kbs2244 wrote:
RS; To take your points one by one.
City Building -
N A has plenty of sites. Most in the Mid-West and along the Gulf Coast. All are along rivers or creeks. Built mostly of wood because of the lack of local stone. Due to a more moist climate, we do not have the impressive remains of the Old World. But the Mounds and Pyramids still exist.
If there are no remains of cities, claiming they existed is purely speculative.
Nation Building-
We don’t know much about this. It appears to be a more trade related society than political.
Neither impressively then.
Long Distance Trade -
All kinds of evidence. Lake Superior copper in Florida, and Gulf sea shells as far west a Idaho. South and Central American bird feathers in Ohio mounds.
On a puny scale compared to the old world
The Wheel -
No evidence. But remember, N A has a lot more water routes, with easier portages when necessary, then Europe. With the ease of water travel, there just was little need for the wheel.
More water routes? Then why didn't they develop sailing (in anything larger than a canoe)? Or navigation? Or seafaring?
Writing-
Not in the alphabet sense. But what has survived the climate shows a pictograph type of communication was used.
A level that old worlders achieved in the first half of the holocene and developed it very much since.
Not a peep in NA . . .
Science -
The star orientation of the various mounds and “wood hedges” show they were pretty good at star gazing.
And probably incorporated into their spiritual world: fairy tales! Not science! NA indians never had a Eureka moment where they realized stars can be used for astronomical navigation. That dime also never dropped in NA.
The copper mining in the Lake Superior region show they knew how to dig deep and use heat to shatter rock.
But they never caught on to the idea(s) how to make good use of metals.
The trans-Florida canal, with locks, shows a surveying ability.
There's no indication that was older than 500 or 1,000 years, max.
Sailing -
At least costal and through the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. Some pictographs show boats with sails, but there is argument over who were the sailors.
The evidence is extremely thin for that. Imo, it's speculative. But in any case it was negligible in scope, or we would know more about it, or found real evidence of it.
If you believe in pre Columbian trans ocean voyaging,
I do, but not BC, and not to NA (except maybe for a few St. Brendans; but no return voyages and no regular crossings).
then they would be showing African or European boats. But some of the pictographs are on the Arkansas River in Oklahoma. That is a long way from any coast.
Exactly.
Navigation -
Again, not much need.
Yes there is/was! Curiosity!
Curiosity drove much – possibly even most – of HSS' (geographic and scientific) development and discovery.
It appears NA indians couldn't care less! Which makes them a decidely
different kind of HSS!
When most of your trade in over river systems, you can go by landmarks. But again, the Gulf/Caribbean trade would show the need of knowledge of the North Star at the least.
No, that's not enough. You need to know, and understand, how it moves, and where it's supposed to be at a given moment. So you need science, and writing (tables), and measurement tools.
They had neither.
War -
See nation building. Not in a large scale sense. Maybe long term, multi generational, raiding and skirmishes. But no massed army evidence.
Precisely. I.o.w. very different from the old world.
Organized Religion -
Lots of evidence. You don’t build effigy mounds and memorial tombs with out someone planning and supervising the project. There was a Priest class.
You're confusing organized religion with shamanistic religion.
Copper -
Tons (literally) of it. Coast to coast in all four directions. Atlantic to Pacific, Gulf to Hudson’s Bay.
Peanuts compared to the old world. And not used large scale for daily tool or weapon making and using.
Bronze -
No. No tin.
Iron Working -
Small Evidence. Not much ore. But some small sites in the North East and Ohio areas.
So it was vastly different from the old world in that respect too.
Again, read “Guns, Germs, and Steel”. It is dated in some details. For sure about the Amazon basin. But the general thrust is sound. And he has N A pretty well documented.
Desoto’s bringing of small pox killed multi millions of people. They have found evidence of small pox wiping out whole villages as far as the Washington State, Pacific coast. (More evidence of long rang trade, since it pre dates any by sea contact.)
The continent never recovered before the Europeans showed up. The 200 years between Desoto and the Mayflower was enough to wipe out all but the largest and non-organic evidence. The survivors had regressed to true savagery. And the European ego would not acknowledge that these savages may have had a past on a higher plane.
So our historical view, vs. our archeological view, is very different.
You are right that the people found by the late 1600’s settlers in the North East were different than the Europeans of the time. But the people found by the Spanish in Desoto’s and Coronado explorations through the South East and South West, in the early 1500’s were very different from what the English and French found 200 years later.
Absolutely. But moot, imo, since – afaic – we're talking about pre-columbian NA. The 10,000 years of the holocene that preceded CC.
