Why no chickens?

[Hsinchu]

Chicken chariots, cowtapults...

Deer leaders? XD

 

[dennisg]

What about hamsters?

 

[TheLazyHase]

What about hamsters?

Mini-Giant Hamster From Outer Space ?

 

[Continental Op]

What about hamsters?

There are hamsters. Huyana Capac is offering them to me each time I meet him.

 

[capnvonbaron]

dunno about hamsters, but I always seem to get tame prairie dogs on plots that are just outside the BFC to all my cities

 

[LegioCorvus]

dunno about hamsters, but I always seem to get tame prairie dogs on plots that are just outside the BFC to all my cities

I've had many an early economy run on the sale of prairie dogs & parrots. I guess they're the cat & dog of my civilizations.

 

[AfterShafter]

Heh, you know people need a new Civ game when a thread on the inclusion of chickens goes five pages in a few days and still looks to be going strong

 

[Glassfan]

There are hamsters. Huyana Capac is offering them to me each time I meet him.

Hamster (ie., GP's) were a food source in the Inca culture. They were semi-domesticated, running around eating scraps, and then eaten when fattened up. In Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel," he points out that large domesticatable herd animals gave the old world a leg up in early civilizing, while the new world, with just alpaca's and smaller animals, developed civ later. Too late, as it turned out.

 

[whitelaughter]

Surely the existence of bison shoots a wopping great hole in that theory?
I'm haven't read GGS yet, but judging what people quote, he's making a lot of claims that sound plausible but don't really stand up to close scrutiny. Frex, the claim that trade was possible in the old world but not the new becuase it was east-west in the Old (and so within the same general environ) but north-south in the New....nah.
The very fact that people did migrate down the American chains shows that people could and would do the trip - and if they can travel, their descendants had the opportunity to trade. While in the Old, the Silk route crosses deserts, icy mountain ranges etc. While in the New world you could simply trade up and down the west coast by boat, or exploit the trade currents and winds in the carribbean, as Europeans would later do. There may be good reasons why trade wasn't practical, but it wasn't the terrain.

 

[Molybdeus]

In Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel," he points out that large domesticatable herd animals gave the old world a leg up in early civilizing, while the new world, with just alpaca's and smaller animals, developed civ later.

The problem with this is of course the fact that large herd animals are also native to the new world. Sheep and easily tamable bovine animals are numerous in the wild in North America. American bison are pretty placid animals, and likely more so than the european aurochs (that domesticated cows descend from) were. I'm pretty sure the mountain goat could be domesticated as well, but it would be harder than dall sheep or bison.

 

[Badtz Maru]

The problem with this is of course the fact that large herd animals are also native to the new world. Sheep and easily tamable bovine animals are numerous in the wild in North America. American bison are pretty placid animals, and likely more so than the european aurochs (that domesticated cows descend from) were.

North American Ovis are almost all mountain-adapted, not like the European and Asian varieties that lived in low hills.

Bison are nowhere near as easy to domesticate as the ancestors of the cow are. They are very aggressive, even the females. Even today, with modern fencing technology, people raising bison have a lot of trouble keeping them contained. It would have been impossible for Neolithic people to pen and raise bison.

Name some other wild bovines in the Americas that were not brought here.

There were very few animals that would be easy to domesticate in the Americas, and they did get domesticated (the South American camelids).

Diamond does make a good point. His criteria for easily domesticable animals excludes almost all the large mammals that lived in the Americas. There is also the problem that the megafauna of the Americas did not evolve alongside humans and had no instinctual fear of them at first, so the species that possibly could have been easy to domesticate were hunted to extinction within a couple of thousand years of when the Native Americans crossed Beringia.

 

[Hsinchu]

The problem with this is of course the fact that large herd animals are also native to the new world. Sheep and easily tamable bovine animals are numerous in the wild in North America. American bison are pretty placid animals, and likely more so than the european aurochs (that domesticated cows descend from) were.

Continuing along these lines...

There are some textbooks about European history which focus on the subject of development:

The Great Emergence
The European Miracle

By all accounts, the Western world was not the likely candidate to emerge victorious in the race to "civilize first" as other cultures had stable social structures and understanding of technologies still nascent in the early European sociosphere.

The great thesis that most antagonizing students (not a bad thing, the other kind is copy/quote/paste) come up with is that none of the writers know for sure why one part of the world prospered while the others remained relatively slow to ascend.

However, we that play Civ IV know why as the obvious answer is built into the game. Also, there are books on the matter. I'll get to the Civilization-based answer in a second, but the other half is this:

Sweetness and Power

On its own, discovery of the New World happened before true emergence of great modern power, but it was the discovery sugar and its insertion into public life that turned the tides on the Western world. Up until this time, calories you could dissolve into a cup of tea did not exist and pastries were not really possible. With the colonization of the West Indies, a new age was literally being fattened up for a brave new future.

