The past centuries have seen the Chimú empire continue to dominate the northern areas of the Andes civilization. However, a new power is on the rise, that of the Inca. The Inca tribe settled a valley in the High Andes of Peru in around 1200, where they founded their capital, Cuzco. It was not until 1438 that they became a strongly centralized state, but they have now begun their great series of conquests.
Meanwhile, the towns and states of central Amazonia continued to be home to complex, hierarchical societies. Well-organized chiefdoms are also to be found on the fringes of the Amazon region, both to north and south.
Elsewhere in South America, on the eve of European contact, people live in small farming villages or mobile hunter-gatherer groups, much as they have done for hundreds or thousands of years.
Map Of South America
The peoples of the New World have, by this date, domesticated a much greater range of plants than have those of the Old; however, only in a few areas have food crops become an important part of the economy. Most of South America is still inhabited by groups of hunter-gatherers. It is only along the coasts of the Pacific and Atlantic, and along the rivers of Amazonia, that permanent villages have become established, benefiting from access to abundant aquatic foods such as fish and shellfish, as well as the more normal land-based animals and plants.
The largest and most numerous villages are to be found on the coasts of Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, due to the Pacific Ocean currents here which produce a rich harvest of marine foods. By this date these communities are shifting to a more agricultural economy, and their populations are growing. The inhabitants of some of the larger villages are beginning to construct ceremonial platforms, a feature which will be very prominent in later South American civilization.
Over the past thousand years, on the Pacific coast of Peru and Ecuador, improvements in farming have led to increases in population and the spread of permanent farming villages. These developments have been accompanied by the appearance of pottery, the invention of loom weaving and the beginnings of a more class-based society. The largest villages house up to 4000 people. Here, large temple-mounds are starting to be built, evidence for the development of a priestly elite able to control the labor of the rest of the population. This is also apparent in the irrigation systems now being developed.
Early Civilizations Of La
Elsewhere, the shift to farming has been much slower. However, in Amazonia, proto-agricultural villages are beginning to appear, and pottery is spreading throughout the region.
Changes are also taking place in the high Andes, where the hunter-gatherer way of life is giving way to llama- and alpaca-herding. A growing network of trade routes links the high mountain regions with the villages of the Pacific coast.
The coming of farming This article refers to the Old World, but similar developments occurred in the New World, with its different animals and plants.
Native Maps Show Civilizations Of The Americas
For the past thousand years, the people of the Pacific coast of Peru have been making strides towards true civilization, as larger and more complex societies have begun to emerge. Towns have appeared in the river valleys, dependent upon irrigation farming for their sustenance. The focus of their communal life are the ever-larger temple platforms being constructed in their centers.
The trade routes linking these coastal communities with the peoples of the high Andes are transmitting this cultural package into this region as well, so that the two geographical zones are increasingly forming one unified cultural area.
Elsewhere in South America, the transition from a mainly hunter-gatherer way of life to one based on farming is gradually taking place, though much of the continent will be home to hunter-gatherers right up until post-Conquest times.
Migration Of Humans Into The Americas (c. 14,000 Bce)
At this time the Amazonian basin sees the beginnings of a large-scale expansion of Arawak-speaking peoples from their homeland somewhere in the north-east of the region. This may have been caused by some agricultural innovation, such as the adoption of new root crops, highly suited to forest agriculture, or improvements in their slash-and-burn agricultural practices.
In the lowlands of the Atlantic coast, communities are choosing to use refuse middens which have built up over hundreds of years as habitation mounds, as well as for ritual platforms.
Over recent centuries the trade networks linking the high Andes and the coastal plains of Peru have been expanding. This is creating a single cultural sphere, and, together with increases in agricultural productivity, is moving it rapidly towards full urban civilization.
Mayan Map. Ancient Cultures Of Central And South America: The Maya, Aztec, And Inca.
