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Civilizations of the Americas, ca 400−1500
- The Geography and Peoples of the Americas
- Together, North and South America stretches
for about 11,000 miles in length.
- A mountain range from Alaska to the
tip of South America provides rugged terrain on the west coast of both continents.
- Mesoamerica is dominated by high plateaus
and bounded by coastal plain.
- Central America is characterized by
jungle, heavy rainfall, and heat.
- South America is a continent of varied
- The Amazon River bisects the north-central
part of the continent.
- Immigrants crossed the Bering Strait
between fifty thousand and twenty thousand years ago.
- These immigrants spread out to form
diverse linguistic and cultural groups.
- By the late fifteenth century, three
kinds of Amerindian societies had emerged: nomadic groups, sedentary or semisedentary
groups, and groups living in large population settlements supported by agricultural
- Representatives of this third group
existed only in Mesoamerica and western South America.
- Mesoamerican Civilizations From the
Olmecs to the Toltecs
- The Olmecs
- The Olmec civilization (ca 1500 B.C.E.− 300 C.E.)
was the first Mesoamerican civilization.
- The Olmecs did not consider themselves
a unified group, but all later Mesoamerican cultures derive from the Olmec.
- Early Olmec society exhibited no status
distinctions, but after 1500 B.C.E. more complex, hierarchical societies evolved.
- After the destruction of San Lorenzo
around 900 B.C.E., power passed to La Venta.
- The Olmec developed a number of social
and cultural characteristics that can be found in later societies.
- The Maya of Central America
- Between 300 and 900 C.E. (the Classic
period), the Maya of Central America built one of the world’s most advanced
- The first Maya immigrated from North
- The Maya economy was based on agriculture.
- Maya agriculture supported a population
of about 14 million people.
- Extensive trade between Maya communities
and a common language helped create a sense of common identity.
- Maya hieroglyphic writings reveal much
about Mayan history and society.
- The Maya invented a calendar and devised
a form of mathematics.
- They also made advances in astronomy
and wrote books of history.
- Maya civilization reached its peak
between 600 and 900 C.E.
- A combination of factors led to the
- The fact that Maya society did not
rely on a single political entity complicated Spanish conquest of the region
in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
- Teotihuacán and Toltec Civilization
- People from the Mexico Valley built
the city of Teotihuacán, which reached a population of more than 200,000.
- The inhabitants were organized into
the hereditary elite and ordinary workers.
- At the center of Teotihuacán
were the Pyramids of the Sun and the Moon.
- Teotihuacán society collapsed
under the pressure of invaders in ca. 700 C.E.
- The Toltec confederation gained strength,
assimilated with the Teotihuacán people, and attempted to preserve
the latter’s culture.
- Under Toliptzin (r. ca 980−1000)
the Toltecs came to control most of central Mexico from coast to coast.
- Drought, weak rulers, and invasions
brought trouble to the Toltecs.
- The last of the Chichimec invaders
were the Aztecs who absorbed the Olmec- Teotihuacán-Toltec culture.
- Aztec Society: Religion and War
- War and Society
- The Aztecs founded a city on the swamps
of Lake Texcoco.
- By the time of Cortés in 1519,
the Aztecs controlled all of central Mexico.
- The Aztecs attributed their success
to their god Huitzilopochtli.
- The Aztec state was designed as a mechanism
- All levels of Aztec society were involved
- Religion and Culture
- In Mexica society religion played a
critical part in shaping all other aspects of social experience.
- War was an article of religious faith.
- The Aztecs believed that in order to
keep the sun moving it had to be fed human blood.
- The Mexica were not the only Mesoamerican
people to practice human sacrifice.
- Several explanations have been offered
for the Aztec’s practice of human sacrifice and cannibalism.
- . Human sacrifice helped control population.
- . Victims’ bodies were a source
of protein for the common people.
- . Human sacrifice was an instrument
of state terrorism.
- The outsider status of victims made
the killings possible.
- The need for ever-increasing land and
wealth involved the Aztecs in a constant cycle of conquest and revolt, a cycle
that eventually destroyed the empire.
- Cortés was able to take advantage
of internal weaknesses in the Aztec Empire.
- The Life of the People
- The early Aztecs made no sharp social
- A legendary Toltec king fathered a
- At the time of Spanish intervention,
warriors controlled the state.
- Provincial governors functioned much
like feudal lords in medieval Europe.
- The maceualtin, or working class, made
up the backbone of society.
- The tlalmaitl were
- Slaves were the lowest social class.
- Women played important roles in Mexica
society, but those roles were limited to the domestic sphere.
- Alongside the secular social classes
stood the temple priests.
- The Aztec emperor was expected to be
a great warrior and a great provider for his people.
- The emperor was selected by a small
group of priests and warriors.
- Aztec parents chose the gender of their
- Male children who were assigned female
roles were called berdaches.
- At the onset of puberty, berdaches
began to serve the sexual needs of the young men of the community.
- The Cities of the Aztecs
- The Aztec capital of Tenochtitlán
had a population of about 250,000.
- Built on salt marshes, the city was
approached by four great roads that connected to the mainland.
- Tenochtitlán had a sophisticated
water supply system.
- The great temple of Huitzilopochtli
stood in Tenochtitlán’s central square.
- The Incas of Peru
- Inca civilization was established in
the fertile valleys of highland Peru.
- Archaeologists do not know how the
people of the Andes acquired agriculture.
- Around 200 B.C.E., the Andean peoples
developed vertical archipelagoes.
- They also developed agricultural technologies
that allowed them to feed large numbers of people.
- Inca Imperialism
- The Incas believed their ruler descended
from the sun-god.
- The mummification of dead rulers, and
the subsequent worship of those mummies, played an important role in Inca
social and political development.
- Under Pachacuti Inca and his successors,
the Inca expanded their empire until it included some 16 million people.
- They extended Inca hegemony to modern
Ecuador and Colombia and to the Maule River in the south.
- The Incas governed through imperial
- Rapid Inca expansion produced political
and social stress.
- Between 1525 and 1532, the Inca empire
was in a state of civil war.
- Inca Society
- The allyu,
or clan, was the fundamental unit of Inca society.
- In return for land, all men had to
perform public duties (the mita system) and pay
- Inca society was imposed on conquered
- The emperor sometimes gave newly conquered
land to his favorites.
- Marriage was mandatory.
- The Incas practiced polygamy.
- Local issues were decided by local
- All wealth beyond the masses’
basic needs went to the emperor and the nobility.
- North America and the Mound Builders
- Peoples of North America
- Anthropologists have identified six
major cultural areas in North America.
- On the eve of European exploration
and invasion, North America had a total population of one to two million people.
- In comparison to Mesoamerica and South
America, North America was sparsely populated.
- Mound Builders
- Around 1300 B.C.E., various peoples
of North America began to build massive mounds in which they buried their
- The Ohio and Mississippi valleys have
the greatest concentration of mounds.
- The Mississippian mound culture was
built on agriculture.
- Pottery reveals the artistic vision
of the Mississippian people.
- No one knows for sure why the Mississippian