my-server
← Wiki Redirected from Native American communities

List of pre-Columbian cultures

This is a list of pre-Columbian cultures.

Cultural characteristics

Many pre-Columbian civilizations established permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, and complex societal hierarchies. In North America, indigenous cultures in the Lower Mississippi Valley during the Middle Archaic period built complexes of multiple mounds, with several in Louisiana dated to 5600–5000 BP (3700 BC–3100 BC). Watson Brake is considered the oldest, multiple mound complex in the Americas, as it has been dated to 3500 BC. It and other Middle Archaic sites were built by pre-ceramic, hunter-gatherer societies. They preceded the better known Poverty Point culture and its elaborate complex by nearly 2,000 years. The Mississippi Valley mound-building tradition extended into the Late Archaic period, longer than what later southeastern mound building dependent on sedentary, agricultural societies.(Russo, 1996:285)

Some of these civilizations had long ceased to function by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c. late 15th – early 16th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations or oral history from nations today. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Olmec, Maya, Mixtec, and Nahua had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical and burned most of them. Only a few documents were hidden and thus remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.

From both indigenous American and European accounts and documents, American civilizations at the time of European encounter possessed many impressive attributes, having populous cities, and having developed theories of astronomy and mathematics.

Where they persist, the societies and cultures which gave rise to these civilizations continue to adapt and evolve; they also uphold various traditions and practices which relate back to these earlier times, even if combined with those more recently adopted.

Human sacrifice was a religious practice principally characteristic of pre-Columbian Aztec civilization, although other Mesoamerican civilizations like the Maya and the Zapotec practiced it as well. The extent of the practice is debated by modern scholars.

Northern America

Caribbean

Mesoamerica

In alphabetical order:

  • Aztec, 1325–1521 AD, central Mexico
  • , 500-1530 AD, Nicaragua; Costa Rica
  • Formative Period, 2500 BC–200 AD, La Blanca, Ujuxte, Monte Alto Culture, Mokaya Culture
  • Huastec, 1000 BC–1500 AD, Hidalgo, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas
  • Maya, 2600 BC–1697 AD, Mexican Southern states: Chiapas, Tabasco, Campeche and Yucatán Peninsula; Central America: Belize; Guatemala; El Salvador; Honduras
  • Mixe, 400–present
  • Mixtec, unknown–1600 AD, western Oaxaca
  • Nicarao people, 700-1622 AD, Nicaragua; Costa Rica
  • Nicoya Kingdom, 500 BC-1600 AD, Costa Rica
  • Olmec, 1500–400 BC, Veracruz and Tabasco
  • Pipil people, c. 1200-1528 AD, El Salvador
  • Purépecha Empire or Tarascan state, 1300–1530 AD, Michoacán
  • Teotihuacán, 200 BC–800 AD, near Mexico City
  • Teuchitlan tradition, 300 BC – 500 AD, north-central Jalisco
  • Toltec, 900–1100 AD – may be mythical
  • Totonac, unknown–1500 AD, eastern Mexico
  • Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition, 1500–300 BC, Michoacan, Colima, Jalisco, Nayarit
  • Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition, 300 BC–400 AD, Jalisco, Nayarit, and, to a lesser extent, Colima
  • Zapotec, 500 BC–1500 AD, Oaxaca

Isthmo-Colombian area

South America

See also

References

Sources

External links