Why do you suppose the American Indians didn't build permanent dwellings and towns on the same scale as the Europeans?

They didn’t have unions?

LOL!!

They could maybe see the future.

If they could see the future then they sure as heck would have built forts, invented guns and bombs and created armies!!

they were mobile because they would migrate in search of herds of animals.

@jca The Europeans ate the same kind of food. Why weren’t they nomadic too?

Native Americans in Central and South America certainly did. The Aztec’s Tenochtitlan was a major city; the Pueblo Indians also built cities (see cliff dwellings, Mesa Verde, etc.).

I’m not sure about why many North American Natives didn’t build cities. I have always wondered about it. I guess they had no need to.

As DominicX pointed out, they did. For instance, when Columbus found America many believe Tenochtitlan may have been the largest city in the world (Possibly behind Constantinople/Istanbul). North American natives did have cities, they simply by in large did not use more permanent materials to make them.

The simple fact was that the American societies were a few hundred years MINIMUM behind their European/Asian counterparts in development. They lacked gun powder, horse back riding skills, advanced boating skills, etc, etc, etc. Given another 1000 years uninterrupted, they probably would have had many cities on a scale and many permanent settlements as you might think of them today.

I think maybe it was because they were relative newcomers to the continent, and the population was still really, really small. Also, there are only a few places where people don’t need to migrate to follow the animals, Central America and Arizona being a couple..and permanent dwellings started going up in those places. But, again, not enough time had passed to really build up a huge population.

Lilly, you aren’t allowed to answer this question.

They did build permanent, dwellings, towns and even cities. Where have you gotten this notion that they didn’t? Do you thing they all lived in teepees?

http://nas.ucdavis.edu/Forbes/The%20Urban%20Tradition%20Among%20Native%20Americans.pdf

From the above link:

“In fact, it may well be that the Americas witnessed a greater process of urban development in pre-1500 CE times than did any other continent, with the growth of the most elaborate planned cities found anywhere. In fact, the evidence seems to indicate that from about 1600–1700 BC. until the 1519–1520 CE”

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/il-cahokia.html

http://www.theancientweb.com/explore/content.aspx?content_id=19

http://www.wsu.edu/~dee/CIVAMRCA/CIV.HTM

http://heritage-key.com/site/caral

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Lorenzo_Tenochtitlán

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/nm-acoma.html

I can’t have an ungoogle theory on why they didn’t build cities, because they indeed did build cities in the Americas.

See above, that’s just the cities, mostly I’m going to work on the towns and permanent dwelling now. Off to see the Pueblos…..

This isn’t a tremendously well thought out answer for right now but the question is just wrong, sweetie, my Dutchess dearest.

@DominicX Some did build cities, at least rather large complex towns and villages like here

I didn’t say they didn’t build towns and dwellings, missy sweety poop head Lilly! I SAID why didn’t they do it on the same scale as the Europeans? Why didn’t they build ships that could cross oceans?

Also, I SAID you weren’t allowed to answer this question! You never listen to me…..humph.

Also, from your first link @lillyc ”...the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, Missouri. Covering more than 2,000 acres, Cahokia is the only prehistoric Indian city north of Mexico. ”

I just remembered….they didn’t have horses until the 1400’s or so. That would account for a lot of it, too, me thinks.

@Dutchess_III The link says “city” not town. And there was no Mexico or America then, so what geographical area are talking about when you speak of “American Indians” And you asked about towns and permanent dwellings and it’s complicated.

And who told you you could talk to me anyway?

Well, largely because they were mostly hunter gatherers.

As others have said, some of them did, to a greater extent than the Europeans, even.

Also, there simply weren’t that many native Americans, they were spread out over a huge area, they came to the Americas from Asia in a single trickle from the Bering Straight presumably in the form of nomadic tribes, and there were few native crops or animals in the Americas that were as suitable for domestication as was wheat, horses, cattle, etc in Eurasia.

Without Googling, I can’t post the link, but I suspect it had a lot to do with their lack of guns, steel and the wheel. Highly recommend you read Jared Diamond’s “Guns Germs and Steel.”

@YoBob Would you tell Lilly that I’m just WONDERING why the native INHABITANTS of the Americas didn’t invent the same level of technology as the Europeans. Also, since she knows so much, why didn’t they build ships that could cross the ocean? And tell her double-wide canoes don’t count!! Auggie..kick Lilly off this thread!! (JK) <<< stands for Just Kick)

@YoBob The Europeans were hunter-gatherers in their history too. How did they change that?

You can post the link @Mamradpivo. Lilly The Cheater did. Plus I’d like to see it.
You’re right…AND the lack of horses was a big factor. But…why didn’t the Indians invent the wheel? Why didn’t they create things out of steel? Again, I think it was due to lack of heavy duty transportation (horses) and a relatively small population. The Americas weren’t as big or diverse as Europe. Like, the Chinese invented gun powder and that’s how the Europeans got it.

Well said @Qingu. But just curious…specifically what technology did they develop to a greater extent than the Eurasians? Link OK.

Living free on the prairie or in the woods, hunting and fishing for food being at one with nature isn’t so bad. It beats back breaking slavery in agriculture or living like bees in a colony of houses. I think they were quite happy with their way of life which they had lived for thousands of years.

