Why did Pre-Columbian Americans not build city walls?
Upvote:8
I believe many did.
Hopewell (mound builders) :
This Hopewell mound in Newark Ohio looks an awe-full lot like a circular wall with a gate in the upper left hand corner.
regarding the Inca, these look like defensive walls to me.
Upvote:17
The implication of the question is that Meso-American cultures didn't employ any architectural defenses ("walls"). I don't think that's true at all.
Below is a pictoral recreation of Cahokia. That city was probably far too large and spread out to totally wall up, but you can clearly see there was a wall around the central districts. The text with the picture refers to it as a "palisade" (iow: wooden wall)
Artists conception of the Mississippian culture Cahokia Mounds Site in Illinois. The illustration shows the large Monks Mound at the center of the site with the Grand Plaza to it's south. This central precinct is encircled by a palisade. Three other plazas surround Monks Mound to the west, north and east. To the west of the western plaza is the Woodhenge circle of cedar posts.
DeSoto himself reported natives in what is now the USA Southeast lived in fortified cities in the 1500's.
Now I've personally visited some Maya ruins, and I can vouch that they didn't have any ruined walls around them that I noticed. However, that would have been largely superfluous as the ruins in question were on a towering hill surrounded by jungle. If that particular site had felt like building a wooden palisade as well, the wood certainly would have been available.
Either way, searching for the research on the subject, it does appear that the Maya fortified some of their cities, and there are at least a couple of researchers who are happy to discuss Mayan fortifications at length. As near as I can tell, the same is true for the Inca.
More post
- 📝 Does anyone have an example of the Tamil elephant symbol?
- 📝 Is there a standard authority on the textual history of the authors of antiquity?
- 📝 What was the population of Indian subcontinent in 1000 AD?
- 📝 What can we deduce about the expected career of a US Navy "lifer" in 1972?
- 📝 What evidence is there that Bell stole the telephone design from Gray?
- 📝 Why was there an autumn recess in Britain in 1641?
- 📝 Why didn't every nation commit genocides against every other nation when they conquered land?
- 📝 Have sanctions ever stopped a nation from starting or continuing a war?
- 📝 What type of ancient Chinese headgear is this and what more do we know about it?
- 📝 Was Robespierre in the pay of the British?
- 📝 Have truces for the duration of Ramadan ever been customary/mandatory?
- 📝 Did Lincoln "usurp" his war powers?
- 📝 How did Admiral King survive his early mistakes in World War II?
- 📝 How were medieval castles built in swamps or marshes without draining them?
- 📝 Why was Queretaro chosen as a fail-safe capital of Mexico?
- 📝 Why did the political parties in the US give up power to run primary elections to some states?
- 📝 Is modern warfare inherently linked to sexual violence?
- 📝 How were army formations deployed in the First World War in trenches?
- 📝 What was the medieval attitude to wartime rape?
- 📝 Disqualifications in the ancient olympics
- 📝 Was there a constant 'fear of the bomb' in the Soviet Union and America during the Cold War?
- 📝 Why do so many national flags contain the color red?
- 📝 What are the chances that my ancestor from Massachusetts in 1670 was a Russian Jew?
- 📝 Was the fall of the Inca Empire inevitable?
- 📝 What universities existed in Dutch East Indies, and how available were they to the native population?
- 📝 The Great Compromise, is there analysis on the outcome?
- 📝 Did the IRA attempt to point out the innocence of the Guildford 4 or Birmingham 6?
- 📝 What other war crimes trials, besides those of Nazi war criminals, were held after WWII?
- 📝 How long was the Treaty of Versailles intended to be in order?
- 📝 How can we be sure what the first day of the month was 2000 years ago and how can we determine which years were leap years?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why did Pre-Columbian Americans not build city walls?
- 📝 Why did native Americans and Europeans mix in South America but not in North America?
- 📝 Why were Japanese Americans forced to move, while German Americans and Italian Americans did not generally suffer the same consequences?
- 📝 Why did Suleiman build walls around Jerusalem?
- 📝 Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
- 📝 Why did archery not make a comeback when armor was phased out in the 18th century?
- 📝 Why did Canada not join the American Revolution?
- 📝 Why did the Western Roman Empire collapse but not the Eastern Roman Empire?
- 📝 Why did Britain and France not declare war against the Soviet Union when it invaded Poland in WW2?
- 📝 Why did Hitler not invade Sweden?
- 📝 Why did Britain not purchase Alaska when Russia had it up for sale?
- 📝 Why did Europe not see Roman-era numbers of men participating in battles until the 17th century?
- 📝 Why did Europeans (and not people in other regions) dominate oceans?
- 📝 Why did the United States not resort to nuclear weapons in Vietnam?
- 📝 Why did Hitler not order the use of poison gas in combat?
- 📝 Why did Switzerland not grant votes to women until 1971?
- 📝 Why did Germany not join the United Nations until 1973?
- 📝 Why did the United States not invade North Vietnam?
- 📝 Why did Hitler not concentrate more on North Africa?
- 📝 Why did Jews not immigrate to the Muslim world?
- 📝 Why did Austronesian/Polynesian people not colonize Australia?
- 📝 Why did the Chinese Nationalist party members go to the island of Taiwan and not to any other island?
- 📝 Why did the person in charge of a principality not just declare themself king?
- 📝 Why did the Soviet Union not "grant" Inner Mongolia to Mongolia after World War Two?
- 📝 Why did people not tend to keep records or consider future consequences until very recently?
- 📝 Why did the British not introduce the sterling in India?
- 📝 Why did the Germans not encircle and besiege Stalingrad?
- 📝 Why did the Native American city of Cahokia die out?
- 📝 Why did Hitler send Manstein's army (and not some other) to Leningrad in the summer of 1942?
- 📝 Why did the Soviets not shoot down US spy satellites during the Cold War?