Americas

Environmental Management

• Bering Strait to Americas• Hunter/gatherers• Late 15th century: domestication of plants• Densely populated settlements (Mesoamerica

and western South America)• Chinampas (floating gardens)• Terraced hills in Andes Mountains• Corn and potatoes not labor-intensive

Olmec

• Oldest civilization in Americas-all later Mesoamerican civilization derived from them

• Our knowledge based on archeology• Based on agriculture• Spread over central Mexico• Built scattered ceremonial centers• After 1500 bce developed hierarchical

societies

Olmec Society

• Aristocrats lived in large cities with palaces, plazas, temples, ball courts, water reservoirs, and carved stone drains

• Monumental stone structures• Human sacrifice practiced at sacred

ceremonial sites• 900 bce San Lorenzo, center of Olmec

civilization, was destroyed

Olmec Great Pyramid

• La Venta in Mexico• Center of Olmec religion• Required estimated 800,000 man hours to

build• Around 300 bce La Venta fell

Maya

• Sophisticated system of writing• Most accurate calendar of any civilization at

the time• Advances in mathematics

Background of Maya

• Group that emigrated from northern Oregon to the western highlands of Guatemala

• Cholans and Tzeltalans moved into the Yucatan peninsula

• Cholan-speaking Maya created the culture

Key features of Maya culture

• Agriculture was basis of support• Staple crop was maize• Raised, narrow, rectangular plots for growing• Milpa system-burn down trees and plant in the

ashes (only productive for 2 years)• Agriculture supported large populations (up to 14

million)• Population centers lacked industry—they were

ceremonial centers

Maya Economy

• Fairs that accompanied ceremonies• Items of value: jade, obsidian, beads of red

spiny oyster shell, lengths of cloth, and cacao• Extensive trade promoted common language

and unity, along with common sense of identity

• Long-distance trading based on trade of “gifts” by aristocratic ambassadors

Maya Technology

• Transportation: canoes on rivers and swamps• Wide roads• Hieroglyphic writing with 850 characters• Recorded chronology, religion, and astronomy

in books made of bark paper and deerskin• Inscriptions on steles=historical documents• Vigesimal math (based on 20, not 10)• Abstract knowledge

Maya Warfare

• Wars fought for land, slaves, avenge insults and punish theft, control trade routes and sources of valued products like salt

• Famine led to wars

Collapse

• Between 8th and 10th centuries Maya abandoned population centers and their civilization collapsed

• Reasons: land exhaustion, drought, overpopulation, disease, and constant wars

Teotihuacan and Toltec

• People from east and south of Valley of Mexico

• Great commercial and ceremonial center• Center of Teotihuacan stood Pyramids of Sun

and Moon• Artisans lived in barrios at edge of town• Toltec was heir to Teotihuacan—the people of

Toltec intermarried and integrated with people of Teotihuacan

Aztec (Mexica) Society

• Aztecs shared Nahuatl language as Toltecs• Aztecs were considered foreign barbarians,

had to settle on swampy islands in Lake Texcoco

• By 1428 they had embarked on expansion• By 1519 (when Cortes arrived) they contolled

all of central Mexico

Aztec Economy

• Strong mercantile class made luxury items available: cotton, feathers, cocoa, skins, turquoise, gold

Aztecs and War

• Aztecs attributed their success to their god Huitzilopochtli, god of war

• Kings ordered war to acquire tribute and captives for sacrifice

• Fighting was pathway to social advancement• Military service was shared (men called up by

city wards)• King planned battle, route, and travel plans

Aztec Attack

• Priests led the army• Object city was warned of imminent attack; if

surrendered, tribute was modest (compared to being attacked)

• Aztec strategy was to encircle the enemy• Goal was not to kill the enemy but to get him

to provide tribute or to use him for sacrificial victim

Aztec religion

• Religion shaped everything, and war was an article of faith

• Huitzilopochtli symbolized the sun, who had to be kept moving (fed blood by human sacrifice)

• Sociological reasons for human sacrifice? • Mexica religion destroyed the economic basis

of the empire

A Human Moment

How did conquered people respond to the Aztecs?

Incas

• Archeology shows ruins older than those of the Maya and Aztecs

• Located in Andes mountains of western South America

Moche Valley

• 100 and 800 ce• Rivers allowed for irrigation• Large ceremonial centers with palaces and

pyramids• Expert at metalworking

Inca social organization

• Grew in valleys in the Andes Mountains• 2500 bce lived on fish and mussels; cotton for

clothing• 200 bce Andean people made several leaps in

lifestyle, creating vertical archipelagoes• Potatoes as basis of diet• Coca leaves used to build stamina

Inca rule

• Inca ruler considered descended from sun-god• Dead rulers linked people to sun-god• Treated as still-present rulers• Mummies brought out for ceremonies and

human sacrifices made to mummies• “Cult of royal mummies”• Dead retained full rights over property

Inca government

• Ruled by imperial unification• Imposed religion and language• Forced relocation called “mitima”

Fall of Inca• Overextension• Huascar and Atauhualpa contested throne in

1525• Huascar was the legitimate heir; ordered that

dead rulers should be buried and their lands consolidated

• Led to civil war; nobles (who managed dead rulers’ lands) backed Atauhualpa

• On the way to coronation Atauhualpa met Pizarro-Spaniards took over

North America

• Mound Builders (Ohio, Mississippi)• People of wooded northwest Pacific• Iroquois of northeast• Tribes of southeast • Plains Indians