First time here, hadn't realized this board existed.
How does /his/ feel about the aztecs and precolumbian mesoamerica in general?
>First time here,
>How does /his/ feel about X
Triggered.
>>653596
An example of stone age, man powered civilization.
Excellent and interesting, I especially liked their algaculture of spirulina system and chinampas construction.
>>653628
Is there any other culture that had cities comparable to tenochtitlan while also only having a similar level of technology?
Pretty sure population with tenochititlan was in the top 5 largest cities on the world when the Spanish came, around the size of Constantinople, and even aside from the population the city itself being made of stone, built on a lake, and the amount of infrastructure and agricultural stuff going on as you said at least off the top of my head is unparalleled considering stone age level cultures.
>>653640
Imagine what would have happened if they got concrete and steel just 500 years later.
>>653640
Incomparable. The only other place I can think of that could have eventually been on par technologically and agriculturally would be pre-contact Hawaii.
Nan Madol and Lelu had the degree of "urbanism" but were both much, much smaller.
Also I have to ask, is this an assignment for a class or something for you?
>>653677
Nope, I just think the aztecs are rad and like talking about them.
![teotihuacan_stich_3987x1473[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/SHwCRZL.jpg "teotihuacan_stich_3987x1473[1].jpg")
>>653640
>Is there any other culture that had cities comparable to tenochtitlan while also only having a similar level of technology?
Closest in size were most likely Teotihuacan and Tikal.
>>653596
That's a great way of messing up all the water. Put the city in the middle of the fucking lake.
>>653695
>Cortés estimated it was twice the size of the city of Seville with about 60,000 people trading daily
There's a confusion due to translation, Cortés says that the marketplace of Tlatelolco was twice the size of the marketplace of Seville, which was the biggest one of Europe.
>>653691
Both of which were also in mesoamerica: How come no stone age cultures in eurasia reached that scale?
>>653711
They were raped by middle easterners.
Mesoamerica was lucky enough to receive the three greatest tropical crops, Corn, Sweet Potato and cassava. They were able to expand and become complex in a way other tropical regions never could without rice.
Sweet Potato once in hit PNG completely altered everything.
>>653787
Amaranth was also important due to its production efficiency during droughts and its high lysine, which most cereals significatively lack.
It was the perfect complement for a corn based diet.
>>653822
Amaranth while a special food could never outweigh the caloric behemoth that was corn from mesoamerica.
Also any bean in Aztec society had more lysine than amaranth, we also know from other groups in and around the area how important beans are in the society
Good thread OP, stay awhile
>>653596
Disappointed their cultures aren't preserved better.
I think even without the Conquistadors such groups would have become heavily Westernized due to the technology gap
>>653628
They were bronze age. They just didn't use it on a large scale for weapons because they didn't need it. They wanted wounded sacrifices, not impaled corpses, and they never had to worry about slowly hacking through a warhorse with an obsidian tipped macuahuitl.
>>654626
After all the conquest and killing, the biggest shame imo is the loss of most of their languages, what an amazing thing it would be to see in detail how language developed on a continent isolated from the old world.
>>654647
sounds like bullshit to me, to be honest
if they knew how to build bronze weapons, they certanly would
>>654648
And their poetry and works of philosophy. IIRC, the Aztecs had a class of thinkers whose job was just to write and try an explain existence, whether through art or treatises.
>>654681
Natives apparently replaced some of Cortez parts with bronze parts.
They knew of bronze. They just didn't use it often. Perhaps partly because of lack of copper or more likely tin and perhaps partly because they didn't have a high demand for it. You don't need bronze weapons if your enemies don't have bronze armor. Obsidian does the job fine.
>>654691
just because they knew bronze doesn't mean they had the skill or enough material to produce bronze weapons
And having bronze armor while your opponent fights with stone cubs would be a huge advantage
>>654705
>>654710
>>654705
The enemies of the Aztec didn't have bronze weapons because they were so much smaller and weaker. Asymmetric warfare rarely leads to arms races.
>>653787
This.
Stone Age Mesoamericans didn't have to deal with the nomadic desert Semites infiltrating, subverting and creating chaos in their societies.
>>654843
Theres evidence that the Mayans had some contact with them
>>654705
>sufficiently advanced metallurgy to take copper and tin ores and turn them into bronze
>insufficient technology to affix bronze to the end of a stick
>>654647
They had the ability to use metal but they used it for ornamentation only.
If that makes them bronze age then copper inuit were bronze age, khoisan in Namibia were iron age.
