I've never heard an explanation as to why North American natives didn't develop a civilization on par with Europe, or at least more advanced than the Mesoamericans. They literally had everything; vast swaths of fertile land, massive navigable rivers (Mississippi river, Ohio river, Tennessee river, etc), a great climate, Bison they could've domesticated as cattle, access to natural resources (especially copper in the Great Lakes region), and more.

>>17788877 (OP)
>I've never heard an explanation as to why North American natives didn't develop a civilization on par with Europ
Well I mean it's comparable to European proto-civilizations in the Neolithic and Bronze Ages. Also a lot of Northern/Eastern/Central Europe for a long time.

>>17788877 (OP)
Culture i guess
>>17788892
Absolutely not
Atleast they had metallurgy and dairy/farming

>>17788877 (OP)
because civilization has nothing to actually do with some innate racial superpowers but has everything to do with population density. North America is a relatively flat continent and there was little geography that could've allowed a high enough population density to justify permanent city-states. Mesoamerica had this because there was a geographic bottleneck between the Gulf of America and the Pacific Ocean as well as dense jungles broken up by clearing

That being said, several native American tribes DID build permanent settlements, such as the Pueblo of New Mexico. In fact they build very elaborate cities that even included observatories for astrological events

>>17788877 (OP)
civilizations build off of the ideas they are exposed to, European civilization was tied into the multimillenia long flow of ideas and concepts across the Mediterranean and through the Middle East and Central Asia/India and benefitted from that organic process of information sharing. New World civilizations did pretty OK for themselves considering how isolated they were from this legacy.

>Chetro Ketl is an Ancestral Puebloan great house and archeological site located in Chaco Culture National Historical Park, New Mexico, United States. Construction on Chetro Ketl began c.990 and was largely complete by 1075, with significant remodeling occurring in the early and mid-1110s. Following the onset of a severe drought, most Chacoans emigrated from the canyon by 1140; by 1250 Chetro Ketl's last inhabitants had vacated the structure.

>>17788895
>Atleast they had metallurgy and dairy/farming
Compare archaeology and reconstructions from North America to these places I mentioned.

>>17788906
This is a very shitty, stinky post. Pre-Americans hadn't even domesticated animals. It's like they were living in pre-30,000 BC.

>>17788910
>Pre-Americans hadn't even domesticated animals.
...yes they fucking did. The Mayans and later Aztecs literally worshipped domesticated dogs. In fact they had a very elaborate dog breeding program. Dogs were considered spiritual guides, and some were selectively bread for sacrifice because they believed that by doing this the dogs would be waiting for their humans in the afterlife. The Techichi was the ancestor of the moder chihuahua

>>17788877 (OP)
I’m going to throw some bullshit out there as to why not. I have no idea if these arguments are retarded and maybe an anon can dispel them. Maybe they failed to because
(1) They settled last out of everyone else. The ME and Europe already had been settled for some time before NA Natives got to those parts of America. They had to go all the way across Siberia and then down into NA. This isn’t the best reason though because the Inca and Mesoamericans seem to have been more advanced and they were further away from the entry point.
(2) It’s very open and vast. There are less geographical pressures forcing people into living close to each other. Fitting a ton of people into Europe means a ton of people have to live in close proximity and figure out how to get along—that necessitates interaction and increasing complexity. In NA, it’s so vast without serious barriers that you can just go wherever instead of having to learn to live with more people crammed into a space. Mesoamerica and the Incans arose in mountainous and jungled environments that forced people in smaller proximities. Something that might effect this is fertility and cultural attitudes towards having children. Highly populated and dense areas seem to produce more “civilization.” But if the NA Natives just aren’t producing a ton of kids to fill up the continent, then there are less pressures to force the kind of close proximity and overcrowding that requires societal complexity and innovation.

>>17788914
>Mayans and later Aztecs literally worshipped domesticated dogs
What makes you think they were domesticated?

>they believed that by doing this the dogs would be waiting for their humans in the afterlife

Since they left no texts this will be impossible for you to prove and remain within your personal headcanon for the rest of the next few decades until it dies with you.

