilizations moved to a sedentary lifestyle was alcohol, since only such a payout was sufficient to get hunter gatherers to stop migrating and start tilling the soil.
Another piece of research that Sarg of all people cited, even shows that the average height decreased due to the transition to a grains-based diet.

 

[Captain X]

Bison cannot be domesticated. The closest anyone has come to it involves cross-breeding them with cattle, which is what any buffalo burgers you might have eaten are made out of. They can still be pretty ill-tempered, but will at least tolerate fences.

 

[Chiron]

How suitable are Bison for domestication?

Also, tame buffalo, which is basically a huge cow from what I understand, will be nice, but horses will be a lot more useful.
I was actually flirting with an idea about a scenario where the Chukchi illegal immigrants somehow manage to bring some horses with them from Siberia to North America.

Horses originated in the Americas and spread to Eurasia about 2.5mya but died out in the times of the Paleo-Indians in the Americas. Causes are not quite clear.

Dogs are not large enough to be heavy draft animals and not really built for it either. Deer and Elk, tried it, well lets say Deer are surprisingly disagreeable and Elk, well run.

Bears, well Comrade, they are good boxing buddies, you can even teach them to drive a truck and load a cannon, but like hell are they going to be a draft animals Comrade. Not enough cigarettes and booze will suffice to bribe them for that. Ask the Poles and Russians, they tried.

Llamas, they had potential but selective breeding takes a while and South America just went with mules when they came over.

So its bison or bust.

Oh and Comrade Agent, Cities were built before Farms were, not the other way around. The first cities were fishing villages that had ample food surplus or good river transport to said areas. They thus had the time to fool around with strange ideals.

 

[Bacle]

As the tin says: The Indigenous People of Michigan, here and after referred to as the Michiganders, use their established copper trade to begin mining the Iron Ore and Coal deposits of the Upper Peninsula in an organized way to create iron tools and maintain it to form an Iron Revolution. Historically the Michigander Tribes were doing limited mining in the UP, but around the time of the Bronze Age Collapse in Europe, they stopped, its a mystery why and too politically a hot potato in Archaeological circles to touch.

But instead of historical route, a Leader we will call the The Great Michigander will inspire his people to invest heavily in Iron Working and create a vision larger than himself that fires the people to carry it out even after his death.

This enables them to form a strong naval presence on the Great Lakes, gain a decisive military advantage over the other tribes and create a Michigander Civilization which if sustained and able to domesticate Bison into draft animals, would present a tougher nut for the Europeans to crack and potentially sail across the Atlantic in an organized fashion.

Thoughts?

Horses originated in the Americas and spread to Eurasia about 2.5mya but died out in the times of the Paleo-Indians in the Americas. Causes are not quite clear.

Dogs are not large enough to be heavy draft animals and not really built for it either. Deer and Elk, tried it, well lets say Deer are surprisingly disagreeable and Elk, well run.

Bears, well Comrade, they are good boxing buddies, you can even teach them to drive a truck and load a cannon, but like hell are they going to be a draft animals Comrade. Not enough cigarettes and booze will suffice to bribe them for that. Ask the Poles and Russians, they tried.

Llamas, they had potential but selective breeding takes a while and South America just went with mules when they came over.

So its bison or bust.

Oh and Comrade Agent, Cities were built before Farms were, not the other way around. The first cities were fishing villages that had ample food surplus or good river transport to said areas. They thus had the time to fool around with strange ideals.

This is rather interesting...an Iron Age civ in N. America around the Great Lakes would have massive consequences for not just the US, but the whole world.

The Bronze Age Collapse was a world wide issue, because it was cause by the eruption of Hekla in Iceland, so not surprised it stopped any advanced civ in the area of the Great Lakes from progressing further.

If the weather shifted such that the Great Lakes region did not cool like the much of the rest of the North Hemisphere, an iron utilizing civ like the one in the OP arising would not be out of the question.

The real question is if they could actually turn bison into draft animals; that's less realistic to me than learning to mine and smelt iron.

For a draft animal to domesticate, they might have had better luck actually turning moose into something akin to draft horses. If you can breed a moose population in semi-captivity, you could probably create a domesticated line, and use them for draft animals. If they had iron, containing a moose long enough to domesticate them would be possible as well.

However, they may still fall victim to European diseases like the rest, because most of those bugs simply didn't exist in the America's before that.

 

[Agent23]

Oh and Comrade Agent, Cities were built before Farms were, not the other way around. The first cities were fishing villages that had ample food surplus or good river transport to said areas. They thus had the time to fool around with strange ideals.

I am pretty sure that the first civilization, aka City state with writing, was in the fertile crescent, and there they were focused on grains.
Was the fishing in the Tigris and Euphrates actually any good?

Also, it probably depends on your definition of city.

