Why wasn't the Native Americans as advanced as the Europeans, and is there a way they could of been?

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Why wasn't the Native Americans as advanced as the Europeans, and if there a way they could of been? Would this mainly involve the Vikings, with a successful Viking colony in America and trade with the Natives could this have helped them? Or could be down to geography, could a change in American geography bring the Natives up to European standard?
 
Why wasn't the Native Americans as advanced as the Europeans, and if there a way they could of been? Would this mainly involve the Vikings, with a successful Viking colony in America and trade with the Natives could this have helped them? Or could be down to geography, could a change in American geography bring the Natives up to European standard?

Well, I can talk only about Brazil. Most of the natives close to the coast were semi nomads, and so they didn't needed to develop their technology above the iron age levels since they had not meet any adversary with better technology and because they didn't needed to settle also, however we did had some civilizations, especially on the Amazon river who did settled and were almost as developed as the Aztecs when the portuguese arrived.
 
No beasts of burden, no gunpowder, little knowledge of mineral resources, younger civilization, poor record keeping, and a lack of a common language. Fix these and you might have an advanced society develop independent of Europe.
 
I think it's because the the first Americans didn't enter the continent until 10,000BC, by which time sedentary bronze age civilizations had already begun arising in Eurasia. There were plenty of advanced Iron Age civilizations in the Americas by the 1st Millenium AD, but by the time the Europeans arrived they were in an intermediate period of decline. They just got REALLY unlucky.
 
IMO have the ice age last a lot longer. Delay the rise of western civilization, while allowing for beasts of burden to spread farther into the Americas due to the ice age climate, and then you might even have (albeit unrecognizable) native americans arrive in Europe.
 
Why wasn't the Native Americans as advanced as the Europeans, and if there a way they could of been?
Technology doesn’t advance linearly. It responds to immediate needs, and if some technology doesn’t meet those needs, it will not be adapted.

Consider the wheel. It basically did not exist in the Americas despite being potentially immensely useful (just for pottery wheels alone). Why? Because in those areas where the wheel could have been invented, the terrain was harsh and there were no beasts of burden to pull wheeled vehicles — and pottery wheels are an application of wheels on vehicles, and you can’t have one and not the other.

For a more familiar example, the Middle East was among the first places to use wheeled carts. But as time passed, the wheel became rare and largely supplanted by camels. People didn’t and don’t care about how advanced a technology is, they care about how useful it is. And in that regard, the camel was much better than the wheel.

So the question to ask is not “why less advanced?” but “what different needs?” For a few examples:
  • Lack of beasts of burden, making wheels a lot less important
  • (In Mesoamerica) the prevalence of obsidian, which is more useful for tool-making than early metallurgy
  • (In both Mesoamerica and the Andes) a prevalent cultural belief that metal was something pretty and valuable rather than something utilitarian
 

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IMO have the ice age last a lot longer. Delay the rise of western civilization, while allowing for beasts of burden to spread farther into the Americas due to the ice age climate, and then you might even have (albeit unrecognizable) native americans arrive in Europe.
But the earliest wave of Native Americans arrived during the Last Glacial Maximum.
 
I think it's because the the first Americans didn't enter the continent until 10,000BC, by which time sedentary bronze age civilizations had already begun arising in Eurasia. There were plenty of advanced Iron Age civilizations in the Americas by the 1st Millenium AD, but by the time the Europeans arrived they were in an intermediate period of decline. They just got REALLY unlucky.
Erm, the Bronze Age didn't start in the Middle East until roughly 3500 BC. That's just a little after 10000 BC.

The Americas had no Iron Age cultures when Europeans arrived. They did have a few who were in the early Bronze Age.
 
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Why wasn't the Native Americans as advanced as the Europeans, and if there a way they could of been? Would this mainly involve the Vikings, with a successful Viking colony in America and trade with the Natives could this have helped them? Or could be down to geography, could a change in American geography bring the Natives up to European standard?
A bit issue is getting a staple crop, which is difficult due to the layout of the Americas. Corn only began to be cultivated in eastern Canada around 500AD, meaning that the First Nations here had only had agriculture for around a thousand years prior to contact. For comparison the old world's agricultural revolution happened around 9000BC, and the oldest civilizations in the old world arose around 3000BC.

Groups like the Hurons and Iroquois were remarkably advanced given their circumstance.
 
I think it's because the the first Americans didn't enter the continent until 10,000BC, by which time sedentary bronze age civilizations had already begun arising in Eurasia. There were plenty of advanced Iron Age civilizations in the Americas by the 1st Millenium AD, but by the time the Europeans arrived they were in an intermediate period of decline. They just got REALLY unlucky.
Iron Age civilizations? I know some of the more advanced ones had bronze work, but to the best of my knowledge only a few of the small groups on the Northwest Coast ever developed iron working.
 
A slower contact period: have short contacts between Native Americans and the people of the old world. Vinland, Mali, perhaps even contact between the West Coast and East Asia. This will allow some old world technology, beasts of burden, and disease enter the Americas without being followed by hordes of land hungry colonists. Having a few different places of contact means that more peoples can have access to Afroeurasia. This in turn can produce rivalries that can spur military preparedness and continuing technological development.
 
