8.2 Early Cultures and Civilizations in the Americas

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

• Describe how civilizations in the Americas adapted to their environments
• Discuss the contributions of the Olmec civilization to culture and religion in Mesoamerica
• Identify the key components of early cultures in North and South America

At the start of the third century BCE, after thousands of years of hunter-gatherer existence, the peoples living in the Americas began to form complex agricultural-based societies. Over the next few thousand years, the early settled communities gave way to large and architecturally impressive settlements from the Andean region to the Eastern Woodlands of North America. These led to local similarities in art, architecture, religion, and pottery design.