3 - The Pre-Columbian Economy

Summary

Latin America constitutes a large and geographically diverse region of the New World. Physiographically, it is characterized by high precipitous mountain ranges – the Sierras Madres in Central America and the Andes in South America – with narrow Pacific coastal plains. Broad, well-drained, low-lying basins are found on the eastern slopes of the mountains that run into the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. There are extensive high, arid plains, such as the altiplano of Mexico and South America and the punas of Peru, Bolivia, and Chile. There are also a number of tropical islands (both humid and arid, depending on prevailing winds and mountains) that extend north from South America, forming an archipelago in the Caribbean Sea that terminates in the Bahamas. A number of large islands – notably Cuba and Hispaniola – form the northwestern arm of this island chain. One distinctive feature of Latin America is that it has a very long north–south axis, with little of the east–west continental area unbroken by the north–south trending mountain ranges. This north–south spine crosscuts latitudes, making it difficult for animals and plants to migrate naturally east to west. Typically, similar climates lie along a common latitude. But in Latin America, the same latitude is dissected by altitudinal gradients that result in incredibly diverse ecosystems with diverse cultures adapting to the patchwork of environmental regimes. Some more extensive and large-scale political systems have taken advantage of the juxtaposition of different environmental and climatic regimes to integrate them into complex economies. In other situations, this extreme dissection resulted in isolated economic systems with political systems unable to expand beyond the boundaries of local economies.