The Case of the missing inventions.

One thing that has always interested me is the "Case of the missing inventions".Sometime, about 10-20,000 years ago, people moved from EurAsiaAfrica to the Americas. This was the last of the great migrations (long after the migration of the sea peoples to the islands of the South Pacific and Australia/New Zeland). These people, those in the Islands and those in the Americas were effectively cut off from the vast populations of the older continents.From the evidence left by the earliest of these wanderers we can see that they were very similar at the time of migration to folks anywhere else. Technologically, they had all the things the others had, stoneworking, fire, cooperative societies. We can also see similar intellegence and a very similar growth pattern, they built cities, invented govenments, studied the skies, discovered and charted planets and stars, developed languages and writing.But there are three inventions that were made on the old land mass that were never duplicated in either the Island peoples or the Americas. And those three inventions made all the difference.The first is the wheel. Neither the Islanders or those in the Americas ever invented the wheel. Even the potters wheel was unknown and we see this in the pottery shards found throughout the area. They made pots and utensils but they were all slab and coil, much slower to make and so far more valuable. Pottery never became a commidity item.The second great missing invention is the bellows. This simple device was esential if man was to move beyond the softer hammered metals, copper, and utilize Iron or high strength bronze. Without a bellows mankind was limited to stone as the best and sharpest cutting instrument and when Europeans arrived in the Americas they found a people still effectively in the stone age.The third and perhaps biggest missing invention is the draught animal. The two closest examples found in the Americas are the domesticated llama used as a pack animal and the dog sledge in the far north or the travois. This lack of draught animals limited what could be done to human power alone. It was sufficient for creating magnificent edifices but limited farming. The peoples of the Americas never made the jump from lever as digging stick to the plow.Why were these three things NOT reinvented when so many other things were? I don't have a clue where this might go

There are a few examples of wheels shown on pottery objects such as toys or votive offerings but none beyond that. There are also indications that logs were used as rollers, but the wheel with axle never seemed to catch on. I suspect that the lack of draught animals may have played a part, but again, why that step wasn't taken is a mystery to me.There were potential candidates, for example deer and elk. Reindeer were utilized as draught animals in areas of Europe, but the concept never seemed to happen in the Americas.One good example is that the concept of a mill never seemed to catch on in the Americas. Right up until the European invasions corn was still ground by hand. The millstone never appears, and I imagine that lack of motive power might have been one reason.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No horses when man was here or in the islands.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

No, I saw it. But that seems to ignore that there were some rather large cities here, certainly as large and as advanced in most ways as anything in Europe at the time. Whether we're talking about the Mississippian culture in the south east, the Anasazi or Pueblo cultures in the south west, the various city states like the Toltecs, Maya, Inca or Aztec in south and central america or the civilizations of the north west, there were examples of large scale sedentary communities. The irrigation systems built by the tribes of the south west were as extensive as any built anywhere in the world and many of todays canals in Arizona simply follow the routes of ones built by earlier peoples.Chaco and Canyon de Chelly were impresive, but for me, the high rise at Casa Grande was even more startling. Here is a three or four story building in the midst of nowhere with indications of an extensive supporting community. When I lived in the south east I got to visit many of the older sites, and frankly, it was an eye opener. These were not just short term residences, but whole cities covering many, many acres.The hunter-gathers certainly existed but they existed alongside agricultural ones. The terraced farming found in Peru is still functional today, yet nowhere did the leap from lever as digging stick to lever as plow happen. No where did the leap from log as roller to wheel and axle happen. Nowhere did the leap from hammered to smelted metal happen. Nowhere did the leap from mano and matate to millstone happen.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The horses only returned with Europeans. They had been in the Americas earlier (much earlier) but had become extinct long before, sometime around the end of the last ice age and the arival of humans.AbE:I was lucky enough to live in the area and so get to wander around most of the sites in Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado. I've also been lucky enough to spend time around the Mississippian relics and explore the shell mounds of the south east.This message has been edited by jar, 06-16-2005 10:01 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

We're still just beginning to learn about the Mississippian culture since most of the structures they built were earthen mounds and wooden structures, neither of which really stood up to weather. If you ever get a chance though, visit the Etowah sites.Throughout the south west there were also many structures, but again, most were adobe and so little remains. We do have much information though based on some of the canal work which was done. There were old canals hundreds of miles long and as wide as thirty feet. Construction on that scale implies a fairly high level of organization and civilazation, and are not the kind of project that would be undertaken unless there were large settled population centers.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

There is another glaring example of differences between the old world and the newer worlds and that involves the pervasiveness and ubiquitous use of writing.There are a few examples of writing found in the New Worlds, we can find some carvings on some of the central american edifices and there are reports of the Europeans burning codices, from reports they were printed on wood slabs, during the Aztec conquest. But written language never seemed to catch on or get spread in the New Worlds as it did in the older. Many civilzations, the Inca as a great example, seemed to have no written language at all.Yet other areas, mathematics as an example, the Newer Worlds people were as advanced or perhaps even more advanced than in Europe at the time. The amount of detail recorded in the Incan quipus was phenominal and used a version of the decimal system.Why?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Andya, that might be true but again, it seems to have some issues. The terrain of the New World is as varied as anywhere else. To say that the civilizations were seperated by Jungle and desert ignores the long coasts of the Americas as well as the many rivers reaching into the interior. It's certainly an idea to examine though.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion