10 everyday items invented by Indigenous Americans: Quick Facts

Written and fact-checked by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Photos

Two Native Americans in a canoe on a river. One sits, holding an oar. The other stands with a spear raised, ready to catch a fish.

Smiling girl at the beach with sunscreen on her nose, holding a tube of sunscreen and pointing to her face with the ocean in the background.

Early bottle of Bayer aspirin

$A black cup collects white latex sap from a cut in the bark of a rubber tree, with a metal spout guiding the sap into the cup, surrounded by green leaves.$

Cable suspension bridge

A father sits on a green couch, holding his infant in his arms and feeding the baby with a bottle in a sunlit living room.

Longhouse replica

See All Images →

Topics

South American Indian Middle American Indian Indigenous peoples of the Americas Mesoamerican Indian invention Timeline of 21st-Century Technology Inventors and Inventions of the Industrial Revolution Inventions that Helped Shape How We Interact with Knowledge and Information 6 Fast Facts about Alexander Graham Bell 7 Celebrities You Didn’t Know Were Inventors 10 Inventions That Changed Your World Today in History—July 7: The Long Road to Sliced Bread Today in History—October 29: The Ballpoint Pen Arrives 6 Signs It’s Already the Future Nikola Tesla’s Weird Obsession with Pigeons