Transcript First Americans

First Americans
First human settlement and
development of the Americas
North America
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Hunter-gatherers
Following Ice Age herds from Asia
Also, new evidence of two other
migrations:
1) Across Pacific by boat (Polynesian)
2) Across Atlantic by boat (European)
North America cont.
• As people settled, they either adapted to
or changed the environment
Ex: Desert Southwest agriculture/irrigation;
Eastern Woodland use of available
resources
Most advanced culture were the
Moundbuilders of the Eastern Woodlands
--urban centers, temple mounds, expansive
trade routes
Examples of Animals - Domestic
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Dog – everywhere
Turkey – North America
Guinea Pig – Andean
Llama – Andean
Alpaca – Andean
Muscovy Duck –Andean
Tropical Birds –
everywhere for feathers.
Aztecs made cloaks from
humming bird feathers
• Raptors – raising
eagles for feathers,
North America
• Turtles – penned and
perhaps bred along
the Amazon River
near large
settlements.
What NA Did Not Have
• Maya had invented the wheel, but used it
only on toys. Wheel was not used in New
World.
• Strong draft animals.
• European-Asian diseases.
Mesoamerica
• Beginning 1500 BC, series of civilizations
emerged in central America
• Olmec (1500 BC-400 BC): first Meso
civilization; swampy coast of Gulf of
Mexico; foundation for later Meso
civilizations; extensive trade; slash/burn
farming
Olmecs and Mayans
Olmecs
• Earliest known ceremonial centers of the
ancient Americas appeared near modern
day Vera Cruz around 1200 B.C.
– Served as the nerve center for the first
complex society of the Americas, the Olmecs
• “Olmec” was not what the people called
themselves
– It means “rubber people” and comes from the
rubber trees that flourish in the region
Characteristics of Olmec
Civilization
• Intensive agricultural techniques
– Area received abundant rainfall so extensive irrigation systems
were unnecessary
– Still the Olmecs built elaborate drainage systems to divert waters
that might otherwise have caused floods
• Specialization of labor
– Jade craftsmen
• Cities
– Built around ceremonial centers at San Lorenzo, La Venta, and
Tres Zapotes
• A social hierarchy
– Society was probably authoritarian
– Common subjects provided labor and tribute to the elite
Characteristics of Olmec
Civilization
• Organized religion and education
– Ceremonial centers, priests, temples, altars, and
human sacrifice
• Development of complex forms of economic exchange
– Imported jade and obsidian and exported small jade,
basalt, and ceramic works of art
• Development of new technologies
– Excellent astronomers and mathematicians who
developed a calendar
• Advanced development of the arts. (This can include
writing.)
– Created colossal human heads sculpted from basalt
rock
Decline of the Olmec
• Olmecs systematically destroyed their
ceremonial centers at both San Lorenzo and La
Venta and then deserted the sites
– Statues were broken and buried, monuments
defaced, and capitals burned
• No one knows why, but some speculate reasons
involving civil conflicts or doubts about the
effectiveness or legitimacy of the ruling classes
• By about 400 B.C., Olmec society had fallen on
hard times and other societies soon eclipsed it
Olmec Influence on the Mayans
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Maize
Ceremonial centers with temple pyramids
Calendar based on the Olmec one
Ball games
Rituals involving human sacrifice
Agriculture
Maize
Cacao
Agriculture
• Soil in Mesoamerican
lowlands was thin and
quickly lost fertility
– Mayans built terraces to
retain the silt and
therefore greatly
improved agricultural
production
• Raised maize, cotton,
and cacao
– Cacao was a precious
commodity consumed
mostly by nobles and
even used as money
Cacao tree
Mesoamerica cont.
• The Maya(900 BC-900 AD):
began as a collection of citystates in the Yucatan
• Advanced society with
complex religion, math and
science (particularly
astronomy), agriculture-based
economy
• Written language—one of the
first in the Americas
• Sudden collapse of Mayan
civilization—cause unknown
(civil war, attack,
crops/weather)
Cities
Cities: Tikal
• From about 300 to 900, the Maya built
more than eight large ceremonial centers
– All had pyramids, palaces, and temples
• Some of the larger ones attracted dense
populations and evolved into genuine
cities
– The most important was Tikal
– Small city-kingdoms served as the means of
Mayan political organization
Cities: Tikal
• Tikal was the most important Mayan
political center between the 4th and 9th
Centuries
– Reached its peak between 600 and 800 with
a population of nearly 40,000
• The Temple of the Jaguar dominated the
skyline and represented Tikal’s control
over the surrounding region which had a
population of about 500,000
Social Hierarchy
• King and ruling family
• Priests
• Hereditary nobility (from which came the
merchant class)
• Warriors
• Professionals and artisans
• Peasants
• Slaves
Social Hierarchy
• Professionals and artisans
– Architects and sculptors supervised construction of
the large monuments and public buildings
• Peasants
– Fed the entire society
• Slaves
– Provided physical labor for the construction of cities
and monuments
– Often had been captured in battle
Religion: Importance of Agriculture
• Mayan religion reflected the fundamental
role of agriculture in their society
• Popol Vuh, was the Mayan creation myth
that taught that the gods had created
human beings out of maize and water
• Gods kept the world in order and
maintained the agricultural cycle in
exchange for honors and sacrifices
Religion: Bloodletting Rituals
• Mayans believed the
shedding of human
blood would prompt
the gods to send rain
to water the maize
• Bloodletting involved
both war captives and
Mayan royals
Mayan queen holds a bowl filled with
strips of paper used to collect blood.
