Neolithic Culture in the Americas

In the Americas the shape and timing of the Neolithic revolution differed compared to other parts of the world. For example, Neolithic agricultural villages were common in Southwest Asia between 8,000 and 9,000 years ago, but similar villages did not appear in the Americas until about 4,500 years ago, in Mesoamerica (the region encompassing central and southern Mexico and northern Central America) and the Andean highlands. Moreover, pottery, which developed in Southwest Asia shortly after plant and animal domestication, did not emerge in the Americas until much later. The potter’s wheel was

Mesoamerica The region encompassing central and southern Mexico and northern Central America.

Not used by early Neolithic people in the Americas. Instead, elaborate pottery was manufactured by hand. Looms and the hand spindle appeared in the Americas about 3,000 years ago.

None of these absences indicate any backwardness on the part of Native American peoples, many of whom, as we have already seen, were highly sophisticated farmers and plant breeders. Rather, the effectiveness of existing practices was such that they continued to be satisfactory. When food production developed in Mesoamerica and the Andean highlands, it did so wholly independently of Europe and Asia, with different crops, animals, and technologies.

Outside Mesoamerica and the Andean highlands, hunting, fishing, and the gathering of wild plant foods remained important elements in the economy of Neolithic peoples in the Americas. Apparently, most American Indians chose not to entirely switch from a food-foraging to a food-producing mode of life, even though maize and other domestic crops came to be cultivated just about everywhere that climate permitted. The Indian lifeways were so effective, so well integrated into a complete cultural system, and so environmentally stable that for many of these groups the change to food production was unnecessary. The stable American Indian cultures were only disrupted by the arrival of European explorers who brought disease and devastation with them.