>>17788904
>North America is a relatively flat continent and there was little geography that could've allowed a high enough population density to justify permanent city-states
Then how do you explain Cahokia and the other cities on the plains? Besides there's the Appalachian and Ozark mountains, among others.

>>17788906
>civilizations build off of the ideas they are exposed to
How did the old world come up with those ideas in the first place? Why couldn't the North American natives do the same? You say this as if the old world has the secret sauce for civilization and if people aren't in contact with them they can't develop.

>>17788918
>It’s very open and vast. There are less geographical pressures forcing people into living close to each other.
As I pointed out, there were large cities on the flat plains like Cahokia. Also, this point only makes sense in places like the Nile or Mesopotamia where there's a narrow river surrounded by inhospitable desert, but that's not the case in places like Europe, India, China, etc.

>>17788930
>Since they left no texts this will be impossible for you to prove and remain within your personal headcanon for the rest of the next few decades until it dies with you.
Not my headcanon, read a book for once you dumbass
>What makes you think they were domesticated?
Because they were literally Chihuahuas, they were bread to be smaller and more docile than hunting dogs.

>>17788934
>Then how do you explain Cahokia and the other cities on the plains?
Cahokia isn't a city. It's a mound. We don't even have evidence of manmadeness yet.

>there were large cities on the flat plains like Cahokia

Not a city. A natural hill.

>>17788935
>read a book

Which one? I'm willing.

>there were large cities on the flat plains like Cahokia

Citation?

>>17788934
>Then how do you explain Cahokia and the other cities on the plains?
The Mississippi Mounds were built along the Mississippi River, which did allow for a high enough population density to justify setting up a permanent structure not too different than city states along rivers in the Old World. They were not simply "on the plains" anon, you're leaving out some vital context.

>>17788941
>no actual buildings
>no tools found
>no proof of manmade structures of any kind

You've left out some context too.

>>17788877 (OP)
Because they were actually niggers.

>>17788939
>Which one? I'm willing.
Google it, it's common knowledge for Christs sake, I don't know what the original source is but it sure as fuck isn't my head canon because this "fun fact" is repeated ad nauseum which makes it all the more surprising you've never encountered this before

>>17788953
First thing I see:
>They used dogs as a food source
Same reason they didn't have horses.

>>17788939
>Cahokia isn't a city. It's a mound.
Schizo. And there's still the other mountains I've mentioned. There were also geographical bottleneck in the Great Lakes region as well.

>>17788941
>The Mississippi Mounds were built along the Mississippi River
So I've proven my point. The post I was replying to said NA being "flat" is what prevented high population centers.

>>17788960
I'm asking you for tools and buildings and you call me the schizo? Are you projecting?

>>17788959
Yes, they also used dogs as a food source. They also sacrificed dogs and kept them as domestic animals. I know its a strange pill for our modern mouths to swollow but to them eating dogs carried a different connotation

>>17788967
>>17788959
Another thing that needs to be understood is the Aztecs were not the first to domesticate dogs, the Toltecs were, and the Aztecs just adopted them from the Toltecs, these were different civilizations with somewhat different cultures that would've treated the breed slightly differently which also convoludes things
The AKC gives a brief overview, but sadly none of it is cited
https://www.akc.org/expert-advice/dog-breeds/chihuahua-history/

>>17788967
>to them eating dogs carried a different connotation

Did they say this or are you headcanoning again?

>Modern scholars debate whether the Aztec narratives of Toltec history should be given credence as descriptions of actual historical events. While all scholars acknowledge that there is a large mythological part of the narrative, some maintain that, by using a critical comparative method, some level of historicity can be salvaged from the sources. Others maintain that continued analysis of the narratives as sources of factual history is futile and hinders access to learning about the culture of Tula.

Oh great. More mythology

>>17788934
>Besides there's the Appalachian and Ozark mountains, among others.
Mountains in and of themselves don't lead to higher population densities, compare the Appalachian to the Alps that more or less wedged people against the Mediterranean sea and it's very apparent why civilization developed along one but not the other

>DNA studies suggest that native American dogs entered North America from Siberia roughly 10,000 years ago, and were then isolated for some 9,000 years until the arrival of the first Europeans

Oh

>In a letter written in 1520, Hernan Cortés wrote that the Aztecs raised and sold little dogs as food.

