The Truth About Native Americans before Europeans Arrived

Archaeologists are finding that the Americas before Columbus were very different than we initially believed. New discoveries in a wide variety of fields are finding that long-standing concepts of the pre-Colombian world are very different from what we thought. So what has changed?

Step Back is a history channel releasing videos biweekly that endeavors to go past the names, dates, and battles you might find elsewhere. It invites you to take a step back, consider the past and how it connects to today. We search for the quirky, unconventional, and just plain weird parts of our collective story.

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Please watch: "Is America REALLY a Democracy?"
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[zephyrcarter]

as a native, you toatally got almost everything right. the one thing you got wrong however, is the fact that natives have been on this land for much longer than the land bridge. evedance of cherokee pottery in a cave revieled it was there for longer than 35, 000 years

[lafregaste]

I grew up in Guatemala, and I remember learning in social studies how the Mayan people had "destroyed" their soil by burning. Thou that was not mentioned as the reason of their downfall but instead it was the constant fighting among tribes that didn't allow them to unite against the invaders.

[bgmustang]

The indigenous didn't call themselves 'Native American'. They didn't call themselves 'Indian'
They called themselves by thier tribe name or whatever empire/ kingdom they were from*

[connorsproles]

Since when has "most natives died from disease." been considered a new theory?

[surgeland]

You know, us Indigenous people have been telling you guys this stuff for centuries. It's nice to see some of you come around and finally start to listen. It gives me hope that this hell we're in won't last forever.

[twilightgardenspresentatio]

Funny, my parents taught me and my brother and sister all this. They said schools lie to direct who leads you but the truth of history leaves you not revering their heroes.

[deisisase]

I was a bit surprised when I found out that everybody knew the world was round in Columbus' day. It wasn't a disagreement over the shape of the Earth, but over its size.

[ragnaroknibba]

The more we learn about precolumbian America, the more i want to cry

[EVOLUTIONINCARNATE]

Their trade networks were also highly advanced and interconnected
We know this because we have found modern great white teeth in archeological sites in Illinois, Hundreds of Miles from the sea

[JoelTena]

As a Mexican of Native American descent I found this to be information, accessible, and interesting. Thank you for producing a thought primer for folks, as everyone in the Americas should know about the First Nations peoples of the Western Hemisphere. And a BIG thank you for producing what I think might be the first video about pre-Columbian indigenous civilizations without having to mention the sensationalistic human sacrifice stuff. How often does one watch a documentary about early Europeans and hear how truly violence and blood thirsty those cultures were? Yet many can't say the word "Mesoamerica" without wanting to show you where the blood flowed down the side of a pyramid like a river... It's not that it didn't happen, it's that it is obsessed and fixated upon by Western documentarians to the detriment of other incredibly positive and amazing aspects of Native America culture and civilization that folks should want to learn about more.

[ByetuNel]

The canoe could maneuver better than "any" European small boats? *thinks of viking boats*
Again... Any boat?

[carlosnicolasaronesfranco]

As a peruvian and a student of urbanism, I find very interesting the fact that it wasn't only the racism or the language that made difficult for the europeans to aprecciate the native american territorial managment. For the people in the americas the landscape was an extention of their constructions and communities, try to conceptualize Macchu Picchu without the mountain and you will understand why this different aproach was a key conflict between the cultures. It was impossible for the europeans to understand construction as something that wasn't a building because of cultural differences.

[OmniscientSloth]

It’s so damn sad we don’t have an accurate history of what really happened in The Americas. The native Americans clearly were far more advanced than we were ever led to believe. It seems like Europeans just came across the remains of a people that just experienced an apocalypse and were just trying to get by. I also wonder about the lost advanced civilization that Graham Hancock talks about. There seems to be more and more evidence of a pre-existing civilization that was global and something happened to it, leading people to have to start over cut off from each other. Regardless it just shows us how so much of known history is just theory that we take as fact, or at least academia does...

[penand_paper]

0:00 Guess what, guys! I'm going to make a commentary on this video to end every single freaking misconception within the video and/or the comments. I am very sad that I have to make this for you. (edit: Yes, the OP used way too much hyperbole)
 
0:37 This is correct. The amount of migrations on the west coast had four parts: First, some people migrated over to the Americas. They stuck around for a while and became genetically distinct. Afterwards, some left to the southeast, some stayed, and others went back to Siberia. Finally, after even more time, another migration left for Siberia. Aside from that, some people on the pacific decided to just cross by boat. Also, on some of the east coast, a few groups may have come from the Atlantic (or maybe not), and left behind their junk (pottery) and worshipping sites before dying out, but they may be just some of the other guys I mentioned earlier. (I actually looked this up myself)

 0:48 The estimates range wildly, actually. Numbers like these must give general estimates, because we are jam-packing what could take thousands of history books to write. But if we are talking about the 1500s... well, it's still a big mess, but there are some accepted estimates. Mexico is generally perceived to have had 37 million people, which shrunk to 1 million, but then grew to a modern number of 563 million. But remember, this is just a net demographic; The Maya, for example, only recently reached their 1400s population. For Brazil, the once approximately 4 million strong native population have gone to 300, 000, which is a tragedy. For Patagonia, the government literally sanctioned *genocide* against their natives. Canada believes there were 500, 000 natives there before assimilation was forced upon them. However, all of these could very well be speculation. 2 to 118 million is a estimation gap for a general population. However, to me, the most sane median average is about 50 mil, so we'll just stop there.


