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Simply put, the animals capable of domestication and worth domestication were domesticated.
Take bison - their tendency to attempt to kill their keepers, combined with their prodigious capacity to do so, preventing their being kept until modern containment capabilities were available. Sure, you can claim that aurochs were similar but it's not as simple as that. Here's an example - zebras, despite being of the same genus as domesticated horses, have never been domesticated, though considerable effort towards domesticating them has been expended. They simply have a temperament which prohibits it. Antelope, elk, musk ox - these and other animals have been the focus of intensive domestication efforts, to no success.
I'll make some specific comments on some of the other species you cite.
mountain goats, bighorn sheep
These animals only occur naturally where ancient humans were migratory. Not being permanently settled where those animals occurred, there was no chance to ever domesticate them.
pronghorn
Large herbivores tend to be very flighty. They don't like being corralled and tend to bash themselves to death against barriers, or simply to whither away and die due to the stress of captivity.
jaguarundi
Presumably, these would domesticate themselves, in the same way that cats are believed to have been domesticated - by individuals cats associating themselves with human settlements of camps to enjoy the scraps left by humans. But the only real benefit to humans is vermin control and as pets, the latter of which isn't really useful, and both of which really require permanent settlements. It would also require the proper temperament for the jaguarundi, which perhaps it just doesn't have.
Other problems include breeding - some animals require elaborate mating rituals that cannot be replicated in captivity, or simply refuse to mate under captive conditions (check the long and difficult history of even the most modern zoos to get cheetahs, for example, to breed). Then there's social structure - some animals need their natural group dynamic to live and breed.
In other words, to be domesticated, an animal needs to have the proper temperament for it, needs to grow fast enough to justify it, needs to provide a benefit that justifies the effort, usually needs to occur where humans have permanent settlements, needs to breed in captivity, needs to eat something that is convenient for its human keepers, needs to not regularly kill its captors, and needs to be capable of living in an unnatural captive environment. That's a long laundry list that few animals can meet.
The really useful animals either were domesticated or weren't capable of being domesticated. The more marginal ones that could have been domesticated weren't because the payoff just didn't justify the effort.
The basic reason is that the Western Hemisphere – to a much greater extent than the Eastern – is dominated by mammals (and birds) with “egalitarian” social structures which do not allow a human to take over and control even those animals who do live in herds.
In fact, in all of North America, Mesoamerica, and low- and middle-altitude South America, not a solitary species of extant herbivorous mammal possesses the necessary dominance hierarchy for domestication. Consequently, even the most advanced societies in this region could never herd or breed any of the numerous herbivorous mammals. Even with bighorn sheep and collared and white-lipped peccaries, who do live in herds year-round, these herd have an egalitarian structure where the strongest male tends to win by fighting consistently. Pronghorn and most deer live in herds only outside the breeding season, while during that breeding season males are territorial and fight off intruding conspecific males. Smaller deer are wholly territorial and solitary even in the non-breeding season, as are tapirs.
More than a decade after Guns, Germs and Steel was published, a group writing for the journal Nature, Ecology and Evolution and comprising Charlie K. Cornwallis, Carlos A. Botero, Dustin R. Rubenstein, Philip A. Downing, Stuart A. West and Ashleigh S. Griffin gave a possible though uncertain reason for the absolute dominance of undomesticable egalitarian social structures among mammals in most parts of the Americas. Although their article ‘Cooperation facilitates the colonization of harsh environments’ does not relate to the type of dominance hierarchies required for domestication of mammals, it does reveal a powerful tendency towards egalitarian social structures in benign – cool and/or wet – environments. Enrico Sorato in his ‘The price of associating with breeders in the cooperatively breeding chestnut-crowned babbler: foraging constraints, survival and sociality’ also shows that in cool and/or wet environments sociality tends to be strongly disfavoured over egalitarianism.
