Wool in Pre Columbian Americas

Animal fiber forming the protective covering, or fleece, of sheep or of other hairy mammals, such as goats and camels
• Wool is mainly obtained by shearing fleece from living animals, but pelts of slaughtered sheep are sometimes treated to loosen the fiber, yielding an inferior type called pulled wool. Cleaning the fleece removes "wool grease," the fatty substance purified to make lanolin, a by-product employed in cosmetics and ointments.
• Wool fiber is chiefly composed of the animal protein keratin. Protein substances are more vulnerable to chemical damage and unfavorable environmental conditions than the cellulose material forming the plant fibers. Coarser than such textile fibers as cotton, linen, silk, and rayon, wool has diameters ranging from about 16 to 40 microns (a micron is about 0.00004 inch). Length is greatest for the coarsest fibers. Fine wools are about 1.5 to 3 inches (4 to 7.5 centimeters) long; extremely coarse fibers may be as much as 14 inches in length.  Wool is characterized by waviness with up to 30 waves per inch (12 per centimeter) in fine fibers and 5 per inch (2 per centimeter) or less in coarser fibers.

One of the most relevant characteristics of this incipient agricultural process is that, for the first time, man could directly influence the biological processes of the plants and enhance production. In Concheros, or areas where remains indicate interest in the practices of gathering resources associated with the mangrove, remains of hoes as well as hatchets and scrapers have been found. Used for planting and harvesting manioc initially the tools were made of seashells, and eventually pottery. Was introduced ceramic pieces usually appeared in the shape of baking pans or large circular plates with raised borders, in which they prepared manioc bread.
The development of root crop agriculture implied, in the first instance, different food resources and increased opportunities for developing a sedentary lifestyle. The most important consequences of these new circumstances were larger populations and unaccustomed demographic and nutritional pressures, which in turn led to experimentation with novel domesticates, including corn. We now recognize that although it was probably domesticated in Mexico, maize was known in Colombia ever since the late stages of root agriculture and even in the times dominated by hunters and gatherers. For centuries, perhaps even millennia, corn complemented the diet of the indigenous populations, but that use did not lead to a specific interest in the intensive cultivation of the staple. The reasons are obvious. Corn requires an enormous amount of labor during all phases of cultivation: at planting as well as during progressive growth stages - to control weeds - and finally at harvest. Additionally, it is very sensitive to drought, and its production depends on the quality of the soil in which it is planted. The poor soil first used by early agriculturists for manioc would not have produced large maize harvests.
Paradoxically, the conditions generated by planting root crops fulfilled the prerequisites necessary for the development of maize agriculture. In the first place, population had increased and corn can feed many more people per acre than manioc. In the second place, manioc had allowed the people to establish fairly sedentary lifestyles in areas far removed from the original centers of domestication, on occasion, areas that were extremely fertile, much better suited to corn than root crops.

Maize a Pre Columbian Staple

 Maize was adopted as a staple because specific pressure made it a better choice. For archaeologists it is still not quite clear what those pressures were. What we do know is the importance that this change had in pre Hispanic history. Firstly, the cultivation of corn allowed for and demanded population growth. Secondly, in contrast to manioc, it can be cultivated at considerably high altitudes. This, added to corn's requirement of fertile land, constituted a powerful stimulant for intensifying the use of mountainous regions, heretofore avoided by the most relevant root crop agriculturists. Maize started to play a fundamental role in prehispanic development. Even more important, and also in contrast to manioc, corn has set' periods for planting and harvesting, which implies the need for a far more complex labor organization than that of root crop agriculture.
Thus, as corn grew in importance, we find that political organization turned more complex. Around 400 to 500 A.D., the great majority of the indigenous communities were totally transformed. The rise of hierarchically organized societies became particularly discernible. Archaeologists have designated these societies: Chiefdoms, or hierarchically, ordered societies. They were groups of extended families in which social stratification started to become apparent, and where local, villages formed confederations with dominion over a determined territory. It is precisely in the chiefdoms or "Cacicazgos" where we find the development of permanent chiefs, and shamans.
Above all, the chiefs were responsible for organizing the system of economic production, storage, and the distribution of any surpluses. The shaman, on the other hand, was entrusted with the duty of programming agricultural tasks through the development and employment of calendars as well as by administering and controlling religious rites and practices. Both the chief and the shaman represented interests that continued to be closely linked with those of their community. Fundamentally, they comprised an elite that possessed the authority to make decisions which in the economic context affected the entire community and which required a centralized organization of labor.