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