By Thomas Ayres:

And?

Still historians which is more than you are

claiming north american chiefdoms were more socially complex than europe at the same time is a level of stupid only capable with an anti-european agenda. that's not to say that north america isn't interesting to study or worth studying

Post your PhD in history faggot

>more socially complex

Where does it say that?

I don't think the social systems of Mesoamerica could be called anything but archaic. Sure, millions of people lived in huge metropolitan cities and people were stratified into specialized classes, but violence was widespread, and the elite were made up of religious and military figures.
Even in the Pacific northwest violence was widespread, and only escalated with the introduction of European weapons.
Archaic is also a very vague term.

unverifiable since most of those places collapsed before whites even began settlement .

>Many lived in social systems far superior o th archaic, inbred monarchies of Western Europe."
Not quite socially complex, I misremembered. this wording is much more vague and subjective so it would really come down to personal opinion, though I'd like to know why he thinks north american chiefdoms were "socially superior" just because the Habsburgs were notoriously inbred

He's probably referring to meritocratic and democratic institutions as opposed to inheritable power. But yes, of course "superior" is always subjective.

How would we know if they were using meritocratic or democratic methods when we don't have written records from North America?

Nope.

Real life has consequences.

Consequences like your entire culture being dominated and replaced by more advanced cultures because your culture became too complacent to invest in education and technology. Hence the North and South Americans trying to fight off European musket, cannon, sword, and armor with rocks and sticks.

Because oral tradition is infallible. Everyone knows that all illiterate tribes were honourable and never lied. Lying was an invention of the archaic writing used by despicable euros.

There was no American native society that had a meritocracy as we westerners know it

i always love how anti-euro historians are always like

>Europe was backwards

and then whine about imperalism

Yh Europe had a history before Minoans too WE CALL IT PREHISTORY THOUGH.

Oh, so you really do think that real life works like a Civ game, I guess the player didn't hit the research button at the right times in that neck of the woods.

Yup. This is why the only trace of the Native American Empires left are alcoholic half breeds stuck in government imposed isolation camps.

>Blaming the Native American societies for not spurring development
>most technological developments were pure fucking luck, even in Europe
societies dont just research technology and advance you fucking retard, go back to Civ

Maybe, it's option tho, the cultures are very different in many ways so it's difficult to compare, I don't know, I wish we knew more about native american cultures like we do with europe.

Maybe the retards should have learned how to write then.

Honestly, how does a PEOPLE exist for millennium without figuring out writing?

ancientamerica.com/oxhides/

You guys ever read about the copper axes found on the Mississippi? Or the Minoan artifacts in Minnesota? They found tons of copper spear heads out there.

Most modern indians are just drunks. They're closer to the trailer park boys. They all remind me of Ricky.

Well sorry that they didn't have other cultures to copy it off of like the Europeans did.

I'm Chinese you euro-centric FUCK

This is why I hate Veeky Forums

Chinese don't have an alphabet, can't talk shit.

The point still stands that there are very few cultures that came up with a writing system on their own. Also put that card back in the deck.

Hello mr strawman. The spanish low nobility was the least suited for exploration. The english in North America had problems with the colonists going native because the indians had more libertarian societies and didn't stink.

>Maybe the retards should have learned how to write then.
>Honestly, how does a PEOPLE exist for millennium without figuring out writing?
Why should they?

>The english in North America had problems with the colonists going native because the indians had more libertarian societies and didn't stink.
more like because the natives were better at surviving in the environment than early colonists

This went on for awhile, hell I remember even Benjamin Franklin wrote a letter saying that it was still a problem.

What culture is allowed to talk shit about having writing, if the Europeans are not?

Fucking Souixboos

Are cultures sentient now?

Only six cultures in the world developed writing. It's not imperative to have writing. The Inca did fine without it.

>did fine

Oh yeah, Incas did GREAT!

Did you see those stock numbers for Inca?

Yes sir-e, Inca is doing fine

Having writing or not had nothing to do with them falling to the conquistadors. They were also hit by disease. I'd love to see the Roman Republic survive if some alien strangers with more advanced weapons came in and took advantage of a civil war raging on and all the while disease wipes out up to 90% of the people. The Inca were doing ok until Europeans showed up.

Did you ever think that the fact the Inca were the ones being invaded had to do with the fact they were the less advance civilization, one of the symptoms being a lack of writing?

