[quote=@catchamber] You're forgetting the part about venereal and non-venereal syphilis. If population density grows, due to urbanization, you're going to get plagues. Domesticating animals will only add to this, because people tend to live near the people that live near their animals. [/quote] Thing is: population growth is slow enough and the transition from nomadic hunter-gatherers to full village economy and on into urban economy would be so slow you would be dead anyways. Even introducing such reforms as these means that by the time the fruits are being reaped and infectious disease can take hold in any community you yourself would most likely have passed away. [quote] If you're in Europe, [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fxy6ZaMOq8]good luck knowing how to talk to people without sounding like some weird fuck[/url]. While the video only focuses on English, it isn't hard to imagine other languages being similarly changed. If you're near Christians, become a priest, and say God told you about these things. If you're near Muslims, become an imam, and say Allah told you about these things. [/quote] You realize we're discussing this on the assumption we would go in prepared, right? It's simply a matter of learning the language before diving in. And per the priest and imam bit: heresies exist for the later and depending on when you show up the Mu'tazilites may have been so ostracized you'd be out of luck. [quote] Good luck convincing them to follow your advice, if you look like the disease carrying colonists. [/quote] I don't think you're on the same wave-length as KGP and I where we'd be showing up before the colonists. They wouldn't quiet know what we are and the bias against the white wouldn't have set in. The hardest part would be undergoing their hazing rituals to enter the tribe when and if they realize you speak their lingo or close enough at least. If they don't appear at a moment when they're at war with someone and the sachems are thus in control; you won't be gutted and tied to a tree with your own intestines. Then it's a matter of garnering social favor by providing for people and sprinkling in your strange wisdom to build up to the big stuff. [quote] Maize? Yum yum, I love me some iron deficiency. [/quote] >Implying only subject in their diet [quote] And since I doubt any of us are immune to smallpox, anyone that goes back to the Medieval Ages is basically fucked. [/quote] I'm not going to deny this. [quote] Given that was published in 1972, you sure that book doesn't rely on organisms foreign to the Americas? It's not that big a deal, but it'd suck to get your New and Old World creatures mixed up. [/quote] This is a discredit to Appalachian culture. While there are elements that utilize European introduced things there are still natural subjects unintroduced by Europeans the books look over. Appalachian culture is after all an amalgam of Scottish, German, and Cherokee folkways fitted to suit mountain living. The books discuss everything from how to prepare food to hunting to foraging to even constructing permanent housing and crafting your own furniture.