>>654681
Metal seemed sacred.
>>654862
Shut up. There is no evidence.
>>654843
Farmers from the Middle East made you people relevant.
>>653596
The Aztecs were savages, and I say that with the most respect and fear I can imagine. They were smart, built impressive
temples, had advanced agriculture, and had begun to understand metals. But holy fuck, they killed a lot of people, in very
nasty ways. Skinning alive, cutting out beating hearts, cannibalism, child sacrifice, killing people for WINNING sports,
keeping client state just to attack them for war captives for more sacrifices, holy shit they were terrifying.
>>655424
Copper age, you mean.
>>655424
>Shut up. There is no evidence.
he was clearly making a joke you idiot
>>655712
The Aztec used human sacrifices, but did they use slaves? Typically mine work is so hard and dangerous that only slaves are used.
>>655712
Dude, shut the fuck up. You haven't got a clue what you're talking about.
>>655703
There are people who literally espouse a Nordic Aztec theory
>>655564
Don't forget about the industrial scale clubbings, decapitations, and immolations!
>>654626
>Mass human sacrifice being extinguished is sad because muh fee fees about Aztec finger painting
Fuck off
Cortez did nothing wrong
>>655740
The Aztec empire was built on the backs of slaves, in every both the literal and figurative senses.
>>657695
>implying eurasia was any less barbaric during the same rough development stage
>>657806
Provide one example of contemporary Eurasian savagery on the scale or depth of the Aztecs
>>657806
Europe never industrialised human sacrifice.
>>657806
He never said that. He said that Cortex helped the natives. He did. He brought modern technology, horses and he destroyed their barbaric religion.
>>657845
>Cortex
Cortez did nothing wrong and just wanted to make the world a better place, he wasn't racist at all, he allied with the tlaxcalans who had been oppressed by the imperialist aztecs (believe it or not brown people can be colonialist imperialist pig dogs too) and married a native qt, he knew that this civilization wasn't going to last when the other europeans got their hands on it, so he took an enormous risk with his own life, burning the boats and marching into the heart of the enemy capital rather than ravaging through the entire country. This isn't the act of an opportunist criminal who just wants to get some gold and go back to spain to live in opulent splendor, this is someone who wanted to change the world.
A few 100 conquistadores is better than 10000 europeans sweeping from one side of the country to another massacring everyone. Thankfully courageous cortez got their first and Tlaxcala still exists to this day.
>>657875
Kek'd
>>657875
It's called autocorrect.
>>657821
See but contemporary isn't the same stage of development.
Aztecs and Mesoamerrica in general was way more comparable to classical europe or the middle ages at the time the Spanish came, and there was absolutely just as much slaughter going on then: there was pretty much nonstop war going on in europe, there was hardly a day in hundreds of years where at least some nations were at war with each other, and then you have the crusaders which like ritual sacrifice was all done in the name of religion.
even comparing "contemporary" euope. go look up all the shit that went on then or during the 30 year wars, it's just as bad, and the conquest of the america's itself was even worse.
The flower wars in mesoamerica by comparison to all the warrring going on in the middle ages while certainly barbaric and horrific was much more of a "controlled burn". Instead of having outright conflict and pillaging you are just sending out some soliders every few years as tribute instead, and human sacrifice was highly ritualized with the sacrifices being honored so up untill the point where they were actually, you know, killed, they were pretty much treated like royalty and it was mostly something done willingly on the rarer occasions it was the aztecs themselves
Also the vast majority of sacrifice going on was just blood letting and such.
There was literally more executions going on in london per captia then the amount of people the aztecs were killing.
>>657845
I wouldn't say so. A huge % of the native population was killed off, not just of the aztecs, but of other cultures as well, and the cities were all dismantled and torn down. As has been mentioned earrrlier in the thread tenochtitlan was a mega-city rivaling even the largest ones in euope at the time, after the conquest it was all plantations.
1/2
>>657923
The Greco-Romans didn't wholesale massacre people on the scale the Aztecs did every day
>>657923
The positive to negative ratio brought by Europeans outnumber the positive to negative ratio of before they came.
>>655564
Aside from a couple of ceremonies, they only took the hearts of warriors captured in battle.
For example, the only person they skinned was a chosen young woman in the equinox of spring, - after - her heart was taken off. Kill enemies in battle didn't provide the prestige of their capture for sacrifice. Again, only warriors were involved and the Aztecs were not the only ones with these war customs.
