If nobody ever lived in the Americas, then the continent would’ve been truly and respectfully discovered by Lief Ericksson

Cody’s political angle isn’t colonial revisionism, but to imagine a world where we are unburdened by the scourge of Alaska

Okay but could you imagine how extremely scary it would be to go to a new land and no one is there, being an explorer and seeing how this fertile big land just doesn't have people would genuinely terrified them

In less than 20 years we've gone from believing that humans made it to the Americas in the last 15,000 years to now possibly over 100,000 years ago. That's an insane jump in understanding

Vikings: "wait, nobody lives down there?" Spain: "wait, there's no one to exploit?" England: "wait, there's no one in our way?" Ireland: "wait, there's no potatoes?"

I'd like to see a scenario where the Mative Americans are immune to smallpox, or a lot more resistant. Say a strain got carried by Leif Erikson's expedition and had time to spread around and leave everyone adapted centuries later

As a Native person, I think it's an interesting thought experiment. It makes the value of Native contributions to science and civilization a lot more stark.

I think this video is important because it highlights the fact that indigenous people tamed this land and developed immensely important crops we now take for granted.

Given no human life existed in the Americas, I would expect there would be some really interesting wildlife. Mammoths, Giant Ground sloths, etc never going extinct

That aspect of crops that were domesticated by the native Americans always gets me thinking. What other plants are out there that we could have turned into a staple of our lives?

The "Erase" function to make the scenario possible had me cackling. Well done, Cody.

I think it’s perfectly reasonable to have an alternate timeline where the proto-Asians just look at the big ass glacier and say “yea let’s go back, there’s planets of good lands back in the steppe”.

Missed opportunity for Vinland given how it's abandonment was due to hostile natives. I remember reading a timeline years ago featuring vikings with North American Macrofauna as semi-domesticated pets. Followed by Spain having to deal with actual vikings attacking their shipping lanes with both groups having a sort of overlapping frontier.

This was actually really interesting. A lot of people will disparage Native American peoples by saying that they didn’t contribute to the development of the US, but this really puts into perspective how much they contributed to the world. Almost like a continents-scale version of “It’s A Wonderful Life”

I'd love to see your take on something that is kinda the opposite. What if the land bridge never went away and Asia was constantly connected to the Americas to this day?

I feel like we're completely overlooking the Vikings. With no natives, they can penetrate Vinland (and even Greenland as there wouldn't be any people there either) in peace. They started Iceland from scratch and it would be similar here, assuming they can maintain contact. By Columbus, the Norse would be firmly established in the northeast, at least.

I’d like to see your take on what would have happened if the Viking colonies had persisted in North America long enough to pass on metallurgy, domesticated animals, and diseases before giving up or being assimilated.

I'm really glad you brought up the point about crops, it's easy to take for granted now, but food supplies are just so vital for maintaining civilization.

Part 2: What about the Vikings? They meet no Skrälinger resistance, and were assumedly better prepared for winter. Timeline 1: They return home and spread the news; Northern Europe gets a colonisation headstart. Timeline 2: Vinland gets cut off and they develop independently. Also: What about the Megafauna? I _know_ that you covered Megafauna in another video already, so I assumed it would be a factor here. Also: No gardening civilization in Brazil! The jungles would be truly untamed, there'd be no terra preta.

I just got back from visiting Mayan ruins in Mexico and this kind of blew my mind. I also wonder if the vikings would have abandoned Vinland. Sure, it was far away, but with no Skraelings to deal with, they might have been more motivated to stay.

The first human crossings into the Americas was an unbelievably impressive undertaking and feat of human resiliance and determination considering the technology of the time.

I wonder how the early Viking settlements would have fared in this timeline.

I feel like an important angle to consider with the highly Catholic Spanish finding the Caribbean first is the religious angle. I feel like it would be an easy connection to make that this uninhabited, lush land they happened across is Eden itself. The presence of humanity in our timeline removed the possibility of making that connection (Adam and Eve being cast out being the primary reason). I absolutely feel like that would impact how the region is explored, colonized, etc.

I think the most alien part of this thought experiment is really just what the Amazon rainforest would even look like without indigenous people because we really have no way of knowing truly to what extent people actually cultivated it which I think is super fascinating.

