The Aztecs

What would have happened to the Aztecs if the Europeans never showed up? Were they on the road to technological progress?

Also, what's a good book on them?

Other urls found in this thread:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories
youtube.com/watch?v=6uaIeY-FGpI
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_writing
youtube.com/watch?v=jB-V_vDReNM
twitter.com/SFWRedditGifs

THOSE FUCKING CAVEMAN?

ON THE ROAD TO WHAT?

TO OOGA BOOGA TOWN?

AH AH AH...

DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH...

THOSE CAVEMEN???

Without Europeans they would still be swarming in their own shit, those rabid dogs, those primitive speciemen ahahah...

are you ok?

One of his ancestors clearly got raped on arrival and little Jimmy still cant let it go…

As for Op probably not, there were other similar places that went undiscovered for longer, and never made it anywhere. Not to say it would hsve been impossible, just unlikely, they definately had more chance than other places, but what Europe did was lucky as fuck.

How would it have differed if China or the Ottomans encountered the Aztecs?

I forget the name, there's a book that is basically a compilation of Aztec society written by the students of a priest. Cortez's letters are also decent, but take them with a grain of salt. Technologically the Aztecs were pretty inferior and their political structure was unsustainable. If technological innovation came from anywhere in Mesoamerica it would be from the Inca

Eventually the Chinese would turn up and wipe them out. Or, assuming the Chinks don't travel to the New World either, eventually the Aztecs would travel to the Old World, bring back a bunch of diseases, and be wiped out.

>ottomans
Maybe as bad as spaniards did.

>china
It would be cool. They didn't have colonial pretentions, or religious fixations.

Btw there is a version that china actually knew about america before spaniards. (the pacific side). It seems there are chinese maps older than europeans were you can see the pacific coast.

>It seems there are chinese maps older than europeans were you can see the pacific coast

Any links for that? I'm curious now.

Check out the Engineering an Empire episode on these guys, it's pretty interesting.

Florentine Codex?

what are you doing on Veeky Forums

They were probably the most savage and violent of all the native tribes

>These people live almost like those in Spain, and in as much harmony and order as there, and considering that they are barbarous and so far from the knowledge of God and cut off from all civilized nations, it is truly remarkable to see what they have achieved in all things.
- Hernan Cortes Second Letter of Relation to Charles V
>(About Tlatelolco) After we had sufficiently gazed upon this magnificent picture, we again turned our eyes toward the great market, and beheld the vast numbers of buyers and sellers who thronged there. The bustle and noise occasioned by this multitude of human beings was so great that it could be heard at a distance of more than four miles. Some of our men, who had been at Constantinople and Rome, and travelled through the whole of Italy, said that they never had seen a market-place of such large dimensions, or which was so well regulated, or so crowded with people as this one at Mexico.
- The True History of the Conquest of New Spain by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, Chapter XCII

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pre-Columbian_trans-oceanic_contact_theories

wew lad, do you call ancient sumerians, phoenician or egyptians "tribes"?

I COULD ASK YOU THE SAME QUESTION...

I HAVE A PHD IN HISTORY AND THE BALLS TO SAY HOW IT IS, NO POLITICAL CORRECTNESS HERE, YOU DUMB LIBERAL
yes, remarkable for CAVEMEN ah ah ah...

They would have turned into homosexuals and died off, like the Mayans.

or the greeks?

Except that didn't happen to the Maya.

>there were other similar places that went undiscovered for longer, and never made it anywhere
did any of them achieved something equal to the Mesoamericans?

>Biggest structures in the world up to this day
>Better medicine than Europe
>Equal if not better hydraulic engeneering than that of the Old World
>World's best astronomy
>Only people to develop crops able to produce 7 harvests a year
>World's best genetically manipulated crops, provided the world with cotton, corn, amaranth, chocolate and spices
>Developed writting, zoologies, botanical gardens, mathematics and the concept of zero despite being isolated
>First state in history to introduce universal compulsory education
>Slavery was not hereditary and slaves could buy their freedom

LISTEN BUDDY... IF THOSE RETARDS PROSPERED UNDER THE SPANISH IS ONLY THANKS TO THE SPANISH, THOSE FUNNY LOOKING CHURCHES ARE THAT: CHURCHES, KINDA UGLY TOO BUT I GUESS THEY COULDN'T DO BETTER...

