The pre-Colombian history of the New World can be divided into few periods, as we are talking about a very long period from the initial migrations until the contact with the Europeans.
For the first few thousand years after the migrations from Asia to the Americas too place, the people were mostly living a hunter-gatherer life. They were settled in one place, but instead they moved from one place to another in order to be able to get enough food.
Around 2,000 BC we have the first signs of the development of civilizations. The people started to practice agriculture, and that enabled them to settle as they had constant food source. Because of that, they had more time, thus they started to create pottery, later metals. They started to develop cities, construct infrastructure, build empires, get engaged into science.
Some of the civilization that are the most marking are the Mississippian, Mayan, Olmec, Muisca, Aztec, Inca, Nazca. The ones that existed when the Europeans arrived were all destroyed, and only ancient monuments and buildings witness for their existence.