Might've mispoke, I basically just meant that Eurasian civilizations had a headstart on taking up a sedentary way of living.
 
A bit issue is getting a staple crop, which is difficult due to the layout of the Americas. Corn only began to be cultivated in eastern Canada around 500AD, meaning that the First Nations here had only had agriculture for around a thousand years prior to contact. For comparison the old world's agricultural revolution happened around 9000BC, and the oldest civilizations in the old world arose around 3000BC.

Mesoamerica and the Andes were also slower to domesticate/spread staple crops by a few millennia which probably has something to do with it too.
 
The diseases are the big problem.

Beyond that, I'd say it was not just the lack of beasts of burden or crops, but the lack of shipping trade. Europeans were exchanging goods and ideas like crazy. Get a good tech transfer from the Norse, including ships and navigation and things change a lot -but the diseases still end whatever is going on when the Europeans come.
 
IMO (based admittedly on somewhat limited knowledge of pre-contact American history/cultures) it had a lot to do with isolation. We tend to think of Europe as a continent, but really it's the western end of the Eurasian continent, plus being right next to Africa. There's no long sea journeys needed to get from Spain to China, to Ethiopia, to India, etc. This allowed technologies and ideas to spread - by multiple means - over the millennia. Some were brought by settlers/migrants, some by traders, others by invading tribes, etc. So the technologies were known, to a greater or lesser extent, to more people, which gives a higher chance of someone developing each technology just that little bit further. Someone up-thread mentioned contact producing rivalry and spurring further tech development, which is another strand to the same kind of argument - in other words, if your enemy (or even just rival) has something which is making their army fight better / goods sell better / farms produce more / etc, then you are more likely to try to copy it, with the concomitant potential that you will improve it or perhaps find an alternative which is even better than what your enemy/rival has. There just wasn't the population density/pressure across the entire American continent(s) to force that same exchange/development of ideas. It's notable, to my thinking, that the most advanced civilisations in the Americas were where the greatest population pressures were - meso/central-America.

I guess you could summarise my thoughts by comparing three land-masses:
1. Eurasia-Africa - lots of people, lots of wars and trade - high tech
2. N/S-America - not so many people, fewer wars and less opportunity for trade - lower tech
3. Australia/Oceania - very few people, far fewer wars and much less opportunity for trade - much lower tech.

Yes, there are other factors (terrain, animals able to be domesticated, etc), but my personal belief is that it's population density/pressure/exchange which is the root cause of the tech difference(s).
 
IMO (based admittedly on somewhat limited knowledge of pre-contact American history/cultures) it had a lot to do with isolation. We tend to think of Europe as a continent, but really it's the western end of the Eurasian continent, plus being right next to Africa. There's no long sea journeys needed to get from Spain to China, to Ethiopia, to India, etc. This allowed technologies and ideas to spread - by multiple means - over the millennia. Some were brought by settlers/migrants, some by traders, others by invading tribes, etc. So the technologies were known, to a greater or lesser extent, to more people, which gives a higher chance of someone developing each technology just that little bit further. Someone up-thread mentioned contact producing rivalry and spurring further tech development, which is another strand to the same kind of argument - in other words, if your enemy (or even just rival) has something which is making their army fight better / goods sell better / farms produce more / etc, then you are more likely to try to copy it, with the concomitant potential that you will improve it or perhaps find an alternative which is even better than what your enemy/rival has. There just wasn't the population density/pressure across the entire American continent(s) to force that same exchange/development of ideas. It's notable, to my thinking, that the most advanced civilisations in the Americas were where the greatest population pressures were - meso/central-America.

I guess you could summarise my thoughts by comparing three land-masses:
1. Eurasia-Africa - lots of people, lots of wars and trade - high tech
2. N/S-America - not so many people, fewer wars and less opportunity for trade - lower tech
3. Australia/Oceania - very few people, far fewer wars and much less opportunity for trade - much lower tech.

Yes, there are other factors (terrain, animals able to be domesticated, etc), but my personal belief is that it's population density/pressure/exchange which is the root cause of the tech difference(s).

i think you are putting the cart before the horse here. you need the domesticated animals/crops and ideal geography for large populations. for example if horses didn't die out in america before humans got there or if america had a better staple crop then corn. we would very likely see larger population throughout the Americas and then there could have been more tech development.

anybody who want to know more about this topic check out the book 'guns,germs and steel'.
 
There is always Jared Diamonds answer. And while he has written some abject tosh in his time, I always though this one rang true: The axis of Eurasia is east-west, while the Americas is north south. A domesticate, crop or idea can spread east-west and stay in the same general climate zone. North-south, you run into different conditions pretty soon. The potato would have been a brilliant addition to the peoples of North America, as well as the llama as a beast of burden. But neither could spread through central America. The lack of shipping made the problem worse. It all led to a more static setup, with less exchange of ideas, crops etc.
 
There were plenty of advanced Iron Age civilizations in the Americas by the 1st Millenium AD, but by the time the Europeans arrived they were in an intermediate period of decline. They just got REALLY unlucky.

Wait- what? Is that a typo? I wouldn't really consider a few isolated usages of meteoric iron to be "advanced Iron age civilizations," and I'm struggling to think of any other examples.
 
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