Conworlds: What environment lead to nomadics?

[Lambuzhao]

Wow! Sal's and Adwinkle's contributions remind me of the Hobbesian bellum omnium contra omnes : 'warre of every one against every one'.

[Neon Fox]

There are examples of zebras being domesticated by Europeans. Why not by native africans?

There are examples of zebras being tamed by Europeans. Domestication is a different, er, animal altogether.

[zompist]

Much depends on whether the breeding folks even could have comprehended that the creature in question could have been ridden. And by breeding, I mean 'breeding' the old fashioned way: no artificial insemination, nor genetic crossings with wheat or bioluminescent fungus.
The ancestors of the Quechuas/inhabitants of Tihuantinsuyu who domesticated the llama and alpaca did not seem to comprehend that these animals could have been regularly ridden: just loaded down with cargo. And they basically followed the 'whut ain't broke don't need fixin' rule of civilization advancement. For approximately 5,500 years. If they had comprehended it, I am sure that they would've bred larger, less darty beasts to accommodate mounting & riding. 5,500 years is certainly plenty of time for such selective breeding to occur.

I'm not an animal geneticist, so I'm just speculating too; but I'm skeptical of your "They're just stupid!" argument.

First, you're aware that llamas have been a domesticated, bred animal for all that time? They derive from guanacos, as dogs derive from wolves. Guanacos are larger, so the Peruvians preferred smaller rather than larger ones. They were plenty useful as is, for their fur, dung, and meat, as well as serving as beasts of burden.

Second, these are the same people who developed maize from a scraggly wheat-like grain into enormous cobs, and who developed hundreds of varieties of potatoes. Like any farmers, they understood artificial selection very well.

I don't know what you mean by "the 'whut ain't broke don't need fixin' rule of civilization advancement" but the Peruvians were no more static than any other civilization. They started later than Eurasians but they were just as innovative. Recall that the Inca empire only arose a little more than a century before the Spanish came. That is, its size and organization were a novelty.

If it were possible to breed rideable llamas, it would probably have been done. It's also possible that it simply made no sense to go in that direction. Peru is mostly mountains and jungles, neither of which are exactly horse country. When one of the major achievements of the Incas was bridges like this, making llamas larger might not have seemed like a good idea.

Finally, note that the idea of horses has been obvious to Peruvians for 500 years. For most of that time llamas were presumably far cheaper to acquire. So again, if it could easily be done in a few generations, it probably would have been.

And, frankly, I can understand where one might wish to breed a less bitter acorn, but why bother when there is a cousin (the Chestnut) that produces bushels of perfectly edible nuts in temperate to subtropical climes where oaks are found?

Why did they import oranges when they already had apples...?

The point is that it's not easy to develop non-bitter acorns, for purely genetic reasons.

[Imralu]

To anyone who wishes to argue that the success of one civilisation or culture over another comes down to nothing other than the character attributes or relative intelligence of those peoples, read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I would consider that required reading for anyone at all interested in conworlding anyway.

I'd also make it required reading for racists, but we all know they can't read.

[CatDoom]

To build on what Zompist was saying, the needs of Andean llama-breeders were different than those of the first horse-riding societies. While horseback riding did ultimately spread to some pretty mountainous areas, it almost certainly originated in the Eurasian steppe, where there are lots of wide-open spaces. Llamas, on the other hand, were mostly bred in regions where a relatively narrow, super arid coastal plain gave way to steep, high mountains. Having a small, relatively nimble pack animal with a smaller appetite to match was a much more useful than having a big animal that could eventually be used to carry armed soldiers around.

Incidentally, there's a good amount of evidence that horses were domesticated as a riding animal before they were used as beasts of burden. Either way, it's highly unlikely that non-ridable horses were ever bred specifically to act as mounts; ridability was a pre-existing feature of the animal, not something that Eurasians had to invent from whole cloth.

It's also somewhat debatable if American Bison were really domesticatable before the introduction of European cattle in North America. Attempts by European-Americans to domesticate buffalo were unsuccessful prior to the 20th century, and genetic studies have shown that the majority of buffalo living today are actually hybrids with domestic cattle, which may have contributed to them being suitable as a domesticate. And as for riding, well, I'm sure an aurochs could have carried a few riders as well, but there are good reasons that bull-riding is a rodeo stunt and not a mode of transportation.

