# Native Americans **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 21, 2002, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232 "2002-10-21T14:28:50Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2002, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/1 "2002-10-21T14:28:50Z")
I have read a few things. I read that before the Europeans came here, the “natives” were so backward, they hadn’t even invented the wheel. How advanced were the Indians before the settlers got here? ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2002, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/2 "2002-10-21T14:32:49Z")
> [@](#): > > the “natives” were so backward, they hadn’t even invented the wheel. You put the quotes in the wrong place, right? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2002, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/3 "2002-10-21T15:00:01Z")
It varied. Remember, you’re talking about the people of two continents here. Technologically, most cultures were stone age, with some bronze age, and a few in Central America starting to smelt iron. In terms of population density, it varied from small bands to large cities, with the population of Tenochtitlán possibly being larger than the population of London. In terms of social organization, some peoples were egalitarian without much power and wealth distribution, and others were highly stratified, with, on one hand, a “leisure class” and on the other, slaves. In terms of systems of goverment, it varied from democracy, to almost anarchy, to theocracy, to monarchy, to a feudal system. In terms of food gathering, it ranged from hunting and gathering to advanced agriculture. Some groups built giant palaces, pyramids and temples that still stand today, and others didn’t build permanent structures. So, you’re asking a pretty difficult question,without a simple answer. And, no, as far as we can tell, no group invented the wheel. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2002, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/4 "2002-10-21T15:10:18Z")
Actually, there were wheeled toys in Meso America. The specific difference is that there were no domesticated animals of sufficient size to justify expanding the wheel to carts and wagons. Remember that the earliest Eurasian cart wheels were solid slabs (or solid banded boards). Once they began using oxen, horses, or donkeys to pull the carts, they could look at the wheels and tinker with them to invent spokes, making the wheels lighter. In the Americas, it would have been a waste of effort to build a large, heavy, solid-wheeled cart simply to have a human expend as much effort to move several times the weight–most of it in the vehicle, not the cargo. Without the initial development of an ox cart, there was no impetus to refine that invention with spokes. Only among the Inca were there beasts of burden–and they did very well on mountain trails without burdening them with pulling carts. Conversely, the Eurasian carts, (and later wagons and chariots) were developed on broad flat plains where the wheel could be employed without manually creating cart-wide roads through mountains or heavy jungles/forests. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2002, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/5 "2002-10-21T15:19:43Z")
As to the larger question of “advancement.” Few Amerian societies had populations large enough to require writing for administrative record keeping, so only a couple of the largest of them developed recorded speech. (It was not always writing, as we would identify it–the Inca used a knotted rope mnemonic system.) On the other hand, medicine in the larger societies of the Americas was not far “behind” those of Eurasia or Africa, with some aspects lagging and other aspects more advanced. Astronomy and calendar-making was, in some ways, far ahead of the Eurasian counterparts. Given the _time_ available from the settling of the American continents combined with the types of raw materials available, the peoples of the Western Hemisphere showed no signs of being retarded in their development. (C’mon, Vanilla, you’ve been around here how long and you haven’t read Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel, yet?) ---
**Author:** ![vanilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/f19dbf/32.png) [@vanilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vanilla)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2002, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/6 "2002-10-21T23:44:53Z")
No, I don’t have time to read every book there is. But I will go look it up in my library. I meant no offense with my question; I think the person writing this had a bit of prejudice on the issue. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/7 "2002-10-22T00:29:10Z")
[The Master speaks.](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_250.html) ---
**Author:** ![manhattan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/manhattan/32/7_2.png) [@manhattan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/manhattan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/8 "2002-10-22T00:30:49Z")
**Vanilla** , seriously, read _Guns, Germs and Steel_. In fact, _everybody_ considering a question about development of civilizations around the world, please read _Guns, Germs and Steel_ first. It’s a serious SD bandwidth-saver. ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/9 "2002-10-22T01:55:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by vanilla \* > I have read a few things. > I read that before the Europeans came here, the “natives” were so backward, they hadn’t even invented the wheel. > > How advanced were the Indians before the settlers got here? Define “backward” please. 