Civilization IMHO means 100% sedentary,decent-sized cities, not villages, fixed housing made out of adobe, wood or stones, complex social hierarchy with some bureaucracy and division of labor, and a writing system.

EDIT: also, have you thought about crackers? Maybe ones made out of corn

 

[Captain X]

I have severe doubts as to if moose could be domesticated or not. They can also be very ill-tempered, and I'd be about as nervous around one as I would a bison.

I'm thinking the ability to make iron/steel would simply make for better weapons and better tools. Better hunting, trapping, and fishing. Slightly improved agriculture because while they would have lacked draft animals, they would still have an easier time breaking up soil than they did with the bone tools they had. I know the Mandan and Hidatsa were only able to crow crops in the softer soil that was along the edge of the Missouri River, but they still did well enough to not only feed themselves, with plenty cached away to see them through winter, but they also had enough left over to trade with other tribes. So iron tools would perhaps just make things a bit easier, and maybe allow them to farm in more than just soft soil.

 

[Chiron]

I am pretty sure that the first civilization, aka City state with writing, was in the fertile crescent, and there they were focused on grains.
Was the fishing in the Tigris and Euphrates actually any good?

In the Neolithic Revolution Period, the coastline of Iraq was much farther north than it is today. The modern coastline only came into being around 500 BCE and it took several more centuries before it firmed up for Basra to be built. So Ur and Uruk were coastal cities, with Uruk being Venice like.

The Bronze Age Collapse was a world wide issue, because it was cause by the eruption of Hekla in Iceland, so not surprised it stopped any advanced civ in the area of the Great Lakes from progressing further.

If the weather shifted such that the Great Lakes region did not cool like the much of the rest of the North Hemisphere, an iron utilizing civ like the one in the OP arising would not be out of the question.

Not quite. It contributed, but state collapse also played a role. There is evidence of conflict in the UP area around the time of the collapse but between who and over what is not known and the lack of curiosity and the highly politicized nature of Archaeology to support current narratives instead of evidence based research, hampers getting to the bottom of the mystery.

My scenario posits that an organizational system is put in early enough with enough drive that if weather changes did disrupt the Upper Great Lakes Region, the Michigander Civilization will have had time to develop a sufficiently resilient culture to withstand it like Egypt did. If they can and maintain a civilization whose Heartland corresponds to the Iron Ranges seen here, plus the copper wealth and nearby zinc, they have a solid base to develop an Iron Military.

 

[Bassoe]

They conquer everything in North America and stand a very good chance against the Aztecs and Mayans assuming the two aren't butterflied away and they ever expand south. Possibly they independently advance enough to send ships to Europe, but this seems like it'd backfire spectacularly, the crews would just die of European plagues, hopefully before sailing home and infecting their civilizations and would alert Europe of their civilizations' existence.

 

[Chiron]

They conquer everything in North America and stand a very good chance against the Aztecs and Mayans assuming the two aren't butterflied away and they ever expand south. Possibly they independently advance enough to send ships to Europe, but this seems like it'd backfire spectacularly, the crews would just die of European plagues, hopefully before sailing home and infecting their civilizations and would alert Europe of their civilizations' existence.

But a higher population density raises the possibility of them creating their own bugs that infect Europe as well. Viral introductions can go both ways after all.

 

[Agent23]

But a higher population density raises the possibility of them creating their own bugs that infect Europe as well. Viral introductions can go both ways after all.

One reason why Eurasia has so many bugs is because we used to live much closer to our livestock and some people in the Far East liked to experiment with "exotic" food, so it is not density, alone.

Depending on how extensive and interconnected the North America river systems are I say they become Viking-like and do a lot of trading and slave rades, just like the Vikings did:

In the Neolithic Revolution Period, the coastline of Iraq was much farther north than it is today. The modern coastline only came into being around 500 BCE and it took several more centuries before it firmed up for Basra to be built. So Ur and Uruk were coastal cities, with Uruk being Venice like.

Ok, the wiki says otherwise:

Neolithic Revolution - Wikipedia

The Neolithic Revolution, or the (First) Agricultural Revolution, was the wide-scale transition of many human cultures during the Neolithic period from a lifestyle of hunting and gathering to one of agriculture and settlement, making an increasingly large population possible.[1] These settled communities permitted humans to observe and experiment with plants, learning how they grew and developed.[2] This new knowledge led to the domestication of plants.[2][3]

Archaeological data indicates that the domestication of various types of plants and animals happened in separate locations worldwide, starting in the geological epoch of the Holocene 11,700 years ago.[4] It was the world's first historically verifiable revolution in agriculture. The Neolithic Revolution greatly narrowed the diversity of foods available, resulting in a downturn in the quality of human nutrition compared with that obtained previously from foraging.