On the other side of this, though, is the hallmark of great civilizations before the discovery of the new world.

SLAVERY

Slaves built the Pyramids. Slaves built the Parthenon. Slaves made Rome, Egypt, Mongolia, and other grand empires possible. While military might was certainly paramount to success, human subjugation for gain was the driver of expansion, creation, and propagation.

Slaves were the foundation upon which Europe was able to come into its own as the dominant region of the world. Slaves were the foundation upon which America achieved its economic prosperity for over a century.

When I say Civilization is, of course, not a grand simulation of real life, it did get one thing right either on accident or by design. Slavery whips out the goods and without it, development is ********.

Edit: wow... I thought this was a thread about chickens. XD

 

[TheLazyHase]

I tend to think that pure luck is one of main factor in Europa's destiny. And one simple thing : european people never have enough. Apart from Gengis Kahn, every single mad dash to conquer the world came from Europa. Chinese people were not interested in conquering the world, china were enough for them. Portugal, in the other hand, didn't hesitate to conquer ten time it's own territory in America. And a lot of other country too : France (remember Napoleon ?), Britain, even Dutchland (see colonial history of congo).

And while gunpowder were know and used in china for a lot of time, it take very little time once it was in Europa to have warmonger find out the best way to use it.

I think that in the end the difference between Europa and others countries were that European were cranked with ingenious blood-crazed barbarian We talk about Montezuma and aztec sacrifice, but in Europa we have done worse than him numerous time, and that was not even because of crazy religious belief.

 

[Molybdeus]

North American Ovis are almost all mountain-adapted, not like the European and Asian varieties that lived in low hills.

This shouldn't preclude domestication, though. The reason so many of the north american sheep and "goats" live in mountainous regions is predation, not because they would instantly die if introduced to low lying regions. Domesticated sheep and equines live in areas very different from their original habitats with no difficulty. If you mean that the aboriginals wouldn't have come into contact with them long enough to domesticate them, many of the flint collection sites in the west are coterminous with sheep and "goat" territory.

Regardless, Mouflon live in mountainous areas, and that didn't stop eurasians from domesticating them.

Bison are nowhere near as easy to domesticate as the ancestors of the cow are.

I didn't say they were easier to domesticate, I said they were less aggressive. If you compare the behavior of the american bison to its cousin the european wisent, the bison is much more mellow. And aurochs (the ancestor of cattle) were reputed by hunters up to the seventeenth century to be more dangerous than the wisent. They were targeted for hunting because they were considered dangerous prey, much like the african cape horn buffalo is today.

Even today, with modern fencing technology, people raising bison have a lot of trouble keeping them contained. It would have been impossible for Neolithic people to pen and raise bison.

You don't need to keep animals in pens to keep them domesticated. Consider nomadic shepherds, for example. Many semi-nomadic peoples put their livestock into pens at night, but even that isn't strictly necessary as long as you have guard dogs. (And the Native Americans did.)

Name some other wild bovines in the Americas that were not brought here.

I should have used "bovid" instead of "bovine." I was specifically thinking of the Mountain Goat, which I mentioned before as being difficult but likely possible to domesticate.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I didn't say they were easier to domesticate, I said they were less aggressive. If you compare the behavior of the american bison to its cousin the european wisent, the bison is much more mellow. And aurochs (the ancestor of cattle) were reputed by hunters up to the seventeenth century to be more dangerous than the wisent. They were targeted for hunting because they were considered dangerous prey, much like the african cape horn buffalo is today.

The modern wisent has also never been domesticated - because it is too aggressive. Wild auroch bulls were considered dangerous to hunt, but they were also popular to hunt in part because of some of their traits that made them easy to domesticate - they weren't very migratory, they'd stay in the same general area which made them easy for gameskeepers to point the nobles to where there was an auroch to kill. Also, modern bulls are pretty aggressive and would be dangerous to hunt with primitive weaponry - but the cows are generally quite docile. This variation in behavior between the genders is part of what made the auroch easy to domesticate, you could pen a group of cows and they would come to accept humans as their herd leader. Female bison are almost as aggressive as the males.

You don't need to keep animals in pens to keep them domesticated. Consider nomadic shepherds, for example. Many semi-nomadic peoples put their livestock into pens at night, but even that isn't strictly necessary as long as you have guard dogs. (And the Native Americans did.)

You don't need pens to keep them domesticated, but you do need to keep them in pens to domesticate them in the first place. Yes, domesticated cattle can be allowed to range free - that's because they have been bred to be easy to herd. Try to convince some bison to come back to the barn at night. If it wasn't for steel fenceposts and electrical barbed wire, it would be impossible for modern bison ranchers to keep them from wandering away.

