The Old New World
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I. Earliest settlements
-- Bering Strait crossing, +/- 25,000 years ago
-- Clovis in New Mexico etc., +/- 12,000 years ago
-- Monte Verde in Chile/Patagonia, 18,000-14,500 years ago
-- Amazonia and Mesoamerica, +/- 20,000 years ago
II. Andes/Andean culture
-- mummification of dead, 9000+ years ago
-- potatoes (8000 years ago), cacao (Amazon and Mesoamerica)
-- textiles (writing?), cotton cultivated 4500 years ago
-- khipus and more here (*)
-- geoglyphs: Palpa (2400 yrs old) and Nazca (1800 yrs. old)
III. Mesoamerica/Mesoamerican culture
-- squash 8000 years ago; corn and beans 5500 years ago
-- one of 3 places in world where writing independently develops, +/-2600 years ago4 systems: Mixtec, Zapotec, Maya, Aztec
only 20 +/- precolumbian books survive today-- the Maya
independent invention of 0
Classic "lost" cities
complex calendrics (2012!!)-- the Mesoamerican ballgame and blood-letting