I'm not saying records can block bullets, but without records you can't build a civilization to the heights that a civilization with records can

>The conquistadors beat the Inca with writing

>more libertarian societies
>more libertarian
>libertarian

In that case those tree fuckers deserved everything that they got.

Bootlicker spotted

The Inca had other communication methods, the quipus and though not certain possibly ideographic square symbols you see a lot in textiles. That said they built the largest empire in the Americas and in their time possibly the largest in the world. Also Pizarro who led the conquistadors invasion was a notorious illiterate. In fact, many of the conquistadors under him that weren't nobles probably were too.

>societies dont just research technology and advance

Intelligent and creative Europeans did.

Because that way information isn't lost every time someone dies

I hate the liberal trend of historical revisionism in the west now.

I think it's true. Native people didn't show desires of power or authority over over people, so I think this is what made a society prosper.

Monarchies did kinda suck, I mean the Euro-Americans wanted to escape for a reason. Nevertheless, Native American life was fucking brutal and often highly misogynistic. The noble savage is bullshit.

They did have metallurgy, ranging all the way up to bronzr, gold and silver. Mexico was just one of the most populated areas and it was low in iron. Also peruvians did have the wheel but without large beasts of burden it was kinda useless except as a toy.

The maya did have writing. Not just pictograms and ideograms either but actual syllabic glyphs just like early china. Europe didn't invent the alphabet, it was adopted from phonecians.

wow it's almost like it's easy to invade a country across the world when 95% of them die from plagues. It'd be like mongols steamrolling Europe after the black death, but in this case even more lethal

American natives had nothing to domesticate. The horse went extinct before 10,000 BC there and the closest they had was the fucking llama. Europeans had oxen, cows, horses, donkeys, pigs, mules, etc to power their empires. Plus that had multiple cultures around them to influence them.

A "superior" civilization does not fall prey to an "inferior" one.

It must be causing quite a lot of cognitive dissonance to paint white people as ignorant, backwards, and the evil subjugators of the entire world at the same time.

>violence was widespread
>the elite were made up of religious and military figures

Gee, that doesn't sound like our civilised nations of the modern age at all. No siree.

They literally scalped their enemies

>They literally scalped their enemies
Literally the only reason why they scalped whites was because of white bounty hunters who scalped their native American prey in order to prove to their pay-boss that they had killed their target.

>hawthorneinsalem.org/ScholarsForum/MMD2263.html
>"John Brown, who is tribal historical-preservation officer for Rhode Island's Narragansett Indians, said that bodily mutilation was considered "dishonorable" until it was "learned" from Europeans in the mid-17th century."

Good thing we have all those historical records to prove that the natives never scalped before the Europeans arrived...

Oh wait

Did the Aztecs learned how to cut out hearts from the Spanish?

Many native american languages and societies struggled to maintaij relevancy for more than a century? I think that french explorers noticed a complete change between the society and language of the people between expeditions.

Right, because the Europeans were always civilized and never invented clever ways of being cruel to each other.

Never said that, but would you call that "superior" to what was going on elsewhere in the world

We'll never know, because 95% of it was completely destroyed.

>A "superior" civilization does not fall prey to an "inferior" one.
>It must be causing quite a lot of cognitive dissonance

huh
who here /madetothink/

humans doing shit to humans is a constant anthropic universality and dosent realy enter into any cathegory of superior-inferior unless were talking things like chest opening technique or points for style of execution and stage effect

Of what the Spaniards saw before their conquest, I think of it no great loss to the world that the Heart-Cutting civilization is gone.

Notice I never said I think the Aztec are inferior, I just don't mourn them.

>a constant anthropic universality
wew lad, my scrotum got sweaty reading these big words

>Nope.
>Real life has consequences.
>Consequences like your entire culture being wiped out by VD and smallpox.
ftfy

But doesn't it bother you that the only things that the Spaniards saw fit to write down about their society was its most brutal and horrible aspects, while literally everything else was melted down or set on fire?

This is the textbook definition of propaganda, and ethnic cleansing on a grand scale

I'm more bothered about the ongoing white genocide in Europe.

Much more sinister than native americans.

So you're arguing the heart sacrifice ceremonies are simply propaganda?

