The Americas in the ancient world (3500 BC – 800 BC). The first cities, the first writing, the first kings who called themselves gods. These articles cover Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus and the Bronze Age world that connected them.
Caral, in Peru's Supe valley, raised pyramids by 2627 BC with no pottery or maize; its farmers grew cotton for fishing nets and traded it for fish.
· 2600 BCSeiichi Izumi's University of Tokyo team dug up two crossed-hands clay reliefs at Kotosh, Peru, in 1960 and 1963; sources disagree on their age.
· 2000 BCHunter-gatherers moved nearly 2 million cubic yards of earth at Poverty Point, Louisiana, 1700–1100 BC; Mound A took up to 15.5 million basket loads.
· 1500 BCSeventeen Olmec colossal heads are known, from San Lorenzo, La Venta and Tres Zapotes; the first was found in 1862, the last at San Lorenzo in May 1994.
· 1000 BCA serpentine block with 62 signs from a Veracruz gravel quarry was reported in Science on September 15, 2006 as the oldest writing in the Americas.
· 900 BCTwenty shell trumpets came from Chavín's Caracolas Gallery in 2001. In 2025 PNAS reported vilca and tobacco alkaloids on six artifacts from Gallery 3.
· 800 BC
