If America hadn't been discovered by the Europeans, would the native population eventually have discovered space travel?
Would the North American tribes advance scientifically without interference by other cultures?
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Maybe not, they might have discovered something else. Civilizations advance in their own unique ways.
Unlikely. They were unmotivated to such endeavors.
Doubtful. Technologically speaking Europeans were leaps and bounds ahead of Native Americans. All of our current technology is built off of previous technology, and Europeans already had knowledge of rockets and chemical propulsion where as the Natives weren’t even navigating the seas. Europeans had mathematics scientific discovery where many Native tribes had not even developed written language.
As Agent Smith explains, yes.
I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.
@Blondesjon
As much as I love half-cooked philosophy from style-over-substance Hollywood action films I have to admit that I’m not sure what that quote has to do with the subject.
Eventually. But the Europeans had about a 1000 year head start on them. Part of this was because the Native Americans were relatively recent arrivals, and the population was pretty sparse.
@Here2_4 why would you think they would be unmotivated to such endeavors?
@Dutchess_III
I think it probably had more to do with Europeans having a lot more contact with diverse cultures across not only Europe, but Africa and Asia as well. People in the Americas, on the other hand, were isolated and (relatively speaking) more similar in culture.
They already had space travel, by shamanic means.
OoooOOoo. A Carlos Castaneda fan!
It is obvious they would mot care to build a rocket. Native Americans were not relatively new, they had been here for thousands of years, and arrived from somewhere else. My point is, they were no less evolved than Europeans. There were many tribes, and some formed rather heavily populated cities.
http://www.allabouthistory.org/native-american-history.htm
They were not motivated by mechanical things. They were very spiritual people, and motivated to live within the provisions of nature. The few tools they did create were strictly for the basic necessities.
http://www.museum.state.il.us/muslink/nat_amer/pre/htmls/lp_tech.html
If Europeans had not come here, the Native population would be quite crowded by now, and almost all their technology brought from other lands.
Native Americans did not even ride horses until some had been brought here. Even then, some tribes refused to sit on the back of an animal.
Natives were not motivated to build machines, or design fuel consuming contraptions. They were motivated to live at one with nature. They were about conservation, and hunting herds with renewal of populations in mind.
They arrived here the first time 20,000 years ago, and a second wave 10,000 years. They crossed over from what is now Russia into Alaska. They probably came over in tribes of about 50–100 people. That’s not a lot of dna to pull from to form an entirely new peoples.
Compare that to the human history of Europe which started about 45,000 years ago and had a large genetic population to pull from, and a lot of different peoples with a lot of different ideas to come into contact with.
It was the Spanish who brought the horses here, in the 1500s. Some of the ships wrecked and the horses swam ashore.
At one time Europeans were motivated to live at one with nature, because that’s all they knew. Up until about 1000 years ago, that’s all any of them knew. After that, only a few knew about modernization.
You’re idealizing the Indians to be some sort of spiritual dreamers. They are humans and if they had come upon a discovery that would help them live, they would have taken it. And they did. In fact, they discovered Casinos!
I haven’t idealized anyone or anything. Fact is fact. They shunned most mechanical inventions presented to them. Most only took up the use of guns to protect themselves from slaughter. The question asks if they would have on their own. I say they would not. That has little to do with what is introduced to them.
They were forced to adapt in numerous ways to the whims of Bible thumping Europeans. They had access to many innovations which they did not clamor to. On their own, without invasion, they would not have sought that sort of technology.
No, they didn’t. Where do you get the idea they did? They accepted guns with gusto.
Now, how do you know they would not have sought out that sort of technology? I mean, it’s usually just ONE person with a WOW moment who starts it. Not an entire people all at once.
Maybe you don’t think they had the intelligence to do it? What about the the huge Aztec civilization”?
Here. Do some reading. This is the Mayans
They invented bows and arrows and ovens and lots of things. They discovered that the brains of the buffalo could be used to soften the hides. No, it wasn’t on the same scale as the Europeans, but it couldn’t be because of the small size of the populations.
I didn’t call them stupid, or lazy. I think they had the right idea, and most still do, and that Europeans worked very hard to ruin what they had going so well. They were primitive people, and many nomadic. They lived with the seasons, worked with nature instead of trying to control it. They did not desire mechanical technology, so they did not, and would not venture that way. They made advances in the ways which meant something to them.
I said their populations were not small.There were tens of millions of native Americans here 5000 years ago.
Yes, they were grand humans. Yes, they had populous cities. Some cities and villages were very impressive. Mechanical technology was not their way. Their technology was about farming, hunting, astronomy, and living structures.
I have no idea what you mean by anyone else having 1,000 years on them. They didn’t just appear from thin air. They existed before they were here. They had just as much means and population to invent mechanisms. They didn’t, because they were not motivated that way. They did the things they were motivated to do.
“Mayan civilization lasted for more than 2,000 years, but the period from about 300 A.D. to 900 A.D., known as the Classic Period, was its heyday. During that time, the Maya developed a complex understanding of astronomy. They also figured out how to grow corn, beans, squash and cassava in sometimes-inhospitable places; how to build elaborate cities without modern machinery; how to communicate with one another using one of the world’s first written languages; and how to measure time using not one but two complicated calendar systems. Citation
What did the Mayans have over the Indians who eventually inhabited what we call “North America” today? The way I figure it, they had 10,000 years over them. They came in the 20,000 year influx. I mean, they had to have, to have gotten so far into Mexico and South America, where the living was easy.