 

[ATP]

This is rather interesting...an Iron Age civ in N. America around the Great Lakes would have massive consequences for not just the US, but the whole world.

The Bronze Age Collapse was a world wide issue, because it was cause by the eruption of Hekla in Iceland, so not surprised it stopped any advanced civ in the area of the Great Lakes from progressing further.

If the weather shifted such that the Great Lakes region did not cool like the much of the rest of the North Hemisphere, an iron utilizing civ like the one in the OP arising would not be out of the question.

The real question is if they could actually turn bison into draft animals; that's less realistic to me than learning to mine and smelt iron.

For a draft animal to domesticate, they might have had better luck actually turning moose into something akin to draft horses. If you can breed a moose population in semi-captivity, you could probably create a domesticated line, and use them for draft animals. If they had iron, containing a moose long enough to domesticate them would be possible as well.

However, they may still fall victim to European diseases like the rest, because most of those bugs simply didn't exist in the America's before that.

Mooses could be domescitated,and it was in one regard better then horse - it could run on bog.For that reason,thieves used it in Europe - i read,that in some german states every man captured on moose was considered as bandit and hanged.

Back to topic - i think,that we could have iron cyvilisation near Great lakes,and since it would be 2500BC,they would have time to take entire North and Central america.Not as one country,of course,but culture.

As a result,they would take role of Olmecs as source of cyvilisation,so - no human sacificies? or ,at least,less of them?
If they create good ships,they could discover Europe first.

 

[Agent23]

Mooses could be domescitated,and it was in one regard better then horse - it could run on bog.For that reason,thieves used it in Europe - i read,that in some german states every man captured on moose was considered as bandit and hanged.

Interesting, that makes Santa Claus sort of a bandit I suppose.
But maybe the Mooses here and in North America are different breeds.

This and the Oxen/Buffalo business leads us to bigger problems, like animal domestication.

Corn is very much inferior to wheat where almost everything aside from fast sugars is concerned, it is lacking where some vitamins, minerals and amino-acids are concerned:

Corn vs Wheat - In-Depth Nutrition Comparison

Corn vs Wheat - In-Depth Nutrition Comparison. Compare Corn to Wheat by vitamins and minerals using the only readable nutrition comparison tool.

foodstruct.com

It is starting to look like North America pre-Columbus doesn't have the chattel one would need to get essential amino acids and proteins which we can not produce without consuming animals.

So they would be a coastal/river civilization heavily supplementing their diet with fish and domesticated protein-producing plants?

Back to topic - i think,that we could have iron cyvilisation near Great lakes,and since it would be 2500BC,they would have time to take entire North and Central america.Not as one country,of course,but culture.

As a result,they would take role of Olmecs as source of cyvilisation,so - no human sacificies? or ,at least,less of them?
If they create good ships,they could discover Europe first.

Well, a number of early Mediterranean civilizations were known for their seafaring(in this case it will have to be lake and river faring) but if they fix their problems with nutrition and develop writing - it might be possible.

 

[Bear Ribs]

Interesting, that makes Santa Claus sort of a bandit I suppose.
But maybe the Mooses here and in North America are different breeds.

This and the Oxen/Buffalo business leads us to bigger problems, like animal domestication.

Corn is very much inferior to wheat where almost everything aside from fast sugars is concerned, it is lacking where some vitamins, minerals and amino-acids are concerned:

Corn vs Wheat - In-Depth Nutrition Comparison

Corn vs Wheat - In-Depth Nutrition Comparison. Compare Corn to Wheat by vitamins and minerals using the only readable nutrition comparison tool.

foodstruct.com

It is starting to look like North America pre-Columbus doesn't have the chattel one would need to get essential amino acids and proteins which we can not produce without consuming animals.

Traditional Native American planting used what was called the Three Sisters (Corn, Beans, and Squash) to get all the essential amino acids and proteins they needed. Corn certainly does do it alone but they had other crops, though I don't think there were any tribes that didn't also hunt for meat as well.

Buffalo could in theory be domesticated but it would be one heck of a project, and the immense amount of grazing land you'd need for a herd would encourage nomadic life rather than settling down in cities even if you did get past their temper. In general, the Americas were very short of any suitable animals for livestock or labor. This was one of the major bars to advanced civilization there, despite all the other advantages they had. However with early ironwork it's possible they could build large enough ships to cross the pacific and import livestock from Asia (Given the storms this would probably be easier than crossing the Atlantic, despite the longer distance and need to island-hop for resupply). That would lead to an immensely different North America by the age of exploration.

 

[Agent23]

Traditional Native American planting used what was called the Three Sisters (Corn, Beans, and Squash) to get all the essential amino acids and proteins they needed. Corn certainly does do it alone but they had other crops, though I don't think there were any tribes that didn't also hunt for meat as well.

