Mexico and Central America have plenty of ancient, monumental structures (e.g., Chichen Itza). But the continental US and Canada do not. Why?
In: Engineering
Cahokia mounds.
Different cultures with different architecture, urban organization, and technology.
There’s a compelling argument for instance that acorns and plentiful game are why large scale agriculture never developed the same way in the northern hemisphere. It follows thus that metal and stone working were not needed and didn’t develop the same way as elsewhere.
A few do exist. Cahokia (just outside of St Louis) is a World Heritage Site and the largest extant ancient ruins in North America. Aztlan (in Wisconsin) was built by the same culture and is a very similar site, just on a smaller scale. Great Serpent Mound, in Ohio, is a massive burial site on a horizontal scale that rivals Giza, though the fact that it’s less vertical and not in a desert obscures a lot of its grandure (trees do that). Speaking of desert, various cliff dwellings in the southwest (most notably Mesa Verde in Colorado) are astonishing in their scope and complexity.
Part of the problem is just geology. The major civilizations of ancient North America were heavily clustered in the Mississippi and Ohio river valleys. These are great places for a stable agricultural society, but much less great for hard stone building materials like what you need to build Chichen Itza. Most of the places with good access to stone building materials were also comparatively bad for agriculture. The Nile Delta is a relatively unique phenomenon with respect to geology, geography, local biota, and proximity to early homo sapiens evolution. The combination of an arid climate (which helps preserve everything, since rain and humidity are awful for stuff), easily accessible bedrock veins, and abundant access to incredibly fertile soil and reliable water is not something that happens in many places around the world. The Colorado River delta in present-day North-Western Mexico is the closest thing that I can think of anywhere else in the world, and it’s not as good as the Nile in any of these respects (and also was first inhabited about a million years after the Nile was).
The Columbia River gorge strikes me as one counter-example to this, though I’m not aware of any large hierarchical societies (a la the Mississippians, Aztec, Maya, or Inca) in that area despite its dense population and fertility.
So yeah… Tldr, the areas where civilizations flourished in North America didn’t have extensive stone building materials, so they built earthworks instead. These were spectacular, but they also erode much faster and are in locations where trees happily overgrow everything. You should visit Cahokia though, it’s really very impressive. A lot like what Chichen Itza would look like if they had to build it out of dirt rather than stone (I’ve spent time at both sites).
Complex societies that can create the necessary engineering and economy doesn’t happen before people figure out agriculture because without it, there’s no way of sustaining that many people in a small area. You need easier food production so that not every single person in a society has to produce food all day everyday and actually start doing other stuff, such as construction of giant things.
This just didn’t happen in Northern America to a necessary extent.
One of the reasons that south and central America had bigger economies was agriculture. Specifically they had certain types of corn that could sustain large settlements but that would not grow further north.
In North America many of the structures were built of wood so eventually they disintegrated and destroyed. There are still some totem poles but the European settlers stole and destroyed many of them. The wood was so abundant for the natives that they never needed to build stone structures.
Such informed, thoughtful answers. Thank you for reminding me why I love this subreddit.
The biggest group of Indians in North America were the Mississippians. They were dominant all the way from the Midwest to the Appalachian mountain chain as well as the southern states. They did build similar monumental structures as you find in Central and South America. However they built them out of dirt instead of stone. They are therefore far more common then further south and even bigger. But they tend to blend into the landscape a lot more when overgrown. And a lot of them have sadly been destroyed as people settled on them or used the dirt in the mounds for construction materials.
If you look into the Indian cultures in Long Island, New York, Quebec, etc. there is a lot more stonework. But this is some of the most disturbed archeological sites in North America. We even have written accounts of colonizers having to siege Indian cities and eventually defeating them in battle and using the existing city walls for their own forts. These were sadly mostly destroyed in upgrades and eventually the materials reused for buildings as the city grew.
Maybe not as elaborate or well preserved as you’re thinking, but the [Aztec Ruins in New Mexico](https://www.google.com/search?q=aztec+ruins+new+mexico&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjK55Xh6ICEAxUDMUQIHXOLB8UQ2-cCegQIABAA&oq=aztec+ruins+new+mexico&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIFCAAQgAQyBQgAEIAEMgYIABAIEB4yBwgAEIAEEBg6BAgjECc6CAgAEAgQBxAeOgQIABAeUN8LWKAnYK8paABwAHgAgAFgiAH3B5IBAjEzmAEAoAEBqgELZ3dzLXdpei1pbWfAAQE&sclient=img&ei=F6u2ZYqAF4PikPIP85aeqAw&bih=1205&biw=1440) and the [Montezuma Castle in Arizona](https://www.google.com/search?q=montezuma+castle+arizona&tbm=isch&ved=2ahUKEwjHhen-6ICEAxWZNEQIHRPlDW0Q2-cCegQIABAA&oq=montezuma+castle+arizona&gs_lcp=CgNpbWcQAzIECCMQJzIFCAAQgAQyBggAEAUQHjIGCAAQBRAeMgYIABAIEB4yBggAEAgQHjIGCAAQCBAeMgcIABCABBAYMgcIABCABBAYOgYIABAHEB5QpQRYlwVgmQdoAHAAeACAAZEBiAHuApIBAzEuMpgBAKABAaoBC2d3cy13aXotaW1nwAEB&sclient=img&ei=Vau2ZYeHIpnpkPIPk8q36AY&bih=1205&biw=1440) are pretty impressive.
Worth noting that the naming conventions are wrong — the “Aztec Ruins” were built by the Pueblo people and Montezuma Castle was built by the Sinagua. Both are around 800 years old.
There are.
Poverty Point (Louisiana, US): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_Point
Mississippian earth mounds (Southeastern US): https://www.nps.gov/ocmu/learn/historyculture/mississippian-culture.htm
Hopewell earthworks (Ohio, US): https://www.nps.gov/hocu/learn/historyculture/hopewell-ceremonial-earthworks.htm
Building these immense structures required sophisticated math and engineering, as well as the organization of thousands of laborers. People traveled to these sites from hundreds of miles away for cultural gatherings. These sites are no less impressive or significant than any other such monumental constructions around the world.
Maybe you weren’t aware of [pueblo-bonito](https://www.nps.gov/chcu/planyourvisit/pueblo-bonito.htm)
Or the ancient dwellings in Arizona
https://www.arizonahighways.com/article/cultural-parks
Latest Answers