Chapter 11The Americas

The Peoples of North America

People from Asia crossed the Bering Strait to get to North America

3000 BC the Inuit moved into N.A. from Asiaskilled hunters, had specific skills to survive the

cold and harsh environment

People of North AmericaEastern Woodlands

HopewellOhio Valley riverMound Builders, built large earth mounds used as

tombs and ceremoniesFarming villages but also gathered wild plants

People of North America• Northeast of Mississippi– Iroquois– villages of longhouses– men hunted deer, bear, caribou and small animals

– women gathered wild plants and grew crops– corn, beans, squash– war was common between Iroquois groups– alliance was created – Iroquois League - five groups

People of North America Plains Indians

West of Mississippi River Hunted buffalo

(important animal) Lived in tepees

People of North America• Southwest– Anasazi• farming society

• used canals and earthen dams to turn the desert into fertile gardens

• lived in pueblos• center of their civilization at Chaco Canyon was Pueblo

Bonito• over 50 year drought, they abandon the center• moved to community in Mesa Verde• eventually abandoned region from long period of

drought

Mesoamerica• Olmec culture (oldest society)• 1st known civilization around 1200 BC• farmed along riverbanks – trade with other

mesoamericans• large cities - religion rituals - oldest city San Lorenzo• skilled workers of stone- around 400 BC civilization

collapsed

• Olmec played a ceremonial game on a stone ball court• Maya culture would continue many of the Olmec

fascination and adopt the calendar and numerical system

Mesoamerica• Major city Teotihuacan• capital of early kingdom around 250 BC – 800• had temples and palaces• most people were farmers• center of trade• for unknown reasons it collapsed and the city was

destroyed and abandoned

Mesoamerica• Maya civilization 300 - 900 AD• East on the Yucatan Peninsula

• built temples and pyramids, complicated calendars• farming people - centered their culture in city-states• Maya cities were built around a central pyramid topped by

a shrine to the gods• city-states were governed by a ruler, may wars between

towns• people - rulers, nobles, townspeople, peasants• crucial to Maya civilization was its spiritual perspective

Mesoamerica• Believed in Gods and had human sacrifice to

appease them• created writing system based on hieroglyphs• calendar was written from the hieroglyphs• called Long Count

• based on a belief in cycles of creation and destruction• Solar and sacred calendar

Mesoamericathey recorded important events in Mayan historycivilization declined and eventually disappear,

researchers believe people overused the land and crops stopped growing

Mesoamerica

• Toltec

•AD 950-1150•Center of empire was at Tula• Aztec later plundered the city and destroyed much historical evidence

Toltecpeople irrigated their

fields - grew beans, maize and peppers

warlike peopleconstructed pyramids

and palaces two important gods -

Quetzalocatl (took two different forms)

Empire to decline AD 125 from fighting among different groups

MesoamericaAztecs

• not sure of their origins• established a capital at Tenochtitlan• ruled until Spanish conquest

Mesoamerica• When arrived in the Valley of Mexico they were told by

their god when they saw an eagle perched on a cactus growing out of a rock, their journey would end

they would be driven by attackers to islands of Lake Texcoco where on one island they saw the eagle

Next 100 years the Aztec built temples, houses, public buildings.

They built roadways of stone across Lake Texcoco linking the island to the mainland

Aztec• state was authoritarian• people - ruler - nobles - commoners - workers – slaves• men in noble families were sent to military school• trade of merchants was big cause of canals built• believed in gods – Ometeotl• with help of two other city-states, Tenochtitlan

formed a Triple Alliance - this enabled Aztec to dominate an empire

Early Civilizations in South America

Inca late 1300s, Cuzco in the

mountains of Peru Ruler Pachacuti launch a

campaign of conquest empire included about 12

million people Inca state was built on

war, all young men were required to serve in army

Inca• Pachacuti divided empire into four quarters each ruled by a

governor• forced labor - important feature of the state• people lived by farming, watered by irrigation systems,

houses built of stone• great builders• roadways over mountains and tunnels through them, bridges and

aqueducts

• famous city Machu Picchu• no writing system, recorded using a system of knotted strings

call quipu