Besides, some of the sacrificed children were sons of noble warriors while the commoner ones were ill with an untreatable disease.
>>657886
In the end the tlaxcalans got fucked over as much as the aztecs did if not more. Also, cortez was willing to ally with the Aztecs, even after Montezuma sent a bunch of assassins after the Spanish to stop them from reaching the captial to begin with. Cortez hung out and lived in montezuma's palace for a while, only reason conflict broke out was because cortez wanted to put an tribute to god alongside the aztec's idols for huitzilopochtli, which raised tensions a fuck ton, and shortly after that cortez found a treasure rroom and decided to take action.
Cotez certainly wasn't as bad as a lot of popular culture makes him out to be, but he was motivated by greed when he started to crack heads and actually disobied the Spanish crown in the process.
>>657930
You didn't read my whole comment I see. Also, the aztecs didn't preform human sacrifices even close to every day. There were a few ceremonies going on annually, and most of them didn;t involve mass slaughter or death at all, again, a lot of it was just bloodletting.
Just how like a lot of popular culture makes cortez out to be a genocidal greedy maniac who came to the Americas just to fuck people over, it also makes the aztecs out to have been a lot worse then they actually were.
Also, for the flower wars, you have to keep in mind that the other nations were there trying to get captives for their own sacrifices too. I don't know about you, but controlled amount of sacrificing people to ensure that the gods stayed alive wiith the sacrifices being treated well doesn't sound as bad as in eurrope where you had countless wars just fought over who was interpretating the bible right that involved indiscriminate slaughter.
>>657943
eh, you could argue that, but it also would have been much better had cortez came in, the shit with the idol that was mentioned in >>657988 didn't happen, and cortez left the aztecs intact as is as a vice-royalty.
They would have westenrrized on their own without conflict over a half century or so and tenochtitlan would have been left as is, and mexico would probably be a firrst world nation. Hell, the aztecs had better access to clean water then mexico did up until pretty recently in the big picture.
>>657886
>and married a native qt
He didn't, but he raised their son. No one knows for sure what happened to her after the fall of Tenochtitlan.
>burning the boats
He dismantled them to use them later in the siege from the lake.
>marching into the heart of the enemy capital rather than ravaging through the entire country
He also committed treason to the Governor of Cuba by taking his troops without his consent.
>Thankfully courageous cortez got their first and Tlaxcala still exists to this day.
You know that the first thing the Tlaxcalans did after their alliance with the Spanish was kill all the nobles of Cholula for their betrayal with the Aztecs, right?
What are good ways to learn about the aztecs and pre colonization central america in general?
I know a lot of the good primary/secondary sources and resources are in Spanish, but I only know English.
>>658006
>the shit with the idol that was mentioned in >>657988 didn't happen
>Our commander here said, smilingly, to Motecusuma: "I cannot imagine that such a powerful and wise monarch as you are, should not have yourself discovered by this time that these idols are not divinities, but evil spirits, called devils. In order that you may be convinced of this, and that your papas may satisfy themselves of this truth, allow me to erect a cross on the summit of this temple; and, in the chapel, where stand your Huitzilopochtli and Tetzcatlipuca, give us a small space that I may place there the image of the holy Virgin; then you will see what terror will seize these idols by which you have been so long deluded."[63]
>Motecusuma knew what the image of the Virgin Mary was, yet he was very much displeased with Cortes' offer, and replied, in presence of two papas, whose anger was not less conspicuous, "Malinche, could I have conjectured that you would have used such reviling language as you have just done, I would certainly not have shown you my gods.
- Bernal Díaz del Castillo, The True History of the Conquest of New Spain Chapter XCII
>>658181
I know it happened, I made both >>658006 and >>657988, I was saying that had the shit with the idol not happened, tensions might have stayed low enough that cortez would have just made the the aztecs a viceroyality and there wouldn't have been a fucking massacre and the city wouldn't have been razed.
>>658202
My bad.
>tfw no Malinche gf
>>658236
She loved the white dick tho
Inferior civilisation. When discovered, it crimbles almost immediatly. Compare that with what happened when Europeans arrived in China, or Japan.
>>658266
Lack of disease resistance in america, disease resistance in old world countries.
the main factor is pretty simple desu
>>658275
It doesn't explain everything. Japan was already much more advanced, and capable of using european firearms to produce their own. The Aztecs would never have been able to do anything like that.
