[SunkenCiv]

View of the Aymara community of Jachacachi in Peru

Luis Flores-Blanco

[Nateman]

One of the things the egghead’s don’t like to admit is the effect of Religion on the birth of Civilization. There has not been, to my knowledge , any Civilization that started up without it . Even now the efforts to erase Religion from Civilization have been a disaster as the Soviet Union proved.

[zeestephen]

Re: "How did hunter-gatherers thrive for 13,000 years in the southern reaches of South America..."

Human sacrifice?

[Adder]

Soooo

Turns out they really liked taters enuff to stop gathering...

[CandyFloss]

I wonder what happens to us another 13,000 years into the future. We don’t seem to be able to maintain a balance as these people did. But then 13,000 years later, some people might say we did but there was a disruption of some kind at the start of that new 13,000 year period.

[kickstart]

The switch to agricultural rather than hunter-gatherer-based societies is a case of work smarter, not harder.

[jerod]

South American and lower Latin American indigenous people were likely in contact with Africans, or maybe even by people from Oceania.

Indigenous people north of that were still very much in the stone aged ‘hunter gatherer’ mode. No metallurgy, no agriculture, no horses... Small groups fighting amongst each other with spears and bows and arrows made of stone.

Then again... Southern climates because of their good weather, lend themselves to the advancement of agricultural development. The more north you get in North America, the harder it is to grow anything.