The cultures and civilizations of the “Americas”

Where did the Native Americans come from?

Who was in Meso-America? (“Middle America”)

• Olmec • Teotihuacan • Maya • Toltec • Aztec

Teotihuacan • Temples

• Quetzalcoatl

• Chinampas

• Apartment housing for commoners

• Obsidian tools

• Aristocratic govt

•Military protected long distance trade

• Decline – violence…

Pyramid of the Sun

Pyramid of the Moon

Teotihuacan

Maya

MAYA • Yucatan Peninsula

• City States; hereditary

• Swidden agriculture; no metal tools

• Complex religion - 3 layers (heavens, now and underworld); trances

• Elite, tatoos, human sacrifice (elite capt)

• Writing, ball playing (pok-a-tok), astronomy,

• Calendar (365) math system (zero)

• Elite women – high; women important

• demise - war, drought, infighting

**Mayan math

computa`tion

Mayan Calendar

• first date is actually written 13.0.0.0.0.

• three possible equivalences:

• 13.0.0.0.0 = 13 Aug 3114 BCE (Gregorian) 13.0.0.0.0 = 11 Aug 3114 BCE (Gregorian) 13.0.0.0.0 = 15 Oct 3374 BC (Gregorian)

• Assuming one of the first two equivalences, the Long Count will again reach 13.0.0.0.0 on 21 or 23 December AD 2012

• 13.0.0.0.0 may have been the Mayas' idea of the date of the creation of the world.

Ritual “divine” cycle calendar

Solar “civil” calendar

“long count” calendar

Mayan Corn God, Yum

Mayan Corn god & Rain god - From ancient

Mayan religious texts

Maya / Aztec Calendar

Palenque

Mayan Temples

Toltec •Transmitted Teotihuacan & Mayan

culture to the Aztecs

•Conquest state; military power

•Violent culture

•Rivalries

•Tula art -----

•Decline & invasion by the Aztecs

Capital: Tula

Aztecs

plundered

site for

building

materials

Toltec art

The Toltec Empire and leaders created an unmatched mystique in the minds of the Central American people. The Toltec leaders were

thought of as being alongside deities. Later cultures often revered them and copied their legends, art, buildings and religion. Many future

rulers of other cultures, including Mayan leaders and Aztec emperors, claimed to be descended from the Toltecs.

The Toltecs sported the familiar ball game played by many central American cultures and may have sacrificed of the losers. Toltecs are

known for their somewhat rougher form of architecture, a form that would later inspire the Aztec builders. Toltec art is characterized by

walls covered with snakes and skulls, images of a reclining Chak-mool (red jaguar), and the colossal statues of the Atlantes, men carved

from great columns.

The Aztecs

AZTECS • Nomads; settled on islands

• in Lake Texcoco

• Adopted agriculture; gradually grew into an independent power, then empire

• Capital city - Tenochtitlan –

• Ruler chosen by nobility

• War – religious significance (of course) – legitimized the ruler

• War also increased holdings of nobles

• War to get captives for human sacrifice

• Society - hierarchy with Aztec ruler & nobility at top & slaves/criminals/debtors at bottom; women had rights

• Tremendous inequalities - nobility vs commoners

• Elaborate ritual; Huitzilopochtli; war/sun

• Human sacrifice

• Political tribute system; pd in food; goods

• Economic: chinampas; barter

• Dike in lake: salt/fresh water

Pyramids of Tenochtitlán

Huitzilopochtli god of war & sun

needed human

hearts

Tlaloc God of Rain

Tenochtitlan

Quetzalcoatl god of wind &

knowledge

Canoe moving

about the

chinampas

Aztec Society in Transition • Increasingly hierarchical

•Conflict between nobles and growing “middle”

•Violence

•Discontent tribute tribes; sacrifice!

•Empire under Montezuma II conquered by Spaniards (Cortes)

Andean Societies

environmental challenges…

Moche

Andean Cultures •Background:

•Early – small coastal & foothills villages

• by 2600 BCE cf - Old Kingdom Egypt

Chavin (900-250 BCE)

• Trade routes; controlled; linked regions

•Maize <----> quinoa, potatoes, llamas

•Adobe & stone; 1st metals; jaguar-man

• Social stratification: priests, elite, etc.

Technologies to meet the needs Environmental

challenges:

• Altitude

• Frosts

• Arid / drought

•Only llamas!

Compensations:

• Calendar

•New varieties

potatoes & grains

• Terraced farming

• Freeze-dried

vegetables & meat

• Llama & alpaca wool

Andean culture •Khipus

•Ayllu

•Hereditary aristocracy & kings

•Mit’a

•Coca (not cacao)

•Colonists

khipus

Moche • Ca. 600 CE

•Maize, quinoa, beans, manioc,

sweet potatoes

• Irrigation, canals, aqueducts

•Alpacas & llamas

• Textiles

• Stratified society; theocratic

•Women weavers

Moche ceramic sculpture

The Inca

• huge empire & strong central gov’t

• extending length of South America

• Large professional military

• Built paved roads & suspension bridges - used

running messengers; quipus

• Pastoralists; men and women

• Capital Cuzco; sun god; royal family

• Local rulers/chiefdoms; control by hostage

taking

INCA

Inca terraces; Machu Picchu

Machu Pichu

suspension bridge

Northern Peoples Southwestern desert

•Aztec influence incl. maize,

squash, beans

•Hohokam irrigation canals

•Anasazi – kivas; cliff dwellings &

canyon “appts”, pottery, weaving

•Chaco canyon; Mesa Verde

Anasazi cliff dwellings

Mississippian culture •Oldest mounds – 3000’s BCE

• “mound-builders”

• Chiefdoms

• Towns – central plaza surrounded by mounds; burial mounds, temple mounds

• Social stratification; trade

• (not accepted as product of the Native Americans until late 1800’s!)

How Mississippian towns might have looked

Cahokia mounds city; Illinois

Had more inhabitants than Paris at that time (1150)

Etowah Indian Mound- in your very own North Georgia