The America's

World History Chapter 6

Amerindians

Earliest inhabitants of North and South America. Original theories suggested migration from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge; more recent evidence suggests migration also occurred by sea from regions of the South Pacific to South America

Mesoamerica

Region stretching roughly from modern cultural Mexico to Honduras, in which the Olmec, Maya, Aztec, and other civilizations developed

• Word that is synonymous with “Central America”

Chinampas

In Mesoamerica, artificial islands crisscrossed by canals that provided water for crops and easy transportation to local markets

Calpullis

In Aztec society, an kinship groups, often of a thousand or more, which served as an intermediary with the central gov’t, providing taxes and conscript labor to the state

Polygyny

Practice of having more than one wife at a time

Hopewell Culture

Native American society that flourished from about 200 BCE to 400 CE, noted for large burial mounds and extensive manufacturing. Largely based in Ohio, its traders ranged as far as the Gulf of Mexico

Pueblo Bonito

Large settlement built by the Ancient Pueblo people in what is now New Mexico in the ninth century CE. It contained several hundred compounds housing several thousand residents

Quipu

Inka record-keeping system that used knotted strings rather than writing

• The Inca did NOT have a writing system, but communicated ideas through tying knots on strings and reading the knots

Bering Strait

50 mile strait between modern day Russia and Alaska (Asia and North America) 

• It was theorized that there was a land bridge / bridge of ice that people crossed from Asia to get to North America

Beringia

• Name given to the land bridge people crossed from Asia to North America

  • The people who crossed are theorized to be hunter-gatherers

Patagonia

Southern tip of South America

Pampas

Area above Patagonia on the more Eastern side of South America

Strait of Magellan

Strait that goes through Southern South America near modern day Argentina

Cahokia

Refers to the largest urban city in the US in modern day East St. Louis; walls around the city with large mounds likely used for religious purposes

• There was human sacrifices and cannibalism was common 

• 20,000 people at its peak; peak was from 20,000–15,000 BCE

• They traded with people all around North America and into Mesoamerica (we know this from the filed teeth and obsidian that were characteristic of Mesoamerican peoples) 

• These people died out mysteriously, but theories include them cutting down all the trees and ruining the land, an earthquake, etc. 

  • There is a tectonic plate in Southern Illinois (Numadrid Fault) that rarely goes off, but when it does it is extremely devastating 

    • In the early American Republic, it went off and caused the Mississippi River to flow North instead of South for a few days and made church bells in Boston sway 

• We do not know a whole lot about how these people lived

Olmec

(c. 1200 BCE)

Lived in modern day Sierra Madre in Mexico in one of if not the largest urban centers in America

• Had mastabas / early pyramidal structures

• Were very interested in astronomy and created a calendar system 

• Large head structures

• Ended around the 4th century BCE

Maya

(1st millennium BCE)

People who settled in the modern day Yucatan Peninsula; very influenced/inspired by the Olmecs

• Mayan Glyphs

• There were many independent states near them

• Had the belief that the world would end and be reborn again, and things would go on (world ending in 2012) 

• Had domesticated corn, traded colorful bird feathers, etc.

• The upper class drank cacao (chocolate) (there was a royal and priestly class)

• Rulers would drink human blood during religious ceremonies 

  • Human sacrifice and the upper class drawing blood (puncturing the penis and having a rope go through it sometimes) 

  • Theorized that humans were sacrificed because people needed protein (people were sacrificed, put into stew, and handed out to the other living people) 

• Papuluh 

• At one point they had a civil war; a lot of turbulence within this society

Mayan Glyphs

Writing system used by the Mayans, similar to hieroglyphics; was cracked in the 80s

Papuluh

Writings on birch/wood that detailed the story of the world (there was a heaven and nine layers of an underworld)

Zapotecs

(c. 500 BCE (apogee))

Lived in a mountainous region; influenced by the Olmecs

Teotihucán

(c. 300 BCE–800 CE)

People who lived north of modern day Mexico City; biggest city in the Americas at this point

• Build many large pyramidal structures

• A lot of foreigners would come in as they would trade a lot (trading empire)

• They would invade other places and make human sacrifices 

• Conflicts with the surrounding Mayan peoples

Decline after 800 CE, and by 850 CE it is burned and abandoned

Toltec

(c. 975–1200 CE)

Many similar cultural aspects to the previously mentioned peoples; had a civil war that set them apart between the priestly and warrior classes; worship of a feathered serpent deity 

• Questzacóatl

• Priestly class went to the Mayans, and Questzacóatal was prophesied to turn into a man with white skin and go into the sea 

  • Myth of the return of Questzacóatl would prevail until the Europeans would come much, much later

Questzacóatl

Feathered serpent god of the Toltec

Aztec

(c. 1325–1521 CE)

Peoples who came down from modern day Oregon, down through the four corners area, and into the Valley of Mexico where the settled

• Some say they came down in order to avoid being eaten, as cannibalism was common 

• Tenochititlán

• Would kidnap and sacrifice people; likely had the largest number of human sacrifices, thousands of people

  • On festival days, priests would carve out the hearts of the people with an obsidian knife, put their heads somewhere, and throw the body down the side of the pyramid 

    • Arms, legs, heads would all be hung in pyramids

• Had a writing system (glyphs) though it was not very advanced in comparison to some others 

• By the time the Spanish came in, they came on horses (which had been extinct for a couple thousand years) and on “floating houses” (boats), and with wool on their faces (beards, which they did not grow) … thought Quetzacóatl was returning

Tenochititlán

Capital of the Aztecs

Huaricanga and Caral

(c. 3200 BCE) & (c. 2500 BCE)

Early urban centers in modern day Peru

Moche

(c. 150–800 CE)

Group of people who lived in modern day Peru; polytheistic religion; once believed to be passivistic people, but recent discoveries have shown this was untrue (kidnapped and executed people through flaying and wearing their skin, eating them while wearing their skin); anthropomorphic and erotic pottery designs

Nazca

(c. 200 BCE–50 CE)

Lived in the desert foothills going toward the Andes; carved massive (nearly a mile long) lines that look like runways and animals that can only be seen from above through hot air balloon or plane

• The […] Lines are very mysterious as we don’t know how they would have been seen from above; theorized that they were very brilliant

Inca

(c. 1462 CE and fall by the 1530s due to the Spanish)

Massive empire with an enormous (over 2,000 mile) road system (through mountains and into Chile) 

• People have genetic adaptations to living at high altitudes 

• Quipu

• Fight over who will be royal and rule, but by that point the Spanish had come and spread disease