Why the Same Inevitable Evolutionary Path?

WHY THE SAME INEVITABLE EVOLUTIONARY PATH?

I remember asking myself this question in my childhood. Well, I wasn't really a child. One of the books I bought when I finished my first year at Kabataş High School and set off for Iğdır was a popular book titled "Chariots of the Gods" by the Swiss author Erich von Däniken.

Written in a fluid style and stimulating the imagination, the book generally claimed that primitive people in ancient times were visited by extraterrestrial beings with a high level of civilization and knowledge, presented hypotheses to this effect, and tried to prove its claim. For example, according to the author, the pyramids in Egypt were not built by humans but by more intelligent creatures who came from other planets and visited Earth. The author was not entirely wrong. Even today, we still do not fully understand how the pyramids were built and many of their secrets. Of course, I have no intention of vindicating the author, but I think we should appreciate his effort to explain incomprehensible mysteries.

The questions that began in this way led me to a different topic: Why did cultures unaware of each other follow the same evolutionary path and produce the same social structures? What could be the reason for this?

To express myself better, I would like to give the following example: When the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, with the help of the Queen of Spain, set sail westward with three ships from the port of Palos de la Frontera in Andalusia in 1492, his aim was to reach India. His goal was to find a shorter route for the spice trade, which was very popular in those years.

Christopher Columbus believed the world was round but did not know that the vast continents of North and South America lay between Europe and India. When he arrived in the Bahamas on October 12, 1492, he thought these islands belonged to India and named them "Indias," which means "India" in Spanish. Columbus was unaware that he had discovered a new continent. Whether he knew this when he died has been much researched, but no definitive conclusion has been reached.

In subsequent years, when it was understood that Columbus had discovered a new continent, the Portuguese and Spanish Empires divided this new continent based on a certain meridian. Then the French and English would not stand idly by and would move to establish their own colonies in the new continent.

The armies that came to conquer the new continent militarily were called conquistadors. European conquerors arrived with a handful of mounted knights. Contrary to popular belief, these vast lands were not conquered solely with the help of a group of conquistadors, a handful of powerful mounted knights who assisted them, and epidemics. Evidence found in recent archaeological excavations has revealed that the invading Spaniards allied with native forces numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Hernán Cortés conquered Mexico and Tlaxcala between 1519 and 1521. Between 1532 and 1535, Francisco Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire with a force of 40,000 men recruited from the Inca people in Peru.

It is also a fact that epidemics played a major role in the decline of the native population. For example, infectious diseases brought by Europeans, such as smallpox, typhus, influenza, diphtheria, and measles, claimed the lives of 10 to 20 million Native Americans. This figure corresponded to almost 95% of the Native American population.

THE AZTECS

Before the Europeans discovered America, the Aztecs lived in what is now Mexico. The Aztec Empire, which existed between the 14th and 16th centuries, had a rich mythology and cultural heritage. The Aztecs had established a great civilization. They even had a capital city called Tenochtitlan.

IMAGE: Capital Tenochtitlan

The city was built around a temple. The largest pyramid in the world is the Great Cholula Pyramid in Mexico. The Aztec pyramid covers an area of 182,107 square meters and is 54 meters high. The Great Cholula Pyramid is exactly 4 times larger than the Great Pyramid of Giza, the largest of the famous Egyptian Pyramids. The Aztecs, a very large and rich empire with a population of 13 million, had advanced agricultural methods, their own religion, calendar, and alphabet.

When Cortés approached the capital of the Aztec Empire, the Aztec emperor allowed Cortés and his men to enter the capital and greeted them dressed in dazzling clothes. Cortés had only 600 soldiers, and the Aztec emperor could have easily destroyed them. However, according to the Aztec calendar, this year was a very special one. According to their beliefs, a god named Quetzalcoatl would destroy the Aztecs in this year. The descriptions of this god in the legend were very similar to Cortés. Therefore, the Aztec emperor decided that Cortés was a god.

Dear readers!

I would like to list the characteristics of the Aztec civilization before the arrival of the Europeans:

1. They had a family structure
2. Women were secondary
3. They believed in gods and had temples
4. They believed in religion and legend
5. They wore clothes
6. They had urban life
7. They had an emperor
8. The emperor resided in the capital
9. They knew how to build pyramids
10. They had a military organization
11. They could produce weapons
12. They had their own calendar
13. They had their own alphabet
14. They knew how to farm

We need to ask this question: How was it that people far from the continents of Europe/Asia/Africa, which are connected by land, and without land connection to these three continents, and therefore unaware of what was happening on these continents – that is, the Aztecs – had undergone the same cultural evolution, just like the others? This was also true for the Incas in Peru and the Mayans in Central America. They too had discovered agriculture, cities, clothing, family structure, religion, alphabet, etc., just like in the list above.

The Aztecs did not learn to build pyramids from the Egyptians. The Aztecs did not learn to form religious beliefs and worship gods, or to build temples, from the peoples of Europe/Asia/Africa. Family structure also existed among the Aztecs. Society was divided into various sections such as priests, soldiers, and civilians. They discovered the calendar and writing independently of Europe/Asia/Africa and made considerable progress. They knew about agriculture and the domestication of animals. They had a political structure, and an emperor ruled the country.

Suppose Christopher Columbus and his successors had never discovered America. What path would life have taken in America? Would they have been able to transition from an agricultural society to an industrial society? My personal opinion: Yes. Would they have been able to invent the car and the computer? My personal opinion: Yes. Would they have been able to travel to space? My personal opinion: Yes.

If the Aztecs, who could build the largest pyramid in the world, had encountered the Iron Age, the interaction of intercontinental civilizations would have developed along a different trajectory.

If Christopher Columbus and his successors had not discovered the American continent, the independent tribes settled in North America, whom we call "Native Americans" today, would have clustered around a commander like Genghis Khan, similar to the Mongols who did not have urban life and a written language, and would have attacked the Mayan, Aztec, and Inca civilizations in the south, merging with them. In this way, humanity in America would have transitioned from fragmented empires to nation-states with defined borders.

We proudly say that Europeans discovered America. Everything could have developed in the exact opposite way. Americans could have been one step ahead in seafaring and military organization, they could have discovered the lands of Europe/Asia/Africa first, and they could have colonized these lands. What was the reason this did not happen?

The answer is very simple: Americans were one step behind in the line of cultural evolution. While Europe/Asia/Africa left the Iron Age behind and turned towards technology and industrialization, the peoples in America were still using stone tools and had just begun to transition to the Bronze Age. Due to this difference between civilizations, that is, Europe/Asia/Africa, which was in the Iron Age, destroyed the civilizations of America, which were in the Stone Age.

I want you to look at the picture of Cortés above. Europeans, who were in the Iron Age, wore iron armor. The Aztecs had not yet discovered iron. It might be a bit exaggerated, but Bayezid I, with an ordinary tank with enough ammunition and fuel, could have brought Timur's army of 160,000 to its knees in the Battle of Ankara in 1402.

CONCLUSION:

The historical evolution of humankind continues along an unerring path, the reason for which it does not know itself. We can consider this sociological phenomenon as humanity's "social DNA." That is, if we can decipher humanity's social DNA, we may have a chance to predict the next step in civilization. I can say this clearly: This path is singular and certain. Isn't it interesting? It's as if our future is predetermined. As civilization develops, certain rules determine its direction, but we mistakenly believe that we, humankind, have created this civilization with our own hands, and we take pride in it.