Tbh after you mentioned it, i would like to see a video about if horses never made it to eurasia. The differences would be so insane

Love these videos that basically just say "What would happen? Not this. Apart from that, dunno"

Even I, a student in evolutionary anthropology, have always questioned the Ice-Free Corridor as the first route the Paleo-Indians took from Alaska into Canada. Humans are smart, and really good at problem-solving, and canoes are pretty ancient technology.

I got overly excited when you brought up the crops because I have thought of this before. In uninhabited Americas, the uncultivated varieties of these plants may not even exist as the whole ecosystem would be dramatically different without human influence.

I'm wondering how the Norse colonization would've gone in this scenario, I think it would be an interesting development.

It is funny because if you read the journals the Spanish wrote they pretty much had to put a soldier on every corner to keep the tribes that the Aztecs were oppressing for sacrifices from ripping aztecs apart after the Spanish took over.

Hey man, you completely forgot the megafauna! What a shock to land on a continent full of mastodonts, giant sloths, glyptodonts, saber teeth tigers, you get the point. Maybe they'd have run extinct in a much faster way, but they'd surely have spiced things up for the explorers!

Timestamps 0:00 Knight Plush 0:25 Intro 3:32 So How Does This Even Happen? 7:19 Spain Arrives 10:29 Setting up a Footprint 17:05 The Crops that Changed Everything 19:06 What Was the Point of This Video? 19:48 Outro

What would’ve happened with the polynesians? I recall that they traded with the Incas, so they could potentially have some decendents in this timeline on the mainland of South America. Also, what about the megafauna? Giant armadillos would be a terrifying sight to see for an unsuspecting European.

Was going to bring it up but cut it out of the vid. Vinland would have failed anyway because it was so far away. No major Norse colonization, natives or not. This is one of those ideas where its so different this would be like a five part series of pure fiction. So apologies if I just cover the most basic stuff. Also check out Possible History. He's another alternate history channel I really like. www.youtube.com/@possiblehistory/videos

This was an exciting take. I've been working on a story with similar concept and the lack of a pre-existing system and population to exploit is definitely making me re-think the timeline for colonization attempts. Also I love the "I'm erasing Alaska" bit lol

Considering the colorful history presented by the various Native (North and South) American groups, alongside their interactions with European settlers, the removal of these natives from our timeline kinda gives of this dark tone, at least from an American like me). One thing I love about native Americans in human history is that we could understand and learn all sorts of different characters and their perspective on the land and life. The Incas, Mayans, and Aztecs were characterized by their empires, strong religious beliefs, and the impressive human feats of their time (ex. Temples, farms, cities, etc.). For the natives up north, they also held great religious and philosophical views (especially mythologies), alongside a significant respect to how they treated and personified their territories. With the nonexistance of these natives in the alternate reality presented in this video, all of that human character and achievement that these natives present just doesn't happen, no cities, no temples, not even camps, nothing. It kinda gives of this grim feeling, as spots that we know natives to inhabit are just a ton of black spots, unknown to the settlers struggling to get a footing onto this land (FYI, I bet the settlement where the pilgrims were at might have been another Jamestown without the native interaction). Id imagine this would make a good horror story, were a small group of explorers would try to explore the rest of the North American landmass, completely alone with only the wildlife and corn they interact with. Also RIP Alaska

AlternateHistoryHub: _'This creates a distance that is too great for hunter gatherers to sail across'_ Ancient Polynesians: Challenge accepted. 😏

I'd kill for a vid on if the Sino-Soviet split never happened or was patched up in the 70s. It'd be awesome.

