This somehow just again sets into perspective what "old" means in different countries. I live in a house older than the US at the moment, and it's not even something special, compared to churches which are closer to Caesar than the founding of the US.
It's a cultural thing that most Americans simply don't identify with or think about history prior to British/American colonization. There are still people living in medieval-era houses in the US and ruins that make Rome look young, but they don't occupy anyone's mindspace when it comes to how they think of age.
Hopefully this is a joke? There are no structures in the US built prior to 1000ad, and the oldest structures built by indigenous people were abandoned long before European contact, because of deforestation.
So for context, I've literally seen/worked on structures older than that. I'll format this as a list to avoid a giant wall of text.
* Plenty of structures were built prior to 1100CE. You can't build a freeway in Tucson without digging up an late archaic (~2300-1500 BCE) pithouse, as an example.
* Plenty of indigenous structures have centuries of continuous inhabitation. Taos is a good example, having a single structure that's been inhabited since the 13th century. Other communities are older (e.g. Oraibi dates from ~1150), but don't have extant usable structures from those early days.
* Indigenous structures were not abandoned prior to European contact, let alone because of deforestation. Did you autocorrect from "disease" (which would also be mistaken, but less so)? Very simplified statement here because this is a topic that could fill a library. Happy to talk more on it.
Can you give me an example of a "structure" in the present day US that was built prior to 1000 AD? I'm not talking about a pit underground, which is not a "structure".
Can you give me an example of a "medieval-era houses in the US" that somebody lives in today? The ones you mentioned were built after the middle ages, your dates are not right and describe the time the settlement was created, not the time the structures were built.
Which Taos structure has been inhabited since the 13th century?
The Taos pueblo structures standing today were built around 1400, not the middle ages, not the 13th century.
The Oraibi _settlement_ has been inhabited for centuries. The structures were built in the 17th century, not the middle ages, not 1150.
Generally the "medieval period" extends from sometime in the first few centuries CE to as late as the end of the 16th century. Obviously this is being used in the same informal sense that I'd have talking with friends, rather than a specific technical sense that would be more regionally appropriate.
The 13th century when the earliest kivas and walls at Taos Pueblo are well-agreed to be dated. Oral histories date it rather earlier, but I'm being conservative. I have pretty terrible internet access right now, so I can't link anything on those dates, but I'm fairly sure that's how the UN filings date it at least, though I couldn't tell you whether those apply to the north or south houses specifically.
Re: oraibi, I tried to make it clear that I was talking about the town itself rather than specific structures within it. The earliest structures are below the cliff, not above where the modern town is. That move happened in the 17th and 18th centuries to make it more defensible. As far as I'm aware, most of the extant buildings are 20th century at the earliest.
As for "structure", a pithouse is a structure and a primarily aboveground one at that. The name refers to the fact that they're dug into the ground for thermal and flooring reasons. The late archaic ones in the Tucson area along the Santa Cruz river were often built alongside small irrigation canals and house groups often had low walls around them. Again, can't link, but there are experimental reconstructions of Pueblo I era pithouses that you can look at pictures of. They're "similar enough" to be worth looking at, even though there are meaningful reasons they're part of different archeological periods.
Seems pretty tenuous, and I don't see any radiocarbon dating or high quality archeology. It's not surprised this doesn't "occupy anyone's mindspace".
I think the claim "There are still people living in medieval-era houses in the US " is misleading and possibly wrong. A more accurate claim would be "It is possible but unconfirmed that there are a handful of occupied houses in one location in the US with walls that were originally built in the late medieval era. These are extremely far from population centers, so it's unsurprising most people don't think about them the way Europeans think about older structures".
Well, there were some issues with genocide between then and now that cut down on the number of example I can give you and inherently limit them to places far from major population centers. There are a lot of places all over the country with fairly continuous habitation records that abruptly terminate in the colonial period. The Southwest broadly managed to retain a higher degree of independence than most other parts of the continent until the 20th century partly as a result of that remoteness and more organized military responses.
I think you’re arguing past each other. Nobody (I hope at least) disputed European settlers treated the native Americans horribly.
