Quote (thesnipa @ Oct 12 2020 03:39pm)
large numbers of natives upon arrival of europeans were still nomadic hunter gatherers. Think dances with wolves winter camp. the existence of mesoamerican populous civilizations doesn't magically erase western plains natives, or midwestern native tribes, or eastern gathering natives.
plains natives specifically ranged in an area in their territory. there were a few areas in the midwest where large scale civilizations sprung up.
but i think overall you're simply taking my point too literally, that being that where scarcity existed as a general rule farming and agriculture arose, and where abundance existed as a general rule technological advancement was far slower.
whether its animal domestication, farming, metallurgy, etc. even if it was present in the americas it was far less advanced. the only exception i can think of is stone cutting of the Inca, which is still not really known how they accomplished.
The Incas had intricate sculptures of gold. They knew their way around metal.
There was a ton of agriculture in both of the Americas. Something like 60% of the modern crops we eat today originated in and was selectively bread by natives in the Americas. A lot of types of peppers, all potatoes, yams, tomatoes, avocados, corn, etc. was all artificially selected across hundreds of years by natives. In a lot of ways native agriculture absolutely slaughtered European agriculture, although again this isn't about the people themselves. It's a dice roll on what starting resources spawn where.
There's also the fact that "natives" weren't one group, obviously. Some areas had smaller communities, and other places had empires, same as Europe and Asia and Africa.