I guess that is domesticated but holy fuck those fuckers are evil

>>17788998
>those fuckers are evil
They didn't see eating dogs as evil, to them it was more or less just a more utilitarian form of sacrifice

>>17788993
The anon said it was because NA was flat, so I pointed out how that's not true (it's only true on the great plains)

>>17789004
That's fucking evil I don't care who you are. The fact they didn't see it as evil is evil you slimy fuck

>>17788877 (OP)
>I've never heard an explanation as to why North American natives didn't develop a civilization on par with Europe
They aren't white, obviously.

>>17789013
Chickens and Ducks make great pets and are very loyal animals if raised from birth, but you wouldn't find eating chickens and ducks to be evil, and that's without the practice having any spiritual context. It's just a difference in culture

The main explanation was an absence of draft animals, no horses or cattle prior to European colonisation.

>>17789023
They had Bison which could fulfill the same role as cattle

>>17789023
Alpacas and Llamas

>>17789019
Birds are mostly evil. Chickens would eat you if they could. Ducks are not evil, therefore you cannot eat them.

>>17789026
...But they never did. Coulda shoulda woulda.

But what dog-eater is refusing to see is that in MY culture colonizing you and giving you modern plumbing and electricity and hospitals and education is considered generous, and stopping you from killing yourself in bloody sacrifice is also considered benevolent.

>>17788877 (OP)
Because they did and it caused an agricultural collapse

>>17789026
Too dangerous, not domesticable.

>>17789033
Right, so it's not an explanation why they didn't develop as much

>>17789060
>not domesticable
Source?

>>17789040
Human sacrifice bad
dog sacrifice controversial but not as bad as human sacrifice

>>17788877 (OP)
Civilization is hard to develop. First off it almost only forms in flood plains (Andes are practically the only exception) and then spreads from there and second it rarely develops independently, mostly being spread through contact with different peoples. So if you don't luck into discovering agriculture "lets eat some plants and leave their seeds on the ground, holy fuck when we came back a year later there's more plants than last time" your only hope is communication with someone else who developed agriculture.

Even then it's difficult to impossible to tell how easy it is for a society to move from agricultural city states or tribes into anything resembling a cohesive nation. The fertile crescent spent around 3000 years between discovering agriculture and having nations larger than Rhode Island in land area and China, despite being one of the first areas where agriculture arose didn't have a real nation until the Shang dynasty.

There are signs of some nascent pre-European civilizations who were wiped out, likely due to natural disaster which leads to another issue, if your early farming culture suffers significant climate change you're pretty much fucked, you can't reliably grow shit outside of flood plains so without the flood plains you have to go back to being hunter gatherers or fucking die and nobody would retain knowledge of agriculture in a regressed hunter-gatherer society more than a few generations when said knowledge is wholly useless and eventually akin to myths "so you're tellin me we used to be able to command plants grow us food on a whim?"

>>17789065
>so it's not an explanation why they didn't develop as much

The fact that they did not use domesticated animals for work is evidence of retardation and leading to a "failure to launch".

>>17789068
Peruvians are probably the only real civilization that existed. The rest were dog eating savages that needed to be put down.

>>17789068
>First off it almost only forms in flood plains
There's floodplains in NA
>and then spreads from there
So why didn't Mesoamerican civilization spread northwards?
>So if you don't luck into discovering agriculture
Eastern NA was an independent center of plant domestication, and they also farmed crops domesticated in Mesoamerica (such as maize)
>you can't reliably grow shit outside of flood plains
Says who? Plenty of agriculture was done outside of floodplains.

>>17789080
Consider that the NA great plains aren't anywhere near as fertile as the cradles of civilisation. People mostly turn to agriculture out of necessity. EVEN when people in North America had the knowledge and means to practice agriculture, they quickly reverted when access to horses created a new staple food source in bison. Plainly, humans choose whichever option is the easiest. And without any of the pressures inadvertently created by agriculture, statehood simply will never form

>>17788877 (OP)
>They literally had everything;
Except a single thought in the head

>>17789013
>not the hecking pupperino!

>>17789557
Ask me how I know you're a neo rab.

>>17789502
>Consider that the NA great plains aren't anywhere near as fertile as the cradles of civilisation
Maybe not the far western great plains but the Mississippi river basin is (which extends into the eastern woodlands)
>they quickly reverted when access to horses created a new staple food source in bison
Where are you getting that from? Does that go for all tribes? They were hunting bison long before horses were introduced.

Also if that true, why didn't the same happen in Europe or elsewhere? They had horses so why didn't they just stay nomadic horseback hunters?

>>17789562
It's still not close
>Where are you getting that from? Does that go for all tribes? They were hunting bison long before horses were introduced.
Yes, but the environment for enormous, grazing herds was in fact (inadvertently) created by human agriculture in the region. Combined with horses, it just suddenly become a lot more attractive to just revert to hunter-gatherer society
>the same happen in Europe or elsewhere? They had horses so why didn't they just stay nomadic horseback hunters?
... Hunting what big game, exactly? We don't have a similar food source
Again, people don't want to live in an agricultural society, if it can be avoided. Civilisation is just an accident. It requires the depletion of some food resource pushing humans towards agriculture as an alternative, then requires the sort of density where irrigation is explored, which then leads to the possibility for an elite to emerge by having created a "chokepoint" where a handful of people - through violence - can control the means for survival for a large group of people, which then leads towards nascent statehood

>>17789588
>It's still not close
That map is just for wheat, and even then it looks like there's massive areas that produce just about as much as the Nile does (also I assume it's modern so it's not the best comparison)
>Combined with horses, it just suddenly become a lot more attractive to just revert to hunter-gatherer society
Maybe some tribes did that, but just from reading the wiki it says the Cheyenne stopped agriculture because of inter-tribal conflict, not from horseback hunting being an easier food source (and it says they traded with other agricultural tribes even after they switched)
>Hunting what big game, exactly?
Whatever people were hunting before they started farming

>>17789065
Too big and too angry to be fenced in by pre-industrial methods. Even the Aurochs, as big and angry as it was, was still small and personable enough be corralled into a fenced area in order to be ranched and bred, as well as having a herd structure that lets pastoralists guide herds of cattle around. The Bison on the other hand is a murder machine. It will go out of its way to slaughter you and everyone within site, their herds cannot be guided in the way cattle can, and they will instinctively destroy any fence a pre-modern society tries to put up around them. Even today they regularly kill people because they're so vicious. Go out West to a park with bison and you are never allowed to leave your car for any reason whatsoever when the bison are nearby.

>>17789028
Limited by their environment and utility. Sure a Llama can do some amount of hauling, but it's several magnitudes less than even the weakest old world pack animal.

>>17789685
>but it's several magnitudes less than even the weakest old world pack animal.
Anon, you do realize that the reason pack animals are so good at being pack animals is because they were explicitly bread that way right? Like you know pack animals in their current form weren't just native to the Old World right? Horses originally weren't even strong enough to support a rider and almost exclusively pulled carts instead until the Middle Ages in Europe when nobility first started breeding war horses for example

civilization was literally only invented in like 5 places, all of which were expressly because the environment forced them to despite what they may have wanted. Everyone else in the world just copied the "civilization" model of living from those originals.
>Egypt
>Mesopotamia
>Indus Valley
>Upper Yellow River
>south Mexico
What do these five places have in common? They are all extremely fertile and constantly flooding rivers that are paradoxically boxed in by inhospitable desert like lands. This leads to an effect where the fertile river creates a massive population, but they are all squeezed together into extremely small and dense (by hunter-gatherer standards) areas by the surrounding arid land. This combined with the constant floods forces the population to organize hierarchically in order to get things like irrigation, flood control, food rationing etc. completed so everyone doesn't die.
The only other place that independently invented civilization was the Andes, but it makes perfect sense when you look at the unique environment they create. The Andes essentially has a narrow strip of fertile land halfway up the mountain slopes running along the range just like a fertile river valley in a desert. This led to the Andes creating a similar "population density problem" as those rivers which forced the population to create civilization.

