Civilizations of pre-Columbian America

Image: Emaze

The date of 1492 opened to European civilization a new way of understanding the world around them due to the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Said sailor, at the service of the Crown of Castile, would establish relations with a series of civilizations that inhabited said lands. In this lesson from a TEACHER we bring you the civilizations of pre-Columbian America, in which we will talk about the most important ones and the ones that have left the most signs over time.

Index

1. What do we understand by civilizations of pre-Columbian America?
2. The mayans
3. The Aztecs
4. The Incas
5. Caribs

Within our lesson on civilizations of pre-Columbian America we must be clear about what we mean. Exactly, when the pre-Columbian term is mentioned, mention is made of the civilizations that inhabited America before the arrival of Christopher Columbus, not from the beginning.

Once we are clear about this, we can begin to talk about the civilizations that grew before the arrival of this character. historical because, once the Castilians made contact with them, little by little they disappeared due to the acculturation that took place among the peoples.

We have to be clear that, within European civilizations, the Spanish was always in favor of uniting cultures and to enlarge its collective, never to discriminate and eliminate it, as other powers did well European.

Without a doubt, this civilization it was one of the most important within the so-called civilizations of pre-Columbian America because, unlike the other two that we will see below, this one based its system of government on city-states, which caused that there were different "kingdoms" that fought among them, originating diverse wars that were the causes of the disintegration of said civilization.

This civilization was located in the current states of Yukatán, Chiapas, Quintana de Roo, Campeche and Guatemala. Were active since 2000 a. C., moment in which its formative period began, until 800 d. C moment in which internal wars dismantled the Mayan system and began a decline. Even so, the last Mayan city to fall was in the year 1697. He was in the interior of the jungle, and they hardly had any external relations, they lived on the fringes of what was happening in America.

This culture was one of the most important, giving great importance to astrology and astronomy, being very famous andl mayan calendar.

In this other lesson we will discover the religion and culture of the Mayans.

Image: Mayan Literature and World

Another of the civilizations of pre-Columbian America were the Aztecs, a people that between the year 1325-1521 dominated the Northern Mexico to Central America.

Its main city was Tenochtitlán and they submitted great tributes to the different towns of the surroundings, even getting to make contact with some of the Mayan cities, to which they were subjugated.

They were fierce warriors who, in addition, had a rather bloody religion, since the gods demanded great sacrifices. This civilization fell thanks to the alliances made by the Castilians with the subjugated tribes of the Empire.

In this other lesson we discover a short summary of the aztec empire.

Image: Slideshare

The last of the pre-Columbian American civilizations that we are going to see in this lesson will be the Inca empire. This civilization, was settled in the Andes area, especially Ecuador, Bolivia and Chile and it was an Empire, which, like the Aztec civilization, dominated other peoples whom it subjected to tributes.

Its chronological period covers between the years 1438-1533, so we find a fairly short latency period like the Mexica Empire. This was so because, every time an Inca (the king) died, there were uprisings, so the first thing his successor had to do was crush them.

As they did in Mexico, the Castilians were helped by the same subjugated populations to end the central power.

In this other lesson we offer you a short summary of the inca empire.

Image: Slideshare

Without a doubt, the first contact with the pre-Columbian civilizations that the expedition of Christopher Columbus had was with the carib tribe. We cannot say in itself that it was a civilization, because on many occasions, this means that they have a culture, writing. But also they were the first tribes they encountered on the islands of the Caribbean Sea.

They were very backward tribes with respect to the aforementioned civilizations and that, in most cases, were subjugated to these, since many of the Caribbean tribes were located in the American continent, in addition to in the islands.

If you want to read more articles similar to Civilizations of Pre-Columbian America - Brief Summary, we recommend that you enter our category of Story.