I' SORRY TO RUIN ALL YOUR ENTHUSIASM PABLO, YOU BEANER, BUT THAT'S LIFE, UGLY CHURCHES ARE NOT A TESTIMONY TO CIVILIZATION, THOSE FUCKING WIBBLE-WABBLES/MUMBA-JUMBAS ABOUT THE STARTS ARE THAT, MUMBA JUMBAS, AND HAVE NO VALUE OUTSIDE OF ALIEN THEORISTS AH AH AH...

>Technologically the Aztecs were pretty inferior
Yes, they never met Central Asians and their horses, Mesopotamians and their steel and bulls, Egyptians and their ships, Indians and their mathematics and astronomy, Greeks and their science and thinking, Romans and their engeneering and law, Chinese and their gunpowder and compass, and still managed >and their political structure was unsustainable
No, it wasn't. The empire as at its height and the allies of the Spanish fought against them many times until they realized that the technologicalgap was too big to defeat them, so they joined them and attacked the Aztecs instead. Had the Spaniards not had horses, steel arms and cannons literally no one would have allied with them.

>If technological innovation came from anywhere in Mesoamerica it would be from the Inca
>Incas
>Mesoamerica
all right, you're just retarded

...

buddy, THOSE BEANERS COULDN'T GET AROUND SCREWING A LIGHT BULB IF THEY LIVES DEPENDED ON IT, THEY ARE TOO BUSY DOING SIESTA, AH AH AH AH!!!

THOSE STONE CHURCHES ARE FUNNY LOOKING BUT THERE'S THAT, GIVE IT UP AH AH AH AH AH!!!

>(About Tlatelolco) After we had sufficiently gazed upon this magnificent picture, we again turned our eyes toward the great market, and beheld the vast numbers of buyers and sellers who thronged there. The bustle and noise occasioned by this multitude of human beings was so great that it could be heard at a distance of more than four miles. Some of our men, who had been at Constantinople and Rome, and travelled through the whole of Italy, said that they never had seen a market-place of such large dimensions, or which was so well regulated, or so crowded with people as this one at Mexico.

Very good.

You're trying too hard.

You need to take an introductory course on shitposting

Probably anarchy or a full on Native race war due to the crippling alliance.

>AH AH AH...
>DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH...

Something made you cum, anyway

They would have created a regional empire akin to ancient Rome had they been given enough time, with a political dynastic system similar to ancient Egypt's.

Some say that the Aztecs were in fact confederation, and that their wars were done to enact tribute/terrorize their enemies. But this is false. When the Spanish arrived the Mexica were the strongest hegemon in the region, and were in their expansionist phase. This is why the Tarascans and the Mixtecs were so eager to join the Spanish against the
Aztecs as they feared for their independence.

Their problem was however, that they never desired to incorporate foreign tribes into their empire, so they had some more genocidal policy.

I think it would have been interesting to see some Mayan/Aztec interaction. The Aztecs would have definitely saw the Mayans like Romans saw the Greeks/Egyptians.

As I recall the Tarascans were neutral during the Siege of Tenochtitlan. Aztecs sent to them for help, Tarascans said no, Cortes did the same and they also said no. They waited to see the developments and when they saw the Spaniards and Talxcaltecs won, they didn't want their cities destroyed too so they accepted Spanish rule and paid tribute. They continued to have their rulers, but they were basically puppets and eventually the Irechas no longer existed.

Not saying that the Aztecs were savages, and they did have a lot of technological and cultural achievements. They did have some impressive architecture, although we will never truly know the extent of their power. I like to use the term Mesoamerica to refer to the structured empires of the Americas, but I suppose a more accurate term would be to say Andean when referring to the Incas. The Inca had a form of Proto-writing as well as truly incredible architectural feats, such as bridges that span massive chasms that would only later be emulated much later in western history. It's amazing to see how the Incans solved problems in a different way than Old World culture. The Aztecs were hated by their neighbors, for good reason, making their empire unstable and always under attempted subversion from their vassal states. I stand by my statement that technological innovation would come from the Inca

>thread about technology of the aztecs
>posting about how orderly the society seemed to conquistadores or how large the market was
Wew

>all this Aztecaboo-ing
>no love for my nigga Huemac

Feels bad man

here comes /int/....
they split /pol/ apart and now they're coming here.

