The Americas is noted for its Pre-Columbian civilisations that were extraordinary developments in human society and culture, ranking with early civilisations in Mesopotamia, Egypt, India and China. Like other kingdoms and empires they progressed to create great cities with monumental buildings, as well as refinements in art, pottery, metallurgy and writing. They went through similar cycles of growth and decline, unity and disunity.

However, well before this development, the earliest well-defined cultures occurred in North America around 9-10,000 BC.

Map of North America - source CIA Maps

There were two distinct ones at this time, big game hunters in the Great Plains and East North America, and a desert culture in the Western Basin Region including cave dwellers in Utah. Somewhat later in North America there were semi-permanent settlements of hunter-gatherers in the Mississippi basin and further east by around 7,000 BC. By 4,500 BC they were supplementing their food with sunflower seeds and beans, and by 4,000 BC they had staple crops of maize and were rearing turkeys for food, but other animal husbandry was largely absent. They had substantial agricultural villages grouped around ceremonial centres by 1,800 BC