why didn't/don't urban native american cultures move particularly far north

[T-rex blood]

In a word: Ignorance.

THAT'S WHAT I WAS THOUGHT IN PRIMARY SCHOOL
also if that's true this howl thread is pointless because I've been labouring under an incorrect definition

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

THAT'S WHAT I WAS THOUGHT IN PRIMARY SCHOOL
also if that's true this howl thread is pointless because I've been labouring under an incorrect definition

Even if the early British settlements did not qualify as urban, they were a far cry from Cahokia and the like. And it's not just you using an incorrect definition, you're also using an incorrect misconception about Native-American cultures.

 

[T-rex blood]

Even if the early British settlements did not qualify as urban, they were a far cry from Cahokia and the like.

you mean they where worse or better?

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

you mean they where worse or better?

*headdesk* I showed you a picture of Cahokia, didn't I? If you can show me a pre-Roman British settlement that big, then that also means the pre-Roman British were clearly an urban people as well.

 

[T-rex blood]

*headdesk* I showed you a picture of Cahokia, didn't I? If you can show me a pre-Roman British settlement that big, then that also means the pre-Roman British were clearly an urban people as well.

I wasn't arguing that they weren't

 

[mowque]

Although, did the New England area and more north have any large settled groups? I know they were there of course, but American courses are very deficient in dealing with Native Americans.

 

[Oracle of Sobek 𓆋]

I'd argue that the Pre-Roman British were urban in the same early, maturing sense as the Kwakiutl/Haida/New England polities, i.e. certainly not nomadic, but not quite up to the scale of Cahokia just yet.

 

[9 Fanged Hummingbird]

Although, did the New England area and more north have any large settled groups? I know they were there of course, but American courses are very deficient in dealing with Native Americans.

The Abenaki and other Algonquian groups of New England also lived much like the Iroquois, though I don't think there were as many of them. Further north up into Canada, not so much.

 

[NothingNow]

I've heard of it, but don't know any details. Any way to see the research?

1491's a good starting point, but as nice as it is, the best part of it is the Bibliography, even if it's only organized alphabetically for the whole book.
So something like ANTHROSOLS AND HUMAN CARRYING CAPACITY IN AMAZONIA by NIGEL J. H. SMITH, from the Annals of the Association of American Geographers volume 70, issue 4, (Dec. 1980), gets placed in-between citations on the effects of the Mayan cities on the local Karst and an article on the Coastal Salish.
Google Scholar might be rather useful for you, as would JSTOR and any other Archive system.
I'd personally sugest as further reading: Amazonian dark earths: explorations in space and time By Bruno Glaser, William I. Woods (Springer, 2004)
Cultivated landscapes of Native Amazonia and the Andes by William M. Denevan (Oxford University Press 2001)
and
Imperfect balance: landscape transformations in the Precolumbian Americas by David Lewis Lentz et al, (Columbia University Press, 2000)

This would be the correct answer, I am thinking. It's surprising how many people don't even care to research Native-American stuff.

Yeah, and rather disappointing too. It's not like it's that hard to get started since the basics have stayed pretty much the same since 1973 or so.

Plenty of large settled groups in Washington. I can't recall the name, something with a 'K'. Basically, fishing groups, totem poles and such.

There were the Coast Salish, including the Klallam, and also the Chinook tribes.