In Science Fiction it's not uncommon to assume that two worlds, seperated by light-years, could arrive at nearly the same technological level at nearly the same time. Now, this might or might not be a preposterous assumption. Looking at our own terran history, its even hard to tell whether or not certain advancments, like the ancient agriculural revolution in the middle east and the far east, were related or happened in isolation. One might even ask the question as to whether or not there was a 'first' language from which all others arose, or do the basic language families represent true 'unique' groups...
Anywyas, my challenge is this. Have a civilization arise in the Americas, North or South, that roughly parallels Europe's technological development and trajectorry towards the embrace of the scientific method by 1492...
Indeed, in homoge to the the science-fiction that so many of us enjoy.....can you create a timeline that has a native american society sailing East....in 1492...at the same time columbus sails west.
Sure, it's would require true 'Alternate History', and less than a firm belief in the prophethood of Jared Diamond, but I think it'd be interesting to see a timeline...or speculate on one...where one region of the globe (Europe, Asia, Africa, Very Rarely the Americas) doesn't dominate but has to compete with another regions that's on par....however unlikely parallel development might be.....