Constructive commentary on some of the Mesoamerican stuff that comes up here: 9:19: The Map of the Aztec empire here is missing Sonouscuo/Xoconochco, which was a province in Chiapas. While maps of the empire do vary in HOW they depict territory in that area, (same for if Teotitlan is Aztec controlled as shown here) not showing any at all is erroneous. Also, the map solely showing Aztec territory is pretty misleading: Those enclaves had indepedent kingdoms and city-states, West Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula had them as well like the Purepecha Empire, various Maya kingdoms, etc. On that same token, colonization of Mexico was only really starting with the fall of the Aztec, since all of these other states (and the states inside the empire which didn't cede to Spanish authority) wouldn't be conquered for centuries (though most were within a few decades). 9:33: Jaguar knights weren't half naked with just pieces of Jaguar pelts: They wore full body warsuits called Tlahuiztli (and beneath it, gambeson armor vest/tunics known as Ichcahuipilli), made from a thick cotton base and a mosaic of tens of thousands of iridescent, glittering feathers arranged to make the jaguar spots (or other designs). While no Tlahuiztli survive, quite a few iridescent feather mosaic "paintings" with catholic imagery made by Mesoamerican artists do, and they're some of the most stunning pieces of art ever produced. Tlahuiztli warsuits (and tunic forms of it, known as Ehuatl) were incredibly high effort pieces of equipment, the sterotype of Jaguar knights being sort of conan the barbian warriors could not be more wrong. (Though there are some accounts asserting that commoners who entered the Jaguar order as opposed to nobles had to make do with warsuits made from actual Jaguar pelts: these would still be full body garments, though) 9:16, 10:14, 10:24, 10:27: I realize you're trying to use royalty free and public domain images here, but just so people are aware, these are pretty poor visualizations of Mesoamerican cities and clothing. Much like how Jaguar knights had absurdly ornate warsuits and actual armor rather then just naked and with pelts, people had fine clothing and jewerly: There's a lot of fashion variation both between different civilizations and inside each one based on social context, but for the Aztec/Nahuas, rather then being mostly naked with just feather headdresses and the like, generally had men wore cloaks/mantles (Tilmatli), sort of like Greco-roman togas, while women wore baggy blouses and robes (huipil). For nobles, these would be richly colored and accented with floral, avian, geometric and mythological motifs and patterns, and wore with gold, jade, turquoise etc braclets and arm/leg bands, earrings and piercings; and fine feather tassels and other ornaments. If anything, actual Aztec fashion for women, especially with their hair buns/braids, looks closer to Japanese Geisha then anything most people think of when they hear "Aztec". Cities, too, had buildings which were covered in smooth stucco and then painted in massive frescos and murals, and which had sculptural facades and ornaments, carved reliefs, etc. Cities had a significant amount of infrastructure with roads, aqueducts, and massive suburban sprawls around the city centers. Stuff only looks grey and worn and sparsely sticking out of jungles today because of erosion and sites not being fully excavated. The art of Tenochtitlan at 10:10 and 9:22 are better. Also, only the coasts, and lowlands around the Isthmus of Tehuantepec and in the Yucatan Penisula were really jungle: Much of Central Mexico where the Aztec were at was temperate to semi arid hills, valleys, and plateaus. I've offered this in the past, but if you cover Mesoamerica more, i'd be down to send resources, information, accurate art and images I have permission to use, etc. Trey has my info.

I find it funny that Cody finds this scenario strange considering he made a video about the moon being habitable

No no, dont sell yourself short, you have a point. In fact this video *emphasizes* just how important the culture, history, and advances Indigenous Americans are to the history of the world and our modern civilization. - Nice Work

I see Cody is embracing his 40K side with this new plushie

I assume that Asia would be a lot more populated then it already is, there would be a lot more people in Siberia.

I think this video is a good example of how much we owe natives

the premise of an empty Americas would make for a great plot for an award winning sci-fi novel

As an idea it emphasises that the exploitation of a prosperous people was why the invaders succeeded - the fact that, had those people not laid the foundations of civilization, the invaders would have had nothing to exploit. Anything that gets people to think about the exploitation of labour by the greedy and undeserving is worth the time.

As a Native American, my honest reaction is 🫥

I think it would be awesome to see a video of what human history would be like without horses! Very different, but it would be cool to hear you think through it!

I really enjoyed this video. I think it was a great Alternative History. It also showed how corn, potatoes, and tomatoes affected the advancement of Europe; not to mention the rest of the World.

Here's an idea: What if Sun Yat-Sen hadn't died of liver cancer, and instead lived about 30 years longer?

