The Encounters in Early Societies in the Americas and Oceania were very fascinating encounters.
These encounters of early societies in the Americas and Oceania were quite similar to the ones in Africa and Eurasia. Geography also played an important role in these early societies. A few topics I will address are: in what ways were the societies of the Americas and Oceania similar to those in Africa and Eurasia in spite of such isolation. The factors in which contributed to the difficulties in sustaining log distant trade of the societies in America and Oceania with neighboring societies.The last topic I will address is what the existence of such interactions despite such difficulties- might tell us about early complex societies more generally. The early societies in Africa and Eurasia were all geographically distant societies.
Was this good or bad? In a way this was extremely well because with such distance everyone settled in a geographically good spot where they developed an economy. The people of Mesopotamia settled between Euphrates and Tigris and its rivers, roughly including modern Iraq and part of Syria.Early settlers of fertile land in Mesopotamia used wooden plows to moderate the soil before planting crops such as barley, onions, grapes, turnips, and apples. The Egyptians settled along the Nile River. With the Egyptians settling in the Sahara desert they grew barley, sold gold, ivory and ebony. With these early civilizations settling so far apart this developed well economic situations for them.
With these this means that merchants would travel by boat or by land to sell goods which speeded cultural, political class increased as well as social classes.The American and Oceania did a similar settlement to what Africa and Eurasia did. For example the Olmec settled near the Golf of Mexico from 1200 BCE-400 BCE. They built elaborate complexes, pyramids, and colossal human heads. They traded jade and obsidian. With this u can see the did the same as the people in Eurasia and Africa they developed near a body of water which they produced for trade beans squash and chilies.
In Oceania during an ice age when sea levels were exposed land bridges between the islands and narrowed sea crossings thus enabling migrations through the Indonesian archipelago.Australia was reached first then the Solomon Islands. In Oceania the population started to grow so people moved east spreading to islands. With their destination of the islands the climate was very tropical which enabled them to grow many things. With the increase in agriculture the economy grew culture spread and social classes developed.
As you can see in some ways the people of Oceania and the Americas followed exactly what the people in Africa and Eurasia did. The factors in which contributed to the difficulties in sustaining log distant trade of the societies in America and Oceania with neighboring societies was simple.One factor which contributed with long distant trade was a trade route which either developed by sea or land or both. With these routes you would pass by civilizations selling goods to neighboring societies and foreign ones too. Another factor was sabotages. Along sum very far routes scavengers would try to hijack the merchants and take their goods if the weren’t careful and with this going on wars/ fights would happen with neighboring societies.
Another factor was sea levels rising so this also affected trade routes in Oceania Despite such difficulties these interactions of early societies shows how complex generally they were.With the migration of people to the east towards the Americas and Oceania shows much they expanded and how well developed their knowledge was from developing irrigation system, agriculture, predicting when floods and events would happen and so on. Generally they were to advance for their time developing math forming social classes having kings & rulers. In Conclusion, as you can see the early societies of Oceania and Americas were quite advanced from the settlement of the Andes in multi climate zones to the migration to islands in Oceania before the ice age. These societies were generally complex.