[Salmoneus]

I thought hunter-gatherers were generally regarded as less violent than settled societies?

To be fair, my recollection is that it's the horticulturalists and cattle-herders who are the worst. But yeah, even hunter-gatherers still worse than later, civilised agriculturalists.

[Zaarin]

I thought hunter-gatherers were generally regarded as less violent than settled societies?

To be fair, my recollection is that it's the horticulturalists and cattle-herders who are the worst. But yeah, even hunter-gatherers still worse than later, civilised agriculturalists.

It seems anthropologists have a strong tendency to be wrong when claiming an ancient society was peaceful (the Mayans come to mind).

[Codpiece Callaway]

I thought hunter-gatherers were generally regarded as less violent than settled societies?

To be fair, my recollection is that it's the horticulturalists and cattle-herders who are the worst. But yeah, even hunter-gatherers still worse than later, civilised agriculturalists.

It seems anthropologists have a strong tendency to be wrong when claiming an ancient society was peaceful (the Mayans come to mind).

Anthropologists have always postulate that non-European societies were always more peaceful and utopic than European, and that Euros were just bloodthirstey colonialist warmongers

[Pinkamena]

I thought hunter-gatherers were generally regarded as less violent than settled societies?

To be fair, my recollection is that it's the horticulturalists and cattle-herders who are the worst. But yeah, even hunter-gatherers still worse than later, civilised agriculturalists.

It seems anthropologists have a strong tendency to be wrong when claiming an ancient society was peaceful (the Mayans come to mind).

Anthropologists have always postulate that non-European societies were always more peaceful and utopic than European, and that Euros were just bloodthirstey colonialist warmongers

Guns, Germs and Steel, page 277:

Anthropologists formerly idealized band and tribal societies as gentle and nonviolent, because visiting anthropologists observed no murder in a band of 25 people in the course of a three-year study. Of course they didn't: it's easy to calculate that a band of a dozen adults and a dozen children, subject to the inevitable deaths occurring anyway for the usual reasons other than murder, could not perpetuate itself if in addition one of its dozen adults murdered another adult every three years. Much more extensive long-term information about band and tribal societies reveals that murder is a leading cause of death. For example, I happened to be visiting New Guinea's Iyau people at a time when a woman anthropologist was interviewing Iyau women about their life histories. Woman after woman, when asked to name her husband, named several sequential husbands who died violent deaths. A typical answer went like this: "My first husband was killed by Elopi raiders. My second husband was killed by a man who wanted me, and who became my third husband. That husband was killed by the brother of my second husband, seeking to avenge his murder." Such biographies prove common for so-called gentle tribespeople

[CatDoom]

It's worth noting that it's actually be very difficult to estimate how common violent deaths were in prehistoric societies, particularly in hunter-gatherer societies where the population densities were very low and the number of relatively intact sets of human remains is consequently also low, except across very long time frames. Assigning cause of death to an ancient skeleton can rarely be done with a great deal of certainty; sometimes you find somebody with, say, a stone spearhead embedded in their pelvis, but that's not particularly common, and even when you can determine that an individuals bones were broken before they were deposited in the grave, you can't be sure if they were a victim of violence or accident.

Likewise, we can't be certain how well data from living hunter-gatherer groups reflects the conditions of prehistory, since in most cases these groups have only survived in marginal environments where agriculture is impractical, and have been in contact with agricultural societies for centuries, at the very least. Some of our best data probably comes from sources "protohistorical" sources like early Spanish accounts of California native peoples, but these are often fairly limited in detail. While it is clear that the default relationships between these groups were often hostile, accounts vary (and are often silent) on how often these rivalries actually erupted into violence.

There is much clearer evidence, on the other hand, that small-scale agricultural societies tend to be extremely violent, though again it's not always clear that we can project this tendency back onto prehistory.

