I get parched just looking at it. Most of the grains aboriginal peoples harvested around here were pretty chaffy. Final yields were likely horrible. OTOH, they labored so in part due to sympatric competition.
It would be interesting to juxtapose technological timelines from different parts of the world for sequences and discontinuities. It might do a lot to help identify what was holding things back for so long in more “primitive” societies.
To me, with the example of meso-American cities really not that far away, it is strange to me that so many North American Indians were so backward by comparison for so long, particularly because sign language was so uniform.
They came up with some nice colors, though.
https://www.siskiyouseeds.com/products/corn-magenta-parching
I suspect geography has much to do with your question. Development of cities and the innovation they foment make more sense in the relatively compacted areas of Central America and west of the Andes, compared to the limitless forests and plains of the rest of North and South America.