1491

There’s a pervasive belief that the Indians were primitive or only a few steps above the cave man. Neither were true. From the metropolis at Cahokia (modern-day St. Louis), to the irrigation systems of the southwest to the teeming civilizations of Mesoamerica, the cave man was no where to be found. Had Columbus arrived a few decades later, or diseases not wiped out as much or more than 90% of the population, history in the Western Hemisphere may have unfolded a bit differently. One of the best books on the subject is 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. A must read on a lost world far different, and far more advanced, than many realize.