If you ask your friends or someone random the question, “Do you know what language they speak in Brazil?” The majority of people will respond with the answer “Brazilian.” Maybe you could win a bet at the bar or with your buddies with that question because the answer is Portuguese. That is because they were the first settlers to arrive in the area around 1500, they were led by the adventurous Pedro Cabral.
They arrived to find around seven million native Indians. Most tribes were peripatetic meaning, they were traveling from place to place and pretty much always on the move. Although these tribes had upwards of five thousand people at time their agriculture and living arrangements were very temporary and premature.
Research of professional historians and scientists believe that communities of people have been living and settling on the land in Brazil since 8,000 years ago, and these same scientists believe that they came from Asia in the look for abundant hunting and gathering grounds. One of the biggest crops that was local to Brazil is sugar cane, we know from the “Guns, Germs, and Steel” portion of the class that a local crop is very important to the success of a growing civilization. Asian parts had rice, Eurasia parts had wheat and barley, the Americas has beans, and we know that sugar cane was a big reason for the success of Brazilian civilization and growth. In 1630 the Dutch tried to take over Brazilian land with sugar kane and sugar mills in order to take over the booming popularity of the crop. They were eventually defeated 16 years later, which played a major part in Brazil gaining its independence.
Eventually, the growing population could have been divided into two separate groups, one of which being agricultural settlers, these people helped cultivate and live off of the land. The second groups of people were called semi nomadic people, they moved around from land to land in order to find a livable source of food and water. The agricultural settlers lived on the west side of the Andes Mountains and they became civilized over time because of the same practices we saw from the communities of the Fertile Crescent. They perfected farming and gathering strategies and found correct crops and animals to get the nutrients they needed to strive physically. The semi nomadic people lived on the east side of the mountain range and they did not develop and significant building, communities, or significant form of writing so there is little know about their early inhabitants.
We can see similarities in early settlements from around the world, weather it is in Eurasia, the Americas, Europe, and so on. One of which is the similarity of geography, like the video Guns, Germs, and Steel told us. The geography of New Guinea offered no significant crops, animals, or climate to aid them in civilization. Where as other places around the world were a lot more fortunate. The idea of farming and domesticating animals is the key to early civilization and this is proven in the fact that all New Guinea had to deal was a crop that came from a tree and could only be preserved for a few days and a animal in the pig which offered limited nutrients. Communities of the Fertile Crescent had wheat and barley which is the most valuable crop to civilization, they also had horse to help them farm and cattle for beef and more nutrients. The same is with the early settlements of Brazil, these people were not as fortunate as those of the Fertile Crescent but they were not as unfortunate as those from New Guinea.
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Additional Information:
More interesting facts and information can be found at the links provided below, the first link has some more interesting facts about the early settlement and it has a detailed timeline of events that played a major role in Brazilian civilization. The second link also talks more about early settlement but you can also find information about their economy, their countries flag , and cool maps of the country.
http://www.localhistories.org/brazil.html
http://www.photius.com/countries/brazil/society/brazil_society_early_colonization.html
More interesting facts and information can be found at the links provided below, the first link has some more interesting facts about the early settlement and it has a detailed timeline of events that played a major role in Brazilian civilization. The second link also talks more about early settlement but you can also find information about their economy, their countries flag , and cool maps of the country.
http://www.localhistories.org/brazil.html
http://www.photius.com/countries/brazil/society/brazil_society_early_colonization.html
Citations:
BRAZIL. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015.
http://www.brazil.org.za/history.html
Brazil - History. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015, from http://www.geographia.com/brazil/brazihistory.htm
(n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015, from http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/downloads/maps/grump-v1/grump-v1-settlement-points/brapoints.jpg
(n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015, from http://www.graintrackermarketing.com/html/images/BillsImages/Brazil corn production map.jpg
BRAZIL. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015.
http://www.brazil.org.za/history.html
Brazil - History. (n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015, from http://www.geographia.com/brazil/brazihistory.htm
(n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015, from http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/downloads/maps/grump-v1/grump-v1-settlement-points/brapoints.jpg
(n.d.). Retrieved July 16, 2015, from http://www.graintrackermarketing.com/html/images/BillsImages/Brazil corn production map.jpg
![Picture](/uploads/5/6/4/7/56471867/1531305_orig.png)
The population pyramid is for the year 1950 and you can see that this pyramid shows that a major boom in population is in the future as the majority of the population is in the bottom half of the pyramid and that is the reproductive years and even younger which obviously that population will reach their reproductive years in the near future and being to reproduce.