Native Americans weren't a monolithic group, and the balance with wildlife is just a part of the noble savage myth, for most of the groups. Maya, Toltec, and Aztec societies deforested Central America quite significantly before collapsing (and before Columbus).
Notice that there isn't a 'noble industrialist' meme? I wonder why?
> before collapsing (and before Columbus)
In the alternate universe you come from, who was fighting Cortez?
They were referring to the arrival of Columbus as the watershed moment that signal the arrival of Europeans en masse to the Americas.
> Maya, Toltec, and Aztec societies deforested Central America quite significantly before collapsing (and before Columbus).
On a second reading it seems that GP had most likely meant that they were deforesting before Columbus, not that they had collpased before Columbus, but it's still strange to refer to getting conquered as a "collapse".
Closet racism. There is far more evidence that Europeans destroyed these cultures and ignored their advances, than there is proving this so-called myth.
See for example, the Australian FNP. They were far, far more advanced than European propagandists could allow anyone to imagine.
We are STILL uncovering major advances in these cultures today.
Other thank some claims about land management and herbal medicine, what were that not only more advanced in but FAR more advanced?
Ship building, metallurgy, literature, maths, chemistry, conflict management, law?
I am genuinely curious.
There is much to learn about oneself once you drop the prejudice.
I'm not suggesting we haven't "advanced" beyond them now, but I am suggesting that we may have overlooked something in our race to the moon, and their 40,000 year old tradition of unbroken oral tradition ..
I am genuinely curious. [after all propagandists have prevented me from imagining, let alone knowing.]