In the Amazon basin communities of Arawak-speaking peoples continue to disperse over an ever larger area. The fact that these settlements are small, coupled with the rapid evolution of multiple Arawak dialects at this period, suggests that the dispersal is carried out by small groups which, once settled in a particular location, soon send out off-shoots to establish new colonies. This in turn suggests some type of internal “colonizing” dynamic within their culture, such as is found amongst the Polynesians of roughly the same period: here, the founding of new settlements confers royal, semi-divine status upon a leader and his descendants.
The settlements on the Atlantic coast built on ancient midden-mounds continue to flourish, and similar mounds start to appear in the central Amazonian river basin, usually (but not always) on a smaller scale than on the coast.
Over the past few centuries, in the highlands of Peru, the first urban civilization in South American history has appeared. This is the Chavin civilization. It sees the construction of substantial temple complexes and the production of fine textiles and pottery.
Ancient North American Civilizations By Jason Costanzo
In the Amazon basin, the Arawak diaspora continues, and is now beginning to lead to the development of various regional cultures, such as the Saladoid and Barrancoid ceramic cultures which have emerged in the middle Orinoco river plains by this date.
The Arawak settlement design will have a long history throughout the Amazon basin. Fortified villages are constructed around large circular plazas; they look much like stockades, and may well have had a clear defensive purpose. The plaza was the natural center for communal life, and the design of these settlements may hint at the social and military characteristics which gave the Arawak speakers the advantage over their neighbors. The inhabitants were nourished by an agriculture based on manioc as the staple crop. However, the growing of maize in the region has recently begun to spread.
Recent centuries have seen the Chavin civilization begin to fragment, giving way to several local cultures in the highlands and coastal plains of Peru.
North America Map
Major settlements are appearing in the central Amazonian basin, evidence that complex regional societies are developing. One major factor in this is the spread of maize in the region. This effectively enables the colonization of the fertile flood plains of the Amazon and its major tributaries. During this period, populations are expanding and hierarchical societies are developing. Settlements extending for several kilometers along river banks are growing up, centers of militarized chiefdoms which organize large workforces to dig canals and build massive defensive earthworks, raise ceremonial platforms and mounds for habitation.
Cultural influences seem to be entering the region from the Andes civilization. Small regional chiefdoms, situated in the forests of Bolivia and Ecuador near to the highland civilization, build earth and stone ceremonial structures.
In the north, the Arawak diaspora spills over into the Caribbean. The colonization of much of the Caribbean seems to have occurred relatively quickly between 500 and 200 BCE, leading to the development of those Caribbean chiefdoms which the European explorers would encounter more than a millennium later.
Beginnings Of Civilization (world History Wall Maps)
Over the past centuries, localized cultures have continued to flourish in various valleys of the high Andes and the desert coasts of Peru. One culture, the Nazca, is today particularly famous for vast figures traced in the desert, depicting animals and geometric shapes, whose purpose is unknown. Another, the Moche, saw the first true cities, and striking art work.
The Arawak-speaking peoples are now spread across a vast portion of northern South America. However, their widely-dispersed fortified settlements and warlike chiefdoms exist side-by-side with many smaller groups of mobile hunter-gatherers, who often raid the crops of the settled farmers.
The past centuries have seen a new, highly influential culture has now appeared in Peru along the Pacific coast, the Moche. This is the most sophisticated culture so far to appear in South America.
Early South America (c. 3000 B.c.e.–2nd Century C.e.)
In Amazonia, the Arawak-speaking diaspora continues, and will shortly reach its widest expanse. In many places a new phase is beginning, as newcomers and local peoples began to merge and form regionally-rooted societies. Early examples of complex regional societies are emerging at this time in the mountains and plains of the north-west, probably receiving some influences from the advanced civilizations of the high Andes.
Elsewhere in the continent, the Arawak-speaking diaspora has now more or less reached its limits. In Amazonia, large, densely populated regional chiefdoms are now established on the floodplains of the great rivers of the region. At the Amazon’s vast mouth, on the island of Marajo, a flourishing culture has emerged, which will last until the final period of Pre-Columbian America. This culture is
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