In the book Uncommon Sense, Alan Cromer makes the argument that, although the Agricultural Revolution independently took place in many parts of the globe, including the New World, the idea of science occurred in one place and at one time – among the ancient Greeks. I am not so sure that the Enlightenment would not have occurred without the influence of the ancient Greeks, but Cromer makes some good points about the unnaturalness of scientific thinking. We are born animists. Young children have no problems with talking animals.
Cromer argues that Greek democracy may have been a crucial factor in both the scientific view and in the concept of a formal mathematical proof, which the Greeks also pioneered. When you want to get people to vote a certain way, you need to use convincing arguments, so it is not that much of a stretch to see how this could have led to a more objective view of the universe.
I have read that at the time of the European discovery of the New World, that the Iroquois were poised to take over a large part of North America. Since the Iroquois also had a democratic government, perhaps they would have eventually come up with a scientific viewpoint.