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Civilizations in the Americas Aztec Empire-Around 1150, groups of warlike nomads from the north invaded what is now central Mexico. The groups fought those who lived there for control of the land. The winners of the fight were the Aztecs. They built their capital city on an island in Lake also marshy and flooded often. The Aztecs solved this problem by driving large posts deep into the ground and building reed houses on top of them. They also made bridges to connect the capital island to surrounding land and built aqueducts for drinking water. They had a 9 mile dike that surrounded the island to prevent flooding. The land that they built their capital on was also not very good for farming. To solve this problem, they built chinampas, or islands made of platforms woven from reed. They piled these platforms with mud and created floating gardens. The Aztec society also had classes. The noble class make up the smallest part, while the farmers and slaves make up the largest. The Aztec Way of Life-The Aztecs had an accurate calendar and used mathematics to help them grow their crops. They also developed a system of hieroglyphic writing. They practiced a religion that included human sacrifice. The Aztecs believed that their gods needed the beating hears of humans to survive. They often times fought wars in order to capture prisoners to be used for human sacrifice. At the height of Aztec power as many as 20,000 people died each year in Tenochtitlan’s ceremonies. The Aztec empire last 100 years, until people began to rebel due to harsh treatment from the noble class The Inca Empire-The Inca in South America built their empire much like the Aztecs. It was located along the Andes Mountains. They believed that they were descended from their sun god. In 1438, under a leader named Pachacuti, the Incas began to conquer many other kingdoms. By the 1500s, the Inca ruled a wide area which they called the Four Quarters of the World. To hold their empire together, they made the people that they conquered followed their way of life. The Inca build great roads to connect their empire. They also cut into the hillside of the Andes to make growing crops possible. North American Cultures-The people that lived in what is now the United States and Canada were too few and lived too far apart to build empires. Even so, Native Americans in this region adapted to and changed their environment. Native peoples in the southwestern part of the U.S. used irrigation to make the dry land better for growing crops. They built systems of ditches to carry water to fields. They also built shelters several stories high on cliff ledges and on top of mesas (flat-topped hill with steep sides). In the eastern woodland of the Americas, the people were known as Mound Builders. The mound builders got their name from the animal shaped mounds of earth that they used to bury their dead or to build temples on. The largest settlement, Cahokia, had 85 mounds