The Atlantic World and The America's Before Contact

The Atlantic World

• The America’s, Europe, Africa
  • all large, diverse, complex, constantly changing
  • none was unified politically or culturally
• beginning late 1400s, became deeply interconnected
  • via “the colombian exchange”
  • process reshaped all 4 continents
• over time, there became an interlinked “atlantic world”
  • bound by trade, politics, violence, kinship, and new cultural forms
  • between 1500-1800 CE

The America’s Before Contact

• first human populations migrated from Siberia 12-40 thousand years ago
• both continents populated by 7000 years ago
• agriculture began about 9000 years ago in present day Mexico and then gradually spread
• by 15th century, 50-60 million people (north and south America)
  • huge diversity of culture and life ways
  • deeply interconnected
• a complex world already in motion

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