Pre Columbian civilizations - amazonia.fiocruz.br

The term Pre-Columbian civilization refers to the various different native American civilizations which rose, flourished and fell in the Americas before the settlement of the Western Hemisphere by Europeans. Two regions in particular developed great civilizations. Central America produced several major cultures and civilizations, including the Olmec fl.

In South America, the Pacific coast and Andes highlands of Peru, and later Ecuador, Columbia and western Venezuela, were the setting for the development of another civilizatiins of civilizations. Here, civilizations and empires arose which included the Moche Pre Columbian civilizations. Developments towards civilization were by no means limited to these two regions. Large-scale states, complex societies and at least proto-urban settlements developed in the Amazonian region in the first half of the second millennium CE. Similarly, large towns such as Cahokia grew up in the Mississippi valley, the centre of a network of trade routes which spanned North Pre Columbian civilizations.

However, it was Peru and Central America which produced the high civilizations of Pre-Columbian America, and it is to these that we will now turn.

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On the Pacific coast of South America, in the region of present-day Peru, are two parallel environments. Firstly, just inland from the coast is the second Pe mountain range on the world, the Andes. Secondly, on a narrow strip of land between the mountains and the ocean, is a dry coastal plain. Carving their way through this plain are a series of small rushing rivers, dry for most of the year but Pre Columbian civilizations plentiful rainfall from the high Andes in the spring.

They form short but fertile coastal valleys, with fertile floors created by the rich mud brought down from the mountains. These valleys acted as the cradles of South American agriculture.]