[Fixsme]

I'm not convinced by Jared Diamond's theses. When archeologists first found humains remains in the 19th century, they were astonished by the fact that systematically people died by violent deathes. So they concluded that first men were extremely violent and that civilization procured some kind of coating against this violent nature. The thesis of pacific humans is fairly recent (20th century). I have to find the paper (a master thesis), but if I remember correctly, it's in French.
(Diamond is apparently also wrong on Rapanui : when first european sailors arrived on the island Pascuan had wooden boats to welcome them. How could they have wooden boat if they had destroyed every tree on their island to build Moais?)

I had a talk with an historian once, she told me that in the bronze age, there had to be a lot of war in Europe. However, until now, no trace of it could be found.

So maybe, the way we do war is not the way they did war. Remember the legend of the Horaces and Curiaces. Rome and Alba Longa both wanted supremacy (it's a heavy shortcut). None of the leaders of each city wanted a full scale war. So they said: "Hey! Let's take three champions in each city and let them fight! The teams who wins, win the war!." That would explain why there is not a full scale murder, and why we can't find any. (You have also David and Goliath)

[Codpiece Callaway]

I also urge you all to read Steven Pinker on this whole "noble savage" thing

[CatDoom]

And I'd urge you to look beyond a few prominent popular science publications before you dismiss dissenting opinions out of hand.

[Lambuzhao]

I even more humbly present the following response.

I'm not an animal geneticist, so I'm just speculating too; but I'm skeptical of your "They're just stupid!" argument.

Me neither. But I am an animal enthusiast of many years, and I garden pretty voraciously. If I were "all thumbs" they'd all be green.
But, to be sure, I never mentioned that any member of the Inca Civilization, nor their Quechua descendants, "were just stupid". Because it never occurred to one group of people to invent something that's used by another group of people does not make them "stupid". If I said that expressedly, I will happily take that back.

First, you're aware that llamas have been a domesticated, bred animal for all that time?

Yes.

They derive from guanacos, as dogs derive from wolves. Guanacos are larger

Please check sources. Just a quick perusal of Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camelid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cama_(animal)
http://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/guanaco
https://www.racinezoo.org/llama-fact-sheet

Most sources put guanaco size & weight at the lower extremity of the range for that of llama. Guanacos in fact are not larger, and the size difference can be exaggerated by the fact that llamas are woolier, while guanacos have a thinner, "hairier" appearance. I met them both while I lived in Peru from 1995-1998, and again in 2005, and I have enjoyed their sometimes grumpy company.

so the Peruvians preferred smaller rather than larger ones.

I don't think this is tenable considering the evidence in the above links.

They were plenty useful as is, for their fur, dung, and meat, as well as serving as beasts of burden.

I cannot argue with this at all. In fact, we wouldn't have the word "jerky" for dried meat if it weren't for ancient citizens of Tihuantinsuyu drying strips of llama meat for preservation. They called it charqui.

Second, these are the same people who developed maize from a scraggly wheat-like grain into enormous cobs,

Again, please check sources. Most of the Teosinte plant complex (including the putative ancestor of Maize) is centered in Mesoamerica, not South America. That's not to say that the Andes weren't one of the first whistle-stops for the (back then newly) domesticated maize. In fact, corn, chiles and dogs (Cf. the Peruvian Viringo and the Mexican Xoloitzcuintli) quite possibly made the journey from Central America to South America via ancient trade.

who developed hundreds of varieties of potatoes.

Indeed. YUM!

Like any farmers, they understood artificial selection very well.

Quite so.

I don't know what you mean by "the 'whut ain't broke don't need fixin' rule of civilization advancement"

For better or for worse, if a technology serves a purpose and basically gets things done, it stays that way.
Maybe not forever, but, depending on the culture, it may stay without change for generations. It has nothing to do with intelligence or stupidity and everything with just getting things done: pragmatism.

but the Peruvians were no more static than any other civilization.

The Inca Civilization was not static, but there were other civilizations that were more innovative.

They started later than Eurasians but they were just as innovative.