Religion: The Ball Game
• Mayans inherited a ball game from the Olmecs
that was an important part of Mayan political and
religious festivals
• High-ranking captives were forced to play the
game for their very lives
– The losers became sacrificial victims and faced
torture and execution immediately following the match
• Object of the game was to propel an 8 inch ball
of solid baked rubber through a ring or onto a
marker without using your hands
New Technologies: Calendar
• Mayan priests developed the most elaborate
calendar of the ancient Americas
• Interwove two kinds of year
– A solar year of 365 days governed the agricultural
cycle
– A ritual year of 260 days governed daily affairs by
organizing time into twenty “months” of thirteen days
each
• Believed each day derived certain
characteristics from its position on both the solar
and ritual calendars and carefully studied the
combinations
Writing
• Expanded on Olmec tradition to create the
most flexible and sophisticated of all early
American systems of writing
• Contained both ideographic elements and
symbols for syllables
• Used to write works of history, poetry, and
myth and keep genealogical,
administrative, and astronomical records
Mayan Decline
• By about 800, most Mayan populations had
begun to desert their cities
– Full scale decline followed everywhere but in the
northern Yucatan
• Possible causes include foreign invasion,
internal dissension and civil war, failure of the
water control system leading to agricultural
disaster, ecological problems caused by
destruction of the forests, epidemic diseases,
and natural disasters
Aztecs
• The Aztecs were a Pre-Columbian
Mesoamerican people of central Mexico in
the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries who built
an extensive empire. They called
themselves Mexicas.This is the believed
origin to the name of the country Mexico,
which makes up much of where the Aztec
civilization used to be.
• The nucleus of the Aztec Empire was the
Valley of Mexico, where their capital
Tenochtitlan was built upon raised islets in
Lake Texcoco. The capital of the modernday nation of Mexico, the greater
metropolitan area of Mexico City now
covers much of the Valley of Mexico and
the now-drained Lake of Texcoco.
• Aztec civilization and society possessed a
vibrant culture which included mandatory
education and rich and complex
mythological and religious traditions. For
Europeans, the most striking element of
the Aztec culture was the practice of
human sacrifice which was conducted
throughout Mesoamerica prior to the
Spanish conquest.
• In what is probably the most widely known
episode in the Spanish colonization of the
Americas, Hernán Cortés conquered the
Aztecs in 1521 thus immortalizing himself
and the Aztec king, Moctezuma II
(Montezuma II).
• The true origin of the Mexica is uncertain.
According to their legends, the Mexica's
place of origin was Aztlán. It is generally
thought that Aztlán was somewhere to the
north of the Valley of Mexico; some
experts have placed it as far north as the
Southwestern United States. Others
however suggest it is a mythical place,
since Aztlán can be translated as "the
place of the origin".
• At the time of their arrival, the Valley of
Mexico contained many city-states, the
most powerful of which were Culhuacan to
the south, and Azcapotzalco to the west.
In 1299, Culhuacan ruler Cocoxtli gave
them permission to settle in the empty
barrens of Tizapan, where they were
eventually assimilated into Culhuacan
culture.
• In 1323, the Mexica asked the new ruler of
Culhuacan, Achicometl, for his daughter, in
order to make her a goddess.
Unbeknownst to the king, the Mexicas
actually planned to sacrifice her. As the
story goes, during a festival dinner, a
priest came out wearing her flayed skin as
part of the ritual. Upon seeing this, the
king and the people of Culhuacan were
horrified and expelled the Mexicas.
• According to Aztec legend, the Aztecs
were shown a vision of an eagle perched
on a prickly pear cactus, clutching a snake
in its talons. This vision indicated that this
was the location where they were to build
their home. In any event, the Aztecs
eventually arrived on a small swampy
island in Lake Texcoco where they
founded the town of Tenochtitlan in 1325.
• The Triple Alliance of Tenochtitlan,
Texcoco, and Tlacopan would, in the next
100 years, come to dominate the Valley of
Mexico and extend its power to both the
Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific shore. Over
this period, Tenochtitlan gradually became
the dominant power in the alliance, and
the Triple Alliance territories became
known as the Aztec Empire.