Why were the native Americans on the pacific coast so much more advanced than the Atlantic coast? From British Columbia to Chile it seems like there’s a long stretch of densely populated complex civilizations like the Tlingit Chumash Aztecs and Inca meanwhile the Atlantic coast was almost entirely ooga booga hunter gatherers like the Algonquin Taino and Tupi. Today there’s still way more native genetic and cultural influence along the pacific coast while the Atlantic coast natives were entirely replaced by Europeans and Africans.
Possible Polynesian contact? I know the Chumash of California were one of the only North American tribes to use currency. They were building some pretty sophisticated boats as well. They may or may not have periodically visited Hawaii in them
>>18630492The Aztecs lived in inland Mexico, came from the deserts of Northern Mexico, and the Mesoamerican Civilization they assimilated into originated from the gulf coast, i.e the Atlantic coast. They had nothing to do with the Pacific Ocean. The part of Mexico you seem to be assuming is "Aztec" is Oaxaca, which is inhabited by various Oto-Manguean speaking populations like zapotecs and Mixtecs.
>>18630959>>18630492To add onto this, Mesoamerican civilizations in general on the west side of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec (IE: excluding the Maya) were inland societies, primarily. Even the Mixtec and Zapotec in Oaxaca were moreso in mountain and valley ranges away from the coasts, even if the state of Oaxaca as a whole has a coastlineThe Maya, on the east side of the Isthmus, were also primarily inland, though there was a coastal trading network they had that ran along the Atlantic coastlines of the Yucatan Peninsula, and some groups on the west side of the Isthmus did have coastal sites as well in Veracruz. But the largest population centers in Mesoamerica were inland, not coastal, almost universally
Robert Carneiro's circumscription thesis on environments surrounded by desert and mountains enabling rulers to shake down farmers for the privilege of living on their land is the best summary there is and readily applies to the east vs west americas as so many other places. It is same reason most of europe was backwards and only saw urbanization by the second millenium ad. makes pre PIE old europe all the more remarkable, its discovery was shocking exactly becaus many of the same areas lagged so far behind in urbanization so long after
Hurricanes. Atlantic coast is fucking brutal. That being said, there WERE somewhat sophisticated people over there in the American south and midwest, they just got obliterated pretty hard even by native american standards so you dont hear about them much.
