There is historical truth in what you say here. They did not have beasts of burden so the need for the wheel just wasn’t there because there was no practical tool to pull it. They did have very wide spread cultivation in South America but even if they had beasts of burden bigger than the llama the terrain would not have allowed it because to build the infrastructure would have burned more calories than they could have consumed.
While they did build roads (more like trails) over this terrain it was only practical because of the climbing abilities and agility of the camelids. They still do not build roads over most of this terrain because it’s not practical. Something to always remember is that early survival was a very fine balance of calorie profit or loss. Some impractical concepts just were not worth the extra expenditure of calories so there was just no need for it.
A reality I would like to point out is that most Europeans lived brutal and short lives before they came here too. :) .
Yes. Almost everyone did. But the Europeans had higher population densities, larger cities, and much more technology than in the new world. Mostly because of higher agricultural output.
I would say Christianity was a large improvement over the Aztec gods as well.
Probably because of the agriculture, there was an aversion to cannibalism in Europe, that seems absent in much of Africa, North and South America, Australia, and a fair amount of Asia as well.
You can make a good case that for 300 years, the first Americans lived in a golden age of abundant and stupid big game, with few diseases.
The population density was so low they only had to walk a couple of weeks to get into new, virgin hunting grounds.
For a thousand years there likely was little war, or disease. Only hunting, raising families, and exploring.
After a thousand years, they had filled up the continents, and went back to the usual existence of constant war, famine, and hardship.