>The Inca had a form of Proto-writing
Aztecs had writting
>inb4 they didn't
there are syllabic phonetic glyphs in literally every Aztec codex, just like the Mayans. If you read Aztec poetry and philosophy you would understand why they didn't use them as much.

>>as well as truly incredible architectural feats
such as pic related?

>>such as bridges that span massive chasms
lasrgest one the Incas built was literally 50 m

>They agreed to work at it viribus et posse, and began at once to divide the task between them, and I must say that they worked so hard, and with such good will, that in less than four days they constructed a fine bridge, over which the whole of the men and horses passed. So solidly built it was, that I have no doubt it will stand for upwards of ten years without breaking —unless it is burnt down — being formed by upwards of one thousand beams, the smallest of which was as thick round as a man's body, and measured nine or ten fathoms (16.8-18m) in length, without counting a great quantity of lighter timber that was used as planks. And I can assure your Majesty that I do not believe there is a man in existence capable of explaining in a satisfactory manner the dexterity which these lords of Tenochtitlan, and the Indians under them, displayed in constructing the said bridge: I can only sav that it is the most wonderful thing that ever was seen.
- Fifth Letter of Relation by Cortes to Charles V

>>The Aztecs were hated by their neighbors, for good reason, making their empire unstable and always under attempted subversion from their vassal states.
If it was so unstable why were they at their peak of their expansion?
The kings of both the Inca and the Aztecs were kidnapped and then killed, and in both cases the heir was killed by disease. Only one of them went to civil war for that and it wasn't the Aztecs.
There's literally no account of Aztecs drowning armies that surrendered or executing thousands anyway like the Incas did.
Aztecs did have constant uprisings, so they could have a reason to wage war and capture warrior for sacrifice. It was up to the people to revolt or recieve economical development, they didn't kill surrendered people only to show their
imperial power.


Huemac was a degenerate Toltec and the Aztecs used it as a prime example of why empires fall.

Who knows, cultural diffusion is the key to progress in a cultural.

The Greeks had Christianity (or some variant thereof) to pull them back from the brink. Nevertheless, with their 1.2 fertility ratio, Greece is no longer Greek. They failed to sustain their numbers.

Your theory? Spaceships? Comet?

sup roach

>>Only people to develop crops able to produce 7 harvests a year
chinese did that too i think

cotton comes from italy, the word itself derives from arabis

>Biggest structures in the world up to this day
source
>Better medicine than Europe
source
>World's best astronomy
copernicus had already proposed heliocentrism by the 15th century and in the 16th century europe produces kepler, brahe and galileo. european astronomy was the best

>First state in history to introduce universal compulsory education
source?

i still agree with you that the mesoamericans had an accomplished civilization.

>the Aztecs used it as a prime example of why empires fall.

Because of big booty? Because that's why Huemac's kingdom fell.

Man was a thirsty ass chubby chaser.

F P B P
P
B
P

>tfw I have a whole folder of that girl

I need to stop fapping all the time.

>I stand by my statement that technological innovation would come from the Inca

>no writting
>no medicine
>no astronomy
>couldn't develop crops that yielded 7 harvests a year (inb4 "laboratory" terraces, Mesoamericans had both terraces and botanical gardens, not just theories)
>state provided a piece of land and a wife, instead of universal compulsory education (inb4 statute labour, which literally all Mesoamericans had)

>inb4 massive structures built without mortar
I'll give you this one. They were certainly impressive and superior, but still not as big as the Mesoamerican buildings.

>inb4 muh roads
Aztecs ruled over half the people the Incas did without forcing cultural conversion, like Incas or the Spanish.
If you ask me that's far more impressive.

