The indigenous peoples of the New World were excellent builders. Although their construction tools were limited they managed to produce pyramids, temples, and other public buildings in the Andean Highlands, the lowland jungles of Central America and the Yucatan, and the central highlands of Mexico. There were ceremonial ballcourts built throughout the Caribbean as well as in what is now Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. Construction in North America included the mound sites of the Midwest and the Southeast and the cliff dwellings of the Southwest. While estimated populations at these sites varied from the hundreds to the thousands these were all urban societies and civilizations.
These master builders relied on their own concepts, designs, craftsmen, and techniques. In spite of claims of trans‐Pacific, trans‐African and other exogenous contacts, the evidence is sparse and less than convincing. The civilizations of the New World evolved on their own with only limited contacts with one...
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Segal, A. (2008). Technology in the New World. In: Selin, H. (eds) Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4425-0_9791
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