They had terrace-farming, they had impressive networks of roads (including those impressive rope-bridges) for both merchant and chaskiy, they had the awesome quipus for tabulating goods, the took calendrical affairs very seriously as well. But the wheel was an important innovation that led to so many others, which, unfortunately, the Incas lacked. They also did not innovate much in the area of maritime trade.
Another innovation that escaped the Incas was iron-working. They casted in gold, silver and bronze, but not iron.
The great warriors of Tihuantinsuyu were repeatedly stymied by the guerilla tactics of 'barbarian' tribes in the Amazon-side of the Sierra Andina.

Recall that the Inca empire only arose a little more than a century before the Spanish came. That is, its size and organization were a novelty.

And it was a terrible blow that they were snuffed out by the likes of Pizarro and his crew, horses, cannons & germs.

If it were possible to breed rideable llamas, it would probably have been done.

I might find myself on the same side of the fence with you on this one. Guanacos are found from the extensive flat coasts at sea level up into the mountainous elevations. There was plenty of space to domesticate a more free-range riding animal.

It's also possible that it simply made no sense to go in that direction.

Come now, you DO understand the method behind the 'whut ain't broke don't need fixin' after all.

Peru is mostly mountains and jungles, neither of which are exactly horse country.

Whoa. Please acknowledge Peru in all of its grandeur before making a statement like that. You leave out a very important part of the geography in a statement like that: the arid Coastal Region. I lived there for most of my estancias, I met my former wife there, and made many friends there in the northern coast in the Departmento de Piura. In fact, the Department of Piura (well, okay, technically it's Trujillo to the south, but don't say this to a Piuran) is more or less 'ground zero' for their own version of the 'Peruvian Paso' breed of horse. So, while the mountains and the jungles may not exactly be horse country, there are miles and miles and miles and miles of flat coast that are as much 'horse country' as, say, the iconic Southwestern U.S.

When one of the major achievements of the Incas was bridges like this, making llamas larger might not have seemed like a good idea.

Finally, note that the idea of horses has been obvious to Peruvians for 500 years. For most of that time llamas were presumably far cheaper to acquire. So again, if it could easily be done in a few generations, it probably would have been.

Well, you certainly got me there. 500 years would have been plenty of time for "a few generations" to have come and gone. I would even bet some enterprising Quechuas might have even tried. Unfortunately, we have no evidence of such trials. So the 'horsey' folks won out. Or maybe it was the piajeno consortium who held the llamas back from reaching their full potential.

Although, on the other hand, llamas have been in the USA for less than 500 years. Maybe even less than 300 years. And folks have been breeding larger and larger (400+ lbs) llamas, and developed ways to make working llamas approach the achievements of fair-sized burros at least. In addition to cargo, llamas can be trained to pull carts with more weight than they could carry singly on their backs. Also, historically, one variety was trained to pull a plough (!?)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chilihueque

Why did they import oranges when they already had apples...?

My question is "Why did they import oranges when they already had rosehips (which has more Vitamin C than orange, and keep for longer)?

The point is that it's not easy to develop non-bitter acorns, for purely genetic reasons.

Ironically, non-sour oranges were also time-consuming to develop. One ancestor of the orange, the mandarin, is sweet, but there are also varieties too sour for human consumption. But, somehow, oranges were developed, and we have them today.

It's not easy to have bred any of these plants or animals, but we have to thank those forward-thinking folks who long ago embarked on that road of trial, error and discovery.

Likewise, it's not 'easy'' to have bred 300-400 lb llamas from a 265 lb (max) guanaco, but it happened, thank Urcuchillay, or thank the Grass Mud Horse. And the really hefty llamas seem to have been bred only recently. Considering renewed interest in llamas as niche working animals, IMHO even larger llamas could appear in 300-500 years and break out of that niche, for whatever reason. Admittedly, that may be more than a 'few' generations, but its much less time than, say, 5,000 years.


http://fc09.deviantart.net/fs71/f/2010/ ... imitsu.jpg
-Paz y Llamas

[Codpiece Callaway]

To anyone who wishes to argue that the success of one civilisation or culture over another comes down to nothing other than the character attributes or relative intelligence of those peoples, read Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I would consider that required reading for anyone at all interested in conworlding anyway.

I'd also make it required reading for racists, but we all know they can't read.