Regarding the possibility of domesticable social structures existing in a mammal of North America, Mesoamerica and/or lowland South America, the critical issues are that:
South America averages three times the annual rainfall of the Eastern Hemisphere continents (about 1700mm vis-à-vis 600 to 700mm) and
except for the only marginally arid sertão region of Northeastern Brazil, all the Western Hemisphere’s arid regions are mountainous and have access to mountain water and eutrophic oceans
Although the work of Cornwallis et.al. and Sorato does not deal – as I have noted – with the type of sociality that permits domestication, it ought to be noted that all the “Ancient Fourteen” except the banteng and perhaps the water buffalo and the horse were native either to:
arid and highly landlocked desert environments far from runoff-giving high mountains, or
the extremely high Andes (llama) or Himalayas and adjacent ranges
In fact, it has always seemed certain to me ever since reading Guns, Germs and Steel that the cattle genus Bos, to which four of the Ancient Fourteen belong, evolved in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau and diversified by migrating to lower altitudes. However, it was in the narrow, consistently steep terrain of the Andes and Himalayas that animals evolved the “follow-the-leader” dominance hierarchies permitting domestication.
I have presumed that “follow-the-leader” dominance hierarchies were advantageous only for mountain-country mammals navigating extremely steep terrain with varied climates, or to mammals in harsh, hot, hyperarid deserts where hierarchies might help in allowing a herd to use water most efficiently and sustainably. In benign environments, group-living can in contrast actually lead to resource depletion at a local level because it is harder for groups to move than isolated, egalitarian individuals.
This thread has to do with this youtube video about why there was now plague that devastated to old world when europeans came into contact with the new world.
The person in the video claims that the reason why there was this lack of plague in the new world was that there were no domestic animals. Many people claim that the reason why pre colombian america had next to no domestic animals was because there were no animals that were good candidates. However I think that was not the case, I think that the natives found it much easier to go out in the woods and hunt for food, then it was to actually raise the animals. Also perhaps they knew about the risk of plague that comes with raising animals?
....
So what do you guys think, do you think if a mesopotamian/egyptian/indian/chinese person was plopped on to america thousands of years ago, do you think that they would succeed at domesticating these animals? Or would they fail just as the native americans did?
I think you missed the point of the youtube video - it wasn't that domesticated animals caused plauges, but that domesticated animals was simply an attribute of settlements which in turn caused overpopulation which caused filth, pollution, overcrowding, vermin, etc. which in turn caused plagues to flourish.
Most of the Native Americans tribes were nomadic and thus did not have these problems, domesticated animals or not. Those that were not nomadic and lived in fixed settlements had the same problems as European cities regarding plagues. The cocoliztli epidemic for instance, with an outbreak after the Spanish arrived, was in fact deemed to be indigenous and killed some 1 million central American Indians.
The American civilizations also didn't exchange the rather few animals they domesticated. The Incas didn't know turkeys and the Aztecs didn't know llamas for example, probably due to geographical barriers. I recommend the book "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond on this topic.
Great book! It also talks about the geographical barriers to species being widely domesticated in Africa and the Americas vs. Eurasia. The thesis is that the spread of species in Eurasia was much easier than in the other two landmasses because Eurasia is geographically oriented in along an east-west axis vs. the other two being primarily oriented on a north-south axis. Species have difficulty migrating too far north or south of their primary ranges simply because of climactic changes and changes in daylight patterns. Migration east or west is much easier (in general). Therefore, when useful animal species did exist, they tended to be more widespread in Eurasia and more localized in Africa and the Americas. These animal species that were domesticated were in turn the source of most of the diseases that eventually made their way into human populations. Eurasian peoples therefore had more exposures to more diseases, and hence had built immunity to them. The African and American peoples had not built such immunities and hence became decimated by disease when the Europeans made contact.
Great book! It also talks about the geographical barriers to species being widely domesticated in Africa and the Americas vs. Eurasia. The thesis is that the spread of species in Eurasia was much easier than in the other two landmasses because Eurasia is geographically oriented in along an east-west axis vs. the other two being primarily oriented on a north-south axis. Species have difficulty migrating too far north or south of their primary ranges simply because of climactic changes and changes in daylight patterns. Migration east or west is much easier (in general). Therefore, when useful animal species did exist, they tended to be more widespread in Eurasia and more localized in Africa and the Americas. These animal species that were domesticated were in turn the source of most of the diseases that eventually made their way into human populations. Eurasian peoples therefore had more exposures to more diseases, and hence had built immunity to them. The African and American peoples had not built such immunities and hence became decimated by disease when the Europeans made contact.
