9:43pm April 30, 2013

➸ TAL9000: indigenous american technology

sofriel:

I would make an actual blog post about this but I’m too lazy

but basically

people who are like “native americans didn’t develop technology that contributed to the world”

like, I don’t think people fully understand, those awesome foods and plants you guys found on these continents? yeah they weren’t just laying around, people had to develop them. they had to carefully over generations turn that weird little teosinte into the delicious and edible maize.

indigenous americans were so fricken awesome we invented corn, pumpkins, beans, chili peppers, chocolate, tomatoes, potatoes, vanilla, cotton, tobacco, rubber, and a bunch of other stuff. I N V E N T E D

people think indigenous americans were lacking technology because they think technology only means dead things made out of wood and plastic and stone. when we actually have been specializing in the technology of life all along

YES. And not just stumbling around, neither, muddling through biotechnological innovation. Folks like to forget that many of the meticulously-built agricultural laboratories, test gardens, and geoengineering sites where this research and development was done are still there centuries later. Not just careful breeding programs, but orderly examination of what moisture levels, altitudes, soil conditions, constructed microclimates, and planting patterns were ideal for these crops to thrive. They came up with findings whose brilliance modern agricultural science is only recently coming to understand.

Especially for the food crops, we’re also talking what are at this point worldwide staples that sit at the backbone of most cuisines that you love. Respect.