I will refute this, there are many important books that directly contradict this. Firstly, one should read The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein & Charles Murray, The 10,000 Year Explosion by Henry Harpending & Gregory Cochran, the the many books published by Richard Lynn. These will give you a much more balanced view of the situations.

[zompist]

But, to be sure, I never mentioned that any member of the Inca Civilization, nor their Quechua descendants, "were just stupid". Because it never occurred to one group of people to invent something that's used by another group of people does not make them "stupid". If I said that expressedly, I will happily take that back.

You said that the Peruvians "did not seem to comprehend" that llamas could be bred for riding; that sounded like an attack on their intellect. My wife is Peruvian, so I don't have a lot of patience with statements that gringos are smarter than those poor natives who "can't understand" how to improve their lives.

Most sources put guanaco size & weight at the lower extremity of the range for that of llama.

I did look this up, but found a page with wrong information.

By the way, looking at Mason's history, he notes that llamas as pack animals in Inca times were very slow, making just 9 to 12 miles a day; modern llamas are said to be able to go 20 miles a day-- compare to 140 miles a day for the chaskis. So that might have been another impediment to using them for riding.

Most of the Teosinte plant complex (including the putative ancestor of Maize) is centered in Mesoamerica, not South America. That's not to say that the Andes weren't one of the first whistle-stops for the (back then newly) domesticated maize.

The original development of maize was probably Mesoamerican, but it's been grown in Peru for 3400 years, and has been bred into unique forms (such as the huge-kerneled form in the highlands).

Peru is mostly mountains and jungles, neither of which are exactly horse country.

Whoa. Please acknowledge Peru in all of its grandeur before making a statement like that.

Yes, I know about the coastal region, that's why I said "mostly". Llama habitat is generally the highlands.

And you should remember that human settlement in the coastal zone was along the river valleys, and never connected up into a single state until the Incas-- who were based in the highlands, and who had their main road there. Again, agility in the mountains was probably of more use in a pack animal than sheer size and speed.

[GreenBowTie]

wait, what the fuck? did you just recommend The Bell Curve to people

[alynnidalar]

Wow, didn't even notice that on my first reading of that post... glad you caught it.

But I'll throw another book recommendation out there: Charles Mann's 1491. Kind of in the same vein as GGS, although he disagrees with several of Diamond's assertions. The general thrust of the book is that the Americas were a great deal more densely populated and had a great deal more going on than most people give them credit for. It's hardly a scholarly work, but an interesting and informative read nonetheless.

[Zaarin]

Ironically, non-sour oranges were also time-consuming to develop. One ancestor of the orange, the mandarin, is sweet, but there are also varieties too sour for human consumption. But, somehow, oranges were developed, and we have them today.

It's worth noting, though, that citrus hybrid easily and extensively in nature.

[CatDoom]

It may also be worth noting that wild almonds aren't just bitter - they're highly toxic. Wild acorns can be rendered edible through pounding and leaching, but I don't think the same can be said for wild almonds. It's apparently not entirely clear how the first domestic almonds were cultivated, but based on what I've read it seems most likely that neolithic peoples discovered a mutant strain of edible almond existing in the wild, rather than breeding them from an inedible strain.

Plus, almonds are apparently known for being relatively easy to grow from seed, which I'm not certain is true of oaks. Here in California, many native peoples went to great lengths to encourage the growth of favored species of oak, performing seasonal controlled burns of oak woodlands. They were intimately familiar with the life-cycle of the oak and of the culinary properties of different species of acorn. In some cases they would store certain types of acorns underground and allow them to germinate before preparing them as food. If it were at all practical for them to have simply planted oak "orchards," I suspect they would have done it.

[Lambuzhao]

You said that the Peruvians

Technically, what I said was “the ancestors of the Quechua and the citizens of Tihuantinsuyu”. I don’t think I mentioned (modern) “Peruvians” once. For if I did, I’d not only have unintentionally insulted your Peruvian wife, but also my Peruvian ex-wife, and my half-Peruvian children, and all my friends I still have in Piura, Lima, Trujillo, and Chiclayo. Now, I don’t think I’d have done that sort of thing iintentionally, but if it reads as such, then once again, for them, I’ll apologize for it.

that sounded like an attack on their intellect. My wife is Peruvian, so I don't have a lot of patience with statements that gringos are smarter than those poor natives who "can't understand" how to improve their lives.