Happiness does not preclude invention @flutherother…..

@Dutchess_III Well that depends on the invention.

One of the reasons, I think, that Native Americans didn’t build cities and towns on the scale that Europeans did is that they just didn’t need to. People build cities for a number of particular reasons. A relatively low population density and plenty of room, combined with abundant resources mean that people don’t necessarily need to form cities. Not for defense, not because they require them for defense, they don’t particularly need or tend to develop a complex division of labor, etc. And also, there was an incredible diversity among native peoples and I don’t think technology is necessarily the only measure of a cultures creativity or inventiveness. Technology is how we measure ourselves but not necessarily an intrinsic measure of anything. Necessity is the mother of invention. If you don’t need the wheel, why bother with it?

But they sure could have used the wheel, @lillycoyote! They needed it as much as anyone. Most of the tribes moved all over the place! Anyway, I think this question has been answered so no more talking Snoop Dog.

Some of them did, like some here have said, but many did not for the same reason a lot of native peoples in Africa did not build huge cities: there wasn’t really a need to.

Compared to Europe, which is cold as fuck and doesn’t offer many easily-accessed natural resources, North America and Africa are mild lands of plenty. Why domesticate large edible animals when tons of them just stroll by your dwelling every day? Also, most of these groups were hunter-gatherers, and they were perfectly well off as such. Their population numbers never got very high, which wouldn’t have been sustainable as hunter-gatherers anyway, so there really was never a huge need to settle in large cities.

And yes, I’m aware that this is all a generalization. Interestingly enough, I’m taking two classes on this subject right now Just woke up from an unintentional 5 hour nap, so my answer is probably a lot less coherent than it should be.

Perhaps it has to do with their high respect for nature?

@deni, which has been heavily mythologized in a lot of cases. I remember reading somewhere that parts of the Great Plains were heavily forested until a (few) tribe(s) burned the forests down to be able to hunt more efficiently. I’ll look for the source…

@deni what @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard said.
Some of the responses imply that the natives knew they could create these things but chose not to which I’m pretty sure isn’t true. Why would they refuse to create something that would make life a little easier?

Farmers don’t need cities. However, the Pueblo Indians lived in cities. There is evidence of another Native American Group who build cities, but abandoned them at Mesa Verde

@Dutchess_III, I didn’t say they developed better tech than the Europeans (they sure didn’t); they did develop larger cities, if I am not mistaken. More people lived in Tenochtitlan than in almost all European cities.

@YARNLADY All of human kind were hunter gathers / farmers at one time in our history. All of us. But with the advent of cities a division of labor became required and people who would have been farmers in the previous generation became Masonites or weapon makers. I know about Mesa Verde and I’m aware that some Indians built towns,but you can’t compare Mesa Verde to Rome. The question was, why didn’t they do it on the SCALE of Europeans. And and from that we skewed off into the discrepancy in technology (guns, ocean going ships, etc.) And THEN Lilly started pulling my hair! And after that I think we answered the question. Lack of population, lack of beasts of burden (horses) and the fact that they were relative newcomers to the continent and the fact that the continent itself is so much smaller and less diverse that Eurasia.

@Qinqu….I misread your post. Sorry, man. I’m going to research Tenochtitlan more. From what I’ve glanced at it may be a strong counter balance to my question! I don’t have much time, but I found this: ”....60,000 people trading daily.”

There’s a lot of research aiming at finding deeper laws behind the cultural evolution of humankind. There are a lot of controversial findings. A good book is this

http://www.amazon.com/Nonzero-Logic-Destiny-Robert-Wright/dp/0679758941/

“Evolution meets game theory in this upbeat follow-up to Wright’s much-praised The Moral Animal. Arguing against intellectual heavyweights such as Isaiah Berlin, Karl Popper and Franz Boas, Wright contends optimistically that history progresses in a predictable direction and points toward a certain end: a world of increasing human cooperation where greed and hatred have outlived their usefulness. This thesis is elaborated by way of something Wright calls “non-zero-sumness,” which in game theory means a kind of win-win situation. The non-zero-sum dynamic, Wright says, is the driving force that has shaped history from the very beginnings of life, giving rise to increasing social complexity, technological innovation and, eventually, the Internet. From Polynesian chiefdoms and North America’s Shoshone culture to the depths of the Mongol Empire, Wright plunders world history for evidence to show that the so-called Information Age is simply part of a long-term trend.”

@mattbrowne In other words, given another few thousand years, the American Indians would have invented increasingly complex technology and social arrangements.

@Dutchess_III – Unless there are major natural disasters, that’s basically Wright’s claim. Given enough time evolution seems to produce complexity, both for life as such and for culture.

“By 8000 BC farming was entrenched on the banks of the Nile River. About this time, agriculture was developed independently in the Far East, probably in China, with rice rather than wheat as the primary crop. Agriculture was also independently developed on the island of New Guinea.

By 2500 BC, rice was an important component of the staple diet in Mohenjodaro near the Arabian Sea. By this time the Indians had large cities with well-stocked granaries. Three regions of the Americas independently domesticated corn, squashes, potato and sunflowers.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_agriculture