And before you say, "that's not the only aspect culture", realize that's similar to arguing the Holocaust is just propaganda because "it's no only aspect of Nazi culture"

>he thinks analogy makes an argument
analogy != symmetry, idiot

go back to your high school debate club and argue pepsi vs coke

Fine, I'll ask again

Are you arguing the heart sacrifice ceremonies are simply propaganda?

im not him, kiddo, couldn't pass up an opportunity to bully a """smart""" using a """clever""" analogy """rhetorically"""

This post is bad in the same way Obama's last speech is

They didn't but de Landa mentions the Maya did learn how to be abusive towards their wives since it was common practice among hispanic men.

"Tongue removal, decapitation, and dismemberment of the Crow Creek victims may have been based on standard aboriginal butchering practices developed on large game animals".[15] These are among the mutilations discovered at the Crow Creek site. In addition, scalping was performed, bodies were burned, and there is evidence of limbs being removed by various means. As stated in the Willey’s dissertation, many of the mutilations suffered by the victims of the Crow Creek massacre could have been traumatic enough to result in death

>domestic abuse is an inherently European concept

Do you ever bother using your brain or nah?

But violence is at an all time low for human history...

Not him but it was a mix of reality and propaganda. The reality is that human sacrifice existed. The scale of it was inflated for propanda reasons. Comparatively their society was no less violent than Europeans' at the time. I mean given all the cruelty the Roman Empire inflicted you can't deny many important things and achievements they had. The same is true of the Aztecs. The tragedy is because so much was destroyed we will never know so much of what is now forever lost to time. As someone interested in history and cultures it does make me mourn its loss.

Most domestic abuse did not result in death. Normally the Maya upon discovering infedelity or if there was an argument that warranted a split, would have the woman leave the mans home. She would either divorce him or he would accept her back. And if he accepted her back he was not allowed to mistreat her. This is a reason why divorce rates were so high among couples. Some men remarried up to 12 times. It's probably also the reason they waited until they were in their 20s to marry. When the Spaniards came they made it much more difficult to get divorces and had people marry at 14. Spanish men often killed their wives or beat them severely if the woman committed adultery. The Maya men picked up on this habit. That said adultery was considered bad in Maya law and punishment could be given but this had to go through a legal process.

>like the Europeans did.
really? by whom?

They were superior in the sense that religion didn't have an irrational emphasis like it did in Europe, but otherwise no.

>pigs
Pigs are quite literally an useless luxury product. The only worthwhile thing you get from them is meat, which is why most Euros probably owned only a single pig at a time. This pig was fattened and eaten on christmas

Your point? It's the least relevant animal in that list, the rest are pure power animals that can power something that would take half a dozen men.

This is a huge advantage and you're a fool to downplay it by going after pigs.

That ignores scale: the Crow were a notable exception among native American societies.

Regarding the philosophy of many native tribes, note the following quote, from a man, Henry Spelman, who lived among the Powhatan people and described their approach to warfare: "they might fight seven years and not kill seven men. " (in Kirkpatrick Sale, The Conquest of America, p. 319), Many native societies did not engage in wars of any kind. Native scholar Darcy McNickle estimates that 70% of native tribes were pacifist (in Allen, Sacred Hoop, p. 266).

By anyone's standards, the Europeans were more skilled and deadly in the practice of war. Paying bounties for scalps was just one of many ways in which the Europeans took warfare to new levels of violence.

>when we don't have written records from North America?
But we do and
>What is the Iroquois Confederacy
>britannica.com/topic/Iroquois-Confederacy

>things like chest opening technique
Aztec heart rip vs. Viking Bloody Eagle
>points for style of execution and stage effect
Throwing heads down temple steps vs. wrapping intestines around trees

this tbqh

>their society was no less violent than Europeans' at the time

lol

all you do here is say they were lying

>the only things that the Spaniards saw fit to write down about their society was its most brutal and horrible aspects

untrue

>that religion didn't have an irrational emphasis

literally ripping their beating hearts out for their Sun god isn't emphasis enough for you?

Nothing irrational about it btw, it makes perfect sense if you can get your brain around the subject.

This

Hunter-gatherers prefer to avoid other humans rather than fight, the risk is only worth it if you have no other choice to survive, and most tribes in America found there own space in the world and prefered to flee rather than fight over land. Sure there were warrior tribes but most people lived peacefully. Rousseau was right about some things, agriculture makes people violent and people that don't grow tend to flight rather than fight.

I think that's a bit of a leap, but I don't think the conquering of the Americas was justified either. And "muh white man's burden we've gotta civilize these savages" is a post hoc justification for actions that were primarily economically-driven.