My first thought is that all the mega fauna would still be there

Good take, good humor. Couple of tips in case they help: Taino is actually Taïno, or in Spanish, Taíno, meaning that it's three syllables, "tah-ee-no". Think of the vowels in "naïve". And around 3:20 you said "descendants" when you meant "ancestors"-this is fairly common, but it's confusing for someone like me who's into family history and word history. "Ancestor" is related to the Latin ante- prefix, meaning "before"; "descendant" depends on the conventional metaphor of a family tree representing the past as higher up and the present at the bottom, so that descendants actually _descend_ from those who came before, like apples falling not far from the tree.

The ecological impact this would have would be incredible to witness. Perhaps mammoths and giant ground sloths would still be around

It is actually becoming more commonly believed amongst anthropologists that ancient peoples may have also arrived in the New World via the Pacific Islands. That sounds hard to believe at first, but if you look at a map of the islands you'll see that they form a chain leading just 2,180 miles from the coast of Peru. In fact, I'm 1947 a Norwegian ethnographer named Thor Heyerdahl, actually said from Peru to Raroia in the Tuamotus after just 101 days.

I once (more than 15 years ago) saw a documentary that claimed that inuit might have went from southern France to Newfoundland along the ice shore. They could have travelled by canoe (or something) during the day and slept on the ice at night. Seals and fish were already alive then, so there was plenty of food. That would imply that even when there is neither Kamchatka nor Alaska, people would still move to the Americas. Also you forgot somehow the Vikings who came to Northamerica. They even settled in Iceland (where nobody else lived). They could've settled in New England as well.

I was so confused when you said "why didnt spain colonise the south?" But then i realised you were talking about the southern part of usa not the actual south

No tomato means no pizza, truly the biggest loss humanity could suffer.

As someone who mostly grew up in Indiana, Indiana without corn would be weird as heck man outside my neighborhood there was a cornfield

Fantastic episode! It gives us a lot to think about

As someone who's entire career is based around food. Thank you for bringing up native American crops

"I'm removing Alaska" probably the greatest sentence ever said

Id love to see a video about what if the Himalayan mountains didn't exist, geography shapes politics, and having no barrier between the 2 most populated nations ever would possibly be world changing

This was a great and well thought out video. Good job Cody, and very respectful to native people as their role in European colonization

the worst part of this timeline would be no potatoes

You forgot avocados! I love how those only still exist because of people. They were originally spread by giant ground sloths, and would have gone extinct when those sloths did. It's why the seeds are so big.

Hey Alternatehistoryhub I developed this scenario a while back for a what if where Zealandia collided with sahul to create a continent called Sahullandia I wondering if you could talk about such a scenario in a future video. I even made a map of it if you needed a point of reference. Feel free to dm me if you would like.

Want an alternate history where horses never crossed the land bridge

Your videos are a modern treat

Ngl, being a native- this ain’t offensive Cody don’t worry. You’re a good man and we know you’re just out here spitballin alt histories so ur good, you get a pass for solving the native question úwù

Scenario Idea: What If Nobody Had Lived In The Old World?

Honestly, this scenario deserves a second video...

It would probably get settled by Vikings under Leif Erickson as they did in Greenland

There's non zero odds it wouldn't even be called America. There's been some recent theorizing that the name might actually come from the "Amerrisque" mountain range in Nicaragua and Honduras. Basically the idea is these mountains are where *SOMEONE* told Columbus the gold they had came from, and so when people asked him where it came from, he said it was American Gold. Also apparently the attribution to Amerigo Vespucci was originally worded as a sort of "WELL WHERE ELSE COULD THE NAME HAVE COME FROM‽', implying that it was a guess made by folks who had already lost track of where the name had come from.

It really was an interesting thought experiment. If we went even deeper and focused on how horses and camilids didnt cross over, literally every aspect of ancient humanity changes, The chariot, the mongles, sending messages over long distance, everything about humanity changes and leads to groups staying in just one are primarily. Basically my point is, look at his older video of no horses/camilids coming over to see the breath of this change.

What if Postwar Era suburbanization never happened?

Dont forget that there would also be some extremely terrifying megafauna, such as the short nosed bear and giant ground sloth, that would most likely have still been there wothout early human influences. It would have been a truly alien world.

