Powerful ruler Aristocrats

Power based upon ownership of land

Farmed by poor relatives

Small middle class• artisans, traders

Majority of pop. farmers

Chiampas• Division of labor along

gender lines Men fighting and hunting Women home

•Polytheistic Human sacrifice performed to appease gods

•Cities built around ceremonial centers

Central pyramid surmounted by shrine to the gods

Nearby temples, palaces, sacred ball court

Possible reasons• Overuse of the land• Invasion• Internal revolt• Natural disaster

Older centers abandoned and new centers further N continued

•Valley of Mexico•Less

sophisticated than neighbors

•Excellent warriors•No centralized

state semiautonomous territories

Centralized religion

Authoritarian power Claimed descent from gods Ruler selected from royal family by a select group of

senior officials King advised by council of lords Headed by prime minister- served as chief executive

and head of bureaucracy Power of central gov’t limited beyond

capital

polytheistic•cosmology based upon belief of 2 worlds:

material and divine earth material divine- heaven and hell

• fatalistic elements

Religious significance• Sacred precinct• massive pyramid

Painting Cast gold and

silver Writing

• Hieroglyphics Calendar from Olmecs

1519 Hernan Cortes landed in Veracruz•Cortes demanded Aztec accept

Christianity•Disease brought by Europeans eventually

wiped out majority of pop• Within months entire civilization crumbling

Extended from Ecuador to Central Chile

Tahuantinsuyu 10,000 residents Ruled by governor

forced labor Excess inhabitants transferred to other locations

Cuzco Imposing stone metropolis no mortar Temple dedicated to the sun

24,800 miles of roads from Northern Columbia to Santiago Chile

Rest houses and storage depots along roads

Suspension bridges traversed ravines and rivers

Terraced ag• irrigation• collective labor controlled by state

Marriage strictly regulated•vestal virgins

State built on war• Universal male conscription• move quickly along highway system

No wheeled vehicles

Conquered peoples Instructed in language and state religion

Writing quipu

Francisco Pizarro w/ few hundred men

Internal factionalism

Disease of Europeans