Well, my Piuran ex-wife taught me a Peruvian dicho, perhaps you’ve heard it:
Hay dos tipos de persona: o inca o incapaz.
There are two kinds of people: either inca or incapable.
I happen to think that makes a lot of sense. And I think it goes a long way past the intelligence argument mentioned above. Plus, it’s a home-cooked, Inti-brewed, gringo-free, autochthonous world-view.

On the other hand, can you find that the the ancestors of the Quechua or the citizens of Tihuantinsuyu did leave some kind of evidence (¿petroglyphs?) that they thought of using llamas that way. If you can, that would be the bees knees. Put another way, I would be happy just to find something that showed that those ancient peoples used llamas in that way.

By the way, looking at Mason's history, he notes that llamas as pack animals in Inca times were very slow, making just 9 to 12 miles a day; modern llamas are said to be able to go 20 miles a day-- compare to 140 miles a day for the chaskis. So that might have been another impediment to using them for riding.

A galloping guanaco could go 35 mph – that’s rather horsey. So a putative descendant of a lower altitude guanaco could be bred larger ( and theoretically a bit) faster.

But man, you just had to go there. You mentioned the chaskis. What, are you crazy? That’s completely unfair to llamakind. Chaskis were like the only high-speed game in town back then. Plus, they remembered where all the wormholes were: super unfair advantage. You realize, Zompist, You might have singlehandedly plunged the entire llamoid population into a deep depression. Are you happy now? I don’t think I am.

BTW, IMHO one of the best onomatopoeic words ever has to be the name of the chaski’s conch- trumpet: pututu.
Words like that make life worth living, don’t they?

The original development of maize was probably Mesoamerican,

Many sources corroborate the origin of Maize in Central America.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/content/selection/corn/
http://seedfreedom.in/maize-the-source-of-life/
http://ucfant3145f09-06.wikispaces.com/Wilson%27s+Page
Not the least of which is the complete lack of Teosinte spp. to be found in the Andean region.

but it's been grown in Peru for 3400 years, and has been bred into unique forms (such as the huge-kerneled form in the highlands).

No argument there! Again, the Andes was definitely one of the very first whistle-stops for Maize, owing to not only the big juicy & chewy choclo, and the even bigger mutant-monster-sized ‘muela de caballo’, but also the sweeter maiz morado for chicha morada & mazamorra, maiz de jora used for making chicha (¡Guuuaaa!), the longish kind that some use to make cancha, and at least another three or four other types whose names I can’t remember. They pretty had all those kinds in the lowlands, too.

Yes, I know about the coastal region, that's why I said "mostly". Llama habitat is generally the highlands.

Most definitely llamas are associated with more montane environment. However, the lineal ancestor of the llama, the guanaco, is associated with a whole range of environments, from montane all the way down to sea level and even the hellish Atacama desert (not specifically Peru [well, it used to be!!!], but abuts the southern extremity of Tihuantinsuyu).

Not much to do with our discussion, but - ¡Extraño mucho a mi Rosal Viviente!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzE4tmDZfQA

There is also paleontological evidence that the further south one went in the range of the guanaco, the larger they got. In fact, the largest-boned guanaco fossils are found in Tierra del Fuego, according to Mengoni Goñalons and Yacobaccio (2006). And Tierra del Fuego has steppe and cool semi-desert, as well as montane biomes.
http://www.academia.edu/3046081/The_dom ... tral_Andes

And you should remember that human settlement in the coastal zone was along the river valleys, and never connected up into a single state until the Incas

Well, there’s a lack of direct evidence both for and against coastal cultures being the kind of political unit that was Tihuantinsuyu. The jury isn’t completely in regarding the Moche, for example, and they possessed a rather extensive chunk of the Northern Peruvian Coast. Interestingly, two llamas were buried with the wonderfully preserved “Señor de Sipan” of that culture. So there’s some hard evidence that at least two llamas made it out to the Coast.