>inb4 bronze techniques
Albeit not developed by Incas but by Andeans, agreed, it was impressive. It however made no difference neither in Mesoamerica where people still used mainly stone for their tools, nor during the conquest considering the Incas battles against the Spanish went.

because of degeneracy, just ask Sallust

>chinese did that too i think
they didn't

>cotton comes from italy, the word itself derives from arabis
It was independently domesticated by Mesoamericans, Arabians and Indians. But pic related might give an idea of why 95% of the cotton produced in the world is the one domesticated by Mesoamericans.

>>Biggest structures in the world up to this day
>source
all the pyramids you see on the post you adressed are as big as the on at Cholula
>According to the Guinness Book of Records, Cholula is in fact the largest pyramid as well as the largest monument ever constructed anywhere in the world, with a total volume estimated at over 4.45 million cubic metres, even larger than that of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt, which is about 2.5 million cubic metres.

>>Better medicine than Europe
>source
>Hernando Cortés reportedly told the Spanish monarch that the Aztec physicians were superior to those in Spain, so superior, in fact, that the king need not bother sending Spanish physicians to the New World.
>The personal physian of the Spanish monarch reported ‘"I marveled, in this and in innumerable other herbs, which are nameless among us, how in the Indies, where people are so uncultured and barbaric, there are so many herbs, some with known uses and some without, but there is almost none, which is not known to them and given a particular name"

>copernicus had already proposed heliocentrism by the 15th century and in the 16th century europe produces kepler, brahe and galileo. european astronomy was the best
and yet
>their estimate of the length of the synodic month being more accurate than Ptolemy's,[2] and their calculation as to the length of the tropical solar year was more accurate than that of the Spanish when the latter first arrived

O O G A
B
O
O
G
A

>>First state in history to introduce universal compulsory education
>source?
>The Aztec Triple Alliance, which ruled from 1428 to 1521 in what is now central Mexico, is considered to be the first state to implement a system of universal compulsory education.[4][5]

1 word spaceships

Is the novel any good?

>implying you read Aztec poetry and philosophy
nigga get the fuck out of here lmao just fuck off you sanctimonious cunt

That was not the reason exactly, just a metaphor. The reason was excess, the ass is more a representation of an excessive desire. You have to remember the Aztecs were very metaphorical in their writing.

Thats not a fucking source you retard. God, I hope this is bait.

Aztec philosophy is pretty neat.
youtube.com/watch?v=6uaIeY-FGpI

True, but you have to admit a literalist interpretation of the events is kekworthy

>King wants a girl with a door-filling ass
>Women are brought from all over the realm
>NOT THICC ENOUGH, MOAR
>Gods decide to fuck with him, morph into fat assed human women and fuck him
>He is plagued by shame and bad luck for the rest of his brief reign before he dies

I imagine the first person to translate that particular metaphor must have laughed their ass off

compelling argument

>Jacques Soustelle Daily life of the Aztecs: on the eve of the Spanish Conquest.
you can literally google it anywhere imbecile

It is feasible the Incas would discover bronze but judging by how long it took the old world with the advantage of cattle and horses I assume iron smelting is in large part something stumbled across randomly. We could be looking at centuries before they resemble the Roman and Han empires.

The collapse you are referring to was the Classic period collapse. This was a period of drought, as noted by studies of the time in the Maya region. In the Maya region you have rain and dry seasons, so they did what they could to manage water (i.e. canals, wells, irrigations etc.). But the Maya expanded to a point where they were consuming a lot of their resources, and populations flocked to cities making it a very densely populated area, more so than it is today actually (speaking of the Peten region). Endemic warfare caused by volatile relationships among the various city state kingdoms (Tikal and Calakmul being the main rivals), added to stress in society. Eventually, this came to downfall, elite culture eroded suddenly in some places, gradually in others. Cities were depopulated until ceremonial centers were later occupied by squatters until even they left these places. Now the people didn't die off, they flocked to smaller communities or to rising cities, briefly in Copan, Quirigua and later in the Yucatan peninsula. So basically what ended was the elite culture, but the people remained.

his daughter fell for a naked man with huge penis and huemac forced the man to marry her
you have to be very naive to take the stuff literally

anyway, those myths are most probably influenced by the huastecs who were next to the toltecs and also the only civilized mesoamericans with phallic worship and customs of that kind

I'm getting cursed

I read an early spanish translation of it. The guy notes that he is confused as to what they mean by an ass, they were too prude as well and called it a woman with wide 'hips'.

