This is a chronological list of significant or pivotal moments in the development of Native American art or the visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas. Earlier dates, especially before the 18th century, are mostly approximate.

Aztec/Mixtec turquoise mosaic, double-headed serpent pectoral, 15th–16th century CE

Before common era

• 33,950–15,050 BCE: Artists paints hundreds of images at Serra da Capivara, Piauí, in northeastern Brazil.^[1]
• 12,800–8,500 BCE: Artists etch the Winnemucca Lake petroglyphs, near Reno, Nevada.^[2]
• 11,000 BCE: Megafauna bone etched with a profile image of a walking mammoth and cross-hatched designs left near Vero Beach, Florida is the oldest known portable art in the Americas^[3]
• 10,000–7000 BCE: "Horny Little Man," a petroglyph depicting a stick figure with an oversized phallus, is carved in Lapa do Santo, a cave in central-eastern Brazil, is the oldest reliably dated rock art in the Americas.^[4]
• 9250–8950 BCE: Clovis points - thin, fluted projectile points created using bifacial percussion flaking - are created by Clovis culture peoples in the Plains and Southwestern North America^[5]
• 9250–8550 BCE: Monte Alegre culture rock paintings created at Caverna da Pedra Pintada become the oldest known paintings in South America.^[6][7]
• 9000 BCE: A man and child interred in a cave near Serranópolis in central Brazil are accompanied by necklaces of human teeth and mother of pearl^[8]
• 8500 BCE minimum age (could date back to 12,800 BCE): The Winnemucca Lake petroglyphs located near Winnemucca Lake, a dry lakebed in northwestern Nevada, are the earliest known petroglyphs in North America. They feature repeating designs of dots and arches, and other abstract designs.^[9]
• 8000 BCE: Fiberwork left in Guitarrero Cave, Peru is the earliest known example of textiles in South America^[10]
• 8200 BCE: Cooper Bison skull is painted with a red zigzag in present day Oklahoma,^[11] becoming the oldest known painted object in North America.^[12]
• 7650 BCE: Cave painting in the Toquepala Caves, Peru
• 7370±90: Stenciled hands are painted with mineral inks at the Cueva de las Manos, near Perito Moreno, Argentina, as well as images of humans, guanacos, rheas, felines, other animals, geometric shapes, the sun, and hunting scenes^[13][14]
• 7300 BCE: A painted herringbone design from Tecolate Cave in the Mojave Desert of California is the earliest well-dated pictograph in North America.^[15]
• 5630 BCE: Ceramics left at Caverna da Pedra Pintada, Brazil are the earliest known ceramics in the Americas^[16]
• 3450 BCE: Watson Brake, built by a hunter-gatherer society in Louisiana, is the earliest known mound complex in North America^[17]
• 2885 BCE: Valdivia culture pottery is created in coastal Ecuador^[18]
• 2600–2000 BCE: Monumental architecture, including platform mounds and sunken courtyards, built in Caral, Supe Valley; Asia; Aspero; Salinas de Chao; El Paraíso; La Galgada; and Kotosh, Peru^[19]
• 2500–1800 BCE: Elaborate twined textiles are created at Huaca Prieta in northern coastal Peru, part of the Norte Chico civilization^[20]
• 2000–1000 BCE: Poverty Point culture in northeastern Louisiana features stone work, flintknapping, earthenware, and effigy, conical, and platform mounds, as well as pre-planned settlements on concentric earthen ridges
• 1500 BCE–250 CE: Maya art is created in their Preclassic Period, in central and southeastern Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador
• 1400–400 BCE: Olmec culture thrives in Norte Chico, the tropical lowlands of Mexico. Their art includes colossal basalt heads, jade sculpture, carved writing in stones, and ceramic effigy jars.
• 1000–900 BCE: The Cascajal Block is carved with writing by the Olmec people, becoming the earliest known example of writing in the Americas^[21]
• 1000–200 BCE: Adena culture, known for its mound building, originates in Ohio and expands to Indiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, and parts of Pennsylvania and New York.
• 900 BCE: Construction begins on Chavín de Huantar, a Chavín city in Callejón de Conchucos, Peru
• 900–200 BCE: Chavín synthesis flourishes in central coastal Peru and is characterized by monumental architecture,^[22] goldsmithing, stirrup spout ceramics, and Karwa textiles^[23]
• 750–100 BCE: Paracas culture flourishes in south coastal Peru
• 730 BCE: Porcupine quills used as binding agent in Utah and Nevada
• 500 BCE: Zapotec civilization emerges in the Valley of Oaxaca, Mexico. They are known for their ceramics, jewelry, and stonework.
• 200 BCE–500 CE: The Hopewell tradition flourishes in Ohio, Ontario, and surrounding area, featuring ceramics, cut mica, weaving, carved pipes, and jewelry.

