Recent content by Umbral

Regular exposure to eurasian germs and viruses. The big problem for the Americans was that up to 90+ % of their population could die after even a friendly contact. All the other issues pale in commparison to that. As for the opening question, I'd say better shipping tech and an ocean trading...

Interesting. Indonesia should be quite hard to take too. Is there anything I can read about it?

It was already colonized. Competing with an entrenched and already adapted population is vastly harder than colonizing virgin territory.

I believe no less of an authority than Leo Caesius himself once wrote about John Lackland converting to Islam in search of allies.

The difference in population between hunter-gatherers and fully mature agriculture using populations should not be underestimated. At this time, Newfoundlands population was about 750 people, and its about the size of Ireland. Bands of 30-50 people with no real coordination or united...

Garmantians maybe.

It is important to remember what an enormous population advantage agricultural societies have. Newfoundland is bigger than Ireland, and estimated to have supported a total of 750 to 1500 people in a time when Greenland carried 5000 Norse, and a big longship could take 120 warriors. Societies...

The Pacific is immense. Much much larger than the Atlantic. And with little in the way of interesting resources or good refueling stops on the way. The technological and navigational threshold they'd need to surmount is vastly greater than an approach from Europe. Also, they would be lacking...

With all the new information we are getting, human development is starting to look more like a thorny bush than a straight line. Seems like most of it happened in Africa, but we yoinked shiny or useful genes from other places.

Prior to behavioral modernity, populations appear to have been much more stable. Peoples would stay separate or only interact on the fringes for long periods. It is possible that people did not have that level of adaptability that comes with behavioral thing, so a population that was already...

Well, mostly. Everyone is mixed to a degree. However, there is genetic support for the idea that the population group that expanded/exploded out of Africa also did much the same inside Africa. (Albeit not with the total replacement we saw outside Africa. ) While mixing with the native human and...

I don't think so. But it will add to the effort needed. Although I think you can avoid a lot of the current issues by skirting close to land, but that has its own issues, in terms of shallows, rocks, being driven towards the shore by weather, etc. Especially with a coast as bleak as this, where...

Prevailing winds generally run southwards down the coast then turn west. Canary current does that too. Cape Verde is about where the winds will blow you from that part of the African coast. It was prosperous during the slave trade days because it was a natural stop. I think getting back is the...

The trip from Morocco down to the Sahel is terrible and goes past some of the most lifeless coasts on earth. The prevailing winds would be good for travelling south, going back north would be much more difficult. If you can get some kind of settlement going on the Canaries, it'll help a bit...

You are right on the Dorset. It was the suggestion in the original thread, but I see now that we would need Thule getting there a bit ahead of OTL schedule. Their skill package and seafaring were far, far in excess of the Late Dorset. The Inuit were noted to do longer sea voyages now and then...