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secretly_a_zombie t1_j60slqn wrote

Reply to comment by dhrisc in Dozens of pre-Hispanic Zapotec tombs found in San Pedro Nexicho in Mexico by MeatballDom

The Aztecs, Mayas, Incas are "ancient" in the way that their way of life is similar to other ancient empires. What makes them interesting is that they're huge "ancient" empires living in close to modern day. It's like being able to step into Babylon and/or the Assyrians. Except we have more than buried ruins and scattered texts, we have actual cities, documents describing meeting these people and how they lived, actual recent descendants, it's getting to peek into ancient life.

Not trying to detract but these empires really are on a level on their own in just how interesting and helpful they are to understanding human history.

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Bem-ti-vi t1_j61iyin wrote

How was life in Tenochtitlan or Inka Cusco more similar to the ancient Middle East than other places/times?

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bjbark t1_j62g20o wrote

The tools they used were more similar to the tools used in ancient Middle Eastern societies, which would effect many aspects of life. Their weapons were largely made of wood and sharpened stone. They had no practical applications for the wheel. Only scant evidence exist for any use of sails. Not to say they didn’t have advanced or complex societies, but only the Maya and Olmec had a Bronze Age, and none had reached the Iron Age by the time the Spanish arrived.

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Bem-ti-vi t1_j62j6ps wrote

>Their weapons were largely made of wood and sharpened stone

And the Assyrians largely used metal weapons.

>They had no practical applications for the wheel.

[The Assyrians did](https://arkeonews.net/chariots-in-neo-assyrian-army/#:~:text=Chariots%20were%20the%20most%20significant,(888%2D884%20BC).

>but only the Maya and Olmec had a Bronze Age

The Stone Age/Bronze Age/Iron Age paradigm is based on a specific European historical process that is very different from what happened in many other parts of the world. Pretty much none of the Americas fits this model. Many societies - the Muisca, Aztec, Mixtec, and others - had complex and advanced metallurgical traditions even as they generally didn't use those technologies for utilitarian purposes. Others, like the Purepecha and Inka, made use of metal weapons and tools in certain contexts while still using stone and wood in others, often again while dedicating the most complex metallurgical processes to religious and ostentatious creations.

The three-age system often breaks down in many parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, too. If you're interested in reading more about contemporary archaeologists' critiques of this system, I'm happy to share some articles.

There's no denying that Indigenous American societies such as those of the Maya, Zapotec, Chimor, and others were highly complex. So were those of the ancient Middle East. But they weren't as generally similar as I think is being argued on the basis of them both not fitting the Iron Age or characteristics of 16th century Western Europe.

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