Prominent among these is the art (usually small sculptures) of the Hopewell Culture, a culture described as “ a brilliant florescence of art, architecture, ceremony, and interregional interaction that was unparalleled in North America up to that time” (Bradley T. The Woodlands east of the Mississippi were inhabited by several cultures who had the common characteristic of building large burial mounds, and are collectively known as Mound Builders. In the Great Plains area, several tribes persist ( Sioux, Kiowa) who mastered the art of textile painting. The Anasazi, from whom the Pueblo Indians are descended, are well known for their cliff dwellings and mastered pottery and textiles, while the Chumash are noted for their basketry and cave paintings. In the hot, dry lands of what is now California and the American West, several cultures adapted well to the climate of the region. This -together with the fact that the conquest of North America took place later than that of Mesoamerica and South America, especially in the northern regions- means that several Native American cultures have been able to survive (albeit extremely reduced) to the present day, while the Mesoamerican and South American civilisations “disappeared” with the mestizaje.
While in the areas that were taken over by the Spaniards and Portuguese, mestizaje between natives and Europeans was extensive, that was not the case of North America, taken over mainly by the English, French and Dutch,wherethe native peoples were either massacred or, on many occasions, expelled from their lands and concentrated in small areas. The art of the native peoples of North America is usually studied in a separate chapter from the art of Mesoamerica and South America (Pre-Columbian art), not so much because of the geographical separation but because of the historical context related to the arrival of the European conquerors.
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