Portal:Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas Portal

Current distribution of Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are groups of people native to a specific region that inhabited the Americas before the arrival of European settlers in the 15th century and the ethnic groups who continue to identify themselves with those peoples.

The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are diverse; some Indigenous peoples were historically hunter-gatherers, while others traditionally practice agriculture and aquaculture. In some regions, Indigenous peoples created pre-contact monumental architecture, large-scale organized cities, city-states, chiefdoms, states, kingdoms, republics, confederacies, and empires. These societies had varying degrees of knowledge of engineering, architecture, mathematics, astronomy, writing, physics, medicine, planting and irrigation, geology, mining, metallurgy, sculpture, and goldsmithing. (Full article...)

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Tak'alik Ab'aj is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in Guatemala. It was formerly known as Abaj Takalik; its ancient name may have been Kooja. It is one of several Mesoamerican sites with both Olmec and Maya features. The site flourished in the Preclassic and Classic periods, from the 9th century BC through to at least the 10th century AD, and was an important centre of commerce,trading with Kaminaljuyu and Chocolá. Investigations have revealed that it is one of the largest sites with sculptured monuments on the Pacific coastal plain.Olmec-style sculptures include a possible colossal head, petroglyphs and others. The site has one of the greatest concentrations of Olmec-style sculpture outside of the Gulf of Mexico.

Takalik Abaj is representative of the first blossoming of Maya culture that had occurred by about 400 BC. The site includes a Maya royal tomb and examples of Maya hieroglyphic inscriptions that are among the earliest from the Maya region. Excavation is continuing at the site; the monumental architecture and persistent tradition of sculpture in a variety of styles suggest the site was of some importance.

Finds from the site indicate contact with the distant metropolis of Teotihuacan in the Valley of Mexico and imply that Takalik Abaj was conquered by it or its allies.Takalik Abaj was linked to long-distance Maya trade routes that shifted over time but allowed the city to participate in a trade network that included the Guatemalan highlands and the Pacific coastal plain from Mexico to El Salvador.

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Tulum, Quintana Roo, México

image credit: Carlos Delgado

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General images

The following are images from various Indigenous peoples of the Americas-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Principal component analysis showing the Native American cluster in other Eurasian populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 2A Huichol woman from Zacatecas, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 3An Indigenous man playing a panpipe, antara, or siku (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 4An illustration in Florentine Codex, compiled between 1540 and 1585, depicting the Nahua peoples suffering from smallpox during the conquest-era in central Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 5The tomato (jitomate, in central Mexico) was later cultivated by the pre-Hispanic civilizations of Mexico. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 6Owners of a roadside cafe near Cachi, Salta Province, Argentina (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 7The major indigenous language families of much of present-day South America and Panama (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 8Maya women from present-day Guatemala (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 9A Mapuche man and woman; the Mapuche make up about 85% of Indigenous population that live in Chile. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 10A Mapuche man in present-day Chile (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 11Members of an uncontacted tribe encountered in Acre in present-day Brazil in 2009 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 12A Warao family traveling in their canoe in Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 13Maya glyphs in stucco now on display at Museo de sitio in Palenque, Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 14Indigenous people at a farm plantation in Minas Gerais in present-day Brazil, c. 1824 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 15A Choctaw artist in present-day Oklahoma (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 16Areas of Indigenous peoples in North America at time of European colonization (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 17Wayuu women in the Guajira Peninsula, which comprises parts of Colombia and Venezuela (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 18The West Indies in relation to the continental Americas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 19A Mayan woman (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 20The Kogi, descendants of the Tairona, are a culturally intact, largely pre-Columbian era society. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 21The ancient mesoamerican engraving of maize now on display at the National Museum of Anthropology in Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 22An Indigenous woman in traditional dress near Cochabamba, Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 23A qpGraph on the formation of Ancient Paleo-Siberians and Native American populations. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 24The bean is native to Mexico and Central America and later began to be cultivated in South America. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 25An Indigenous Terena man from present-day Brazil (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 26"The Maiden", one of the discovered Llullaillaco mummies, a preserved Inca human sacrifice from around the year 1500. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 27A representation of the domesticated plant species cultivated by Indigenous peoples have influenced the crops that were produced globally. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 28Indigenous Pipil women dancing in the traditional Procession of Palms in Panchimalco, El Salvador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 29Indigenous peoples textile art in 1995 by Julia Pingushat, including Inuk, Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, wool, and embroidery floss (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 30Shaman of the Cofán people from the Amazonian forest in present-day Ecuador (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 31Language families of Indigenous peoples in North America shown across present-day Canada, Greenland, the United States, and northern Mexico (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 32A map of Canada showing the percent of self-reported indigenous identity (First Nations, Inuit, Métis) by census division, according to the 2021 Canadian census (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 33A schematic illustration of maternal (mtDNA) gene-flow in and out of Beringia, from 25,000 years ago to present
Image 34The Rarámuri marathon in Urique (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 35Evo Morales, an Aymara member and former President of Bolivia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 36Chimu culture feather pectoral, feathers, reed, copper, silver, hide, cordage, c. 1350–1450 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 37A Navajo boy in the desert in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona with the "Three Sisters" rock formation in the background in 2007 (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 38A carnival with Tzeltal people in Tenejapa Municipality, Chiapas (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 39A Navajo man on horseback in present-day Monument Valley in Arizona (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 40A map showing the origin of the first wave of humans into the Americas, including the Ancestral Northern Eurasian, which represent a distinct Paleolithic Siberian population, and the Northeast Asians, which are an East Asian-related group. The admixture happened somewhere in Northeast Siberia. (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 41Tunumiit Inuit couple from Kulusuk, Greenland (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 42A Quechua woman and child in the Sacred Valley in Cuzco Region, Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 43Guambía people relaxing in Colombia (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 44Quechua women in festive dress on Taquile Island on Lake Titicaca, west of Peru (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)
Image 45A bison hunt depicted in a painting by George Catlin (1844) (from Indigenous peoples of the Americas)

Selected biography

Geronimo (Chiricahua: Goyaałé, "one who yawns"; often spelled Goyathlay or Goyahkla in English) (June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent Native American leader of the Chiricahua Apache who fought against Mexico and the United States for their expansion into Apache tribal lands for several decades during the Apache Wars.

Goyahkla (Geronimo) was born to the Bedonkohe band of the Apache, near Turkey Creek, a tributary of the Gila River in the modern-day state of New Mexico, then part of Mexico, but which his family considered Bedonkohe land. His grandfather (Mako) had been chief of the Bedonkohe Apache. He had three brothers and four sisters.

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Did you know…

... that the Cascajal Block, a serpentinite slab from the Olmec civilization, was dated to the which early first millennium BCE and may represent the earliest writing system in the Americas?
... that Jim Thorpe (Sac and Fox) won the 1912 Olympic gold medals for the pentathlon and decathlon?
...that underwater panthers were creatures appearing in the mythology of a number of Native American traditions, which combined the features of mountain lions or lynx with those of snakes, and were believed to inhabit the deepest parts of lakes and rivers?

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First day in school for the new pupils in first grade at the Prinsesse Margrethe School in Upernavik, Greenland. All pupils are wearing the national costumes of Greenland

image credit: Kim Hansen

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