Americas, 500 BCE – 1200 CE WHAP/Napp

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“The first cities of the Americas share several characteristics with those of East Asia. They began as religious shrine centers, linked by shamans, individuals who had special powers to communicate with the spiritual world on behalf of the community. They developed into city-states with important functions in politics and trade as well as in religion, and some even incorporated whole empires under their sway…

There were also great differences between the hemispheres. Geographically, the cities of the western hemisphere were built at water’s edge, usually near lakes or small rivers, but not on major river systems. Technologically, the people of the Americas did not use metals in their tools. In fact, they hardly used metal at all except for ornaments, jewelry, and artwork. They used neither wheels nor draft animals in transportation, perhaps because the Americas had no large, domesticable animals to use for pulling carts until horses and cattle were introduced by the Spaniards. Llamas served as pack animals for small loads in the Andes in South America, but otherwise goods were carried by hand, dragged, or shipped by canoe. Construction and transportation were thus far more labor intensive than in most of Afro-Eurasia. Finally, except for the Maya, the Native Americans did not create writing systems. Some, like the Zapotecs and Toltecs, used limited hieroglyphic symbols and calendar formats, but these did not develop into full, written languages. In Afro-Eurasia, only in the Niger River area did settlements grow into cities without developing writing systems…

Humans arrived in the western hemisphere from across the Beringia land bridge (connecting Alaska and Siberia) about 15,000 years ago and then spread throughout both North and South America. By 5000 B.C.E., they were cultivating maize, at least in small quantities, as well as gathering wild crops and hunting animals.” ~ The World’s History

1-Identify a characteristic shared by the first cities in the Americas and East Asia. ______

2-Identify three differences between the first cities in the Western and Eastern Hemispheres. ______

3-What did the Americas lack? ______

4-Why were construction and transportation far more labor intensive in the Americas than in most of Afro-Eurasia? ______

5-Why were the Maya unique among Native Americans? ______

6-What is the significance of the author’s reference to cities near the Niger River in his discussion of the Americas? ______

7-How and when were the Americas populated? ______

8-Why was maize significant? ______

  1. Civilizations of Mesoamerica
  1. Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ensured that the cultures of Western Hemisphere had long operated in a world apart from their Afro-Eurasian counterparts
  2. Lacked large domesticated animals and iron-working
  1. Mesoamerica
  1. From central Mexico through Central America
  2. During the first millennium BCE, Olmec civilization (a “mother civilization”) engaged in trade leading to the diffusion
  1. Olmec Culture Stone heads; Maize; Rubber Cultivation; Glyphs
  1. The Maya
  1. Classical civilization of Mesoamerica
  2. In present-day Guatemala and Yucatán region of Mexico
  1. Classical phase between 300 and 900 CE
a)Mathematical system with concept of zero
b)Predicted eclipses of sun/moon; elaborate calendars; most elaborate writing system; built pyramids, etc.
c)By 600 CE, drained swamps, terraced hillsides, and flattened ridge tops
  1. Highly fragmented political system of city-states
  2. Engaged in frequent warfare
  1. Tikal (city): 50,000 people lived in city
a)But no Maya city-state succeeded in creating a unified Maya empire
b)More closely resembled the competing city-states of Sumerians and Greeks
  1. Drought in 840 CE; cities were deserted
  1. Teotihuacán
  1. At same time as Maya flourished, the giant city of Teotihuacán thrived (Mexico)
  2. A population between 100,000 and 200,000Largest urban complex in AmericasBut much is unknown about the city
  3. Along the main north/south boulevard, now known as the Street of the Dead: grand homes of elite, headquarters of state authorities, temples, pyramids
  4. Streets in a grid-like pattern
  5. But art has revealed few images of self-glorifying rulers or individuals
  6. A number of glyphs or characters suggest a limited form of writing
  7. The city cast a huge shadow over Mesoamerica, from 300 to 600 CE
  1. Civilizations in the Andes
  1. Around 900 BCE, located in the Andean highlands at a village called Chavín de Huántar, shamans made use of hallucinogenic cactus
  1. Became a pilgrimage site
  1. Moche: Peru’s northern coast, flourished between about 100 and 800 CE
  1. Economy rooted in complex irrigation system, governed by warrior priests, however, fragile environmental foundations/drought, etc.
  1. Peoples of the Americas
  1. Three Groups: Civilizations in Mesoamerica/Andes, gathering and hunting peoples, and semi-sedentary peoples in the eastern woodlands of U.S., Central America, Amazon basin, and Caribbean islands
  2. In Chaco canyon in what is now northwestern New Mexico, between 860 and 1130 CE, five major pueblos emerged

