Pre-Meiji Japan was a large functioning literate sedentary agricultural civilization with a high average IQ. North American Indians were nearly all hunter-gatherers or pastoralists, did not have a tradition of literacy, had low population densities, and probably had a lower average IQ.
North American Indians were nearly all hunter-gatherers or pastoralists...
Not exactly. There were plenty of hunter-gatherers, but both the Great Basin area and the American East and Southeast hosted fairly well-developed sedentary agricultural civilizations until European contact. Both had been under climate stress at the time of contact with the Spanish, and the latter collapsed with the introduction of European diseases, but the descendants of both remained largely agricultural. Populations did crash pretty hard, though.
both the Great Basin area and the American East and Southeast hosted fairly well-developed sedentary agricultural civilizations until European contact.
I am not an expert in the field, but a look at your Wiki links shows that both these civilizations basically collapsed before any significant contact with the Europeans for unrelated reasons.
The Southwest agricultural civilizations show a growth/decline cycle going back hundreds of years before contact; it’s probably primarily climate-driven, although some features of the archaeological record suggest that warfare’s been an issue too. European contact was just another decline, one that they managed to weather pretty well by Native American standards—their successors are among the most intact native cultures.
The Mississippian culture didn’t show that cycle, but it nonetheless was in decline for unrelated reasons at the time of contact (with Spanish explorers); smallpox and other diseases seem to have been the last proverbial nail in its coffin. Note that at that time, European diseases were spreading without direct European involvement: the culture never had any interchange with Europeans aside from the odd explorer, but it didn’t need to. By the time the US reached its former territory, it had thoroughly collapsed, such that some of its successor tribes didn’t even know why the mounds it’s now known for were built.
The agricultural traditions associated with both did survive, which was my main point, although some Mississippian descendants seem to have contributed to Plains Indian culture later on. I wanted to say something about Eastern Woodland agriculture (as made famous by Squanto et al.) too, but it didn’t fit well into my post and Wikipedia didn’t have a good summary. In practical terms it would have been basically Mississippian.
Pre-Meiji Japan was a large functioning literate sedentary agricultural civilization with a high average IQ. North American Indians were nearly all hunter-gatherers or pastoralists, did not have a tradition of literacy, had low population densities, and probably had a lower average IQ.
The Japanese had a big head start.
Not exactly. There were plenty of hunter-gatherers, but both the Great Basin area and the American East and Southeast hosted fairly well-developed sedentary agricultural civilizations until European contact. Both had been under climate stress at the time of contact with the Spanish, and the latter collapsed with the introduction of European diseases, but the descendants of both remained largely agricultural. Populations did crash pretty hard, though.
I am not an expert in the field, but a look at your Wiki links shows that both these civilizations basically collapsed before any significant contact with the Europeans for unrelated reasons.
The Southwest agricultural civilizations show a growth/decline cycle going back hundreds of years before contact; it’s probably primarily climate-driven, although some features of the archaeological record suggest that warfare’s been an issue too. European contact was just another decline, one that they managed to weather pretty well by Native American standards—their successors are among the most intact native cultures.
The Mississippian culture didn’t show that cycle, but it nonetheless was in decline for unrelated reasons at the time of contact (with Spanish explorers); smallpox and other diseases seem to have been the last proverbial nail in its coffin. Note that at that time, European diseases were spreading without direct European involvement: the culture never had any interchange with Europeans aside from the odd explorer, but it didn’t need to. By the time the US reached its former territory, it had thoroughly collapsed, such that some of its successor tribes didn’t even know why the mounds it’s now known for were built.
The agricultural traditions associated with both did survive, which was my main point, although some Mississippian descendants seem to have contributed to Plains Indian culture later on. I wanted to say something about Eastern Woodland agriculture (as made famous by Squanto et al.) too, but it didn’t fit well into my post and Wikipedia didn’t have a good summary. In practical terms it would have been basically Mississippian.