Why do you think so called Native Americans didn't develop any technology?

Question

Basically they were at a stone age level of development when Europeans settled the Western Hemisphere. Europeans Had much more advanced technology, but were at the same level of advancement when the Native American's ancestors arrived across the Bering Straite land bridge. Why do you think that is?

Answer 1

Hardly Stone age. But your point is valid in some respects. Technological advancement is needs based. Europe and China were the centres of technological advances hundreds of years ago. Why, because they needed to be. An increase in population and need to defend against invaders drives people to think in certain ways, to train and teach in certain areas. This leads to advancement in these, and other associated areas.
Also, the domestication of large animals lead to an increase in arable land being made available. Cattle and horses were domesticated and used for labour and transport in Europe and Asia. This did not occur in the Americas. Horses became extinct well before humans got there. Most native Americans travelled on foot. There was plenty of land, and migration was used during winter to warmer climates. The populations were lower, so large cities did not occur, jobs tended to involve collection of food and hunting, rather than the thinkers and painters, who would consume resources without useful contribution.

Answer 2

The Aztec - Maya civilization had the most advanced and most precise calendar in the world. Their building skills surpassed the primitive stone castles of Europe at the time. The American pyramids alone surpassed that of the Egyptians. They had a superior form of agriculture, irrigation network, and excelled in engineering. At the time when Europeans were still bathing once or thrice a YEAR, native americans bathed if not daily, more frequently. So it is not true that they did not develop ANY technology. We all need to do a little research.

Answer 3

Many reasons, but you needn't be so down on them. The natives of these continents certainly had technology. It wasn't as advanced as European technology, but that had to do with geography and zoology.

If you doubt the technology of Native Americans, go check out Kahokia, outside of St. Louis. Or the great ruins of the Yucatan. Or you try to survive in the Arctic without a lot of equipment out of the Cabella's catalogue.

In many ways, however, Europeans were more advanced. They had to be. European history has long been a brutal and bloody struggle. Not, mind you, that other continents didn't have their fair share of battles. However, because of the geography of Europe (it's too broken up by mountains and such to become united like China did, but nothing was remote enough to keep invaders away) and the fact that they got into intensive agriculture in a big way, they had to be warlike. And when your neighbor figures out new and interesting ways of killing you, you have to be able to top them pretty quickly. China invented gunpowder, but Europe figured out that it did more than make pretty lights in the sky.

Americans didn't have the problems Europeans did, especially in the US/Canada areas. They got here relatively late - around 11,000 years ago, although research is potentially pushing that back further. For a variety of reasons, most tribes didn't go for intensive agriculture like the Old World, and those that did tended to see things collapse too quickly for them to get into the heavily overpopulated, now I must steal your land stuff that Eurasians did regularly. Also, any animals that might have been good beasts of burden went extinct around the same time the first peoples came over.

Native Americans didn't go for the stealing of another's land stuff, although they protected their territories as fiercely as you'd expect. This is not because they were noble, or anything, but that their way of life demanded a balance that they kept or they'd die out. What happened when groups got too big for their environment to support? Well, those ruins in the middle of deserts didn't use to be in deserts. Humans have been destroying their environment for millenia. Europe got past the having to live within your environment's means thing, sort of, with intensive agriculture, which allows you to feed a lot more people on a lot less land. Native Americans didn't, and that wasn't a bad thing, necessarily. If we had their way of life, you wouldn't be hearing so much about global warming.

But, yeah, Europe's prowess came because, to survive in Europe, you had to be a badass with the best weapons. Other continents, while they had plenty of violent people, didn't have the same problems and so didn't have to develop such extreme solutions. Europeans aren't smarter than other peoples, they've just had to become more belligerent.

Answer 4

they liked their lives simple and found no need for further development and well as far as coming across the bering land bridge thats pretty much a myth..The bridge was open for over a hundred thousand years but would you go wondering miles and miles over a bridge that had salt water on either side..Its not feasible..They werent idiots..humans were on all continents at the same time.. millions and millions of years before we have record of them..As the continents shifted and drifted away from each other the humans remained and stayed and adapted to their particular spectrum of development and their continent's environment..thus why we look different .If you want to say we all came from an African woman and walked hundreds of miles across a bridge of water on each side and we were orginally monkeys go ahead ,maybe these were your ancestors but mine were already in place and may have come from single celled organisms but they weren't monkeys.they were humanoid ,its like calling a wolf a dog..they maybe related but they arent dogs they are wolves..I grant you we may have primates that are related to humanoids but they arent our ancestors and our ancestors were to smart to walk that far unless they camped out for hundreds of years at a time and the next generation kept on going..I just don't buy the bering straight theory its just not correct.They can say what the want but they know for a fact that man was on the US continent long before the 40000 years they have found so far and every humanoid they find in the world keeps getting further back .come on and smell the coffee..Its not like their theories at all ..its just the best they can come up with for the dates they have .What makes you think that advanced technology is more..sometimes simple is better..whatever works.

Answer 5

are you being serious?
native groups developed the concepts of cleanliness to destroy germs thousands of years before europeans. They came up with the concept of a number zero before the hindus and had the most advanced way of living with minimal destruction to the land. I think the europeans were the ones living in the stone age (look at what their castles were made of)

Answer 6

These "so-called Native Americans" treasured the land. They developed gentle ways to use it in providing for their basic needs. They developed tools to aid in the planting of crops and carving holes in rocks for warming water and cooking. They used only what they needed for survival and treasured life and Mother Earth. And the land provided. Now our air is dangerous to inhale, our rivers are poisoned, forests are being clear-cut at an alarming rate which is adding to the global warming effect. Greed has demanded more and more houses and businesses and parking lots and there's a cell phone tower on every mountain top. Our land is polluted and destroyed and basically gone. There is less rainfall and more hot summers. Yeah, technology has certainly come a long way in killing us. Good job.

"Only after the last tree has been cut down, Only after the last river has been poisoned, Only after the last fish has been caught, Only then will you find money cannot be eaten."
~ Cree Prophecy

Answer 7

I would say that they developed the technology to cope with what they needed to do. Re: the Aboriginal tribes of Australia, developed on a need to hunt and gather, and comunicate with eachother. For instance, a person setting fire to woodland would be left well alone, as this would mean he or she is looking to hunt. If you get a chance, read or watch Ray Mears.

Answer 8

They understood that everything they needed to survive was already given. They knew how not to exploit others for personal gain. The development of technology stems from egotism. The entire industrial revolution developed into free trade, capitalism.
We see what this has done to our environment. We are dealing with the effects of global warming caused by so called technological advancement in our modern society.
Maybe they had some foresight and intuition the Anglos chose to ignore.

Answer 9

They were a different species, similar to the Neanderthals. They wandered to America because they were bandits on the run. Bad people wind up in the badlands, but they lucked out because south of the frozen, uninhabitable land they were chased into was fertile territory. All they did there was wander from place to place, stealing other tribes' land and engaging in continuous warfare rather than developing natural resources.

Answer 10

Who gets to decide what "technology" is and what fits into it? So Europeans have a knack for what they view as advancement...so? It's not like other cultures would not keep advancing...of course they would. But many others made/make advancements that work with their lifestyle and environment and survival. Whites on the other hand made advancements that help with taking over places and people, not about their own survival.