The effect of environments on the Indian Culture during the Pre-Columbian Period
The Pre-Columbian era is the period before the voyages of 1942 by Christopher Columbus arrived to America. During the era, the development of cultures was based on the region where the community lived, environment shaped the peoples culture. North American Indians Had a hunting culture where the used Clovis points, a fluted stone which was used as a spear for hunting. Other hunting cultures by the Indian people include the Folsom tradition, where they used Folsom points for hunting; Folsom points were an advancement of Clovis points such that they were thinner and smaller. The Hohokam people who settled in the present day Arizona practiced desert farming, in Southwestern America they were the first to grow cotton, and living in a fertile environment enabled them to practice farming. Indians who lived around the Ohio valley and Illinois River valley practiced both hunting and gathering alongside farming, those in the valleys practiced hunting and gathering while those along the rivers practiced farming as the environment favored farming.
Though in the Pre-Columbian era Indians occupied different regions of America, their cultures had similar elements like the use of Stone tools to practice hunting also settling along rivers to practice farming.
The European Exploration
The Europeans set out to explore beyond their borders for many reasons, they were looking for a different trade route to Asia where they got their spices, and they also set out of their countries in search of gold, silver and other precious stones, while some European rulers sent out explorers who were to help them expand their empires. The European explores were also missionaries who wanted to spread Christianity to other parts of the world. While others wanted to expand their knowledge about the world, to explore and discover regions beyond Europe.
As they explored their aim was to find new areas to settle, to find new trade partners and also new sea routes to their trade destinations. As they explored Europeans interacted with the natives from the new regions and made many exchanges. Knowledge exchange that occurred, explorers from Spain had never seen Turkeys, rattlesnakes and llamas, they also learnt about new foods like corn, chocolate, tobacco, beans and pineapples, the American natives got to learn about coffee, wheat, sugar cane and bananas also animals like horses, sheep and pigs were introduced to them.
Disease was also exchanged during the interactions; Europeans came with influenza, smallpox and whooping cough which affected the natives severely, some of which reduced the natives population due to lack of cure.
The natives were affected majorly by the diseases that came with the Europeans as Europeans got somewhere to settle and enriched themselves from the raw materials they got from America.References
King, Heidi, Ma. Mercedes PeĢrez, and N.Y. York. Peruvian featherworks: art of the Precolumbian era. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art ;, 2012. Print.
Morison, Samuel Eliot. The European discovery of America. New York: Oxford University Press, 197174. Print.
Kupperman, Karen Ordahl. America in European consciousness, 1493 – 1750. Chapel Hill [u.a.: Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1995. Print.
