Unit 1: The Americas, Europe, and Africa (1492-1607)

Comprehensive vocabulary flashcards covering the pre-Columbian Americas, European societal structures, African empires, and the early Age of Exploration.

Hunter-gatherers

Societies whose members gather food by hunting, fishing, and collecting wild plants rather than relying on agriculture or animal husbandry.

Sedentary societies

Societies whose members combine slash-and-burn agriculture with hunting and fishing, often residing in villages where agriculture was a main staple.

Bering Strait land bridge

A $100$-mile land bridge that archaeologists believe migrants crossed between $13,000$ and $3,000$ B.C.E. to enter the Americas.

Maize

Also known as corn, this staple crop began being cultivated in Mexico around $6,000$ B.C.E. and spread to the Mississippi River Valley around $800$ C.E.

Tenochtitlan

The Aztec capital located on Lake Texcoco, featuring a network of canals and a population of approximately $250,000$ when Hernan Cortez arrived.

Huitzilopochtli

The main deity of the Aztecs, representing the sun and war.

Quipu

Knotted strings used by the Incas for the purpose of bookkeeping.

Cahokia

The dominant center of Mississippi culture around $1,000$ C.E., known for its large-scale mound building and a peak population between $6,000$ and $40,000$ people.

Eastern Woodlands

A culture of Native Americans extending from the Atlantic west to the Great Plains, subdivided into northeastern and southeastern groups.

Iroquois Confederacy

A league of five tribes (Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondaga, Cayuga, and Seneca) formed around $1450$ that utilized a council of sachems for decision-making.

Matrilineal

A social system where power and inheritance are passed down through the female line, practiced by the Five Nations of the Iroquois.

Anishinaabeg

A collective name for the Algonquin language tribes like the Ojibwa, Ottawa, and Potawatomi who occupied the Great Lakes region.

Great Basin

An arid basin-and-range area west of the Rocky Mountains where resources varied and rain evaporated or drained quickly.

Pueblo people

A group consisting of the Anasazi, Hohokams, and Mongollons who developed irrigation-based agriculture and adobe homes in the Southwest.

Animism

The religious belief common among Native Americans that spiritual forces occupy nature and all living things.

Patriarchal

A society, such as those in Europe, where property and rights were held exclusively by men and passed down through the male line.

Republic

A state without a monarch or prince that is governed by representatives of the people, common among Italian city-states during the Renaissance.

Protestant Reformation

A reform movement launched in $1517$ by Martin Luther that created a lasting schism between Protestants and Catholics.

Predestination

A religious doctrine preached by John Calvin involving the belief in an all-powerful God and the pre-determined fate of souls.

Jesuits

A monastic and missionary order created during the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

Mansa Musa

The $9^{th}$ ruler of the Mali kingdom, thought to be the world’s richest person ever due to the empire's access to gold deposits.

Caravel

A deep-keeled, multi-mast boat with triangle-shaped sails developed by Portugal in the $14^{th}$ century for ocean exploration.

Astrolabe

A navigational tool (along with the quadrant) used to pinpoint location by observing the stars.

Reconquista

The Spanish campaign to retake the Iberian Peninsula from Islamic Arabs, ending with the capture of Granada in $1492$.

Smallpox

A devastating European disease that wiped out thousands of Aztecs and other Native Americans who had no natural immunity.

Plantation system

A system of production characterized by unfree labor producing cash crops for distant markets, notably developed along the Brazilian coast.