[muawiyah]

You're not serious are you.

Mexico and Yucatan are filled to the brim with stone cities.

The Ohio Valley and the central part of the Mississippi Valley have immense pyramids built of earth.

South America now appears to have some of the oldest cities on Earth ~ older than those in Egypt or Mesopotamia in fact.

BTW, ancient Old World civilizations have only come to light in recent years. The Sumerians, for instance, who invented civilization, were unknown 200 years ago outside of the Bible, and then we didn't really recognize them (See the parts about Noah for example).

[norton]

I think I mentioned 'other than' farther south latin america and I don't consider dirt mounds proof of high levels of civilization anymore than I'd ascribe Stonehenge to an advanced civilization.
In the long run wheels, pulleys, sanitation, and a written language trump astronomy unless you have some other means of getting past the lower atmosphere. However, math skills appear to have been quite high - making an interesting look into what skills are needed first and what skills are most readily acquired.

My sense of meso (south) american history is one of a series of ascendant & descendant cultures, rarely close in proximity in time and geography, seldom peaceful, and generally disappearing without clear cause (to us).

Yes there was trade but in North America it appears mostly between separated groups or by way of pillage and ritualized theft.

I doubt that burning off land was intended to 'foster deer...". Rather to allow short term planting/residence and to drive game. It's also my understanding that those who practiced clearing by burning did not stay in that place too many years before they'd used up the ground or game or both.
Note that until quite recently, forest fires were a bad thing in our own culture and only recently have they been seen as beneficial by the masses OR government.

Next question, what caused the disappearance of the Anasazi, Olmec, Toltec, and various other pyramid or citadel builders that I believe went away before "our"diseases could touch them?