In American pre-Columbian history highlights the historical region of Mesoamerica, an area in North America which extends from central Mexico through Belize, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, and Costa Rica, where the Toltec, Olmec, Aztec and Totonac civilizations prospered before the Spanish colonization in the 15th and 16th centuries.
However, outside this imperial territory another ancient civilization, known as the Norte Chico civilization, arose independently. It was a complex society that flourished between the fourth and second millennia BC and that included thirty major population centers in what is now the region north-central coast of Peru.
Regarding the economy characteristics of this pre-Columbian society, economic authority rested on the control of cotton and comestible plants and their trade. Similarly, findings suggest a varied trade life with the exportation of its own products to distant communities in exchange for exotic imports.
