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It's not necessarily that they were less advanced. The Aztecs had irrigation and plumbing as well as city infrastructure that was superior to what was seen in Europe at the time. They didn't have weapons on the same level. And the trick is that doesn't matter how advanced your art is, how great you are at agriculture and growing plants, what sort of medical advances you may have made, if someone else has better weapons and can conquer you.

Now, part of these you also is that Europe was in a sweet spot that allowed for rapid technological growth compared to most of the rest of the world. It wasn't just comparatively easier access to metals, but also that the Mediterranean Sea and many large rivers made rapid communication between different civilizations much easier, and that made it much easier for information to travel and thus improve. If someone invents something in Rome, it was very easy for that knowledge to make it to France, where it could be improved upon.

Likewise, the easier proximity between nations in Europe encouraged wars, which also made them focus a lot more on weapons technology development.

So while there are many ways that the natives of the Americas had developed, their weapons technology was nowhere near enough to stand the chance against the Europeans. That, combined with the impact of diseases that the Europeans brought, since they were more used to keeping domesticated animals, and of us getting more diseases from those, meant that the Native Americans didn't stand a chance.

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There are a lot of different factors that you could point to, and which could have further influenced each other.

• Reliance on pack animals instead of inventing the wheel; pack animals that were less efficient than the horse, ox, elephant, etc. of the Old World
• Reliance on wood and bone as tool materials instead of transitioning to iron
• Lack of written languages and the printing press to allow learning without a face-to-face teacher-pupil relationship
• Lack of widespread agriculture sufficient to support a scholarly class, universities, and monasteries
• Lack of a philosophical foundation that led to the concept of scientific laws to be identified and utilized
• Lack of a cross-continental conquest leading to a shared language that could be used across tribal boundaries for communication and trade
• Lack of feudalism/strongly hierarchical societies creating incentives to increase food and goods production as much beyond subsistence levels

Firstly the impression you have on native North American civilizations is from the 1800s after it had been ravaged by the effect of Europeans for three centuries. The Spanish explorers in the 1500s and later archeological evidence show that North American civilizations were very similar to the South American civilizations at the time. That means large cities with huge buildings, farmland as far as the eye can see, barges along the great river systems trading goods across the entire continents. We even find metalworking shops and metal items, although only for decorations as their alloys were not good enough to use.

There have been many attempts at explaining why the Americas were not more technologically advanced. The continent were much smaller which means that there are fewer places where the conditions are right for breakthrough. There were also fewer people so fewer people to come up with good ideas. In addition there were fewer useful animals. There were wolves (dogs) and lamas but not cows, horses, sheep, and many other animals useful for farmers and travelers.