Columbus, Europeans “carved out a civilization”

1. In Western schools, children are taught that after Columbus, Europeans “carved out a civilization” starting with small settlements on the edge of a vast wilderness on the East coasts of North and South America. Explain why this way of seeing history is oversimplified at best, and entirely false at worst, based on modern archaeological discoveries. Cite or paraphrase something from the Charles Mann 1491 article in the Atlantic that supports the idea that Native American societies had a greater impact on the land than was previously thought, or at least taught to us in school: