pre-Columbian

pre-Columbian

See also: Precolumbian

English

Alternative forms

• Precolumbian

Etymology

pre- +‎ Columbian

Adjective

pre-Columbian (not comparable)

1. Before Christopher Columbus's voyages of the 1490s introduced greatly widened contacts between Eurasia and the Americas.

   since pre-Columbian times

   unknown in Europe in pre-Columbian times

2. Referring to the cultures of the Americas before the European influence, specifically to the era before the continent was visited by Christopher Columbus.

   pre-Columbian cultures

   pre-Columbian civilizations

   • 1961, Margaret A. Towle, The Ethnobotany of Pre-Columbian Peru, Transaction Publishers, →ISBN, page 2:

     In fact, the dating of pre-Columbian Andean cultures was largely a matter of guesswork.

   • 2010, Marylou Kjelle, In Pre-Columbian America, Mitchell Lane Publishers, Inc., →ISBN, page 41:

     Boys trained to be warriors, but why did pre-Columbian peoples battle one another?

   Coordinate terms: precontact, precolonial, pre-Hispanic, pre-European

Translations

before Christopher Columbus

Catalan: precolombí Danish: præ-columbiansk Dutch: precolumbiaans French: précolombien (fr) Galician: precolombiano German: präkolumbisch (de) Hungarian: prekolumbiánus (hu) Italian: precolombiano Portuguese: pré-colombiano m Spanish: precolombino (es) Swedish: förcolumbiansk (sv)

Further reading

• pre-Columbian era on Wikipedia.Wikipedia