1.4 Vocabulary

Mississippian culture

Last of the mound building cultures of North America; flourished between 800 and 1300 C., featured large towns and ceremonial centers; lacked stone architecture of Central America

Cahokia

Mississippian settlement near present day East St. Louis, home to as many as 25,000 Native Americans

Matrilineal society

A social system in which family descent and inheritance rights are traced through the mother

Mesa Verde

The largest complex of Anasazi cliff dwellings in the United States Southwest, built between about AD 1150 and AD 1300

Tenochtitlan

Capital of the Aztec Empire, located on an island in Lake Texcoco. It’s population was about 150,000 on the eve of Spanish conquest. Mexico City was constructed on it’s ruins.

theocracy

a government controlled by religious leaders

Mita system

an economic system in Incan society where people paid taxes with their labor and what they produced

Temple of the Sun

Inca religious center located at Cuzco; center of state religion; held mummies of past Incas

animism

the belief that elements of the physical world could have supernatural powers

quipu

an arrangement of knotted strings on a cord, used by the Inca to record numerical information

Carpa Nan

The massive Inca roadway system, consisting of 25,000 miles of road built using captive labor that connected Cuzco with the outlying parts of the empire. Was used mostly by government officials, messengers, and the military.