1491

America Before Columbus

1491 is a groundbreaking history study that radically alters our understanding of the Americas before the arrival of the Europeans in 1492.

Columbus's landing

Traditionally, Americans learned in school that the ancestors of the people who inhabited the Western Hemisphere at the time of Columbus's landing had crossed the Bering Strait twelve thousand years ago; existed mainly in small, nomadic bands; and lived so lightly on the land that the Americas was, for all practical purposes, still a vast wilderness.
But as Charles C. Mann now makes clear, archaeologists and anthropologists have spent the last thirty years proving these and many other long-held assumptions wrong.

More people in the Americas than in Europe

In a book that startles and persuades, Charles C. Mann reveals how a new generation of researchers equipped with novel scientific techniques came to previously unheard-of conclusions. Among them: In 1491 there were probably more people living in the Americas than in Europe. Certain cities-such as Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital-were far greater in population than any contemporary European city. Furthermore, Tenochtitlan, unlike any capital in Europe at that time, had running water, beautiful botanical gardens, and immaculately clean streets. The earliest cities in the Western Hemisphere were thriving before the Egyptians built the great pyramids.

Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico

Pre-Columbian Indians in Mexico developed corn by a breeding process so sophisticated that the journal Science recently described it as "man's first, and perhaps the greatest, feat of genetic engineering. Amazonian Indians learned how to farm the rain forest without destroying it-a process scientists are studying today in the hope of regaining this lost knowledge. Native Americans transformed their land so completely that Europeans arrived in a hemisphere already massively landscaped by human beings.
The term Pre-Columbian is used to refer to the cultures of the New World in the era before significant European influence. While technically referring to the era before Christopher Columbus, in practice the term usually includes indigenous cultures as they continued to develop until they were conquered or significantly influenced by Europeans, even if this happened decades or even centuries after Columbus first landed in 1492.

Columbus

Christopher Columbus was an explorer and trader, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and reached the Americas on October 12, 1492. History places great significance on his landing in America in 1492, with the entire period of the history of the Americas before this date usually known as Pre-Columbian, and the anniversary of this event, Columbus Day, being celebrated in many parts of America. Although there is evidence of Pre-Columbian trans-Atlantic Ocean European contact, Columbus is commonly credited as the first European to see the Americas because of the profound impact his contact wrought on history. The voyage of Columbus marked the beginning of European exploration and colonization of the Americas.

Charles C. Mann

Charles C. Mann sheds clarifying light on the methods used to arrive at these new visions of the pre-Columbian Americas and how they have affected our understanding of our history and our thinking about the environment. This book of Charles C. Mann is an exciting and learned account of scientific inquiry and revelation.

1491

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C. Mann
ISBN: 140004006X

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