America Before Columbus

History books traditionally depict the pre-Columbus Americas as a pristine wilderness where small native villages lived in harmony with nature. But scientific evidence tells a very different story: When Columbus stepped ashore in 1492, millions of people were already living there.

Columbus found Cuba, though a few years later the sea explorer Amerigo Vespucci found the continent of (south) America. After Amerigo puplished his exploring finds, Martin Waldseemüller dubbed the new continent America; after the Italian explorer.

America wasn’t exactly a “New World,” but a very old one whose inhabitants had built a vast infrastructure of cities, orchards, canals and causeways.