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The Birth of a Culture

What Grows in Latin America? Many Latin American plants are known world-wide. Corn, tomatoes, potatoes, tobacco, cocoa beans (used for making chocolate and cosmetics) and fruits like pineapples and avocados all came from Latin America. Other native plants include manioc, many kinds of yam and sweet potatoes, medicinal herbs and a large variety of woods, used both for construction and as sources of dyes for textile manufacturers.

A ncient Latin American people grazed llamas just like these on the Ulla Ulla Plateau in Bolivia. Wandering Peoples

Many of the first people of Latin America were nomadic— this means that they traveled in small groups from one place to another living on fruit, animals and fish. Some tribes settled, built villages and grew maize (a type of corn), manioc , and other roots. People made flour and bread from what they harvested, but they did not have cattle or other animals to help them to farm the land. The only domestic animals they had were the llama, the alpaca, the guinea pig and a kind of tame dog that could not bark. The First Civilizations Civilizations first developed in the Central Andes (Peru and Bolivia), Mexico and northern Central America. Hunters and fishermen settled in villages and began farming the land and sea from 2000-1400 bce . Because the land and sea were very fertile and the inhabitants good farmers and fishermen, the populations of these communities grew very rapidly. Food was easily produced so time became available to develop architecture, religion, cities, armies, pottery and art. The early peoples of Latin America also found time to explore their own country in amazing depth considering all travel was on foot.

A seventeenth-century painting of an Aztec using a digging stick to plant corn (above). An lnca serving dish and maize cobs (below). Maize was made into porridge and tortillas (pancakes) and served with beans.

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