I wonder how this would have effected Leif Erikson and other Viking’s voyage to North America, considering his brother, Thorvald, actually came into contact and fought with Native Americans in modern-day Canada.

No natives would mean Columbus would find a Scandinavian settlement in the Americas most likely, as they would have still made it to Newfoundland but would have had the untold vast amount of farmland they were forever seeking

Content has been going down recently but I will continue to watch for now

I guess I never thought about how powerful corn, tomatoes, and potatoes are. I've never grown potatoes before, but corn and tomatoes are so easy to grow that I've done it as a casual hobby before.

I totally forgot about the patatoes. Prussia and the Prussian army cold have never (not for a long time) became so powerful. I think they would have found ways to produce better crop, but it would have taken a long time. Enough to change the entire history from then onwards. (Japan and/or China comming out of their isolation periods before that and settling the west coast of NA)

The food domesticated by the natives Americans are really important that sometimes we take for granted.

Have you ever thought about doing one about what would’ve happened if the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth hadn’t been methodically dismantled by its neighbors (and crippled by its own rules)? I think your videos are excellent, and I’d love to see your take on this.

One other thing to note - at least in North America - was that the natives pretty much cleared out the wilderness, leaving it fit for habitation. When the English showed up, one of the things that impressed them was how perfect the land seemed for their expansion and settlement (even with the natives in the way). With no native population, North America (on the east coast, at any rate) would have been primeval forest.

~15:04 Very few of the native populations the French and English interacted with were hunter gatherers - a handful were, and none of them were as urbanized as some of the populations the Spanish encountered, but the significant majority of groups east of the Mississippi were agriculturalists.

What if Russia Won the Polish vs Soviet War? What if Russia Won the Estonian Independence War? What if Russia Won the Winter War? What if Inejirō Asanuma Was Never Assassinated?

This was interesting. Thanks Cody.

The Aztecs being absolutely hated by the other populations of Mexico helped the Spanish a lot. They weren't a lot better off once the Spanish were in charge but anything beats the threat of human sacrifice.

19:49 I just love that we play out … to film noir jazz of wheat being harvested. BRAVO!

Speaking of the New World, i feel like an interesting idea would be a video on what if the pre-colombian empires and civilizations avoided colonization and survived into the modern era

This video is like an addition to the if North and South America weren’t connected scenario.

I requested this many many years ago. I dont take credit, but i am glad somebody decided to do this

I know others have mentioned it, but looking at the Pleistocene extinctions you can actually track them in near perfect sync with human migration patterns. Basically, the further away from Africa where every large animal evolved to deal with human predation, the more exctinctions of large animals occurred. Elephants and rhinos live in India & SE Asia still, and lions and hippos lived in Europe until late into human civilization (late as in Early Roman Republic I think) So with no humans reaching the Americas, even with a changing climate the conditions were and kinda are still similar to warm interstadials that Pleistocene fauna enjoyed, so there's a good chance the Americas would be a wild safari similar to Africa. Now the exploitation of *that* resource I'd love to see in a video!

I would love a part 2 or deeper dive into this great idea.

I think the bigger picture (no pun intended) would be the megafauna. They were hunted to extinction by the time that the Europeans arrived in the original timeline. In the new timeline, those explores and settlers would have had to deal with terror birds, dire wolves, mammoths, mastodons, saber tooth cats, etc. It would take a LONG time to try to get a toe-hold on the mainland.

Whoa that really was an awesome video!

My guess is that since there wouldn't be any people there would be no incentive to explore the land. No potatoes, no tomatoes, no corn. Because no guy existed to domesticate the wild version of those plants. No guys to tell the Europeans were the gold, silver and other resources are.

In the Civilization series, there is an option to have the world map set to what's called "Terra" of which the map would generate two or three continents, one or two of which would pack all of the civilizations, including yours, and then one continent (which is usually either big or small) would have nothing on it other than resources and such. As far as I know, in Civ IV, it'll usually just place barbarian settlements there for the player or opponent civ to take out but in Civ V, it is a completely empty continent and this is basically what that video reminds me of.

"hmm how did ancient people never cross to the Americas" *hand slip* *💡*

You have an interesting imagination Cody. And don't let anyone tell you different. Just keep on thinking on. I honestly admire your content man.