The argument was that in many places in Europe it’s literally unremarkable that people live in houses significantly older than the mentioned 1910 specimen in DC (my completely unremarkable apartment building in Berlin was built around the same time and nobody thinks of it as significant in any way & I know multiple people in Austria and Germany living in houses built in the 1800s and earlier).
While Native Americans built structures before colonizations the number of Americans currently living in such is negligibly small.
There are definitely structures in the US that were built prior to 1000AD. For example the first 4 stories of Pueblo Bonito were built around 850.
Some of the pueblos that were built around 1000 years ago are still used (e.g. Taos Pueblo, although most of the buildings have been retrofitted with modern conveniences like doors)
The Taos Pueblo has been continuously inhabited since the 13th century, if not before. This qualifies to satisfy the truth criteria of the first phrase.
Note that the second claim refers to ruins and not continuous inhabitation.
I'm not a specialist in North American indigenous cultures, but am aware that there are signs of human inhabitation at sites such as Bandelier (NM) dating to 10kya, and elsehwere cliff and/or pueblo dwellings dating to several thousand years BCE.
Both would make Rome look old.
Heading further south, the earliest Mayan villages date to 2,000 BCE, again pre-dating Rome. Cities emerged in the period 750--500 BCE, roughly contemporaneously with the agreed origins of Rome (753 BCE), and well before the rise of the Roman Republic (509--27 BCE) or Empire (27 BCE -- ~480 CE (Western)).
It's possible there are a handful of houses at one site with some structural walls built around 1400 that are currently inhabited. There's no direct evidence for that claim except oral tradition and reports from 140 years later. Claiming that "There are still people living in medieval-era houses in the US" is misleading, and a lack of awareness of these houses is not noteworthy.
The reason Americans don't think about old buildings the way Europeans do is that there aren't any anywhere close to where most Americans live, and anything older than 600 years requires an extensive intentional search to find. It's not a lack of awareness, as the GP implies.
The facts are: In the US, most Americans, including indigenous people, go their entire lives without seeing a single structure built before 1500. You can't see one without driving several hours from any population center, and several days from the population centers where the overwhelming majority live.
In Europe, most people see buildings built before 1500 every day. Many people live in them.
Those are both facts. My belief/opinion is that these facts explain the difference in attitude between Americans and Europeans. It has nothing to do with whether "most Americans simply don't identify with or think about history prior to British/American colonization"
Also I'd like to point out that both of my paragraphs are facts, not opinions. The difference is that I could be wrong if for example there was evidence that the Taos pueblo structures were built in the 13th century, but there isn't.
I think I replied pretty directly. The central claim of the comment is that Americans think about old buildings differently because they don't identify with pre-colonial culture. I'm saying that actually there are essentially no buildings that are old here which is true despite one possible counterexample.
I am quoting it directly so having difficulty understanding the discrepancy.
> It's a cultural thing that most Americans simply don't identify with or think about history prior to British/American colonization.
That is the claim
> There are still people living in medieval-era houses in the US and ruins that make Rome look young
This is technically true but highly misleading. There is one site in the US where oral tradition maintains that some parts of two of the structures were built prior to 1400. There has been no radiocarbon dating of the structures. The closest contemporaneous account is from 1540 and doesn't describe the structures in detail, only the settlement.
The ruins are not visible to most Americans,
> but they don't occupy anyone's mindspace when it comes to how they think of age.
The claim here is that despite the existence of medieval-era home and ancient ruins, Americans don't identify with history prior to colonization.
My counter argument is that the evidence for any medieval era homes is weak, and at most there are two, both located at one site. The ruins are extremely rare and far from population centers, which explains the lack of awareness.
It's true that most Americans don't identify with history prior to European colonization, but it's true _because of_ the lack of ruins and ancient homes, not in spite of their existence.
This is all in contrast to Europe where people see and interact with medieval era homes and buildings all the time.
You have places like Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. It’s construction date is disputes, but is at least 1000ad, and it wasn’t abandoned before European contact.
