My brother, who studied forestry in the area, told me that invention is powered by need. The forests there are incredibly dense and would be hard to make roads through, while it was much faster to travel by ocean canoe between villages.
Sorry for the poor image quality. This was the only one I could find of it online.
by M1x1ma
2 Comments
shit boys, id strap me a 25 horse briggs and stratton on that sucker. kids would love it
There is a white racial bias that the New World Native American cultures were “primitive” and “simple” because they didn’t invent the wheel or use metals. This prejudice is based on a misunderstanding of WHY the wheel got used in the Old World and not the New.
The answer is that there were NO large animals capable of pulling a plow or cart available.
No cattle, no oxen, no horses, no nothing. Without animal power, it turns out the wheel isn’t so useful.
Wheeled toys are found throughout Mesoamerica. They understood EXACTLY how the wheel worked and what it could be used for. The Mesoamerican cultures and the Andean Cultures of South America all built extensive road networks.
They just didn’t use wheels.