>>17789693
That's exactly my point. Even with millennia of breeding the Llama is STILL a real shitty pack animal. They never had good material to start with. Horses, Donkeys, and Camels were at the level of domesticated Llamas even before domestication. You mention Horses pulling carts, even today's giga-llamas that could eat their wild ancestors whole still can't do that.

>>17789694
Yep. I in no way regard Indians as equal to whites, but civilization isn't something people just wake up one day and consciously pursue. Actually to many Indians it no doubt appeared extremely undesirable. More work for less freedom. You'd have to be mad to choose that.

>>17788904
>North America is a relatively flat continent

>>17788904
>the Gulf of America
lmao

>>17788914

Humans had already domesticated dogs before they arrived in the Americas (from Europe).

>>17789060
>Too dangerous, not domesticable.

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this but they just weren't there for very long. The Americas were peopled about 14k years ago while for example China was peopled 50k years ago and Mesopotamia possibly had tribes rolling through 500,000 years ago and no later than 100,000.

If you'd given them some more time you might have seen a big sedentary Mississippi civilization pop up from contact with meso-america or independently.

>>17788877 (OP)
They lack Royal Genetics.

>>17789874
Despite being the youngest of the cradles of civilization and the younger of human settlement, how did China managed to maintain their culture for so long till now? It’s changed a lot but it’s still the dominant space in that area

>>17788877 (OP)
>They literally had everything
Maybe thats the problem.
Because they had everything, the wasn't as much competition for resources.

>>17789912
Chinese culture has quite drastically changed over time. I would say any special degree of continuity that it can be argued to have is attributable to the stability of Confucianism and geographic unity of the place, and this I would argue is only a few degrees of difference than what we observe in Europe.

So for example Europe has had an enduring Christian civilization largely using a Latin alphabet for about as long as China has been around, and you can argue it's only a few shades less contiguous than Chinese civilization. Same script, same religious institution, but different languages and societies split up by geographic features.

>>17789620
The point it illustrates is that it's dispersed across a greater area, and that nowhere is there as high as density as in fertile river floodplains. Without that density, no organised irrigation, and no emergence of a controlling elite

>Cheyenne stopped agriculture because of inter-tribal conflict
I don't think the Cheyenne were ever agricultural, simply gatherers of wild crops. Yes, it's likely the Mississipi culture declined because of conflict, possibly largely driven by new pathogens from Europe just decimating their population, but they never sought to re-establish the system because now there was a different, a lot more attractive option. Agricultural, state-level society isn't a very good for 99% of the population, so as soon as the elite is shaken, people quickly revert

>Whatever people were hunting before they started farming
That's the point - Europe doesn't have a huge, staple alternative food source like the great plains did. Partially because of geography, partially because we have been practicing agriculture and shaping our environment much longer

>>17789874
That shouldn't make much of a difference. Agriculture didn't emerge in those places because they had satisfied some arbitrary length of time spent in the region - it was because of global changes in the climate. That's why you see it emerge independently across the globe, in places that have been populated by humans for widely different lengths of time, approximately around the same time at 10,000-6,000BC

>>17789502
>People mostly turn to agriculture out of necessity
This is critical. Revolutions only take place in dire circumstances, the agricultural revolution famously happened during a drought. No one actually wants to do the work and the sacrifice of building civilization if they can avoid it.

>>17788877 (OP)

your concept of advancement is weird, people spend time doing and in prosperity or because of need things change and improve, they lived happy satisfying and complex lives by any account. In the same way I can ask why did humans take 100,000 more years to develop in europe than they had to, are they slow? At some point society just had those values of advancing in that way and that obviously looks to conquer

>>17790342
While I agree with your version is not edgy or racist so I will say this

White european solutreans can't build civilization without brown people

Happened to north europe, happened to north america, the babylonians developed b4 they were next to africa, the hindu valley, brown people, ancient china, invaded by brown mongols, central mexico and north peru, brown people, meds, discovered by brown phoenicians

>>17788877 (OP)
It feels like everyone is retarded in this thread so let me try to put it together.
OP is asking
>Why wasn't the North the most developed part of the Americas (because the subtropical Mesoamerica and Andoamerica was), just like in Europe?
The answer to that is because that's not a general rule, and a recent anomaly in Europe. So recent that actually even at the time of the Americas' discovery Southern Europe was more developed and was leading the colonization, and North and East Europe which had similar climate and geography to North America were lagging behind. The Southern parts of the USA did have some advanced cultures, around as much as you would expect geography and population would allow development and the spread of ideas from Mesoamerica.
Or if OP is actually that retarded that he is asking
>Why weren't Native Americans the most developed people in the world?
Because the Americas were isolated from the rest of the world and settled by a very small group of people relatively recently. They actually did quite well developing agriculture and advanced architecture independently.

