The vast history of The Americas is not only just fascinating but extremely important to the world. There is so much to learn and gain from how The Americas were established and the people who occupied them. We learn about how hard work, determination, expansion, and a dream can totally introduce a whole new type of innovation to the rest of the world. Even though The Americas adopted some traits from Africa and Eurasia they were completely different from any other culture. Some of the traits that they did adopt were agricultural. It helped The Americas people to become a lot more diversified and many different areas from their strength in agriculture. It dramatically helped the increase of their food supply. It help them to be able to support cities, have highly skilled crafts, expand commerce, create complex social structures, and help emerge powerful states.
There were three main groups who made their name in history with vast intelligence and brilliant craftsmanship. These groups were the Mayans in Yucatan and Guatemala, the Aztecs in central Mexico, and the Incas in Peru. The Mayans were known for mathematics, the solar calendar, and writing system. The Aztecs and the Incas conquered large populations and governed extensive states. Each one of the groups developed their own languages, values, customs, art, and religions. Most of them have become part of the Latin American Heritage. Later when the Spanish people stumbled across these groups they were shocked of how they would make sacrifices of human beings, but were astonished by the wealth, efficiency, population, and complexity of these groups. The Americas were truly amazing because of how many groups there were. Most people just focus or talk about the success of Mesoamerica region but The Americas are much more vast than that. Sure they made The Americas great and we still today use a lot of their techniques but father north there were hundreds of other tribes. Most of these tribes were Indian tribes. They to also developed their own languages and developed their own social patterns. These Indian tribes were also known as the hunter gatherers. They hunted, fished, and farmed. What were also different about the Indian tribes were their religious beliefs. Unlike that of the Mayans, Aztecs and Incas, the Indians worshiped nature and not gods like the people of Mesoamerica. They worshiped the trees, fruit, and even some of the animals. They believed that all were of importance and held a very specific religious meaning. The Indians didn’t have wealth like the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas but they still are known for their creativeness and sophistication.
So how exactly did people such as the Indians reach the northern part of The Americas? Well unlike some of the later settlers who came by boat the Native Americans mainly traveled on foot from Asia across the Bering Strait through the Alaska region and from there moved south. After the settling on The Americas the Indians broke up into eight ethnolinguistic groups and from those they had hundreds of subgroups they adapted to various types of environments. It took awhile for the new people of the Americas to develop a type of farming system. It wasn’t until 8000 B.C.E. when the first known agriculture movement came about in southern Mexico. Before that they primarily depended on hunting and gathering. One of the greatest accomplishments was the cultivation of corn around 3500 B.C.E and about twenty five hundred years later corn became the main crop that was domesticated throughout all of The Americas.
The first known city of The Americas was in today’s South America. This was the city of Caral. It was founded around 2600 B.C.E. What was amazing about this city was the establishment of pyramids. Most people today associate the pyramids with Egypt but in fact some of the earliest ones were located in South America. It is said that the pyramids of South America were constructed nearly a century before the pyramids of Giza in Egypt. Another well known city in The Americas was the ancient city of Cahokia which is now a state park. This city was the major capital of trade in the north. Occupying it was approximately 25,000 people. Some very important cultures also came from The Americas. There were the Mound Builders of the Mississippi valley, the Pueblo of the southwest, the Iroquois Confederacy of the eastern woodlands, Aleut peoples of Alaska, the Inuit peoples of Arctic Canada, rain forest groups like the Jivaro and the peoples of the Tierra del Fuego, at the southern tip in South America. The development of these cultures helped The Americas to develop into what they are today.
It’s amazing to see how over the years all the tribes seemed to in a sense come together. Different cultures and tribes started sharing things such as a calendar system, hieroglyphic writing, bark paper, deer skin books, team games played with balls of rubber, chocolate bean money, upper class polygyny, large markets. They may or may not have realized the impact that other cultures and tribes were having over a period of time on their own tribes. With the treacherous mountains and other natural elements of difficulty it made it hard to directly come in contact with the other cultures and tribes. It was more or less of a disease that spread slowly to all the different cultures and tribes. Many of the tribal areas over the years started to become cities. Throughout Mexico and Central America around 350,000 people were living in different populated trading centers and villages. Different production started to come about. Also the people were finding uses for the animals. The people of the villages and cities were now starting to construct different projects, use jade for carving, and were developing raw materials for crafts. If they needed to transport things of great volume or mass they would make use of horses, mules, and oxen. Looking back through history one would think that since the tribes were so different there would be many conflicts and wars but history has produced little evidence of and violent encounters taking place. It appears instead as if they developed a good system of fair trade between the tribes, villages, and cities.
This is just a brief summary of early civilization of The Americas. There is so much detail in the different tribes and cultures. History paints a very good picture of this. Looking at The Americas today it is amazing to see the similarities in a sense. Today we see trading, granted at a much larger international scale but we still see the relationship from now and back then. We have different city where different products are produced and distributed throughout the region. We don’t fight over having a certain city build a certain thing. We value our culture and respect others. We care about where we are from and how we got here. When confrontation does arise however we pull together to get through it and push past it in one accord. For people of north or south America who call these lands home, they should walk with a certain pride and be proud to have come from such a rich and vast history. We have a story unlike none other. We helped to develop the rest of the world. We were the final puzzle piece to this great world puzzle. Without The Americas the rest of the world can’t survive and without the rest of the world The Americas can’t survive. We can see over history that The Americas have proven time and time again that with faith, hard work, and a dream of a better way of life they can and have over came the worst of circumstances and have turn those bad ones into progress and value. As The Americas they didn’t need anything from which to learn they took nothing and learned from that. They incorporated other cultures ways as well and implemented it into their system and way of life. The Americas truly do set an example for the rest of the world. If that being then or now.
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