During the era of European expansion in the New World, Italian navigators had a decisive influence not only in maritime exploration, but also in the study of the New Continent from an ethnic, social and naturalistic point of view. The five great Italian navigators were: Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, Giovanni and Sebastiano Caboto and Giovanni da Verazzano. Everyone had to look for jobs outside Italy, given that the rulers of the time did not understand the real added value that these navigators could bring to their territories (and even less to the whole of Italy, understood as a nation). Unfortunately, even today many excellent...

The first European who found himself in the presence of the vestiges of the Mayan civilization was the Andalusian Francisco Hernandez de Cordoba, on an expedition in 1517. The aim of the exploration of the Central American mainland was to imprison indigenous people and then use them as slaves in agricultural lands and mines of Cuba. The adventurers set sail from Cuba on February 8, 1517 with two caravels and a brig. After about twenty days of sailing, they sighted land on the coast of Yucatan. The invaders, amazed, saw stone houses and realized that they were in the presence of an advanced culture. The village was called Great Cairo, foll...

The conqueror of the area inhabited by the Quimbaya indigenous people was Jorge Robledo, one of the lieutenants of Sebastian de Belalcazar, governor of Popayan and founder of Santiago de Cali. In 1539 Robledo left the village of Cali, commanding a troop of about one hundred Spaniards and various indigenous slaves, and pushed north, along the Cauca river. After founding the village of Anserma, he came into contact with Cananao, the cacique of the Irras. From the latter he received a golden vase as a gift and as a sign of submission and welcome. The Spaniards instilled terror on the natives, especially for those strange shiny iron barrels t...

During my third trip to Peru I stopped for a few days in Ica, a city located south of Lima, on the edge of a desert area, where the Paracas and Nazca civilizations once flourished. The first museum I visited was the Ancient History Museum, located a few minutes from the main square. In it you can admire interesting finds from the Paracas era, fabrics, ceramics and human remains. In particular, the deformed skulls are very interesting. This practice was normal in ancient American cultures, for example it is also found in the Guane culture of Colombia. Passionate as I am about history and mysteries of the past, I couldn't help but visit...

On my first trip to Peru I traveled up the Amazon River to Iquitos. From the Amazon city, capital of the Loreto department, I continued sailing up the Ucayali, the main arm of the Amazon River, in the heart of the Peruvian Amazon. After meeting various native communities, for example the Shipibo of Contamana, I stopped for a few days in Puccalpa, a city connected to Lima by an asphalt road. So, after resting for a few days, I decided to continue the journey and I boarded a motor-barge with which I arrived, after other days of navigation, at Atalaya del Tambo. This country, located approximately 5800 kilometers from the estuary, is located...

Earth's first continents may have emerged from the planet's primordial oceans much earlier than we thought, as little as six hundred million years after the planet formed, new research suggests. Ancient zircon crystals from the Jack Hills in Western Australia contain evidence of fresh water, indicating that areas of land must have been present as fresh water can only form if there is land to later collect to precipitation. The team described the zircons at a European Geosciences Union conference in April 2024. The composition of early Earth has long puzzled scientists. When our planet first formed, 4.6 billion years ago, it was a ...

In the remains of the Great Temple of Hattusa, located in modern-day Turkey, there is an interesting peculiarity: an imposing nephrite monolith carved in the shape of a cube. This stone, known as the “wishing stone ” by local inhabitants, was found among the remains of the Hittite empire, which established itself in the region around 2000 BC, emerging as one of the dominant powers of the Middle East by 1340 BC. The Hittite capital, Hattusa, reached its peak with an estimated population of 40,000 to 50,000 people and was characterized by numerous temples, royal residences and impressive fortifications. However, over the course of several d...

Geography The splendid Bura terra cotta pieces originate from what is now Burkina Faso, the name Bura coming from the burial ground where the first archaeological pieces were found. Asinda and Sikka are two more precise locations, inside this larger excavation area. Burkina, or Burkina Faso in its long form, was formerly called the Upper Volta. It is a landlocked country in West Africa whose name in French means "country of the just men". The country is inhabited by the Burkinabé, a word which designates the inhabitant, male or female, in the Foulfouldé language spoken by the Peuls, a population of nomadic stock breeders throughout West ...

Geography Djenné ceramics come from Mali which has a surface area of more than 1,200,000 km², which is about twice the size of France. The north and the center of the country are practically Saharan: arid, dry and endemically suffering from drought. These are areas of nomadic cattle-raising (bovine, especially ovine and caprine) whose very poor economy suffers from the absence of maritime outlets and, with the exception of some gold lodes, an almost total lack of mineral resources. The more humid south benefits from the Senegal and Niger river valleys where agricultural output is greater, principally fine quality millet, rice, sorghum, a...

Geography Ghana is a west African country located on the Gulf of Guinea, just north of the equator. It shares a border with the Ivory Coast to the west, Togo to the east and Burkina Faso to the north. Ghana owes its former name, Gold Coast, to the large amount of gold to be found in the country. Before being exploited by the British, German, Dutch and French colonists, this gold was used abundantly by the Ashanti ethnic group, supporting their tradition of splendid gold jewelry, a tradition also propagated by the neighboring Baoulé ethnic group. The country consists of dense tropical forests in the south, and the savanna in the north. It...