>>658076
bumping
>>658291
Did the Japanese invented such weapons? Or was it europe? Wait, but what about powder? Can you now see the difference? Still, smallpox did most of the damage, you have to be a dense stormfront member to state otherwise.
>>658006
>go to a chinese cartoons site
>to post about shit you know nothing about
>>658339
Okay then, what's incorrect about what I said?
>>657695
In first few tens of years, some Spaniards thought about preserving the good parts of their culture while converting them. Something like using Greco-Roman culture in Christian Europe during the Renaissance
>>654862
kek
>>655564
>skinning alive
As much as they truly were barbaric, at least the flaying occured after death. Not really better, but it's at least slightly better
>>657886
This. He was literally a hero.
>>657923
>they wuz good boys
>they dindu nuffin
>>653692
Dude, that concept of germs wasn't even common in the west until the early 1900s. Shut up and enjoy the pics.
>>653787
You are totally mixing up your foodstuffs, bro. Corn is not a tropical crop. Sweet potatoes were more Maya than Aztec. For many native groups stretching from central Mexico to the Great Lakes, a combination of corn, beans and squash was the standard (called The Three Sisters since they can be planted together in the same plot). Amaranth was common for Aztecs though.
Cassava is purely from the Amazon, and the Aztecs wouldn't have known what it was.
>>657824
>what is the guillotine
>what is the traditional scaffold place of execution
>what are the burning pyres
'Europe' isn't a singular civilization. Religious execution and sacrifice are not much different.
>>657930
You have no clue what the Aztecs did every day, no one does. They did perform human sacrifice, but their religion also believed that offered human hearts literally kept the universe (whose 'navel' was Tenochtitlan) from imploding. The Aztecs also didn't ritually fuck little boys.
>>658076
1491, Charles Mann. Awesome book.
>>658181
>Spaniards never lied
>Spaniards were never self-interested
>the second-rates and has-beens who made the risky voyage across the ocean and had less to lose could never have been positioning for status and titles back in Spain.
>>657845
>crushing a culture and their society
How is that helping you fuckboat
>>658602
Stop the Fucking meme, there is not one shred of actual evidence that corn, squash and beans were planted together in the way Anglo North Americans make it sound. Not even Milpa plantings do so in the same way, neither is there any actual proof of fish being used to fertilize corn.
At most squash is planted after corn sprouts usually on the perimeter of a corn field and not inbetween corn stalks and the bulk of legumes did not rely on corn stalks for trellises.
Maya relied overwhelmingly on Cassava.
I was speaking of Mesoamerica in general not Aztecs if you actually read my post
Sweet potato is a calorically dense and fast crop that made its way to Mexico long before European contact north to Veracruz.
Corn is a crop of the Subtropics, that is indisputable. It was slowly adapted to temperate climates over centuries
Appreciate your Guns, Germs and Steel understanding of New World crops and agriculture though, it's cute.
>>658606
Not a bad point but now you're fallaciously implying that Mesoamerican civilisations never publicly executed people as well as performing human sacrifice.
>>658725
Not in Tenochtitlan, because it was a marshy/lake environment, but certainly small farms in villages throughout the non-foresty parts of Mesoamerica. I'm sure you're aware of the irony of 'shreds of evidence' when talking about documented pre-Columbian daily practices.
I've read quite a few other books but curiously not Guns, Germ and Steel.
>>658901
They did both, sure. I'm not arguing one was better or worse. If you count religious executions (which Europe did aplenty -- Spain itself was literally just wrapping up the Reconquista and was in a frenzy of anti-Muslim, anti-Jewish pogroms)... well, who is really more bloody? From my POV, they were both equally pre-modern humans, who believed death was called for to appease the God(s). Of course power dynamics were tied into this, as they always are. But there's no reason to doubt that most contemporary Aztecs and Spaniards literally believed the precepts of their faith.
>>659647
>Spain itself was literally just wrapping up the Reconquista and was in a frenzy of anti-Muslim, anti Jewish pogroms
While admittedly bloody and violent, how much of that bloodshed and persecution was due to the political reconquering of Spain for the people of Spain, and how much was due to religious animosity and distrust?
I would imagine that if another Christian people invaded and settled the Iberian, I would imagine there too would be a bloody a reconquista, but without the executions, pogroms, and persecutions that followed.
>>658266
>>658291
>(number 1) The Aztecs are on their way to conquer all Mesoamerica
>The Spanish arrive to the Eastern border of the Aztecs after 3 failed expeditions exploring the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula
>Cortes organizes a more serious army at the expense of the Cuba's Governor
>Everything matches with the prophecy of Quetzalcoatl
>Montezuma invites them to his capital alongside all his Indian enemies that allied with them
>They kidnap him in his palace
>Montezuma dies, they are expelled from the city
>starts an epidemy
>the Aztecs can't deploy their army
>the Spansih arrive with more allies some months later
>The Spanish-Indian army is now on its way to conquer Mesoamerica (see reason number 1)
A brief example:
>Mixtec nation knows that Tenochtitlan fell.
>Declares an alliance with the Spansih
>No war between them
>They go from 300 000 to 100 000 in the next 20 years due to disease
>Still no war
>They go from 100 000 to 30 000 in the next 50 years
>Remain in that number until the XIX century
>Portuguese shipwreck in Japan in 1543
>they show them how to produce matchlocks
>No European sends an army because they are literally in the other side of the world
>Japan gets completely unified in 1600
>The Spanish try to evangelize and trade
>The Shogunate thinks that it's suspicious
>The Spanish are expelled and Christianism banned
>Isolationism for 200 years
>>660396
the Jews and Muslims WERE native to the land. They had lived there for multiple generations. Not under the Castilian flag.
>how much was due to religious animosity and distrust?
Seriously, a lot.
The two things are different, to be sure, but the parallel is glaring. Both, ultimately, killed people because they believed that God(s) willed it.
>>659647
I never just said tenochtitlan
>Mesoamerica was lucky enough to receive the three greatest tropical crops, Corn, Sweet Potato and cassava.
>Mesoamerica
Also
>too marshy
>implying chinampas was ineffectual land reclaimation despite the successful culturing of corn.
Very interesting civilizations, I adore their mythology. However, they were rapidly decimated for a reason, for better or worse.
>>660599
I love their art.
>>657886
Bullshit. He just wanted gold and glory.
>>657886
But then why he did come back richer?
And why did he straight up murder Montezuma, when nobody threatened him?
After the Cruel Night he could just have left. Instead he got back and killed everyone.
>>661765
Sorry, I meant Sad Night. Long time since I read about it.
>>660448
No, they were not, the natives of Hispania are the haplogroup R1b, the rest are invaders
>>662113
>the rest are invaders
You mean, like the Romans who gave them vulgar Latin that turned into Spanish? And who let Celtic and Germanic (Visigothic) invaders in their late stages of decay? Or the Greco-Jews who brought them Christianity in the first place?
The fact is that the Moorish states had been there for centuries. That is long enough, whether you like it or not, for they and their inhabitants to be considered native. Of course a fair number of Berber/Arab settlers came, but many locals stayed and some converted to Islam out of convenience. The Jews present were mostly foreign (Babylonian) origin, but surely some Spaniards married into families over the centuries.
>tfw a stupid haplonigger shows up and thinks that explains everything
We're on /his/, not /pol/.
>>661765
>After the Cruel Night he could just have left.
Well, go back to Spain wasn't an option since he betrayed the Governor of Cuba by stealing his troops and he was also in debt to the Tlaxcalans.
How could mesoamericans have such an advanced civilization while being so low IQ?
>>654862
It took me a while to see it
>>658076
Bernal Díaz its a great representative of the Spanish perspective and and a fascinating introduction to the story of the Conquest.
The Universal History of the Things of New Spain by Bernardino de Sahagún is the most complete study of the pre-Columbian Aztec culture.
>>657886
Hitler, Gengis Khan, Cortez
If these people would have never born, the world would have been a way more beautiful place, in every sense
>>657695
>mass human sacrifice
>actually believing this was commonplace
shiggy diggy doo
>>664487
I wasn't aware IQ tests had been administered in the 15th century in Mesoamerica. Do tell me more.
>>664487
Native Americans had typical Asian IQ before breeding with inferior people like Africans, Southern Europeans and Anglos.
>>665188
You'd expect the IQ to be pretty similar to that of latin americans with minimal white admixture, it'd pretty basic.
>>657886
>he was a good boy, dindu nuffin
>need more gold for dem programs
>>665267
We WUZ Aztecs n shheeeiiiiiit
>>665260
I honestly doubt the majority of Europeans in the 15th century would've done any better.
>>664487
Obligatory compulsory education
>>664487
Arabs and Indians have similar average IQs to Native Americans.
>>664540
No it wouldn't, history would have just gone a different, unknowably shitty way. Count your lucky stars hitler led to the cuban missile crisis and we decided to not kill each other over some penis measuring.
