Transcript The Americas powerpoint

The AMERICAS
American Civilizations
 Enormous land area, many different regions
 First Americans are believed to have crossed a land
bridge in the Bering Strait between the Asian and North
American continents during the last Ice Age when the
sea level was low
North America
 The Inuit – lived in the Arctic regions and northwest
 Built igloos = houses made of ice blocks, became
skilled hunters and fishers
 Other types of peoples include the Aleut and the
Ingalik
 The Mound Builders – eastern woodlands
 Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, lived in the Ohio
and Mississippi river valleys
 Built earth mounds as homes and built some of the
earliest cities in North America
 One early group of mound builders was called the
Hopewell peoples. Another group was called the
Mississippians
 The Iroquois – eastern woodlands (northeast)
 Built longhouses
 Women owned the dwellings and harvested the
crops
 Three “sister” crops: corn, beans, and squash
 Men hunted and protected the community
 Made up of five different nations:
 Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Seneca, and
Cayuga
 Formed a joint gov’t called the Iroquois League
 Created to end wars, was a council of
representatives that met regularly to settle
disputes
 First experiment with democracy in North
America
 The Plains Indians – lived in the Great Plains
 Consisted of different tribes
 Sioux, Omaha, Comanche, Crow, and Blackfoot
 Didn’t all speak the same language, so developed a
form of sign language to communicate
 Built teepees
 Hunted buffalo with the introduction of horses from
the Europeans
 Used the buffalo for food, clothing, shelter, and
tools
 The Desert West
 Anasazi
 Developed pueblos = aboveground structures
with many rooms
 Also had cliff dwellings
 Other peoples = Apache, the Shoshone, and the
Hohokam
 Used materials that were available
 Great Plains Indians built teepees and the Iroquois
built longhouses
Mesoamerica
 Name used for areas of Mexico and Central America
 Site of the first farming settlements in the Americas
 Maize, or corn, was the first domesticated crop
 Olmec – first, appeared around 1200 BC
 Farmed along the Gulf of Mexico, disappeared around 300
AD
 Zapotec – lived in southern Mexico from 1500 BC to 750 AD
 Their capital was the first true city in Mesoamerica
 Toltec – lived in the highlands of Central Mexico from 900 –
1200 AD
 Established military dominance over a large region
 The Maya
 One of the most advanced civilizations in the Americas
 Developed around 1000 BC, built most of its cities
between 300 – 900 AD
 The Mayan civilization came to include much of Central
America and consisted of 10 million people and 40
cities
 Practiced slash-and-burn agriculture to farm the rain forest
 Burning vegetation to clear the land for crops
 Built splendid pyramids, temples, and palaces
 Mayan cities functioned as city-states and were often at
war with each other
 The kings of the Mayan city-states claimed to be
descended from gods
 Had many rituals to satisfy the gods
 One ritual involved piercing the tongue or skin to
offer blood to the gods
 Another was a game involving a rubber ball that
you had to get through a stone hoop using only
your elbows, knees, or hips – the losing team
often were killed and their hearts sacrificed to
the gods
 Practiced human sacrifice to appease the gods
 Among the first people to come up with the concept
of zero and had a 365 day calendar
 Declined due to either overuse of resources, too
much warfare, or peasant rebellions
 The Aztec
 Dominate from the 1100s to the 1500s
 At its height the Aztec controlled 5 million people and
hundreds of cities
 Forced conquered people to pay tribute, which was the
basis of the Aztec economy
 The capital city of Tenochtitlan was one of the largest in
the world at the time, with 200,000 inhabitants
 A system of roads helped with trade
 The king, although he was elected by a group of nobles,
claimed to be descended from gods
 Religion was based on a belief in the unending struggle
between forces of good and evil
 Aztec religious ceremonies were particularly bloody
 Believed that the gods needed human blood,
hoped human sacrifice would postpone the day
of reckoning
 Aztec sacrificed as many as 20,000 victims a year
– 54.79 people a day
 Mostly used slaves or prisoners of war as
sacrifices
 Warriors were responsible for capturing the
victims
South America
 Chavin – 900 to 200 BC
 Moche – 400 BC to 600 AD
 Nazca – 200 BC to 600 AD
 Best known for the huge designs they made on the desert floor
 These Nazca lines show geometric shapes and outlines of animals
 The Inca – 1300s to 1500s
 Starts out in Peru, eventually includes 12 million people
 Capital at Cuzco
– The Inca Empire was built on war
•
Used a system of resettlement to limit the
power of local leaders they conquered
– The emperor had most of the power
•
Believed to related to the sun god
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Mummies of dead kings kept at Cuzco and
worshipped
– Used the quipu to keep track of the movement
of goods throughout the empire
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Quipu = set of colored and knotted cords
•
The colors and knots represented numbers or
dates
 There were no slaves in the Inca Empire, but
most people belonged to the lower classes
 Religion was a key element of the Inca society
 People worshipped many gods, although the sun
god was the most important
 Priests performed ceremonies, which included
sacrifices of llamas, cloth, or food
 Only practiced human sacrifices on rare
occasions
 Built 24,800 miles worth of roads
 Had rest houses a day apart
 The arrival of the Spanish brought an end to the
empire