Introduction to ancient America

Explore the Introduction to Ancient America, uncovering the diverse civilizations, rich cultures, and remarkable achievements that flourished across the Americas long before European contact. Learn about the origins, societies, and innovations of early peoples—from the Olmec and Maya to the Inca and Mississippian cultures—that shaped the continent’s ancient history.

Introduction to ancient America

Introduction to ancient America

Introduction

The story of Ancient America begins long before the arrival of Europeans, with the rise of diverse and complex civilizations across the continents. From the monumental stone heads of the Olmec in Mesoamerica to the vast Inca Empire in the Andes, ancient American societies demonstrated remarkable ingenuity, organization, and cultural depth. These civilizations developed advanced agricultural systems, sophisticated calendars, monumental architecture, and vibrant artistic traditions—all without influence from the Old World. Exploring ancient America reveals a continent alive with innovation and interconnectedness, where people adapted to their environments and created thriving societies that continue to shape the cultural heritage of the Americas today.

Tenochtitlan

This city has many public squares, in which are situated the markets and other places for buying and selling. There is one square twice as large as that of the city of Salamanca, surrounded by porticoes, where are daily assembled more than sixty thousand souls, engaged in buying, and selling; and where are found all kinds of merchandise that the world affords, embracing the necessaries of life, as for instance articles of food, as well as jewels of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, tin, precious stones, bones, shells, snails, and feathers. There is also an herb street, where may be obtained all sorts of roots and medicinal herbs that the country affords. There are apothecaries’ shops, where prepared medicines, liquids, ointments, and plasters are sold; barbers’ shops, where they wash and shave the head; and restaurateurs, that furnish food and drink at a certain price. There is also a class of men like those called in Castile porters, for carrying burdens….Painters’ colors, as numerous as can be found in Spain, and as fine shades; deerskins dressed and undressed, dyed different colors; earthenware of a large size and excellent quality; large and small jars, jugs, pots, bricks, and an endless variety of vessels, all made of fine clay, and all or most of them glazed and painted; Maize, or Indian corn, in the grain and in the form of bread, preferred in the grain for its flavor to that of the other islands and terrafirma; pates of birds and fish; great quantities of fish, fresh, salt, cooked and uncooked ; the eggs of hens, geese, and of all the other birds I have mentioned, in great abundance, and cakes made of eggs; finally, everything that can be found throughout the whole country is sold in the markets, comprising articles so numerous that to avoid prolixity and because their names are not retained in my memory, or are unknown to me, I shall not attempt to enumerate them.

Incomplete version of the America

The above is from Hernan Cortez’s description of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital he and his Tlazcalan allies conquered in 1521. As the Spanish explorers in the Americas, and later the French, English, and Dutch, saw monetary gain from reporting their exploits to their respective monarchs, we often end up with a stilted or incomplete version of the Americas before 1500. Part of this can be attributed to the bias of European explorers, and misinterpretation of Native American beliefs and practices.

Human sacrifice

Undoubtedly the most misunderstood practice was that of human sacrifice witnessed by the Spanish conquerors of the Aztec Empire. Among Mesoamerican and Andean peoples alike there was a belief that all life, cosmic, human, animal, and plant alike, grew beneath the soil and sprung forth above the surface. Furthermore, humans had a role in nurturing that life cycle. In many of the cultures we will discuss, shamanism was an important religious tradition whereby shamans or religious specialists could control the forces of the natural world. Often shamans would conduct ceremonies requiring sacrifice from members of his community to ensure cosmic and earthly order. While the Spanish (and Hollywood) tend to focus on more dramatic ceremonies where hearts are cut from living warriors, other kinds of sacrifices in Mesoamerica and the Andes were integrated in hundreds of ways into daily life. For many cultures ritual bloodletting was a widespread practice, but one where the injured party survived to perform the ceremony the next year.

Prayers to Andean deities

Often times, human-shaped grain cakes would serve as stand-ins for actual human participants. Most sacrifices in fact were actually offerings or prayers to Mesoamerican or Andean deities. For example a Nahua newborn might be named in honor of Maya rulers. Or the first corn tortilla of the day might be consumed in honor of the sun. These beliefs would eventually be manifest in physical structures like a cave under Teotihuacán’s Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico or sunken plazas at Chavín de Huantar in Peru and Tiwanaku in Bolivia. These sacred spaces were constructed beneath the earth’s surface to allow the cultures aboveground easier access to the Earth’s creative capacity.

Migration from Beringia

As historians, it also is helpful to point out some of our myopic tendencies regarding the peopling of the Americas. While there is evidence supporting an overland migration from Beringia, and geographically speaking the Beringia migration is the most logical explanation, some scholars argue that this approach has become “dogma” and even “ideology,” leaving no room for evidence that may challenge this explanation. While we cannot argue that we are close to abandoning the Beringian migration as the most likely theory, there is mounting evidence that suggests a seaborne migration from Asia or even a “Solutrean” migration from Europe ten thousand years before an ice-free corridor opened up in North America. Considering new theories may help us explain how the Americas came to be populated and how civilizations developed so quickly here.

Death of millions of indigenous people

A third weakness in our narrative of the Americas involves the demographic collapse of the indigenous population that occurred after the arrival of European diseases. Especially in the Circum-Caribbean, millions of indigenous peoples succumbed to European disease and overwork in the first decades of the sixteenth century, giving them little opportunity to construct their own historical narrative apart from the one that Europeans were writing.

Admire a pre-Columbian history

Keeping these limitations in mind, our task is to admire a pre-Columbian history where in a little over 15,000 years migrants from Asia (probably) populated the Americas by foot, built hundreds of major cities, supported a population in the tens of millions, and constructed two of the most impressive empires the world has ever known. Fortunately recent advances in archaeology and calendrics have helped us uncover much of this pre-Columbian past that had been largely clouded by our obsession with the triumph and tragedy of the European conquest.

Conclusion

The study of Ancient America highlights the extraordinary creativity, resilience, and diversity of the peoples who inhabited the continent long before European contact. Across different regions and environments, they built sophisticated civilizations, developed complex belief systems, and made lasting contributions to art, science, and governance. From the agricultural ingenuity of the Maya to the architectural brilliance of the Inca, these societies demonstrated a deep understanding of their world and a strong sense of community. Understanding ancient America not only enriches our knowledge of human history but also honors the enduring legacies that continue to influence the cultures and identities of the modern Americas.

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