1:00 Yes, this too is correct. Even the linguistic connections line up. For instance, it has been speculated (not proven, but only because of a lack of research interest) that the Na-Eyak-Dene languages of Canada and Alaska are related to the Yeniseian tongues of Siberia (even though only one remains, sadly).



1:22 Black Death killed off a third of Europeans, what makes an aboriginal multi-epidemic so implausible?



1:32 Well it depends on the area. After all, horses are not good in mountains and jungles, but are good on plains and woodland. The problem with this video is that it does not know what societies are to be referred to in each case. This will happen often.



1:36 Holy heck, is this a can of worms. Now we can all agree that many groups have lived on the Americas, and were very well spread, but the culture thing is something unto itself.

1:50 Remember, fellow commenters, isolation is oft to breed innovation, but not improvement. This is why things like the silk road, writing, and the internet are important - they allowed ideas to be shared and used the world over.

1:56 Fun fact, this is why there were so few plagues in the Americas.



2:10 Remember, in the 1600s, guns were still in their baby years. They were a far cry from the early US's flintlocks or today's uzis. Fast forward a century or two, and now, guns are actually a good weapon.

 2:47 Yes, corn is a genetic miracle, but compared to the actually edible grains of the old world, it isn't much more than a substitute. It is pretty cool, though.


 3:03 I'm not sure about the sturdiness or silence, but my grandmother once told me about when she wore moccasins. She said they were very comfortable, so there's that. But honestly, I can't find anything to back it up aside from anecdotes.


 3:11 Remember, the Americas are swarming with islands and rivers. Boats like this were perfect. The same with Viking ships and Venetian gondolas. Standard Eurasian ships, however, were meant for long trips at sea, so they needed to be sturdy and slow so as to survive.



3:24 I can confirm this. I have seen my province of British Columbia set aflame this year. You see, the aboriginals would purge the forest of litter with fire, allowing them to hunt and gather wood, while the trees would reseed on the now fertile forest floor. However, because this stopped, more and more litter piled up, while fewer and fewer trees could grow. Couple that with hot summers, and now, if you even light a spark, the land goes up in flames. Well done, guys. You care so much about stopping fires that now they are inevitable.



3:30 Many can mean a lot of people, but cannot tell fractions. It is ambiguous. Why is this relevant? Because nobody is actually sure about their collapse's cause. It is still up for debate.


 3:50 They were farmers, and many were advanced at that. This is not up for debate. Besides, while corn isn't that healthy, other foods like tomatoes, potatoes, sweet potatoes, avocados, pumpkins, cacao beans, and chilis are. They domesticated these.



3:57 They were kind of able (cough cough potato famine cough cough), but not really.


 4:01 And an ongoing theory at the time that the Americas were inferior in every way to Eurasia. Yes, this was a real theory back in the day.


 4:13 See my commentary on 3:24


 4:38 See history textbooks from your years in high-school.



On slavery: Their Idea of slavery was different depending on where you were. For the most part, you were just a person taken from their home. You were owned and could be worked hard, but generally everybody worked hard, too, and you suffered through the weather like everyone else. In the complex areas, it was no better than Europe to this respect, with it's slaves, serfs, and nobles. At that very time, Europe had only in a few areas abolished serfdom, and most of this abolitionism happened in the 1700s. While the high class enjoyed great culture, the poor could barely read. So too, with Mesoamerica. The only difference was that most Mesoamerican slaves died on the altar, while European ones died from disease and strain.



On culture: I agree that much of their technologies were indeed very inferior to those of Europe, but to say that they did not have complex culture would be incorrect. They were not simple, small bands of disunited tribes, but were diverse, some even having a cultural level that equaled Europe. They were not weak against men, and were in many cases not acting flexibly to the elements. For the Americas, they were perfectly adapted, and this was their land which they used, which we took from them. Even their low status does not give any permission for any country to go "manifest destiny" on them, and their deaths were the deaths of people, not of subhumans. They may have been low on technology, but in some cases, they were of high societies, and all were people.

[christopherellis]

Left out the enslavement, cruelty, and human sacrifice in many places. And syphilis!

[Astuga]

I prefer to read Germs, Guns and Steel to this Bullshit.

[PlainsPup]

2:30 - Artificial selection is not the same as genetic engineering.

[quanahhurtt]

So, what did they do with all their space ships and flying cars?

[brucec]

Dude, South Amercian mountainous areas are not all staircases. Good grief. Civilization (and therefore places to conquer) follow gaps in mountains like rivers and passes, they don't scramble straight up mountains on their hands and knees. Have you ever been outside and hiked?

[janet.snakehole]

What's hard for me to wrap my head around is how Oxford University is older than the Aztec Empire.

or how there were potentially woolly mammoths living in present-day Siberia when the Great Pyramids were being constructed. Meaning mammoths are a much more recent part of history than I thought...or ancient Egypt is much, much older than I can truly understand...