Ships have existed way before even the first discovery of the Americas by the Vikings, but ships have also played a crucial role in the trade and diffusion of ideas and people to the Americas allowing for more innovation with the circulation of ideas and goods. The Columbian exchange started when Christopher Columbus discovered the Americas by accident by sailing across the Atlantic Ocean hopefully reaching India but ended up landing at the Americas and started to trade with the Natives that lived there. Without the Ships there would be no discovery of the Americas to begin with, which would also mean there would be no Columbian Exchange which allowed for many goods such as plants and animals to be transported among Colonys'.² an example would be Christopher Columbus, and his crew trading certain goods with the Natives such as glass beads and small bells for parrots, cotton threads in skeins, and even darts. Even though Christopher Columbus goal for sailing was to spread Christianity, he would go on to trade even more goods with these native Americans leading to the introduction of continental trading between the Europeans and the Americas. ¹

Before the introduction of the printing press people would have to draw maps by hand each one by one while also paying attention to every little detail to ensure there's no errors. An example of this would be the works completed by Muhammad al-Idrisi who was a Muslim geographer who spent his life working/developing the Tabula Rogeriana which ended up becoming one of the most advanced maps of that era but only creating 70 sectional maps, displaying how time consuming the creation of just a couple of maps was without the printing press.³ It was only after the invention of the printing press that the duplication of maps and spreading information became more simpler and faster.  The invention of the printing press impacted American civilizations in numerous ways since it was due to an increase of information being spread around Europe that led to Europeans becoming more interested in worldwide exploration which led to the Age of Exploration that caused the Europeans to come in contact with the native Americans.   ⁴