No livestock

[Savage Wombat]

Slaves become a heck of a lot more important when you don't have draft animals. Not for agriculture necessarily, but for transportation. The Aztecs had a thriving mercantile system based almost entirely on slaves.

 

[alsih2o]

So, in a world without domesticated animals, what would the paladin summon to ride?

they wouldn't get a mount, they just have some guy appear behind him clapping coconuts and singing.

 

[billd91]

Sure, the idea of dragging a stick through dirt might not be too hard to come up with, but perhaps the real question is why would you want to drag a stick through dirt? One reason is to kill all the other plants, so that your crops have no competition. You point out that New World crops have become very successful. Two of the most popular ones in the West, potatos and corn, are extremely durable crops. I'm sure plowing fields makes them grow even better, but as the native Americans have shown, you don't need to plow for them to grow. I'm not a farmer, but I would guess that wheat and rice, for example, would be harder to grow in a jungle without plowing the fields first
.

One of the major points of using an iron plow is that it can make non-arable lands arable. Steppe and grassland turf is tough stuff. Without iron plows, they are pretty much impossible to farm. It's one of those inventions that opened up tremendous areas for more efficient agricultural exploitation. Earlier versions of the plow just couldn't cut it, literally.

And without a horse, presumably, paladin's wouldn't summon any form of mount. Perhaps some form of celestial animal companion? Or some other power that allowed for easier transportation?

 

[tarchon]

And without a horse, presumably, paladin's wouldn't summon any form of mount. Perhaps some form of celestial animal companion? Or some other power that allowed for easier transportation?

Celestial litter with 4 celestial slaves? Celestial dogsled?

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

they wouldn't get a mount, they just have some guy appear behind him clapping coconuts and singing.

You don't frighten us, English pig-dog! Go and boil your bottoms, son of a silly person. I blow my nose on you, so-called Arthur-king, you and your silly English kiniggets.

 

[Rel]

they wouldn't get a mount, they just have some guy appear behind him clapping coconuts and singing.

"Stop that! They'll be no singin' 'ere!"

 

[Umbran]

The Black Plague came from Asia in the same way that AIDS came from Africa. They are diseases that were previously unknown in the world and that devastated all humans they came into contact with.

Hm. There was a show on PBS a little while ago, about the Dark Ages, and how a great many of the things that went on during that time were possibly linked to a climatic change, caused either by asteroid strike or massive volcanic eruption. One of the things they talked about was the Black Plague.

Big thing - it didn't come from Asia. It came from Africa. Specifically, up the trade routes from Ethiopia, where the organism had been for a very long time, and still exists today.

The reason it suddenly became an issue is a simple one - temperature. Above a certain tempreature, fleas don't transmit the disease. In cooler areas (or in Ethiopia during a relative cold snap), the fleas can transmit, and there's a breakout of plague.

 

[Dogbrain]

There's a movement in Landscape Architecture to create more natural, sustainable landscapes, which are landscapes that don't require as much water, care, and maintenance. Native American farms probably fit that bill.

As an experiment, I started a garden on a bit of my lawn (and it's part of two acres that I no longer have to mow). I planted squash, beans, and corn, in mounds (all three together). The squash is growing over the grass and weeds--even choking out the dandelions and thistles, and the corn and beans are growing up through the squash quite nicely. Well-adapted plants do make a difference.

 

[Umbran]

Well-adapted plants do make a difference.

Gotta be careful there, though. There's a difference between a combination that makes a good single crop, and a long-term sustainable configuration.

As an example - with those three plants all growing in one place, the soil is having nutrients removed at a high rate. Especialy since much of the energy is going into production of fruit that gets carried away from the garden. All those plants are annuals, so next year's plants won't gain from this year's growth. They'll have to start all over from scratch, eating up more nutrients. Do that for too many crop cycles, and you'll need lots of fertilizer to sustain them.

 

[Dogbrain]

Gotta be careful there, though. There's a difference between a combination that makes a good single crop, and a long-term sustainable configuration.

True enough. I just wanted to see if they could outcompete modern weeds.