This is something I have never understood. Now, I can understand the Polynesians not progressing technologically, I mean it’s warm, food is abundant - heck, they live in paradise. No predators (ok, sharks); no harsh seasons, freezing temperatures - no real reason, other than warfare, to develop technologically.
However, the American Indians typically had harsh winters, they were basically in a state of perpetural war with skirmishes with other tribes. One would think that advances in weaponry, let alone food storage and a means of passing the information down through the generations would have emerged in some fashion.
There are limited ‘I wonder why ...’ exhibits that were made by the Native American Indian - but the development of working ores, the wheel, lever, mathematics, agriculture, trade specialization, agriculture, astronomy, animal husbandry, irrigation, trade routes or even shipping was virtually unknown. One would think that the harsher the enviroment, the more necessity would drive innovation. But, it just didn’t happen here.
So, when I see an article that attributes an appreciation of science that is unsupported by any other fact; I’m inclined to call it simply a coincidence. There simply isn’t any evidence to support this claim.
BTW, I have an authentic DVD of Hawiatha hunting Do-do birds - it is in this box along with my deeds to the London Bridge, just saw it the other day ...
It is nothing to do with Science, as we know it. It is simply noticing cycles of daily, seasonal, yearly existence that are of life and death importance; then marking them, usually cloaked in religion.
We need to use the math as a shortcut to get back to their time period and observational vantage, and not spend the same umpteen years of the same trial and error that they did, just in order to find the correlations.
Also, the Anasazi (the people this article is about) had very large and complex irrigation systems for their farming. They also built Casa Grande, quite possibly as an observatory.
As for other Native Americans, some had writing and farming and domesticated (or semi domesticated); some built rather sophisticated dwellings and public buildings; others ran around naked, eating lizards and bugs, and sleeping under handy logs or rocks. Others fell anywhere in between.
“So, when I see an article that attributes an appreciation of science that is unsupported by any other fact; I’m inclined to call it simply a coincidence. There simply isn’t any evidence to support this claim.”
Like I said - this guy is studying remains of the Anasazi. They were more like the Mayans. Large communities, agricultural (so the seasons/astronomy were important), traded with others, etc. Several other smaller-scale measuring devices for the solstice, etc. can be found in the SW.
They were NOT like the Plains Indians. You bring up good points about why didn’t the indians develop more technology.