What PoD do you need to make the Americas as advanced or more than Europe by the AoE?

*AoE =Age of Exploration.

Basically the title. I remember reading around here that the Inca just needed more time, while the Aztecs were on the way to be replaced by other Mesoamerican Nahua powers (one of these had Iron). The Missisipians also seem to be a popular choice to wank.
 
If you read Why Nations Fail, it's essentially given that, by about a thousand A.D., it's essentially set in stone that the Europeans will always be ahead of the Americans. If we're talking about the Aztecs, you'd need something to break (like the Black Death) the Aztec equivalent of the Feudal system, and you'd also need a fair degree of centralization away from the city states.

Your POD would need to be one of those things (a plague or other event and perhaps a strong lineage of leadership), and it would probably have to be before 1000 A.D. (which if problematic since the Aztecs did not yet exist, of course).
 
while the Aztecs were on the way to be replaced by other Mesoamerican Nahua powers (one of these had Iron). The Missisipians also seem to be a popular choice to wank.
I've never heard anything believable along these lines. For starters, the only Mesoamerican state reliably claimed to work on metal more advanced than copper were the Tarascans, who were supposedly working with bronze on a rather limited scale. And the Tarascans were neither Nahua, nor were they a credible existential threat to the Aztecs as is often claimed here especially. They weren't very populous or developed in comparison to central Mexico. Nor were the other Nahua states in any position to topple the Mexica's hegemony. The only real rival to the Aztec state that was unconquered was Tlaxcala, and by the time the Spanish arrived their nation was already surrounded on all sides by the Aztecs and losing badly. Hell, some of their leaders actually advocating siding with the Mexica against the Spanish. They weren't going to win against them (without random Europeans popping up out of nowhere to pretend to be allies) without a POD taking place long before Cortez ever showed up.
 
There is a TL by Michael Flynn about a scenario were horses don’t go extinct in the Americas, since this are bigger and can cover more ground tan regular horses the Americans can move more easily.
In OT one of the reasons for the under development of the natives was the fact that they were on foot thus it was harder for knowledge and trade to spread.
A centralized empire was more difficult to materialize since the relative distances were longer.
More connectivity also means a higher risk of epidemics, enabling the above mentioned Black Death scenario.
Finally and more importantly without load animals agriculture became les productive and took longer to develop; remember that during thousands of years laws were extremely lenient on cattle owners since oxen were used to plow the fields and were essential for civilization, in Hammurabi’s code for example if your ox gores somebody you pay a piece of silver while if somebody dies because you do your job poorly you die.
http://www.tor.com/stories/2011/05/the-iron-shirts
 
If a native country that hugs the Caribbean coast and makes it "their sea" could become developed, right? I mean, ships are faster than horses.
 
If a native country that hugs the Caribbean coast and makes it "their sea" could become developed, right? I mean, ships are faster than horses.

Development is certainly possible, but that doesn't prevent Europe from being even more developed.
 
If you go back and look at the developments of the major peoples of the Americas, they are actually not very far behind the Europeans. Many of the great advances, however, were lost during the Conquests and Diseases.

You could take a look at the Tlaxcalteca/Tlaxcallan. They were the largest, weirdest divergence from the Nahua cultural governance system. In short, they were the closest thing to a republic the Americas had. A meritocracy, in fact, and highly capable given they were surrounded by the Aztecs and their allies but were never conquered.

Metallurgy is a big thing. A less kill-happy religion might help. More universal printed language. Definitely some heightened immunity...
 
If a native country that hugs the Caribbean coast and makes it "their sea" could become developed, right? I mean, ships are faster than horses.

Fast ships don't immunize you against smallpox. That and other diseases were the greatest European advantage over the natives. It's possible to successfully resist a military invasion if the invading force has superior technology, especially when that technology is being projected across the ocean using 16th century navies.

Being technologically equal or superior to Europe is not necessary for successful resistance. The Guns of the Tawantinsayu, for example, had a scenario where the Inca had gunpowder but otherwise were not much more technologically advanced than OTL, and they held off invasion. 9 Fanged Hummingbird has explored averting the classical Maya collapse, creating a Central America that is better able to resist colonization, and Othersyde is currently working on a TL where the Spanish get unlucky in their conquest of the Caribbean, giving the Taino a better chance at resistance.

Of course...you could also check out my timeline...
 
You could take a look at the Tlaxcalteca/Tlaxcallan. They were the largest, weirdest divergence from the Nahua cultural governance system. In short, they were the closest thing to a republic the Americas had. A meritocracy, in fact, and highly capable given they were surrounded by the Aztecs and their allies but were never conquered.
Where did you hear that? It just sounds like more loopy, hysterical anti-Aztec myths. They were in no way close to a republic or a real meritocracy. Politically they were extremely similar to the Aztecs, Tlaxcala was a confederacy of four city-states with traditional Nahua political organization (and one city holding more power than the others), that being a hereditary monarchy and all. And that they were never conquered isn't particularly impressive since they were only recently surrounded by the Aztec Empire (which hadn't existed that long) and were most definitely losing by the time Cortez showed up. Even then, their continued independence owed a lot to the fact that the Aztecs took their time with them and didn't consider depriving them of independence to be very important when they could so easily extract tribute from them without occupation.
 
The main problem is that the Americas were by far less populated that the Old World, because of geographical isolation. So, the same happened with Australia.

Human communities living in large territories with little rival tribes are likely to progress more slowly that communities living in populated areas with lot of competence for the resources.

That's the reason why in isolated areas (America, Madagascar, Australia) with low population densities human communities progressed less than most of the Old World ones (Subsaharian Africa is another case).
 
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