There's more than just physical shape that makes an animal easy to domesticate - behavior plays a large part. You can have a large, relatively fast breeding animal with herding instincts that would otherwise be a great candidate for domestication, but if it's too aggressive towards humans, it won't work - look at the zebra. Never domesticated, despite being very similar to the horse. People in modern times have attempted to domesticate the zebra, and have had no luck, becaus zebras are just mean.

People are used to wild animals being dangerous to humans and difficult to domesticate, because all the less aggressive and easy to domesticate animals have already been domesticated.

 

[Hsinchu]

People are used to wild animals being dangerous to humans and difficult to domesticate, because all the less aggressive and easy to domesticate animals have already been domesticated.

I disagree. A Platypus is not as dangerous as it sounds. We have yet to make it do tricks, but I'm sure we could manage it. The only reason we don't make Platypi do tricks is because they are funny to watch by the nature of their appearance. This is only ONE of what I am sure are numerous examples of domesticatble animals not yet pursued.

 

[whitelaughter]

SLAVERY

Slaves built the Pyramids.

No, slaves did not. And the New World had slaves. You'd make a better case attributing european success to serfdom.

And one simple thing : european people never have enough. Apart from Gengis Kahn, every single mad dash to conquer the world came from Europa.

Rubbish. Never heard of Tamerlane? How about Shaka, Cyrus and Darius: they are *in* Civ IV! At it's height, China forced Siam to pay tribute; and they sent an army to invade Rome (that had to turn back...I *suppose* that's a pity, but it would have been interesting if it had made it). The Muslim explosion is the longest, most brutal expansion/occupation the world has ever seen: and still going.
So no, it's not aggressive tendencies.

 

[Hsinchu]

No, slaves did not. And the New World had slaves. You'd make a better case attributing european success to serfdom.



Rubbish. Never heard of Tamerlane? How about Shaka, Cyrus and Darius: they are *in* Civ IV! At it's height, China forced Siam to pay tribute; and they sent an army to invade Rome (that had to turn back...I *suppose* that's a pity, but it would have been interesting if it had made it). The Muslim explosion is the longest, most brutal expansion/occupation the world has ever seen: and still going.
So no, it's not aggressive tendencies.

Serfdom didn't launch Western society. It sustained it. Indentured servants treated practically like slaves is beginning to split hairs, but discoveries were not made on the backs of serfs. Discoveries were made on the backs of African labor imports.

As for Pyramids and Slavery, I am probably misreading history. The Jews were indentured servants, right?

As for the New World having slaves, that's what I'm saying. The entire colonial structure revolved around the utilization of slaves to support agricultural growth and development for Western commerce. If you are presupposing that revolutionary thinkers of the 16th-19th century got from the cottage system to the industrial age by their bootstraps, that's another thing entirely.

I kind of disagree with Europe never stopping wanting, also. I think "want" is a natural human tendency. In Asia, the problem was want so much as internal struggle to get it. One might conjecture that had Asia/China developed a more unified front earlier on, their intellectual emphasis and products may have developed industrial processes sooner. Assembly line style movement of means of production was always a part of their textile processes, and the move to automation would have been necessary had wars not stunted population growth.

 

[TheLazyHase]

Rubbish. Never heard of Tamerlane? How about Shaka, Cyrus and Darius: they are *in* Civ IV! At it's height, China forced Siam to pay tribute; and they sent an army to invade Rome (that had to turn back...I *suppose* that's a pity, but it would have been interesting if it had made it). The Muslim explosion is the longest, most brutal expansion/occupation the world has ever seen: and still going.
So no, it's not aggressive tendencies.

Cyrus and Darius are nowhere to be seen if we talk about, let's say Alexander. Or any roman emperor. Shaka same story. All chinese emperor stay in China, where european casually try to grab so large an empire that nobody can ever govern that. Or that keep going to conquer some land they were not even sure they existed.

Another thingie : nobody has ever take a land from his inhabitant apart from europeans when they had invaded America. All other take dominion, but at least let the people live. Even before, read what happened to catharism. It may be a personnal taste, but I find that a whole lot more frightful than even the mass execution in China.

The aggressiveness of European is a fact. It does not mean that it's the only explanation, and cheer luck may very well have more to do than that. Or diseases (I have seen people saying that the european people were a lot more dieseases-ridden than other country, including alcohol abuse, and so devastate entire civilisation simply by giving them the diseases without how to handle it) But still.

 

[Badtz Maru]

I disagree. A Platypus is not as dangerous as it sounds. We have yet to make it do tricks, but I'm sure we could manage it. The only reason we don't make Platypi do tricks is because they are funny to watch by the nature of their appearance. This is only ONE of what I am sure are numerous examples of domesticatble animals not yet pursued.

I mean in cases where there would be a benefit to domestication. I can't see much point in domesticating small aquatic mammals.

There are even one very useful animal that doesn't fit the criteria for domestication that have still been used for work while never being domesticated - see the elephant. Tamed, never domesticated.