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Notes for Chapter 1: The Americas, Europe, and Africa — Before 1492

Chapter One Objectives

  • Locate on a map the major American civilizations before the arrival of the Spanish

  • Discuss the cultural achievements of these civilizations

  • Discuss the differences and similarities between lifestyles, religious practices, and customs among the native peoples

Timeline

  • Immigration from Asia occurred well before 15,000 BC (new data suggesting earlier migration)

Eurocentrism

  • Definition: Discursive tendency to interpret histories and cultures of Non-European societies through a European perspective

  • Often cast in dualistic terms such as: civilized/barbaric, advanced/backward, developed/undeveloped, core/periphery

  • Consequences: diminishes the true source of cultural development; makes Non-European cultures harder to appreciate or understand their own history or cultural development

  • Implications: influences the future development of cultures by framing, judging, and shaping perceptions

New World Civilizations

  • By 1492, Western Hemisphere had been inhabited for at least 15,000 years

  • Estimated world population was between 400,000,000 and 500,000,000 people

  • Estimated upward to 100,000,000 people lived in the Western Hemisphere

  • They inhabited strikingly diverse habitats and climates

  • They practiced the most varied and productive agriculture in the world

  • Widely different lifestyles, belief systems, and languages; hundreds of distinct languages were spoken

Pristine Landscape Was a Myth

  • Mature forests included an open, herbaceous understory reflecting frequent ground fires

  • Forests of Amazonia and elsewhere were anthropogenic with charcoal soil

  • Indigenous peoples created ideal habitats for a host of wildlife species

  • About 500,000 ha of abandoned raised fields in northern Colombia

  • Construction materials included stone, earth, adobe, daub and wattle, grass, hides, brush, and bark

The First Americans: The Mysterious Olmec

  • Considered the earliest known major civilization in the Americas

  • Neolithic is probably more accurate term; developed maize-based agriculture

  • Origins around 1200 \text{ BCE} in a Mesoamerican river valley

  • Built aqueducts for transportation and irrigation

  • The first in the Americas to develop writing
    – maybe

  • Developed the concept of zero and the long calendar

  • Practiced ritual bloodletting and played the Mesoamerican ballgame

The Maya

  • Existence begins around 2000 \text{ BCE} in the northern lowlands of Yucatán

  • Trade was a key component of Maya society

  • Cities had populations ranging from 50,000 to 120,000

  • The Maya civilization collapsed around 900 \text{ CE}

  • Collapse attributed to exceeding the carrying capacity of the environment

  • Spanish encountered a small remnant and destroyed much of what remained

The Aztec

  • Arrived in Central Mexico from the north; dominated from 1300 \text{ AD} to 1521 \text{ AD} when the Spanish destroyed it

  • Was a tributary empire

  • Capital: Tenochtitlan (Mexico City), population 100,000

  • The humid environment of the Valley of Mexico with its lakes and swamps enabled intensive agriculture

  • Intensified agricultural production via artificial irrigation systems

  • Aztec culture and history have been central to the formation of a Mexican national identity

The Inca

  • Andean civilization deemed by scholars to be one of the five pristine civilizations in the world

  • Largest empire in pre-Columbian America and possibly the largest empire in the world in the early 16^{\text{th}} century

  • Had no written language

  • Highlands of Peru, early 13^{\text{th}} century

  • One of six pristine civilizations in the world

  • The Inca believed in reincarnation

  • Built a road system that rivaled Rome

North American Indians

  • Thinly populated and widely dispersed

  • Many tribes still adhered to hunter-gatherer culture

  • Regions: Eastern Woodlands, Southwestern, and Mississippian cultures

  • Tended not to migrate but fought over hunting grounds

  • Political organization centered around tribal councils with women involved in important decisions such as war

Southwestern Pueblo

  • The three main groups: Mogollon, Hohokam, and Anasazi

  • Extensive road and village system

  • Lived in grand pueblos and cliff dwellings

  • Declined due to drought

Mississippians

  • Constructed large truncate earthwork pyramids up to 100\,\text{ft} tall

  • Cahokia: largest population concentration, located in the Mississippi River Valley near St. Louis

  • City covered 5\,\text{sq miles} with 20,000 residents and 120 mounds

  • Developed complex social inequality built on a chiefdom

  • Major religious center

  • The chronicles of de Soto are among the first documents written about Mississippian peoples

Neolithic Revolution

  • The transition from hunter-gatherer to agriculture started around 10,000 BC in the Fertile Crescent

  • Occurred independently in 6 different times

  • The Neolithic transition started no earlier than 6,000 BC in the New World

  • This occurred independently in Mesoamerica and Peru

  • The revolution did not spread to North America until 2,500 BC

The End

  • Summary closure of the chapter materials