>>17789588
> which then leads to the possibility for an elite to emerge by having created a "chokepoint" where a handful of people - through violence - can control the means for survival for a large group of people, which then leads towards nascent statehood
IVC, thoughever

>>17789079
>oh yeah they might have been a highly urban society with laws, states, writing, and stone architecture, but they ate this one animal my culture considers sacred so they wuz not a real civilization (civilization = how nice you are to dogs btw)
also, several peruvian cultures ate dogs as well. and they also ate guinea pigs, something that probably gets your panties in a twist as well judging by how effeminate you are

>>17788930
>Since they left no texts this will be impossible for you to prove
They did. And even if they hadn't, the Aztecs and the Maya are not ancient shadowy cultures of which we know little about. They were conquered in the early modern period and the Spaniards recorded their way of life quite thoroughly. We objectively know more about them than let's say, the vikings.

>>17788973
>the Aztecs were not the first to domesticate dogs, the Toltecs
The Toltecs were a largely mythological amalgamation of several different real groups to which the Aztecs attributed everything they considered civilized. They are not historical save for the aspects of their myth that can be reliably identified with more concrete groups.

In the case of dog domestication, it was not the toltecs whon "first" domesticated dogs, nor was it any other Mesoamerican group, or any other historical specific native american group: the ancestors of the amerindians who crossed the bering land bridge from Siberia already had domesticated dogs with them.

>>17789562
>They had horses so why didn't they just stay nomadic horseback hunters?
But they did. Eurasian Great Steppe was occupied by Nomads till invention of arquebuse, when settled agricultural civilisations finally were able to compete military.
>Nomads were pastoralists not hunters
Yeah combination of horse and bow is extremely effective and quickly leads to overhunting and extermination of wild megafauna that happened in Eurasia. When Nomads run out of wild heards to hunt they start to make herds their property and limit their harvesting at sustainable levels, turning into pastoralists.
Africa and America didn't have horse riding and these continents preserved immense herds of wild herbivores. European travelers were flabbergasted by size if buffalo and antelope herds there.
>sea of animals passing for days

>>17789588
>which then leads to the possibility for an elite to emerge by having created a "chokepoint" where a handful of people - through violence - can control the means for survival for a large group of people, which then leads towards nascent statehood
Choke point is architecture (castle, fortifications).
Caucasus region had feudalism for thousand years with pastoralism as food source.
People don't actually realise role of the oppressive architecture of castle in social structure of exploitation and violence.
I can exploit you by using violence a d threats if I sleep in a castle and you sleep in a shack. Guess why.

>>17791411
Lack of morals?

native american threads become way too complex for the average /pol/ basement dweller to understand, so he resorts to the usage of foul language and hostility towards anyone, as a defensive mechanism. truly an interesting behaviour.

>>17791481
Rude people

>>17788918
No beast of burden. It forced different social and economic models of organization

>>17788934
>Then how do you explain Cahokia and the other cities on the plains?
Rivers. Sea and rivers are best connectors especially if otherwise you need walk everywhere

>>17788998
They didn't have sheep or cows or pigs anon. Only other way was hunting or cannibalism

>>17788877 (OP)
civilization and progress isn't some A to B thing that just happens because it can like in a civ game
that's all i know, there have been several books written on it
we look at such a narrow slice too
why didn't people in general develop civilization for like 200,000 year? idk

>>17789031
>Chickens would eat you if they could.
And dogs wouldn't? A pack of wild dogs will absolutely fuck you up and eat what's left, dumbass.

