List of pre-Columbian cultures  

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This list of pre-Columbian cultures includes those civilizations and cultures of the Americas which flourished prior to the European colonization of the Americas.

Cultural characteristics

Many pre-Columbian civilizations established permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, and complex societal hierarchies. [[File:Watson Brake Mounds - Map.png|thumb|right|Watson Brake, Louisiana 3500 BCE]] In North America, indigenous cultures in the Lower Mississippi Valley during the Middle Archaic period built complexes of multiple mounds, with several in Louisiana dated to 5600-5000 BP (3700 BCE-3100 BCE). Watson Brake is considered the oldest, multiple mound complex in the Americas, as it has been dated to 3500 BCE. It and other Middle Archaic sites were built by pre-ceramic, hunter-gatherer societies. They preceded the better known Poverty Point culture and its elaborate complex by nearly 2,000 years. The Mississippi Valley mound-building tradition extended into the Late Archaic period, longer than later southeastern mound building dependent on sedentary, agricultural societies.(Russo, 1996:285).

Some of these civilizations had long ceased to function by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (ca. late 15th – early 16th centuries), and are known only through archaeological investigations or oral history from tribes today. Others were contemporary with this period, and are also known from historical accounts of the time. A few, such as the Olmec, Maya, Mixtec, and Nahua had their own written records. However, most Europeans of the time viewed such texts as heretical and burned most of them. Only a few hidden documents remain today, leaving modern historians with glimpses of ancient culture and knowledge.

From both indigenous American and European accounts and documents, American civilizations at the time of European encounter possessed many impressive attributes, having populous cities, and having developed theories of astronomy and mathematics.

Where they persist, the societies and cultures which gave rise to these civilizations continue to adapt and evolve; they also uphold various traditions and practices which relate back to these earlier times, even if combined with those more recently adopted.

Northern America

• Paleo-Indians, ca. 18,000–8000 BCE
  • Clovis culture, 11,500–11,000 BCE, United States, Mexico, and Central America
  • Folsom tradition
  • Plano cultures
  • Cody complex
• Archaic Period, 8000–1000 BCE
  • Paleo-Arctic Tradition, 8000–5000 BCE, Alaska and Yukon Territory
  • Watson Brake and Lower Mississippi Valley mounds sites, 3500 BCE-2800 BCE, Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida
  • Poverty Point culture, 2200 BCE–700 BCE, Lower Mississippi Valley and surrounding Gulf coast
• Post-archaic period, 1000 BCE-onward
  • Southwest:
    • Ancestral Pueblo culture, 1200 BCE–1300 CE, Utah, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico
    • Fremont culture, 400 CE–1350 CE, Utah and parts of Nevada, Idaho and Colorado
    • Hohokam, 200 CE–1450 CE, Arizona
  • Eastern Woodlands
    • Woodland period, 1000 BCE–1000 CE
      • Adena, 1000–200 BCE, Ohio, Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania and New York.
      • Hopewell culture, 200 BCE–500 CE, Southeastern Canada and eastern United States
      • Troyville culture, 400-700 CE, Louisiana and Mississippi
      • Coles Creek culture, 700-1200 CE, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi
      • Plum Bayou culture, 700-1200 CE, Arkansas
    • Mississippian culture, 800 CE–1500 CE, Midwestern, Eastern, and Southeastern United States
      • Caborn-Welborn culture, 1400-1700 CE, Indiana and Kentucky.
      • Caddoan Mississippian culture, 1000 CE–1650 CE, Eastern Oklahoma, Western Arkansas, Northeast Texas, and Northwest Louisiana.
      • Fort Walton Culture, 1100–1550 CE, Florida.
      • Leon-Jefferson Culture, 1100–1550 CE, Florida.
      • Plaquemine culture, 1200-1730 CE, Louisiana and Mississippi.
      • Upper Mississippian culture,
        • Fort Ancient, 1000 CE–1650 CE, Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia
        • Oneota, 900-1650 CE, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota and Missouri.

Caribbean

thumb|Early South American cultures

• Ortoiroid people, ca. 5500—200 BCE
  • Krum Bay culture, Virgin Islands, St. Thomas, 1500—200 BCE
  • Coroso culture, Puerto Rico, 1000 BCE–200 CE
• Ciboney people, Greater Antilles, ca. 1000—301 BCE
  • Guanahatabey, Cuba, 1000 BCE
• Saladoid culture, 500 BCE—545 CE
• Ostionoid culture, 600—1500 CE
• Arawak people, ca. 500-1500 BC
  • Taíno, Lesser Antilles and Guadeloupe
  • Lucayans, Greater Antilles and Bahamas 700 CE-1500 CE
  • Nepoya and Suppoya, Trinidad
  • Igneri, Dominica 500 CE, St. Croix 650 CE, Puerto Rico 1000 CE

Mesoamerica

• Aztec, 1325–1521 CE, central Mexico
• Huastec, 1000 BCE–1500 CE, Hidalgo, Veracruz, San Luis Potosí and Tamaulipas
• Mixtec, unknown–1600 CE, western Oaxaca
• Maya, 500 BCE–900 CE, Southern Mexican states of Chiapas and Tabasco, Mexican Yucatán Peninsula states of Quintana Roo, Campeche, and Yucatán; Guatemala; Belize; El Salvador; western Honduras
• Olmec, 1200–400 BCE, Veracruz and Tabasco
• P'urhépecha or Tarascan state, 1300–1530 CE, Michoacán
• Teotihuacán, 200 BCE–800 CE, near Mexico City
• Toltec, 900–1100 CE
• Totonac, unknown–1500 CE, eastern Mexico
• Western Mexico shaft tomb tradition, 300 BCE–400 CE, Jalisco, Nayarit, and, to a lesser extent, Colima
• Zapotec, 500 BCE–1500 CE, Oaxaca

Isthmo-Colombian area

• Cueva people, ?–1530 CE, Panama
• Diquis culture, 700–1530 CE, Costa Rica

South America

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See also

• Indigenous peoples of the Americas – for coverage on present-day indigenous peoples
• Lithic stage in Canada
• Cultural periods of Peru
• Pre-Columbian Ecuador
• Classification of indigenous peoples of the Americas