And who even knows for sure what the political organization and full extent of the even older Caral civilization (Supe, Casma)? But they seemed to have made cornetts out of llama bones. But while the llamas were alive, I would bet my last nuevo sol that the inhabitants of Caral used them pretty much as the Incas did, just further out away from the mountains.

So there are not one but two Coastal Cultures that have evidence of domestic llamas, spanning almost all of the llama’s domestication. It becomes almost unbelievable thay folks there didn’t try to breed a more mount-friendly animal.

Again, agility in the mountains was probably of more use in a pack animal than sheer size and speed.

….for those who used llamas in the mountains. But there is good evidence that llamas were brought out into the flatter lowlands of the Coast on more than one occasion. It’s interesting to not find a larger, speedier
version, especially since larger llama ancestors seemed to flock to lower altitudes.

But thanks for the opportunity to discuss this with you, Zompist. You raised some interesting points, and helped me to separate the honeworthy from the hokey.

The real pity: that we could not discuss this over an ample Fuente de ceviche, or a nice tacu-tacu, or an even nicer seco de chabelo, with Inka Kolas and Cusqueñas all around.

De todas maneras, gracias!

[Pinkamena]

wait, what the fuck? did you just recommend The Bell Curve to people

He also recommended the 10,000 Year Explosion and Richard Lynn.

[Lambuzhao]

To build on what Zompist was saying, the needs of Andean llama-breeders were different than those of the first horse-riding societies. While horseback riding did ultimately spread to some pretty mountainous areas, it almost certainly originated in the Eurasian steppe, where there are lots of wide-open spaces. Llamas, on the other hand, were mostly bred in regions where a relatively narrow, super arid coastal plain gave way to steep, high mountains. Having a small, relatively nimble pack animal with a smaller appetite to match was a much more useful than having a big animal that could eventually be used to carry armed soldiers around.

Actually, there is next to no difference (except for geography and the time) between the initial conditions for domestication of the llama and the horse. Both were initially corralled for meat, milk (at least from the horse), wool/skins. Neither for riding, it seems. In fact, the earliest evidence we have of domestication of both is virtually identical: remains of post-molds and dung-heaps from former corrals in Glorious Kazakhstan (for horses) and the Andes (for llamas).

http://archaeology.about.com/od/kterms/ ... yi_yar.htm

http://www.academia.edu/1301794/The_dom ... tral_Andes

the Eurasian steppe, where there are lots of wide-open spaces.

One thing I take at least as much umbrage as Zompist, is folks talking about this 'ribbon' of coastline in Peru. It's a lot bigger and wider than it looks on the maps!
Going inland to mountainous towns like Huaraz and Cajamarca (in Peru, at least), that's at least 100 mi inland. The Coastal Desert is wide, very flat, and above all, very very long. If you took the Eurasian Steppes and stretched them out like taffy, and made them hotter and drier, that's pretty much the Peruvian Coast. And it bears repeating that the Northern Coast (Piura, Trujillo) is the origin of the Peruvian Paso breed of horse, the region which, thousands of years before, was home to the llama-using Moche Culture.

Hmmm... I think I might have to get funding from UPENN or NatGeo to do an excavation there, and who knows, I may find the remains of some actual Pre-Columbian riding-llamas. Or I could take another turn, and be like the Heck Bros, or Dr. Lulu Skidmore at the Dubai Cama Breeding Centre, get some wealthy investors and just make 'em.
Some scientists are already breeding giant cuy
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3946771.stm

Incidentally, there's a good amount of evidence that horses were domesticated as a riding animal before they were used as beasts of burden.

Erm... the evidence seems to point to horses as the Ur-red meat, and for milk, at least among folks of the Steppes of Kazakhstan, where the earliest evidence (to date) seems to be from.

Either way, it's highly unlikely that non-ridable horses were ever bred specifically to act as mounts; ridability was a pre-existing feature of the animal, not something that Eurasians had to invent from whole cloth.