What about fats?
Where are potatoes in the scheme of things, I am pretty sure they came from the Americas?
Could they get enough animal protein, amino acids and fats from fish and other sea and waterborne life plus some other crops?

What about bird domestication?

Maybe they can get some of their dietary requirements from ducks and other birds?

Buffalo could in theory be domesticated but it would be one heck of a project, and the immense amount of grazing land you'd need for a herd would encourage nomadic life rather than settling down in cities even if you did get past their temper. In general, the Americas were very short of any suitable animals for livestock or labor. This was one of the major bars to advanced civilization there, despite all the other advantages they had. However with early ironwork it's possible they could build large enough ships to cross the pacific and import livestock from Asia (Given the storms this would probably be easier than crossing the Atlantic, despite the longer distance and need to island-hop for resupply). That would lead to an immensely different North America by the age of exploration.

Maybe, don't forget we somehow managed to turn this:

Into this:

So perhaps the Buffalo domestication did not happen because there wasn't enough time or benefit in it, for the Europeans, there were other, existing forms of tame chattel already.

 

[ATP]

About patatoes - according to what i read,higlanders in South america mountains live eating patato soup,fried patatoes,and patato deserts,so ,when our Michigans finally get there on their ships,they could live by patatoes,too.

 

[Agent23]

About patatoes - according to what i read,higlanders in South america mountains live eating patato soup,fried patatoes,and patato deserts,so ,when our Michigans finally get there on their ships,they could live by patatoes,too.

Sounds like Slavs back in soviet times.
No wonder commies flourished in Latin America, same diet.
I doubt it is good for your health, though, the potato can not have every single nutrient we need, including fats, proteins, vitamins, irreplaceable amino-acids, micro-elements and the like.

 

[Bear Ribs]

What about fats?
Where are potatoes in the scheme of things, I am pretty sure they came from the Americas?


Could they get enough animal protein, amino acids and fats from fish and other sea and waterborne life plus some other crops?

What about bird domestication?

Maybe they can get some of their dietary requirements from ducks and other birds?

Potatoes are South American, quite significant in the Peru/Bolivia area but not going to be a thing in Michigan for a very long time.

Squash has a surprisingly large amount of fat in it for a vegetable (granted, it's still fairly small compared to most meats). If squash is a staple of your diet you'll get enough fats to get by in a temperate climate. That said nobody has any doubt Indian tribes also supplemented their Three Sisters diet with animals, fish, and birds as well.

Maybe, don't forget we somehow managed to turn this:

Into this:

So perhaps the Buffalo domestication did not happen because there wasn't enough time or benefit in it, for the Europeans, there were other, existing forms of tame chattel already.

It's very much a matter of pre-existing temperament though. Humans tamed horses very early on, but nobody has ever domesticated the Zebra despite the apparent similarities and a lot of large-scale efforts to do so. North American wolves are much, much less trusting of humans than European wolves (also significantly smaller and less aggressive). Getting them tame enough to accept humans is possible but actual domestication has evaded us to this date.

Dogs in general also have a wider range of possible body shapes than most other animals, we've domesticated cats and horses nearly as long as dogs but haven't pulled off remotely the same kind of changes we've managed with dogs no matter how we've tried.

 

[Chiron]

One reason why Eurasia has so many bugs is because we used to live much closer to our livestock and some people in the Far East liked to experiment with "exotic" food, so it is not density, alone.

Depending on how extensive and interconnected the North America river systems are I say they become Viking-like and do a lot of trading and slave rades, just like the Vikings did:

Ok, the wiki says otherwise:

Neolithic Revolution - Wikipedia

Wiki has the coastline wrong. Humanity needed established food supplies to form cities and good water transport. Hence cities generally following the rivers and coasts where water can be had and fish caught. Farming most likely started with fruit orchards rather than grains which took time to domesticate.

As for the river system. They would have to build canals to get from Lake Superior to Lake Huron, and to get through Lake Erie to the open seas of the Atlantic. To access the Mississippi River from Chicago would require a canal be built. Also the St. Lawrence Locks would need to be built.

That requires a lot of organizational skill and manpower to do so in addition to solid engineering skill. But once overcome, they can use the Great Lakes and the massive Mississippi River Basin:

To expand their territorial control and influence south and east which will gain them further mineral sources to tighten their hold on the territories and build fortified settlements to maintain their dominance in trade and military might.

 

[WolfBear]

This enables them to form a strong naval presence on the Great Lakes, gain a decisive military advantage over the other tribes and create a Michigander Civilization which if sustained and able to domesticate Bison into draft animals, would present a tougher nut for the Europeans to crack and potentially sail across the Atlantic in an organized fashion.

Any chance of them developing an actual Industrial Revolution? Or at least proto-industrialization as in Song China?