>>17791481
It's mix of Jewish and nigger behaviour. So probably either American or Hindu

>>17789820
That's not the species of Aurochs that was domesticated you dingus. You're either a euroid or charitably some California/Atlantic Seaboard urbanite who has never actually seen or interacted with the Bison or you would actually know what a terrible idea it would be to try and domesticate them.

>>17789804
>relatively

>>17789702
>Even with millennia of breeding the Llama is STILL a real shitty pack animal
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to domesticate and breed animals, they just sucked at it or didn't really care enough to try

>>17789028
>>17789685
>>17789693
>>17789702
>>17791646
Everybody in this conversation is a complete retard who somehow missed the fact that the natives of the portion of the Americas with llamas and alpacas in it did in fact domesticate them and use them as pack animals and that the reason the northern amerindians didn't is simply because there are no fucking llamas or alpacas in North America.

>>17788877 (OP)
I’m a white guy who has no sympathy for the typical “we wuz all dancing around the fire singing kumbaya living in paradise eatin’ fruit straight off da muthaphuckin treez until DA WHITE MAN came and ruined everythang” colonial sob story used by half the planet, but they actually did have some pretty cool stuff.

For example, whether or not a particular group advanced to one stage or another, took one path or another, largely depended upon geography and climate, as well as what geopolitical situation they were facing at any particular “turning point” moments in history, on top of that we often underestimate the intensity and impact of weather. I forget which group, but we know that the entire political dynamics of the southeast, from weaponry/hunting equipment, social practices, hierarchy, geopolitical dominance, peace-war ratio, all changed drastically after the coastlines shifted in Florida and surrounding areas which prompted populations previously dependent on fishery to migrate and become more aggressive, combine that with whatever tensions already existed in the region, a few storms and floods, and you can see how at just the moment a stable city-centered empire was about to entrench itself, everything was turned on its head, the power vacuum had to be once again filled, snd the cycle of competition for dominance repeated.

The Aztec and Incan empires, for example, through cunning, brutality, genocide, propaganda, deals, favors, and forced dependence managed to dominate their respective regions and begin to create something like Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe up to the end of Antiquity.

I’d recommend looking into the Wari Culture and their empire, it was rather sophisticated yet much less known than the Lakota, Comanche, Apache, Iroqouis, Aztec, Inca, Mapuche, Maya, Cahokians and others.

Wari Empire;
https://youtu.be/xNyxB8BAdY4?si=iSayuT-lgVhJjaVo

Wari Culture
https://youtu.be/pJVOMxEigQk?si=iXwSslhZDEAC_FGJ

>>17791821
By the way, this whole channel is largely great for anyone interested in the various states and cultures that were born out of the different native civilizations

>>17791411
That's only really a thing enabled by the horse desu. Without it, unless your fortification is sitting on a naturally strategic point, the area you can realistically influence is pretty damn tiny. This applies to literally every pre-3000BC fortification that I can think of. River plains like Mesopotamia and Egypt had a lot of such "chokepoints" because of irrigation, and absolutely 0 alternative food sources. People either subjugated themselves to the local elite, or they died. It's not some genetic superiority of these people - it's geography

>>17791821
> begin to create
Bronze-working and empires weren't new to the Andes or Mesoamerica at the beginning of either of the Aztec or Inca empires - but you did already mention the Wari

Civilization was brought to Europe from the Middle East. Europeans didn't develop civilization either.
>Bison they could've domesticated as cattle
European bison wasn't domesticated. Cattle was brought to your by Middle Easterners.

>>17792560
>Civilization was brought to Europe from the Middle East

Other way around: the Vinca-Varna had more metallurgy between 3000-5000 BC then all of Mesopotamia and Egypt put together from 3000- 1 BC. That's not counting the fact that the entire Mesopotamian chronology has been fixed six hundred years ahead of what people previously thought.

>>17792568
This early European metallurgy wasn't really relevant to what happened later. It's not like Europeans migrated to the Middle East and brought it there.

>>17792572
That's pretty much what happened. Sumerians are called the black haired because it would be strange for them to be surrounded by people with black hair, therefore you know what their original neighbors were like. Semitists will cry foul and run away from logic when approached with simple facts like these.