1-What geographic feature had a profound impact on the history of the Americas? ______

2-How did this geographic feature affect the history of the Americas? ______

3-What did the Americas lack? ______

4-Identify three facts about the Olmecs. ______

5-Why are the Maya considered a classical civilization? ______

6-How are the Maya similar to the ancient Sumerians and Greeks? ______

7-How did the Maya alter the physical landscape? Why did they alter the landscape? ______

8-Identify one significant fact about Tikal. ______

9-What may have led to the sudden collapse of the Maya? ______

10-Identify two significant facts about Teotihuacán. ______

11-Why does it appear that Teotihuacán may not have had self-glorifying rulers? ______

12-What gave rise to the civilization of Chavín de Huántar? ______

13-Identify two significant facts about the Moche. ______

14-Identify the three groups in the Americas. ______

Document-Reading Practice: Excerpt from Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

As A TEENAGER, I SPENT THE SUMMER OF 1956 IN Montana, working for an elderly farmer named Fred Hirschy. Born in Switzerland, Fred had come to southwestern Montana as a teenager in the 1890s and proceeded to develop one of the first farms in the area…My fellow farmhands were, for the most part, tough whites…Among the farmhands, though, was a member of the Blackfoot Indian tribe named Levi, who behaved very differently from the coarse miners…It was therefore a shocking disappointment to me when, one Sunday morning, Levi too staggered in drunk…Among his curses, “Damn you, Fred Hirschy, and damn the ship that brought you from Switzerland!”…

Different peoples acquired food production at different times in prehistory. Some, such as Aboriginal Australians, never acquired it at all. Of those who did, some (for example, the ancient Chinese) developed it independently by themselves, while others (including ancient Egyptians) acquired it from neighbors. But, as we’ll see, food production was indirectly a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel. Hence geographic variation in whether or when, the peoples of different continents became farmers and herders explains to a large extent their subsequent contrasting fates.

A-How does Jared Diamond explain the contrasting fates of Fred Hirschy and Levi? ______

  1. The Olmecs
(A)Established the first complex society in Mesoamerica.
(B)Built ceremonial centers with pyramids and temples.
(C)Lived in an area where rubber trees flourished.
(D)Constructed elaborate drainage systems.
(E)All of the above.
  1. As for early agriculture in Mesoamerica, it can be said that
(A)The settlers developed food crops brought from Siberia.
(B)Horses and oxen played important roles in transportation and farming.
(C)The settlers developed maize as their staple food around 5000 B.C.E.
(D)The settlers supplemented their diet with meat from cattle.
(E)All of the above.
  1. The Olmec society produced
(A)Paintings that depicted the daily lives of the ruling elite.
(B)Books on astronomy.
(C)Huge sculptures of human heads.
(D)Colorful murals on walls of temples.
(E)All of the above.
  1. The low sea levels during ice ages
(A)Prohibited human migrations from Siberia to North America.
(B)Exposed land bridges that linked Siberia with Alaska and Australia with New Guinea.
(C)Enabled humans to migrate via floating glaciers.
(D)Made impossible for indigenous Americans to fish.
(E)All of the above. /
  1. All but one of the following is true regarding migrations to the Americas:
(A)A large migration came about 13,000 B.C.E.
(B)By 9500 B.C.E. the migrants had reached the tip of South America.
(C)The migrants were hunters and gatherers.
(D)Most of the migrants arrived by boat.
(E)Most of the migrations to the Americas took place during the last ice age.
  1. For the Olmecs, the ceremonial center at San Lorenzo was like
(A)Tikal to the Maya.
(B)Chichén Itzá to the Tikal.
(C)La Venta to the Tikal.
(D)Teotihuacán to the Maya.
(E)None of the Above.
  1. The heartland of early Andean society was
(A)The region now occupied by the states of Peru and Bolivia.
(B)The region now occupied by the states of Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador.
(C)The islands of the Pacific Ocean.
(D)The region of the Amazon basin.
(E)All of the above.
  1. Which of the following would not have been seen at Teotihuacán?
(A)The Pyramid of the Sun
(B)The Pyramid of the Moon
(C)Iron tools
(D)Orange Pottery

Thesis: Compare the rise of civilizations in Eurasia and the Americas.