| Many American history books begin with the year 1492 and the discovery of the Caribbean Islands by Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus (1451–1506). For the great civilizations of Mesoamerica and South America, though, 1492 proved to be the beginning of the end of their civilization. The products of thousands of years of history—the cities, the architecture, markets, governments, economic systems, legal systems, schools, books, holy shrines—even the daily prayers of the people—were about to be willfully eliminated by the conquering European nations. The rupture would prove so deep that many aspects of pre-Hispanic American culture and tradition were forever deleted from the human memory. Fortunately, some of the important history of the early civilizations has survived and more is being recovered every day.
The three-volume Early Civilizations in the Americas Reference Library provides a comprehensive overview of the history of the two regions of the American continents in which two of the world’s first civilizations developed: Mesoamerica (the name for the lands in which ancient civilizations arose in Central America and Mexico) and the Andes Mountains region of South America (in present-day Peru and parts of Bolivia, northern Argentina, and Ecuador). In both cases, the history of civilization goes back thousands of years. Recent studies show that the first cities in the Americas may have arisen as early as 2600 B.C.E. in the river valleys of present-day Peru. The earliest evidence of civilization in Mesoamerica dates back to about 2000 B.C.E.
The year 1492 has traditionally been used to mark the division in the American past between history and prehistory. The historic times came after the Spanish arrived in 1492 with their writing systems and began to record events. Prehistory is defined as the time before there was writing to record history. We now know that it is incorrect to use the word“prehistory” for some of the ancient civilizations of Mesoamerica, which developed writing systems long before the Spanish arrived. But the written records left behind by the early civilizations are scarce and often difficult to decipher. Most historians also rely on evidence from the field of archaeology, the scientific recovery and study of artifacts, or objects made or used by humans of earlier times. By examining artifacts, archaeologists have been able to reconstruct parts of the daily lives of the people of early cultures. Analyzed in laboratories, artifacts can be accurately dated and provide a useful timeline for early civilizations. |
