Women have made significant contributions to Latin music, a genre which predates Italian explorer Christopher Columbus' arrival in Latin America in 1492 and the Spanish colonization of the Americas. The earliest musicians were Native Americans, hundreds of ethnic groups across the continent, whose lyrics "reflect conflict, beauty, pain, and loss that mark all human experience." Indigenous communities reserved music for women, who were given equal opportunities with men to teach, perform, sing, and dance. Ethnomusicologists have measured ceramic, animal-bone, and cane flutes from the Inca Empire which indicate a preference for women with a high vocal range. Women had equal social status, were trained, and received the same opportunities in music as men in indigenous communities until the ar