The root of why Europeans could claim the land in the Americas: it wasn’t developed, thus it wasn’t used, thus it wasn’t owned by anyone else. No matter all the hunter gatherers that were making a living out of the land. No matter even the earth works that could be found indicating use. There were no buildings, thus it was up for grabs.
Tbf, putting buildings up signalling use didn’t suddenly cause conquerors of any geographic to suddenly respect that the land was already in use. See: Roman Imperial Expansionism, Mongol Empire, numerous Chinese dynasties, the Aztecs, the Nazis, the British Empire, the East India Companies, the Zulu, Mali (well Mansa Musa basically destabilized gold wherever he went).
The root of why Europeans could claim the land in the Americas: it wasn’t developed, thus it wasn’t used, thus it wasn’t owned by anyone else. No matter all the hunter gatherers that were making a living out of the land. No matter even the earth works that could be found indicating use. There were no buildings, thus it was up for grabs.
Tbf, putting buildings up signalling use didn’t suddenly cause conquerors of any geographic to suddenly respect that the land was already in use. See: Roman Imperial Expansionism, Mongol Empire, numerous Chinese dynasties, the Aztecs, the Nazis, the British Empire, the East India Companies, the Zulu, Mali (well Mansa Musa basically destabilized gold wherever he went).
cough Israel