Name:______Date: ______Period: ____

Civilizations of the Americas Scavenger Hunt

Directions: Complete using the PowerPoint lecture.
I am the first Mesoamerican civilization.
My culture can be traced back to 1500 BCE.
My people lived in large cities that were centers for religious rituals.
Which civilization am I? ______
I was the first major city in Mesoamerica.
I may have had as many as 200,000 inhabitants at its height.
Our main thoroughfare was called Avenue of the Dead.
Which city am I? ______
Most of my culture’s villages were located in what is now Guatemala, Belize, and the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico.
Much of the land we lived in was good for farming.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our culture was formed in the 1200s and we built our capital city in Tenochtitlán in 1325.
This is the site of Mexico City today.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our people lived in the Andes Mountains in South America in what is now Peru.
This land included tropical rain forests, fertile valleys, and some of the highest mountains in the world.
Our capital city was named Cuzco.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our empire reached its height in the 1400s.
Under the rule of Pachacuti, our civilization conquered all of Peru and by 1500 governed an empire stretching 2,500 miles along the west coast of South America.
About 12 million people lived in our empire.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our culture has polytheistic religious beliefs, including beliefs in about 1,000 gods.
Most of the gods were agricultural so religious ceremonies were often related to asking for a good harvest.
Sometimes humans were sacrificed to the gods.
Which civilization am I? ______
My civilization made many advances in astronomy.
Also, my civilization produced a very accurate calendar system.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our civilization had a rich culture and produced many works of art and architecture.
We produced beautiful feather headdresses, stone sculptures, and jewelry.
We also made advances in astronomy and created two calendars, one for farming and one for religion.
Which civilization am I? ______
By the 1500s, our empire stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean and from the Valley of Mexico to what is now Guatemala.
We had between 6 and 12 million people under our rule and demanded tribute from the people we conquered.
The accepted forms of tribute included corn, gold, and jade.
Which civilization am I? ______
Three main classes formed our society.
The classes were the nobles, intermediate class, and the commoners.
Commoners included farmers, fishers, craftspeople, soldiers, slaves, and serfs.
Which civilization am I? ______
We believed our emperor to be divine.
He was said to the son of the most important of our gods, the sun god, Inti.
Animal and human sacrifices were made to him.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our army was extremely powerful, including 200,000 men.
Still, weaknesses and war within the empire left us vulnerable when the Spanish arrived in 1532.
Eventually millions of our people died of diseases brought by the Spanish, as well as by their weapons.
Which civilization am I? ______
While we did not have a system of writing, we were gifted builders who constructed 14,000 miles of roads across our empire.
We also made advancements in medicine, including an early form of brain surgery.
Which civilization am I? ______
As my empire’s population grew, so did the need for farmland.
Because of this, we were almost always at war to gain more farmland.
In addition, one of our emperors, Montezuma II, caused bitter hatred among us because of his constant demand for tribute and human sacrifice.
Which civilization am I? ______
In 1519, Hernán Cortés came to our empire looking for gold and glory for Spain.
He took our emperor, Montezuma, prisoner and later killed him.
The diseases and weapons the Spanish brought weakened our empire and they eventually conquered our capital in 1521.
Which civilization am I? ______
My civilization worshipped more than 160 gods and goddesses.
Our main god was named ItzamNá.
They viewed the afterlife as an unhappy existence.
Which civilization am I? ______
My civilization reached its peak during 250 – 900 CE.
During this time period, the civilization built more than 40 large cities.
The cities included Copán, Tikal, and ChichénItzá.
Which civilization am I? ______
Because our land was swampy and there was very little wood or stone for building, we adapted.
We constructed chinampas, or raised garden beds, on the lake.
This enabled us to grow many crops, including corn, squash, and chili peppers.
Which civilization am I? ______
At its height, between 200,000 and 400,000 people lived in our capital city.
We also built bridges to connect our city to the mainland.
Which civilization am I? ______
In my civilization, the nobles lived in homes decorated with murals.
Also, in my civilization, only nobles were allowed to drink chocolate.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our government was very well organized, but also controlled nearly all aspects of daily life.
The government decided who would farm, who would trade goods, who would be soldiers, and who would marry.
Which civilization am I? ______
The reason for our decline remains a mystery.
Some believe it is due to overfarming of land and others believe it was due to disease, warfare, or peasant revolts.
Which civilization am I? ______
One of our kings was named Pacal II.
He ruled for nearly 70 years.
He became king by claiming he was the son of a goddess.
Which civilization am I? ______
My civilization developed a complex writing system that used glyphs.
They created a type of book called a codex.
The most famous of these is called PopolVuh, which tells our culture’s story of creation.
Which civilization am I? ______
My civilization developed a mathematical system based on the number 20.
We also were one of the first people to use the zero.
We used a dot to represent 1 and a bar to represent 5.
Which civilization am I? ______
Our society had two main groups: nobles and commoners.
We did not make prisoners or war become slaves.
Still, most people stayed in the class to which they were born and commoners did all the work in the empire.
Which civilization am I? ______
War was a sacred duty to our culture.
During an attack, enemy warriors would be taken as prisoners to be used as slaves or human sacrifices.
Which civilization am I? ______
We developed a system of mountain highways.
Along these highways, runners called chasquis carried messages up and down the length of the empire.
Which civilization am I? ______
My civilizations had four broad social classes: ruling class, nobility, peasants, and slaves.
Most of the people in my civilization were peasants, which included farmers and laborers.
Which civilization am I? ______
None of our cities were very large, but we still were able to unify the lands and peoples under our rule.
Macho Picchu, one of our most famous settlements, probably never had more than 1,000 people.
Which civilization am I? ______
Because so much of our land was on steep mountainsides, we implemented terrace farming.
We also developed irrigation systems.
In addition to crops like potatoes, our farms included animals like llamas.
Which civilization am I? ______