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.
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