Pre Columbian Mesoamerican Flute, Metropolitan Museum of Art

Mesoamerican civilizations were a group of ancient cultures that inhabited Central and South America, including parts of modern-day Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador. The Mesoamerican civilization is known for its advanced and sophisticated cultures, which developed complex systems of writing, art, architecture, and science. The Mesoamerican civilization is generally considered to have begun around 2500 BC and to have reached its peak between AD 600 and AD 900. The Mesoamerican civilization is known for its impressive achievements, including the development of the Maya and Aztec cultures, which are among the most well-known of the ancient Mesoamerican cultures. Aboriginal American Indian cultures that evolved in Mesoamerica (part of Mexico and Central America) and the Andean region (western South America) prior to Spanish exploration and conquest in the 16th century. The pre-Columbian civilizations were extraordinary developments in human society and culture, ranking with the early civilizations of Egypt, Mesopotamia, and China. Like the ancient civilizations of the Old World, those in the New World were characterized by kingdoms and empires, great monuments and cities, and refinements in the arts, metallurgy, and writing; the ancient civilizations of the Americas also display in their histories similar cyclical patterns of growth and decline, unity and disunity.

Tairona, Indians of the northern Colombian Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, known only from occasional references in Spanish colonial writings and from archaeological study. The Tairona used stone to build houses, tombs, bridges, and terraced platforms. Their crafts are represented by ceramic ware; stone utensils such as metates (for grinding corn [maize]); bone and shell ornaments; and beads, buttons, and jewelry made of gold, copper, and gold-copper alloy (tumbaga). It is known that the Tairona were agriculturists because tools such as metates and hoes have been found; and, from the well-made stone buildings and artifacts of worked metals, it can be supposed that their culture was similar to those of the Chibcha or the Inca, although the Tairona were apparently unrelated to them.