Why did the Native Americans Not Advance Quickly?

In civ terms, the Native Americans lost the tech race. Big time. But exactly why?

My theory is that there were no horses. A civilization's development rests greatly on it's energy output, and with no pack animal (read: Mule, donkey, horse), then they could put out less and less energy.

This would also explain why the Mesoamerican civilizations were more advanced than those of North America. They did have a pack animal, the Llama. They could put out energy, but the Llama could not stack up to the mule or donkey or horse.

So, what are your theories?

Fewer AIs means less trading partners and higher tech prices.

In Central America, for some reason, the natives didn't like killing people on the battlefield, so I guess pillows and hammers were good enough?

Nah, you're thinking on N. American Indian tactics. Y'see, it was considered a great shame upon a warrior to be tapped by a 'coup stick', and... well, good 'ol wikipedia can answer the rest:

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

Well, what accounts for civilization is rather subjective. The Native American cultural perpective was more of a type influenced by animism. They never reallly came to the conclusion that individuality or absolutism are valid reference points. They were more communal in their outlook, so industry, progress, and wealth were seen as superfluous since the symbolic spiritual world was truly all that mattered. The Amerindians also had a view of the world in which humans were merely a flash in the pan and not "too cool for school" like monotheism and other arrogant philosophies proselytize.
Also, the lack of an effective draft animal, the absence of the wheel due to the prior point, the all-pervasivesness of archetypal spirituality, the agrarian communal base in their traditions, the use of psychedelics and MAOI containing plants (including tabacco rustica), women being seen as more integral than many other cultures (though in many Amerindian cultures women were severely abused-but this mostly came from the disenfranchisement caused by having the Amerindians' land and traditions taken from them and the pandemic aloholism amongst the Natives). Also writing (if not completely absent) was more an artform than something as abstract and utilitarian as the phoenetic alphabets with which we are familiar.
Another point has to do with how you want to call "civilization". Quite possibly the Native American life was easier and more conducive to happiness and fullfilment than the industrial and competitive life that Western Civilization offered. Many English colonists well into the 18th century would go live with natives while the reverse was fairly rare. The origin of the absolutism of Near-Eastern religion with the secularism of Greek thought were exclusive phenomenon, and heavily influenced the old world in many ways.

lack of draft animals to act as beasts fo burden, making life easyer for people, and giving them more free time to innvoate technologically, and culturally

Amenhotep7 said:

Nah, you're thinking on N. American Indian tactics. Y'see, it was considered a great shame upon a warrior to be tapped by a 'coup stick', and... well, good 'ol wikipedia can answer the rest:

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

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Aztecs did this as well. They had to touch the person rather than with a stick.

Lack of agricultural crops. The reason Mesoamerica advanced was corn, but that took a long while to domesticate, so they got a late start. South America had the potato, but again, late start phenomenon. The North Americans had little to no crops, you'll notice they finally did start rising with the importation of corn, as evidenced in the Mississippi Valley, and the Iroquois, both of which were based on corn.

I think draft animals had nothing to do with it. The way the native american religions worked allowed them to live in an "equilibrium" with their surroundings, with no need for technological advancements. To be fair, this is the same thing that happened to Europe during the middle ages, with religion in a way ruling the feudal system which was also a system in equilibrium.

Does Guns, Germs, and Steel mention anything about this? Maybe I should pick it up at my local book shop...

Amenhotep7 said:

Does Guns, Germs, and Steel mention anything about this? Maybe I should pick it up at my local book shop...

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Yes. (ten chars.)

Yays.

10 character minimum sucks!

Read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fate of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. It presents a very compelling explanation IMO for why the Native Americans of North America and the peoples of the Americas as a whole did not advance as quickly as the people of Eurasia and much of Africa.

maybe an interesting point also: the lack of a common language. The first spaniards that (accidentally, they were shipwrecked) traveled north-american lands for years reported that the nomad tribes there could only communicate via sign language with other tribes, even if they roamed the same area.

SanPellegrino said:

maybe an interesting point also: the lack of a common language. The first spaniards that (accidentally, they were shipwrecked) traveled north-american lands for years reported that the nomad tribes there could only communicate via sign language with other tribes, even if they roamed the same area.

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That didn't seem to stop Europe from civilizing. Before the late medieval age it was a patchwork of languages as well, each language divided into hundreds of dialects.

I recall hearing that the reason the Native Americans didn't advance as far as the Europeans was because America lacked Iron in any large amount that was easy to mine.

That might be true, except that the Native Americans never even got so far as copper or bronze (which the Americas have plenty of), let alone iron, so the lack of iron should not have affected them much.

Cuivienen said:

That might be true, except that the Native Americans never even got so far as copper or bronze (which the Americas have plenty of), let alone iron, so the lack of iron should not have affected them much.

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They had copper, certainly enough. There was a thriving copper trade from Upper Michigan all over North America before the Euros came.

I agree with most everything said. The NA, CA, and SA tribes were fighting for a while. But Europe was a battleifled for 400+ years. They had to keep up all the time. Someone built a castle, someone else invented a cannon. Knights became popular, gunpowder was used for warfare. Just wars. 24/7.

I think the answer would be food. There aren't as many, huge river systems, or rivers with floodplains in the area like in northern Africa, and southern Asia. Yes, there was the Mississippi tribe (or another one) that grew quickly, then died out (not sure why).

Horses were also hunted to extinction thousands of years ago, nullifying the ability to travel great distances. Llamas and Alpacas aren't as strong as horses, but might've been used (maybe by the Aztecs).

I also think that it's because people came to the Americas much later. The Americas were behind by about 5,000 years. (You could probalby equate the Maya, Aztecs and Incas as being like Sumeria, Babylon, and India). Very early civilizations. I'm not sure what the population was then, but a denser population = more competition, which is why the Aztecs expanded (to conquer those attacking them). I'm not sure how or why the Mayans and Incas sprung up, though.

So, I think the main reasons why are:

1 - Later start/lower population
2 - Less food (more mountains, plains, some desert).
3 - Lack of horses for mobility and traveling long distances quickly.
4 - Low level of competition. With everyone content, there wasn't a need to advance. (get the next best spear, build the next best house to impress your neighbor, etc.)

Once the Native American Indians did get horses (Souix) and gunpowder (Iroquois), they did start to expand more rapidly because of outside pressure.

I've read somewhere (perhaps Guns, Germs and Steel) that one school of thought was that the civs in America were located in the northern-southernly direction, whereas in the Old World, it's more spreadout, and in a more western-easternly direction. Meaning there's a whole swath of civs existing within one climatic zone fr west to east (in the Old World), leading to easier exchange of technologies, argricultural techniques, livestock etc.