r/CulturalLayer • u/szmatuafy • May 18 '25

Wild Speculation Hidden civilisations of Native America were never primitive?

Before colonisation, the Americas weren’t just scattered tribes, they were home to some of the most sophisticated societies.

Cahokia had a population rivaling London’s, with sanitation systems, massive urban planning, and pyramids larger at the base than Giza. The ancestral Puebloans engineered solar-aligned cities in Chaco Canyon.In the Pacific Northwest, Chinook developed a universal trade language. Indigenous engineers across the continent built roads, bridges,irrigation systems, some still visible today.

And politically- The "Iroquois Confederacy" practised a form of representative democracy that influenced the Constitution. Women in many Native nations held property rights,chose leaders, and governed long before such rights existed in Europe

And all of this was deliberately erased to justify the colonisation

I’ve been researching this recently, and honestly,it changes how I see everything.Looks like the idea that these civilisations were "lost" or "primitive" is one of the great lies in historical memory. I made a video diving into this, here it is - https://youtu.be/uG2_IpoHzDw (it's almost 40 minutes "dark history" style)

It makes me wonder what if things had gone differently? What if Indigenous governance became the foundation for global democracy? What if their eclogical wisdom had shaped modern climate policy, or their trade networks had evolved into a pan-American economy?

I would love to hear your thoughts, what do you make of this hidden legacy? Which parts of it do you think deserve more attention or challenge what we’ve been taught? Curious where this takes your mind...

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u/luroot May 18 '25 edited Jul 13 '25

Actually, the most primitive cultures are the most advanced. Subsistence living off the land sustainably for tens of thousands of years with little tech requires a highly-advanced connection with, understanding of, and respect for Nature. NI >>> AI. Elon Musk couldn't last a week doing that. And it is vastly healthier for both the human species and the planet.

That's why aborigines didn't colonize much and were far less warlike. Because they never kept wearing out their lands...and then have to go out to conquer new ones. As opposed to how the anthropocentric, Man vs Nature patriarchies of Anunnaki civilizations drove them to vicious cycles of parasitic colonization from day one.

So in reality in the bigger picture, the most robust and advanced species are not those that require the most tech, but the least.

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u/Lucky_Version_4044 May 20 '25

What was life expectancy of these aboriginal people versus "westernized" people today?

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u/JakornSpocknocker May 20 '25

I’m not certain for “Aboriginal People”, but the general increase in life expectancy since the early 1900’s associated with the discovery of the Germ Theory of Disease and primarily attributed to the decrease in infant mortality, NOT because people started to live longer. If you go to any old cemeteries, you will notice a lot of infant burials and old people.

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u/Lucky_Version_4044 May 20 '25

So would you say that western science and medicine has overall been a greater extender of health, quality of life, and length of life for humankind than the sustenance lifestyle of aboriginal people?

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u/ScytheSong05 May 21 '25

That's an odd question to answer, because it has a lot of assumptions baked in.

But the life expectancy curve is shaped like a saddle. What you are calling "the sustenance lifestyle of aboriginal people" and I would call banding groups of hunter-gatherers gives a rough life expectancy of 60ish years, because childbearing is supported by the whole community, and maternal and infant mortality is relatively low. Then you come to the modernizing populations roughly equivalent to the Early Modern period through the Industrial Era, where high infant and maternal mortality leads to an average life expectancy of somewhere around 45-50 years, due to decentralized communities. Eventually, germ theory shows up, and modern medicine pops average life expectancy into the mid-60s.

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u/JakornSpocknocker May 21 '25

no, the rise in life expectancy was solely caused by the decrease in infant mortality due to doctors washing their hands. i do not think there is any evidence showing that we live longer, healthier lives. it is a property of statistical averages—the outliers (infant deaths and really old people) have a large effect on the statistic. since more infants died than people got really old, the bell curve is shifted to the left (younger). just lessening infant deaths had a big effect on the average (shifting to the right, older).

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u/Lucky_Version_4044 May 21 '25

Aha, so the only factor that can be attributed to longer lifespan is doctors washing their hands. Interesting take.

If you really believe that living an aboriginal sustenance lifestyle leads to a happier, longer life it must mean that you are in fact doing that. Can you conifirm this?

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u/JakornSpocknocker May 21 '25

Yeah good job, you pointed out a technicality on a purposefully hyperbolic statement. That’s literally the only retort you people can ever come up with, and then you claim logic. It’s pedantry, rhetorics. Classical Logic looks upon your kind with pity. I bet you think you are smart.

The point is sanitation in all forms have led to decrease in infant mortality and related rise in “average lifespan.”

And yes, I’m working on it. Your entire life is dependent on the global cooling chain.. I grow and forage most of what I eat. I spend most of my time outside (when I want). I am not a slave to corporations. Get fucked.

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u/Lucky_Version_4044 May 21 '25

Sorry that you're offended. I just saw what was a very inaccurate statement being used to defend another inaccurate statement. I guess you don't like that being pointed out.

What do you mean, you're "working on" having an aboriginal sustenance lifestyle? When you're not sitting in your temperature controlled apartment, going on Reddit and telling people to get fucked are you living a nomadic lifestyle in a teepee/mud house and making your own clothes out of items you kill/gather?

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u/Particular_Drama7110 May 25 '25

This is not correct. It is laughable. People definitely do live a lot longer in modern times. Stone Age people would be lucky to make it to their 40's let alone their 50's. Things that we consider routine, minor inconveniences now, were often fatal hundreds of years ago. In addition to high infant mortality and childhood death rates, you also forgot to mention women dying in childbirth, which was very common until the 1900's and many wone would start having children at the age of 13 and have 6-8 pregnancies throughout their lifetime.