>thread about aztecs
>incaboos spam
very goddamn time, you guys are pol tier

The Tohuenyo is an aspect of Tezcatlipoca, but he is described as a Huastec (long hair, penis out like some huastecs , and a foreigner). Curiously, many stories of the Toltecs downfall talk about Huastec invaders.

ooga booga we wuz civilized n sheeeeit

^ ffs stop replying to this retard. He's just an attention whore. Probably a tourist from some other board.

>Aztecs had writting
No, they did not.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aztec_writing

What's the best book on the Europeans meeting the Aztecs? Also best book on Mayans?

I've been trying to get into this.

t. aztecpro

>This seat has a smooth edge painted by the yellow color, Coztic, it contains the sign of the traditional mat, Petlatl, a seat is called Icpalli. These words and its syllabes are combined to transcribe the sentence: "Petla Icpalli Coztic Icpalli Coztic Petlatl", in other words, here is settled, here is ruled and here is judged

youtube.com/watch?v=jB-V_vDReNM 33:30

Bronzeworking already existed

OP here, I'd recommend

>Conquistador: Hernán Cortés, King Montezuma, and the Last Stand of the Aztecs
>Buddy Levy

It's mostly told from the POV of the the Spanish, and I'm not sure if it's 100% accurate, but it's a hell of a tale and masterfully told. Actually got me weepy at the Montezuma parts.

Broken Spears by Miguel Leon Portilla.

In the end, I wonder who would've won out on the Mexican plateau if there wasn't any European interference? The Tarascans or the Aztecs?

That's not even close to pol tier.

You really can't have a thread about any pre-columbian culture or civilization without mentioning either the Aztecs, Mayans, or Incas.
If you have a thread about the Incas, you would also have people bringing up the Aztecs as you do here with people bringing up the Incas.
Besides that, Incas and Aztecs are contemporary to each other and the only two native new world civilizations that we can really compare to each other aside from the Mayans.


It's not even that bad, people haven't shitposted "Atahualpa did nothing wrong" on this thread yet, so stop being a faggot pablo. Pre-columbian threads always tend to go this way, and I don't see you complaining about people mentioning the Mayans either.

>You really can't have a thread about any pre-columbian culture or civilization without mentioning either the Aztecs, Mayans, or Incas.

I still can't fathom why this board has no generals. Every day I come up on there's some kids spamming the main page with their Nazi bullshit and killing proper threads. And when that isn't happening, threads get completely derailed, because people are desperate to talk about the things they're interested in, so they'll mention them even in unrelated topics that happen around the same era (or in the same place).

But stormfags ruin everything. They have two boards now and they still can't just fuck off of Veeky Forums and Veeky Forums. Always making the same threads and shitposting without any kind of sophistication. Retarded fucks.

I think most people don't complain about the Maya because there was actual relationships between them and the Aztecs. I'ts like discussing the Ottoman Empire and then bringing up Edo Japan all the time but not complaining if Persians or Byzantines are brought up.

>Why has subsarahan africa made no civilzation of great value
This ones always recurring,

History and current culture is dominated by PC anti-intellectualism right now. So getting people to investigate in detail inferiorities in non-white civilzations is like pulling teeth. And the wiki is written by ideologues and poseurs that just like to write shit.

>Aztec or Nahuatl writing is a pictographic and ideographic
Read in between the lines. There is no such thing as a pictographic true writing system. Character based true writing systems like Chinese are logograms, not pictograms. Aztec """script""" is definitely not like Chinese logograms. An ideogram is something like a stop sign. It means something to someone in the culture but it's purely symbolic.

Real writing is what you are reading right now, it can express full grammar the same as speech even though I am not talking to your face. Therefore it can express the total range of human expression and data. Mayans had real writing. A Mayan could say "Ikal was here, he loves the rain and cocoa in the morning.". Aztecs could never do that. Not even close.

