Civilisations and Cities of Pre-Columbian Peoples

Life in the Americas before Christopher Columbus

Learning Focus

• locate and identify the major civilisations and cities of the Pre-Columbian Americas in this period

HOW THE EARTH HAS CHANGED

During the last ice age, between 40 000 and 10 000 years ago, the world became colder and the sea level dropped as much as 100 metres. I

In the far north, large areas of frozen water exposed a broad corridor of land that formed a link between continents. This area is known as the Bering Land Bridge (also known as Beringia) and is now covered by the seas of the Bering Strait. This land bridge enabled the first people to migrate from Asia to the American continent.

The first Americans entered a very cold and bleak land with little vegetation. They moved south in search of warmer weather and food supplies. Archaeologists have found evidence of nomadic people fishing and hunting on the American continent over 15 000 years ago.

Source One: Map of North and South America. The Green part is CENTRAL America and where most of our topic will take place.

Settling down

By 9000 BCE, the ice age was at an end and the warmer weather had transformed the American landscape. With the warmer climate came new methods of hunting and fishing. Settled communities grew up near the rivers and the coast, as people no longer needed to be constantly on the move in search of food. They travelled the waterways in dugout canoes (made by hollowing out a log) or constructed rafts by attaching bark to a wooden frame.

The first American people established links with each other by trading valuable goods such as furs and flint tools. Over the following millennium, the cultivation of crops developed.

• • In North America, farmers grew a variety of fruit from gourd plants and sowed sunflowers for their seeds and oil.

  • In Central America, a crop called maize, or corn, was developed from a local wild grass. Plants such as avocado and chilli were collected and developed as crops for cultivation.

  • In South America, people grew gourds, squashes, manioc (a sweet tropical plant), potatoes and beans. In the rich soils of the narrow valleys of Peru, farming flourished, producing a wide variety of crops, including capsicum and cotton.

Trade spread these crops across the continent. Another feature of indigenous life in South America was herds of domesticated animals such as the llama, which was highly valued for its wool and milk.

The First Americans - Cities and Civilisation

Richly varied civilisations grew and prospered on the American continent long before the arrival of Europeans in the sixteenth century CE.

• • In North America, the Hopewell people established communities in the Ohio River Valleys in approximately 200 BCE. They built great mounds of earth where they buried and made offerings to their dead. The mounds were places of importance because that was were important people were buried. They lived in communities and used rectangle shaped houses for shelter.

  • Central America was ruled by the Olmec people from approximately 1300 to 400 BCE. The Olmec cleared the tropical forests and constructed cities around their great temples perched on top of high pyramids.

  • In South America, the soaring Andes Ranges were settled by the Chavin people in the twelfth century BCE. The Chavin built cities and huge temple complexes. Their cities used sophisticated sewage systems to drain waters away and prevent flooding. They were also known as excellent goldsmiths and jewellry makers.

  • In Mexico, Mesoamerica, the Maya people built marvellous ceremonial cities with monumental temples, observatories, palaces and plazas. By 600 BCE these people had developed a sophisticated understanding of mathematics and astrology. In approximately 250 CE, the Maya civilisation was at the height of its glory. The great Maya cities, built for up to 50 000 people, were supported by highly skilled farmers who planted crops on raised platforms and stored precious rainwater in underground reservoirs. Maya scholars developed sophisticated calendars and the first system of hieroglyphic writing in the Americas.

Whether hunting bison on the great grassy plains of North America or farming maize in Mexico or Guatemala, indigenous people of the Americas maintained a way of life that would continue until the arrival of the Europeans. The time before the arrival of Christopher Columbus in the Americas is known as the pre-Columbian period.