Early civilizations were ancient and did not have great technologies and the knowledge and help the early colonists of the Americas got from the Europeans.
Here are plenty of reasons that could justify referring to these civilizations as distinct from other peoples. What really distinguishes the Aztecs, the Mayans, the Apachee tribes and others, from the rest of the world, is that they were confined within an area that kept them from interacting with the Europeans, the Asians, and the Africans, and thus spreading their culture there. That led to the isolation of the people in the Americas, resulting to their civilizations being seemingly 'prehistoric'. What I mean by that is that they couldn't have access to materials that would in turn allow them to use more advanced technology. While they did have plenty of chocolate, there are other things that they definitely lacked, and as such we can see that their weapons were inadequate, and in comparison to those of the Europeans, they were petty. It's also noteworthy that there were no longer horses in the Americas, seeing as they had all died out. The first horse that arrived in the continent, after a long time, belonged to the Spanish armada. This is the most significant reason as to how the civilizations in America were different than those in the rest of the world. While I can name other reasons, such as distinctly different architecture, different cuisine, way of life, etc., these are not as noteworthy as the previous reasons that I named.
