Early American Civilizations

Cultures had been flourishing thousands of years before the Europeans arrived to the New World. Great empires such as the Aztecs, Mayans, and Incas inhabited the vast lands of Central and South America. These early Mesoamerican societies migrated into the Americas through The Bering Land Bridge during the Paleolithic age. They transitioned from nomadic hunters and gathers to settled, farming villages during the Neolithic age and where these people settle, their civilizations thrived. Although, others may believe that these civilization where inferior to the Europeans because they were savages in the eyes the Europeans because of their lifestyle. However, these three major powers were greatly advanced in the topics of agriculture, writing, economics, engineering and astronomy.

The ancient Mayans, a diverse group of indigenous people who lived in the Yucatan Peninsula, had one of the most sophisticated civilizations in the Western Hemisphere. They were responsible for a number of remarkable scientific achievements in agriculture, astronomy and communications.Early Mayans developed a farming society, they were able to adapted to their environment buy using a system of clearing the dense rain forests called slash and burn which made farming easier. their farming consisted of their most important crop, maize. They would also cultivated beans, squash, maize together they called this process the three sisters this was important to the Mayan because it was a nutritionally complete diet. Astronomy was one of the greatest achievements of the Mayan Empire, The Mayans knew how many days were in a year and also developed a calendar according to their knowledge of astronomy. Another great achievement of the Mayan Empire is their system ...

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...rved as a postal service were runner would carry news rapidly through the empire.

despite,all of their advancements the Europeans believed they were savages because the natives lived opposite of the imperialist. Not only that, but they looked different. They also were not believers of Christ. Bernal Diaz an eyewitness to an Aztec ritual , states "...100,000; I repeat, more than 100,000...human bones piled up in order in another corner of the square. impossible to count..."This shows that the natives were looked upon like savages because of their rituals. These natives were scary to the Europeans. They were scared because they did not understand them. They were notorious for destroying things that were a threat, without first learning about them. This was primarily shown when the Europeans burnt Mayan books called the codices because of their demonic portrayal.