The Americans were disconnected from advancements in the rest of the world, and even worse, from each other. Ancient Greece inherited iron smelting from Anatoli

The Americans were disconnected from advancements in the rest of the world, and even worse, from each other. Ancient Greece inherited iron smelting from Anatolia and formal legal codes from Babylon. The Islamic development of chemistry benefited greatly from the Roman development of glass, and the Italians learned math from Fibonacci who was schooled in Algeria. The printing press was first developed in Korea and may have influenced the developments all the way across Eurasia by Gutenberg. But to this day, there is no land transport connection between North and South America! Corn eventually made it from South to North America, but the potato was stuck in Peru until the Spaniards showed up on very nice boats. China was doing great until Mongke Khan showed up.