Before the Spanish explorer Christopher Columbus set foot on the territories of the Americas or the “New World” in 1492, the continent was home to many civilizations and smaller communities that were ethnically rich and socially extensively developed.

Pre-Columbian civilizations settled in Central America and South America. These communities significantly developed sociocultural, economic, and religious systems.

The term pre-Columbian refers to the settled societies that inhabited the Americas before Columbus inaugurated a new era of colonization in 1492.