🙂 After all, some 60 percent all food eaten on the planet these days is Native American in origin. (Can you say potato, chocolate and chili pepper, for example?) Practically the entire modern-day phamaceutical industry is Native American in origin. The concept of democracy _as practiced in the world_ is Native American in origin. There is considerable evidence the US Constitution and the federal system of government in the USA is Native American in origin. Much of Europe was financed by gold and silver solen by the Spanish from Native Americans. I suggest you read _Indian Givers: How The Indians Of The Americas Transformed The World_, by Jack Weatherford, and _Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy Of Freedom_, by Bruce E. Johansen. You may find the Indians were far from “backwards.” ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/10 "2002-10-22T02:05:17Z")
Your example is very poorly chosen because to have a use for wheel you need to have animals to pull your cart at the first place. And there was nor oxes nor horses, so the wheel would have been of no use (except for potters). It’s a little like saying that Honk-Kong is more advanced than Norway because more people in Honk-Kong have fans. However, the natives were essentially at a stone age technological level, as metal was very rarely used (essentially soft metals like gold for jewellery). However, the social organization was far more develloped (empires, administration, large towns, etc…) in central-south america than it was during the stone age in say, Europe. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/11 "2002-10-22T02:35:57Z")
TomnDebb, Clairobscur-- that’s a very good point that had never occured to me (the terrain problem had but not the animals. Guinea pigs and capybaras are not very tractable). Boy, but the knotted string Inca thing (Qipu) is really tantalising, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/12 "2002-10-22T02:45:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Duckster \* > \*\* > > \ > > The concept of democracy _as practiced in the world_ is Native American in origin. > > There is considerable evidence the US Constitution and the federal system of government in the USA is Native American in origin. > > Much of Europe was financed by gold and silver solen by the Spanish from Native Americans. > > I suggest you read _Indian Givers: How The Indians Of The Americas Transformed The World_, by Jack Weatherford, and _Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy Of Freedom_, by Bruce E. Johansen. > > You may find the Indians were far from “backwards.” \*\* While I could swear that Cecil did a column stating that the idea that the Founding Fathers were influenced by the practices of Native Americans, I couldn’t find it, but I did find [this](http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/NAPSnEoD90.html), which indicates that the case for Native American influence on the concept of democracy isn’t nearly as cut and dried as you make out **Duckster**. (A google search on “native american democracy” turned up surprisingly few hits.) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 2:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/13 "2002-10-22T02:49:20Z")
Make that > [@](#): > > While I could swear that Cecil did a column stating that the idea that the Founding Fathers were influenced by the practices of Native Americans **was false** … ---
**Author:** ![Duckster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/duckster/32/1244_2.png) [@Duckster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duckster)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/14 "2002-10-22T03:15:19Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tuckerfan \* > While I could swear that Cecil did a column stating that the idea that the Founding Fathers were influenced by the practices of Native Americans, I couldn’t find it, but I did find [this](http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/NAPSnEoD90.html), which indicates that the case for Native American influence on the concept of democracy isn’t nearly as cut and dried as you make out **Duckster**. (A google search on “native american democracy” turned up surprisingly few hits.) Did you read _Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy Of Freedom_? Much of the thrust of the book is that academia has deliberately suppressed publication of works acknowledging and Indian influence. The link you provided dates from 1990 by the same author. He published _Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy Of Freedom_ in 1998. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2002, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/native-americans/133232/15 "2002-10-22T03:43:58Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Duckster \* > \*\* > > Did you read _Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy Of Freedom_? > > Much of the thrust of the book is that academia has deliberately suppressed publication of works acknowledging and Indian influence. The link you provided dates from 1990 by the same author. He published _Debating Democracy: Native American Legacy Of Freedom_ in 1998. \*\* Haven’t read the book, nor do I dismiss the concept out of hand (after all, the Founding Fathers were fairly smart guys and I’m sure that if they saw a good thing they wouldn’t hesitate to use it), but some of the tone in which I’ve seen this issue discussed sounds similar to the folks who claim that the whole of Greek philosophy was swiped from African thought and that for centuries Europeans have engaged in an active campaign to cover it up, when the evidence is sketchy at best as to the level of influence African thought might have had on Greek philosophy. (Egypt certainly _did_ influence Greek thought, but I’ve seen folks claiming that the Greeks never had an original thought and that whole of Greek philosophy was really Egyptian in origin with the Greeks simply slapping their names on it.)