2/24/19

American Technology Gap in 1492

Americans were about 7000 years behind Eurasia technologically in 1492. Eurasian technology rather than simply European technology had been shared culturally since perhaps 40,000 b.c. Americans were isolated from the main human currents of technological development though they had tenuous relations with Eurasia that actually never stopped arriving. The Ulu (skinning knife) used in Alaska probably got its name from the Mongol word Ulu meaning rule of law. The Dorsett Eskimo sled arrival from Siberia conquered the North American Arctic littoral in just 200 years arriving at far eastern Canada. For the region it was like an F-22.

It was never possible for America to remain culturally isolated from Eurasia, as Eurasians populated it in the first place in migrations across Berengia to Alaska and by boat. Technology and people would have continued to make their way to the Americas and the mainstream of world technology development would have reached the Americas over time. Maybe the Chinese would have ‘discovered’ the western hemisphere if Europeans were more introverted and hydrophobic. The first Emperor of America might have been of the Song Dynasty.

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