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Comment by felipeerias | Hacker News Reader

Civilisations in the Americas were significantly less technologically developed than those in Eurasia. We focus our analysis on the Spanish and Portuguese, but the outcome would not have been much different had their place been taken by the Ottoman or the Chinese.

The Mayan and the Aztecs were roughly at a similar level of development as ancient Sumer or Babylon: good agricultural practices, irrigation, astronomy, elaborated culture, rich mythologies, very basic metallurgy, early state structures, etc.

Sumer and Babylon were great civilisations whose legacy can still be traced today. The same is true for the Maya and the Aztec. Had you visited any of them in their prime, you would have been awed by their skill and sophistication.

And yet, think of everything that happened in Eurasia between Hammurabi and Columbus, and you will get a sense of how wide the gap was when the two worlds met.

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I'm glad you brought up the contrast between the Aztecs and Ottomans - the majority of South America was inhabited by tribes similar to Native Americans in the North.

The Aztecs are noteworthy because of having an empire to conquer.

I am not suggesting that their civilizations did not have artistic or cultural merit, but I think even in a fictional alternate history where the Spanish decided to peacefully trade with Montezuma, I bet a couple hundred years later these people would've had mechanical looms and walked around in tailored suits just the same as their European counterparts.

Not to speak of an what an empire gaing such powerful technologies and ideas about running society would've done to its neighbors.

What a bunch of nonsense. I really urge you to look into more contemporary research on it.

By which measure were they less advanced? Tenochtitlan had a population of north of 200k when the Spanish arrived - bigger than most European cities at that time, bar a couple. When you read the chronicles of the conquistadores you realise how advanced they were in many ways compared with Europeans.

Th Maya were contemporary to and very similar to Greece in many ways - definitely more advanced in some aspects of mathematics and astronomy, and had an extremely complex architecture.

The gap wasn’t so big, and in some cases American cities were even more advanced - probably the complex sanitation system of most mesoamerican cities contributed to the biggest asymmetry of all - European cities were a Petri dish of filth and disease.

Europe was technologically advanced but lacked in state capacity. The Aztecs and the Maya were the opposite.

Sanitation is a literal stone age technology, originally developed by societies we have very little evidence of. It doesn't require technological sophistication — only a government capable of and willing to administer it.

European middle ages were characterized by the lack of state capacity. Cities and trade declined after the fall of the West Roman Empire. Governments became weak and incapable, and the society was structured around regional warlords and their personal relationships. But technology kept moving on. While European societies had limited resources, they could do things their more capable predecessors could not.

And then, towards the end of the middle ages, states started consolidating again.

Rome during Trajan's rule had over 500k and maybe even 1M people, and ruled half of Europe.

But I would still say that it was a less advanced civilization than Europe in 1500 AD. Trajan's Romans weren't able to sail the oceans, print books, didn't know what gunpowder was and could not use positional numeric system to actually calculate things in abstract; their way of counting stuff was the abacus, which sorta works for everyday tasks, but you cannot develop any higher maths with it. Even steel was non-trivially worse in Roman times than in 1500 AD.

All of that was meaningful progress. Sure, some knowledge was lost (Roman concrete, Greek fire). But much more has been acquired.

population size does not equal advanced. it implies some civilizational skill, of course, but to act like the gap wasn't gigantic is pretty unfounded.

european guns, ships, philosophy, math, physics, etc. etc. was hilariously beyond the aztecs.

Ironically it was that Petri dish of filth and disease which gave the Europeans their largest (unintentional) military advantage in the New World. Of course the horses and steel weapons were also a factor.

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