They could do names and dates and that's it. Anything more and you're bullshitting yourself or getting fooled by wishful thinking. There was no Aztec symbol for something as basic as a "to be" verb. Find me examples to the contrary if you doubt it.

What you are describing is highly symbolic painting/sculpture that has some proto-writing characteristics.

Aztec by Gary Jennings is an absolutely superb book.

>I still can't fathom why this board has no generals.

Generals are cancer that breed tripfaggotry and elitism.

>History and current culture is dominated by PC anti-intellectualism right now.
citation needed

...There is no way to cite that. It's just a conclusion from observing life. You'll have to think for yourself on this one, user.

So it's just your opinion then.

It's an opinion based on a lifetime of factual experiences.

In this case, the experience is the extreme reticence for authorities to admit point blank that the Aztecs could not truly write. No one is shy about pointing out that Anglo-Saxons were illiterate before they grabbed the concept from the Romans. What's the difference? Such a mystery.

It depends on your idea of writing. Some assert that Rongorongo and Quipus were writing systems too.

What really makes it interesting for me is the last bit - the fact that they did it without trading products or information. I wonder what would have happened if the mesoamericans had not been completely isolated and had the same kind of relatioship with Europe as Asia had.

Well it depends on if we are talking about a situation where say the Chinese would hop on boats and made major trading expeditions with the Mesos. That or maybe the land bridge never left and it wasn't exactly a 'New World' and more like 'That obscure place that is a bitch to get to' and both scenarios sound interesting.

Anglo Saxons had a written language and a literary culture to boot. holy fuck youre dumb

idiot

If only the Classical Mayan civilization had continued to exist and grow and didn't get annihilated by El Nino.
Eventually the Mayans could have been the ones to close the gap between the Mesoamerican and Andean worlds. Then who knows what sort of technological and cultural diffusion might have occurred.

That's actually an interesting scenario. With there still being a land bridge, then later migrations of other humans and tribes could have gone through into the New World, and along with them they could introduce Old World animals like the Pig or Horse over to the new world which would give the natives more exposure to old world diseases. Also with these later migrations, we could see a more diverse range of language families and genetics in the New World.
Also, like you said, if the land bridge never left there could be contact between the people in the Americas and the people in Asia, so trade routes could be established.

Then again, if a land bridge still existed between Asia and North America cutting off flow between the Arctic and Pacific ocean, I wonder how much that would fuck up the world climate?

>[citation needed]

Those maps are misleading, cause it wasn't possible to cross over the Bering Land Bridge until about 13,000 years ago due to there being no ice-free corridor down through Canada. The limitations of when people could have actually made it to North and South America via the land bridge root along with no finding any sites older than the existence of the IFC is why it was supported for long, but now there are multiple sites on both continents that predate the opening of the ICF by thousands of years. Meaning there had to be some other route available. It's not that they didn't use the IFC, there's a ton of evidence to show they did. But the ones who used that route weren't the first. They couldn't have been, unless they walked over a mile high shelf of ice to get to America.

Meant to respond to

There was still a land bridge between North America and Asia up till 11,000 BP, which is 2000 years after the latest age you said there would be no ice-free corridor, so it is definitely possible that a small group of people crossed before the causeway sank and made it across Canada.

Also the land bridge between Asia and the Americas existed in multiple times in the past, from 70-60 thousand BP and 30-11 thousand BP, so migration could've occurred then.
The only other way besides the Beringia land bridge is to sail from Iceland to modern day Quebec (which was also under a lot of ice) by hugging the coasts of Greenland or to go so far up north that the ocean is frozen over and to cross thousands of miles of ice.
The Beringia land bridge really is the only feasible way to make it to the Americas from Asia or Europe. The only other way that comes to mind right now is boating across the Aleutian islands and hugging the glaciated Alaskan coast down to warmer waters, but that is still pretty much the same route as going through the Beringian land bridge.

Shoo shoo brainlets

Where can I read english translated versions of cortes's letters

bump

back to /pol/ user. you have no power here

>todos estos santos papas putos que nos tiran del templo

>all these sacred sodomite priests that throw us from the temple

What did he meant with that?