Never read the book but once again I propose that "domesticated animals" is not a cause of disease, it had nothing to do with it. It's simply a commonality for the cause - urbanization and the resultant overcrowding and pollution that results when people live in such close quarters. Spread worldwide likewise has nothing to do with domestic animals, but by the development of global transportation and settlement as most of these are transmitted by humans. Look at the common diseases and the origination and spread:
Bubonic plague - fleas that lived on black rats.
Thyphus - transmitted through lice
Syphillus - sexually transmitted
Smallpox - origin unknown. Possibly from rats in Asia or Africa. Transmitted via human contact.
Malaria - transmitted via mosquitoes
TB - unknown, transmitted by humans when they cough, etc.
Measles - same as above
Indeed the urban dwelling Europeans and Asians built up an immunity. However you mention Africa, in contrast it was the Europeans that fell to disease when trying to explore and settle.
Never read the book but once again I propose that "domesticated animals" is not a cause of disease, it had nothing to do with it. It's simply a commonality for the cause - urbanization and the resultant overcrowding and pollution that results when people live in such close quarters. Spread worldwide likewise has nothing to do with domestic animals, but by the development of global transportation and settlement as most of these are transmitted by humans. Look at the common diseases and the origination and spread:
Bubonic plague - fleas that lived on black rats.
Thyphus - transmitted through lice
Syphillus - sexually transmitted
Smallpox - origin unknown. Possibly from rats in Asia or Africa. Transmitted via human contact.
Malaria - transmitted via mosquitoes
TB - unknown, transmitted by humans when they cough, etc.
Measles - same as above
Indeed the urban dwelling Europeans and Asians built up an immunity. However you mention Africa, in contrast it was the Europeans that fell to disease when trying to explore and settle.
A lot of viral diseases came from domestic animals.
Measles was thought to have evolved in an environment where humans and cattle lived in proximity.
Various strains of influenza can come from pigs or birds.
Smallpox is similar enough to cowpox so that one can be used to inoculate the other, so it wouldn't be surprising if the species barrier was crossed early on.
Domesticated animals didn't get that way overnight. It took generations upon generations of breeding, husbandry, study to produce cows, pigs, chickens: the mainstays of Eurasian agriculture (same for plants like wheat, rice, etc.) I don't believe anything like this went on in the America.
I bet that 1000 years of breeding and selection would have turned the wildest buffalos into a fairly good producers of milk and meat. They were used for pulling wagons in the 19800's. Same for bighorn sheep or whatever other sheep varieties existed (unless they're all descendants of European sheep). Wild turkeys stayed wild until Europeans corralled them. European pigs turned wild when brought here, but the Indians never tried to re-domesticate them, either. Even though they were only a few generations removed from that state.
I don't think it was the difference in the animals. It was the difference in the peoples that yielded farm animals.
Plus, you have to have farms. Some tribes did but many were nomadic or hunter/gatherers. As we know from the Pilgrims, their maize cultivation methods were fairly primitive even for 500 years ago.
Domesticated animals didn't get that way overnight. It took generations upon generations of breeding, husbandry, study to produce cows, pigs, chickens: the mainstays of Eurasian agriculture (same for plants like wheat, rice, etc.) I don't believe anything like this went on in the America.
I bet that 1000 years of breeding and selection would have turned the wildest buffalos into a fairly good producers of milk and meat. They were used for pulling wagons in the 19800's. Same for bighorn sheep or whatever other sheep varieties existed (unless they're all descendants of European sheep). Wild turkeys stayed wild until Europeans corralled them. European pigs turned wild when brought here, but the Indians never tried to re-domesticate them, either. Even though they were only a few generations removed from that state.
I don't think it was the difference in the animals. It was the difference in the peoples that yielded farm animals.
Plus, you have to have farms. Some tribes did but many were nomadic or hunter/gatherers. As we know from the Pilgrims, their maize cultivation methods were fairly primitive even for 500 years ago.
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