Speaking of pyramids, there's a big functional difference between most new world pyramids and, at least, the three famous pyramids of Egypt. The New World pyramids mostly have flat tops -- i.e., they are "platforms" for people to stand on, often to perform religious rituals on top of like tearing people's hearts out or whatever. The three Egyptian pyramids are pointy on top. I don't think they were meant for people to stand on.

That's a big difference between them, which suggests the New World Indians didn't get the idea directly from Egypt.

which suggests the New World Indians didn't get the idea directly from Egypt.

yep. architects have a field day, they are structuraly and functionally not equivalent. they simply have a vague geometrical affinity. that's enough for many people though to start running their innate pattern matching algorithms and intuit some central organizing agency (ie; migrants refugees, explorers, etc.). my contention is that humans like to build to impress, and we are impressed by mountains (where the gods often live). pyramids are man-made mountains. not only that, it seems that building something at an angle and narrowing toward the top is much easier in terms of engineering and long term structural stress...of course, some people like cubes, but in premodern times you couldn't make them that big....

humans like to build to impress

Not just humans.

David wrote: "Not just humans"

So David... Are you invoking Space Aliens or IDrs?

i think he means birdies.