Perhaps not, but "saddleability" was. While reading up about this, I happened upon an article with links to evolution of equid anatomy. Long and short of it, most horses possess 'withers', which is a crest of bone on the vertebrae above the shoulders. Other equids: donkeys, zebras, even some individual horses don't have a functional withers. So that had to be selectively bred to 'pimp-up the ride' so to speak. The withers helps hold the saddle in place over the back and not slink up onto the neck of the horse. But one thing that happened between 3,500-3,000 years: those wither-crests get enlarged and show signs of impaction in the skeletal remains of horses. As one would guess, it's from added weight, whether from cargo, plow or a rider. Contemporaneous wear on back teeth consistent with modern bit-use suggests that horses probably were mounted and ridden, though the next evidence of equid use comes from Mesopotamia 2,000 BC.
Please read the first article above for more info on horses.

It's also somewhat debatable if American Bison were really domesticatable before the introduction of European cattle in North America. Attempts by European-Americans to domesticate buffalo were unsuccessful prior to the 20th century, and genetic studies have shown that the majority of buffalo living today are actually hybrids with domestic cattle, which may have contributed to them being suitable as a domesticate.

And I have read similar materials.

And as for riding, well, I'm sure an aurochs could have carried a few riders as well, but there are good reasons that bull-riding is a rodeo stunt and not a mode of transportation.

Can we even go one step further back, or rather leap:
http://sigil.pl/wp-content/uploads/2011 ... 00x182.jpg

And then a Quantum Leap forward to the present with this hombre valiente
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Qj3NXXFwvFk/T ... -41-11.jpg

Can anyone say ταυροκαθάψια?

[CatDoom]

Based on Wikipedia, the initial interpretation of the Botai culture sites was that the people responsible for them had primarily hunted horses as game animals, and adopted horseback riding in order to hunt herds of wild horses more efficiently. The presence of bit wear on some of the horse teeth found is taken as evidence that they were, in fact, riding some of the horses. The discovery of horse milk residue and bones indicating selective breeding of horses does not preclude this possibility, as there seems to be evidence that much of the horse bone at the sites came from wild horses.

In any event, it remains a distinct possibility, though not a certainty, that riding developed very early in the history of horse domestication. As for "saddleability," I'm not certain that's necessarily relevant. Prior to the invention of the saddle tree, which seems to have occurred in China around 200 BC and in the Roman Empire during the first century BC, saddles were little more than padded blankets, sometimes with some additional leather bits and bobs. As far as I understand it, the saddle tree is what has to be fit to the horse's withers; that particular part of the anatomy isn't as important if you don't have a proper saddle.

[Lambuzhao]

Based on Wikipedia, the initial interpretation of the Botai culture sites was that the people responsible for them had primarily hunted horses as game animals, and adopted horseback riding in order to hunt herds of wild horses more efficiently.

Where, exactly?


It says that the Botai folks "used" horses. As in for food and milk. It does not say specifically the that they rode them.

Nor does it state conclusively in the Carnegie-Mellon virtual museum link:
http://www.andrew.cmu.edu/course/60-427 ... covery.htm

There, it says that they "may have rode horses for transport". It would seem that there is no conclusive evidence for horses as transport so far back in the fossil record. And even 'transport' is a thorny word: does it refer to 'horse-riding' or 'horse drafting' (i.e. cart/wagon/chariot-pulling)'? Around 3,000 BC, there is skeletal evidence of wear on back molars (bit wear?) and impaction at the vertebrae of the withers (load-bearing?). It is likely that, as you say, CatDoom, equitation or drafting occurred not long after the initial domestication event (circa 3,5000 BC.

Frankly, it would make more sense to try to work with horses that were already used to being corralled, used to being around humans, and pretty much 'tamed' for some generations, before attempting to break them in for riding. The converse, just catching and breaking horses like Native Americans have done, is certainly not impossible, just that the evidence in Botai does not seem to match this.

And granted about the saddling issue. plenty of folks rode horses bareback or with just some kind of blanket or two, but plenty of others used some kind of reinforced blanket-cum-surcingle, and even stirrups, centuries before the saddle-tree was developed.

Incidentally, the Wikipedia article about the Saddle states that horse-riding came not long after initial domestication. Sounds like riding was not the initial motivation for horse domestication, according to that source.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddle

Aaaah, Wikipedia. The joys of an openly-editable encyclopedia: the inconsistencies never cease.