How to Use pre-Columbian in a Sentence
pre-Columbian
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Many of these coastal redwoods (Sequoia sempervirens) are over 300 feet tall and have been alive since pre-Columbian times.
—Ryan Fonseca, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2023
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But the roots of Día de los Muertos go back thousands of years to rituals that honor the dead in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica.
—Caron Golden, San Diego Union-Tribune, 25 Oct. 2023
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Both a social activity and a caffeine-fix, mate dates back to pre-Columbian times, when the leaves were hand-picked in the same manner as Lemos has been doing for the past 30 years.
—Stefano Pozzebon, CNN, 1 Feb. 2024
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This was probably true in pre-Columbian Mexico as well.
—Jp Brammer, Los Angeles Times, 11 Oct. 2023
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Cacao was used by the pre-Columbian populations of the Maya and Aztecs, who venerated it as a sacred food.
—Alessandra Signorelli, Vogue, 19 Nov. 2024
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With the aroma of copal (the iconic pre-Columbian incense of choice in Tulum) permeating the space, the restaurant is warm and inviting.
—Jamie Ditaranto, Travel + Leisure, 15 Apr. 2023
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The spools frame her mask-like open mouth, decorating voids in the human skull that signaled the soul’s vivacity in pre-Columbian culture.
—Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 16 Feb. 2024
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The parts of the chairs that someone would be in contact with (like the seat, back, and armrests) are made smooth to the touch using a pre-Columbian technique of burnishing, which involves rubbing the surface with a stone to seal it.
—Curbed, 5 June 2023
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The authors hope this analysis gives further insight into the lives of pre-Columbian people of the Americas.
—Laura Baisas, Popular Science, 11 Oct. 2023
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More than 25 percent of the state's roughly four million inhabitants are indigenous, and most of its 12 ethnic groups trace their roots to pre-Columbian Mayan peoples.
—Travel + Leisure Editors, Travel + Leisure, 22 June 2023
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Concentric circular trenches, some as much as 60 feet deep, had been carved into the volcanic rock of the mountaintop, bringing to mind a pre-Columbian earthwork.
—Dennis Overbye Marcos Zegers, New York Times, 18 Apr. 2023
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Jose Vera Gonzalez shows off one of his paintings inspired by the Parthenon's collection of pre-Columbian artifacts.
—Natalie Kainz, NBC News, 24 July 2024
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The ancestral beverage has deep roots in Indigenous Ecuadorian culture, dating back to the pre-Columbian era.
—Jessica Chapel, Condé Nast Traveler, 1 Dec. 2023
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Effigy Mounds preserves 200 or so prehistoric earthworks that were built by pre-Columbian people.
—Frederick Dreier, Outside Online, 19 Feb. 2025
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For visitors, the structures demonstrate a living version of pre-Columbian engineering that’s far more accessible than the Inca citadel to the north.
—Tim Brinkhof, Discover Magazine, 12 Nov. 2023
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For many years, Nashville’s Parthenon museum housed hundreds of pre-Columbian artifacts in its collections.
—Ella Feldman, Smithsonian Magazine, 26 July 2024
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Beginning in pre-Columbian America, Native peoples have ground the tree’s acorns into meal and knew its strong roots could be counted on during disasters.
—Shannon Sims, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Mar. 2023
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Each space is accented by the artists’ collections of African art, Mexican folk art and textiles, pre-Columbian pieces, contemporary art and ceramics, and their own work.
—Michael Wollaeger, ELLE Decor, 15 Feb. 2023
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Ergo pre-Columbian people must have achieved flight, millennia before Orville and Wilbur Wright, with help from extraterrestrials.
—Discover Magazine, 4 Dec. 2023
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History of Chia Seeds Chia seeds have their origin in pre-Columbian indigenous populations.
—María Quiles, Glamour, 21 Mar. 2024
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In a town in northern Peru, Renzo, a teenager who dreams of becoming a professional gamer, is contacted through a video game by the spirit of an ancient pre-Columbian warrior.
—John Hopewell, Variety, 27 Oct. 2023
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It is known for being the cradle of several advanced pre-Hispanic (or pre-Columbian) civilizations.
—Daniel R. Depetris, Newsweek, 8 Dec. 2024
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His ceramic pieces — inspired by pre-Columbian mythology and the Mexican landscape — are a prominent feature within the show.
—Carolina A. Miranda, Los Angeles Times, 7 Oct. 2023
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In the contemporary, helter-skelter sweep of Mexico City, there is one place — in the southern borough of Xochimilco — where a vision of a watery, pre-Columbian capital may still be imagined.
—Patrick J. McDonnell, Los Angeles Times, 21 Mar. 2024
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Such hallucinogenic substances have been used by the Indigenous peoples of the Americas to induce altered states of consciousness and healing since pre-Columbian times.
—Claire Rush and Gene Johnson, The Christian Science Monitor, 26 Oct. 2023
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To articulate those connections, Escobedo has drawn loosely on the precedents of pre-Columbian Latin America.
—Justin Davidson, Curbed, 10 Dec. 2024
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Auctions are a stimulating mess of things coming together: a perfume bottle from 1900, a pre-Columbian artwork, a contemporary African painting.
—Laura May Todd, New York Times, 18 Sep. 2023
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Zúñiga introduced her to pre-Columbian ceramic techniques and woodcarving.
—Shameekia Shantel Johnson, ARTnews.com, 4 Nov. 2024
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Archaeologists similarly used a drone to uncover the eroded remains of a large pre-Columbian earthworks buried beneath a field in southeastern Kansas.
—Mack Degeurin, Popular Science, 8 Jan. 2025
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Luján, a painter and sculptor, was known for incorporating pre-Columbian imagery and tapping into mythical settings that embraced Aztlan, symbolic to the Chicano movement.
—Sarah Quiñones Wolfson, Los Angeles Times, 9 Aug. 2024
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'pre-Columbian.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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