Common era

• 1–600: Moche culture flourishes in northern coastal Peru, characterized by monumental adobe mounds, murals, metalwork, and ceramics^[24]
• 1–700: Nasca culture thrives in southern coastal Peru, characterized by double spout and bridge vessels and the Nasca lines, monumental geoglyphs^[25]
• 200–700: Maya civilization's Classic Period. Architecture, painting, stone glyphic writing, books, painting, ceramics, and Maya textiles created in central and southeastern Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador
• 400–900: Tiwanaku culture emerges from Lake Titicaca and spreads to southern Peru, eastern Bolivia, and northern Chile
• 500–900: Wari culture dominates central coastal Peru
• 755±65–890±65: likely dates of the Blythe Geoglyphs being sculpted by ancestral Quechan and Mojave peoples in the Colorado Desert, California^[26]
• 800–1500: Mississippian cultures flourish in the Eastern Woodlands, featuring ceramics, shell engraving, textiles, woodcarving and stonework.
• 900: Earliest event recorded in the Battiste Good (1821–22, Sicangu Lakota) Winter count^[27]
• 900-1470: Chimú culture thrives in Chimor, today's north coastal Peru.^[28] Their art is characterized by monochromatic pottery; fine metal working of copper, gold, silver, bronze, and tumbago (copper and gold alloy);^[29] and monumental abode construction in their capital city Chan Chan
• 1000: Island of Marajó flourishes as an Amazonian ceramic center
• 1000–1200: Dresden Codex written and illuminated. This Yucatecan Mayan codex from Chichén Itzá is the earliest known surviving book from the Americas^[30]
• 1000–1200: Acoma Pueblo and Old Oraibi are established, become the oldest continuously inhabited communities in the United States^[31][32][33]
• 1070: Great Serpent Mound built in Ohio.^[34]
• 1100: Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon reaches apex in size at 800 rooms^[35]
• 1100: Hohokam Culture reaches apex in present day Arizona^[35]
• 1142: Wampum invented by Ayenwatha, which the Haudenosaunee used to record information.^[36][37]
• 1200–1533: Inca civilization originated in the Peruvian highlands and spreads across western South America
• 1250: Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde, and other Ancestral Pueblo architectural complexes reach their apex^[38]
• 1325–1521: The Aztec Empire thrives, based in Tenochtitlan, central Mexico. Their arts are characterized by monumental stone architecture, turquoise mosaics, stone carving, ceramics, cotton textiles, and Aztec codices
• 1430: Construction of Machu Picchu begins, a classic example of Incan architecture
• 1479: Aztec Sun Stone, a monolithic calendar stone, almost 12 feet in diameter, is carved^[39]
• 1492: Glass beads are introduced to Taíno people
• 1500: Calusa culture flourishes in Key Marco, Florida,^[38] characterized by woodcarving
• 1500–1800: Navajo people learn loom-weaving techniques from Pueblo people^[38]
• 1600–1615: Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala (Quechua) illustrates his 1,189-page book, El primer nueva corónica [sic] y buen gobierno.
• 1600–1650: Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxochitl (Texcocan, 1568/1580–1648) illustrates the Codex Ixtlilxochitl with watercolor paintings
• 1688: European and Mestizo members of the Cuzco School part ways with the Indian painters, allowing them to develop their own styles.^[40]
• 1725: Quebec Grey nuns and Mi'kmaq women devise new floral appliqué techniques in moose hair embroidery^[41]

See also

Notes

References

• Bement, Leland C. Bison hunting at Cooper site: where lightning bolts drew thundering herds. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0-8061-3053-8.
• Berlo, Janet C. and Ruth B. Phillips. Native North American Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998: 97-8. ISBN 978-0-19-284218-3.
• Downs, Dorothy. Art of the Florida Seminole and Miccosukee Indians. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. ISBN 0-8130-1335-6.
• Dunn, Dorothy. American Indian Painting of the Southwest and Plains Areas. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1968. ASIN B000X7A1T0.
• Fane, Diana, ed. Converging Cultures: Art & Identity in Spanish America. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1996. ISBN 0-87273-134-0.
• Greene, Candace S. and Russel Thornton, ed. The Year the Stars Fell: Lakota Winter Counts at the Smithsonian. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 2007. ISBN 0-8032-2211-4
• Hessel, Ingo. Arctic Spirit: Inuit Art from the Albrecht Collection at the Heard Museum. Phoenix: Heard Museum, 2006. ISBN 9781553651895.
• Josephy, Alvin M., Jr. The Indian heritage of America. Boston: Mariner Books, 2001. ISBN 978-0-395-57320-4.
• Libhart, Myles. Contemporary Sioux Painting. Rapid City, SD: Indian Arts and Crafts Board, 1970. ASIN B001Y46FHS.
• McFadden, David Revere and Ellen Napiura Taubman. Changing Hands: Art without Reservation 2: Contemporary Native North American Art from the West, Northwest and Pacific. New York: Museum of Arts and Design, 2005. ISBN 1-890385-11-5.
• Penny, David W. North American Indian Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004. ISBN 0-500-20377-6.
• Seymour, Tryntje Van Ness. When the Rainbow Touches Down. Phoenix, AZ: Heard Museum, 1988. ISBN 0-934351-01-5.
• Silverman, Helaine and William Isbell, eds. Handbook of South American Archaeology. New York: Springer Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-0-387-75228-0.
• Swan, Daniel C. Peyote Religious Art: Symbols and Faith and Belief. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1999. ISBN 1-57806-096-6.
• Stone-Miller, Rebecca. Art of the Andes: from Chavín to Inca. London: Thames and Hudson, 2002. ISBN 978-0-500-20363-7.
• Tsinhnahjinnie, Hulleah J. and Veronica Passalacqua, eds. Our People, Our Land, Our Images: International Indigenous Photography. Berkeley: Heyday Books, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59714-057-7.
• Wolfe, Rinna Evelyn. Edmonia Lewis: Wildfire in Marble. Parsippany, New Jersey, 1998. ISBN 0-382-39714-2