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Present-day Mexico (2 million km2) had in 1492 much more population than all of North America (25 million km²). Maybe 5 to 10 times more population than North America. The same the Andes. What is this about?
Longer time for growing crops due to a milder climate. Also the milder climate is better than colder ones as far as human comfort without having to do much in that respect.
Hvibg said that, all explorers at least along the eastern seaboard of the USA encountered Native Americans, which means they weren't as few as people think. Everywhere they went they found native villages.
Things that happen afterwards such as the intentional killing of Native American societies by North American colonists (remember the saying "a good indian is a dead one?") and/or the forcible removal (remember the trail of tears) also points that the Native Americans were not as few as people think. If theh were, then these things would had never happened.
I'm also amazed at the contrast in the continents at that time. Europe had a functioning society with schools and books. Laws, written languages, parliament, science, medicine, philosophy to name a few other items.
The Americas had people wearing animal skins and living in stick huts.
I'm also amazed at the contrast in the continents at that time. Europe had a functioning society with schools and books. Laws, written languages, parliament, science, medicine, philosophy to name a few other items.
The Americas had people wearing animal skins and living in stick huts.
I'd recommend reading about the Mayan knowledge of mathematics and visiting the vast complexes of temples and pyramids built of massive stone long before 1492.
The Incas built many cities of precision cut, massive stone blocks that are still intact today. They had a ruling government and social structure that covered an area much larger than any European nation, connected by roads and paths. They wore clothing of finely woven fabrics made from alpaca or llama wool, so not just "animal skins". They grew crops of many grains and potatoes. It was not as primitive as the stereotypes suggest.
I'm also amazed at the contrast in the continents at that time. Europe had a functioning society with schools and books. Laws, written languages, parliament, science, medicine, philosophy to name a few other items.
The Americas had people wearing animal skins and living in stick huts.
There were a few with pyramids, were able to detect eclipses, lived in palaces and had stone cities, running water, etc. It's needless to say that not all native societies were the same.
True, there are no accounts of English colonists going through the amazement that the Spanish went through when they first saw the Aztec capital. It doesn't mean the English colonists "saw it all" as far as what the natives were capable of creating.
De Soto reported seeing numerous smoke columns coming from villages along the southeast coast of North America. A century later those same areas were mostly depopulated.
The theory is that old world diseases brought by the Spanish to the southeast coast spread throughout North America before the English arrived and severely depopulated the continent. The same happened in Latin America but was witnessed by Europeans.
It is true that there were fewer civilizational monuments in North America. Jared Diamond wrote a book about the Cahokia civilization and why it collapsed before reaching Aztec or Incan levels of development. The Mississippian culture collapsed because of old world disease.
The thing to remember about the Aztec and Incan Empires is that they were very recently formed when Europeans arrived. It's entirely conceivable that North America could have hosted such a civilization given more time.
The thing to remember about the Aztec and Incan Empires is that they were very recently formed when Europeans arrived. It's entirely conceivable that North America could have hosted such a civilization given more time.
The Aztecs borrowerd much of their civilization/religion form already existing Mesoamerican groups. So they had a huge head start.
The population, by the time anyone measured it, was decimated by European diseases. It is now believed that even the heart of the Amazon was densely populated.
I'm also amazed at the contrast in the continents at that time. Europe had a functioning society with schools and books. Laws, written languages, parliament, science, medicine, philosophy to name a few other items.
The Americas had people wearing animal skins and living in stick huts.
Tenochtitlan was bigger than Paris or London at the time, Machu Pichu was a city in the sky. What on Earth are you talking about?
Yours is a typical US-American response. It’s depressing how ignorant and ill informed many people still are till this day, in an age of instant information.
OP, I suggest that you might want to do a heck of a lot more studying if you are going to make this a topic of your interest.
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