Not all Native Americans were nomadic. The oldest Aztec city was Tenochtitlan. ”...population estimate of 20,000 on ordinary days and 40,000 on feast days. There were also specialized markets in the other central Mexican cities.”
“The palace of Moctezuma II also had two houses or zoos, one for birds of prey and another for other birds, reptiles and mammals. About 300 people were dedicated to the care of the animals. There was also a botanical garden and an aquarium. The aquarium had ten ponds of salt water and ten ponds of fresh water, containing fish and aquatic birds. Places like this also existed in Texcoco, Chapultepec, Huaxtepec (now called Oaxtepec) and Texcotzingo” Citation
The native Americans invented many things. Much of it depended on where they were geographically located. The ocean side Indians invented buttons made out of shells. The Indians invented spears with line, to spear fish. The Alaskan Indians invented igloos and ways to stay alive in such a harsh environment. I mean, they were thinking, like all humans do.
“A source of clean drinking water is essential and the Aztecs were quite advanced in providing it. While London still drew its drinking water from the polluted Thames River as late as 1854, the Aztecs brought potable water to Tenochtitlán from springs on the mainland by means of the aqueduct built by Nezahualcoyotl between 1466 and 1478.” Citation
I saw this on a PBS station. It easily rivaled what the Romans built. Obviously it was about 2000 years after the Romans, but given time, I think they would have invented much of what we have now.
None of that points to any interest in inventing fuel consuming metal machines.
I never said Native Americans were nomadic. I said many Native Americans were nomadic.
I don’t know what you are arguing about. I answered the original question. Now I am done.
Well, Europeans were well established, long before any fuel or metal discoveries that would lead to machines. The Indians discovered precious metals that were used as decoration, just as the Europeans did. The Indians didn’t really have chance to discover that other all on their own. But they would have, eventually.
Now, take each of us individually….could we have ever discovered or invented these things ourselves? Probably not. Does it mean we aren’t motivated to? No. It means it didn’t occur to us.
Humans were on a ‘boom and bust’ cycle. Civilization flared and died. It’s inevitable that the American Indians would be oppressed. China was strong the same time as Europe, but with more direct access to desirable areas of North America. The Chinese would have carried disease and weaponry greater than Europe.
Crap. The European’s still haven’t found all that much to covet in Africa, or there wouldn’t be an Ebola outbreak.
The idea that Native Americans were these great, spiritually enlightened people who lived in a perfect balance with nature isn’t necessarily as true as our romanticism would like us to believe. They were/are humans, and like any human population will have an impact on their environment. The great urban center Cahokia (near present day East St. Louis, IL), was, in the 12th century one of the largest cities in the world (and basically the cultural heart of what’s now known as the Mississippian Culture). By the 13th century it had been abandoned because they had despoiled the environment around it. I grew up a few miles west of the Kincaid site (another significant site of Mississippian culture), which was also abandoned because its inhabitants had exhausted the area’s resources of timber and game.
So-called Native Americans were not native. They were an earlier wave of migration across the SIberian land bridge.
They came from present day Russia.
I guess the only place that peoples could be considered “indigenous” is Africa.
Yes, everyone over the age of 7 knows that Native Americans crossed over Beringia. The key point, however, is that there was no one in the Americas before them.
Yes. Coinciding with the two major ice ages. That’s pretty much been accepted for years. It isn’t anything new. I figure it was the first group, 20,000 years ago who made it all the way to Mexico and started their intellectual development.
@Darth_Algar Overuse of their resources was also one of the main reasons of collapse for the Mayan civilization as well. Not the Spanish like most believe, but rather their own doing.
Well. Horses were indigenous to the Americas!
@Dutchess_III That species of horse is now extinct. Not sure what point you were trying to make exactly….
None. Except that horses, which are tied inextricably to American Indians, actually WERE indigenous to the Americas. They evolved here, and, in fact, crossed the Bering land bridge to flourish in Europe and Africa.
Hm. Well, I knew that, but just now researching, they were actually here when the paleo indians came across the land bridge. They hunted them. But then they became extinct about 7500 years ago, until the Spanish wrecked their ships along American shores and some horses escaped and made it to land. But that wasn’t until…the 1500’s.
I’ve always known most of that. I just didn’t know they were here, indigenously, as recently as 7500 years ago.
I wonder how different American Indian civilizations would have been if they’d had horses from the git go.
Take a look at information on the Topper Site along the Savannah River. Data suggests that it was inhabited approximately 50,000 years ago. This is interesting because modern Homo Sapiens evolved in Africa between 60 – 80,000 years ago. If you believe the “Out of Africa” theory, then this would indicate that the Americas were actually being populated about the same time frame as the rest of the world.
There are other sites in both North and South America which seem to contain evidence of such an early habitation.
Actually the oldest modern human remains have been dated to around 200,000 years ago. As to when humans left Africa that’s still uncertain, but current thinking suggests humans migrating from Africa in several waves over different periods, rather than in one single migration.
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