advance ancient Colorado river delta civ

what if native Indian began domesticating wild rice and common bean in the Colorado river delta in the same time that meso-american domesticated maize in 8.000 BC. it took 5.000 years to make maize from teosinte. let say that wild rice domestication is far more easier than maize. let say they got break on domesticated animal. water-buffalo like cattle species survived extinction on the Colorado river delta. so they domesticated water-buffalo like animal .
let say that first towns emerge in 5.000 BC.that is almost 3.000 year earlier than olmec. how fast can the Colorado river civilization develop metallurgy.

the founder population of pre-Colombian Indian that crossed from Asia to Alaska was between 1.000 to 5.000. you can double population that crossed to 10.000. so that native american begin earlier with agriculture.
 
You're making a mistaken assumption, which is that civilizations progress through technologies in a fashion like climbing a ladder, and that with time a civilization will definitely 'progress' to such a level.

The truth is there is no guarantee that even if a Colorado River civilization developed like you said, that it would develop metallurgy. Given that rice is a water-hungry crop and the Colorado river isn't very reliable, this civilization would probably have a lot of stops and starts on the way as it grows, slowing the development of technology.

On the other hand, butterflies from this civilization could have an effect elsewhere. Perhaps a rice crop spreading from the Colorado river starting around 5000 BC could reach the Great Lakes, affecting the copper culture and driving them to begin smelting metals. I've discussed the possibility of this culture jumping from smelting copper to iron before, and the consensus was that this was possible, though the initial iron tools created using techniques built on those of copper smelting would be poor quality.
 
the climate was wetter then. also they can move to west coast or to Rio grande river. they well have high need for metal. old copper complex didn't smelt copper. they will have draft animals
 
new world iron age

what is total population potential in Americas iron age civ?
200-150 million ?

can rice grow in Amazon river floodplain ?
 
what is total population potential in Americas iron age civ?
200-150 million ?

That is a subject that has been the center of much infighting in academia for a long time...tbh, my advice is to just find a table of averaged out population estimates and calculate your population increases based on that.

can rice grow in Amazon river floodplain ?

There is rice grown in the Amazon, but I don't know if it's a useful enough crop to replace manioc as the main staple.

Also, we should probably talk about the animal. You mentioned a 'water-buffalo like domesticate', but you should give some thought to what this animal would actually be. The neolithic megafauna that I know about in Western North America-camelids, shrub-ox, and horses-aren't really too water-loving. Maybe giant beavers could be useful to people who build rice paddies, though I don't know if they would be good pack animals.
 
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