Download Mayans, Aztecs, Incas

While civilizations were developing in
Africa, Asia, and Europe, they were also
emerging in the Americas. Human
settlement in the Americas is relatively
recent compared to that in other parts of
the world. However, it followed a
similar pattern. At first the ancient
people of the Americas survived mainly
by hunting. Over time, they developed
farming methods that ensured a more
reliable supply of food. This in turn led
to the growth of the first civilizations in
the AMERICAS.
Essential Questions:
Describe the major political,
economic, social, and cultural
developments of the Maya, Aztec, and
Inca civilizations. Summarize the
major ideas in astronomy,
mathematics, and architectural
engineering that developed in the
Maya, Inca, and Aztec civilizations.
The OLMEC CIVILIZATION
• Mesoamerica’s first known civilization
(around 1200 B.C.E.).
• Migration: traveled from Siberia to
Alaska (13,000bce)
• The Olmec influenced neighboring
groups, as well as the later civilizations
of the region, they’re often called
Mesoamerica’s “mother culture”
• Agrarian life: beans, squash, chile,
avocados, *maize (corn); no
domesticated animals; domesticated
turkey; Most were farmers who farmed
along the muddy riverbanks in the area;
The City was a busy trade center (tools,
weapons, pottery, jewelry);
• Temples, palaces, ceremonial centers,
ball courts -- all dominated by the
pyramid of the sun
• aka, “rubber people” – because of
abundance of rubber trees
• Traded jade and obsidian
• Colossal human heads – possibly
likeness of rulers
• constructed drainage systems to avoid
floods
Fall of Olmecs
• Olmecs faced hard times between 400 –
100 bce;
• civilization collapsed (reasons are not
fully understood); maybe civil wars, they
destroyed their ceremonial centers,
burned their capital, legitimacy of rulers
questionable; people believe that outside
invaders caused their destruction
around 100 B.C.E.
• Influence of Olmec: maize, ceremonial
centers, calendar, human sacrifice, ball
game
THE MAYAS
• Heirs of the Olmecs
• On the Yucatan Peninsula east of
Teotihuacan, the highly sophisticated
Mayan civilization flourished between
300 to 900 C.E.
• Cities were built around a central
pyramid topped with a temple to the
gods.
MAYAN GOV’T
• Composed of city-states, each ruled by a
hereditary ruling class
• Ruling chief for each city, believed they
were descended from the Gods
• Captured nobles and war leaders were
used for human sacrifice.
• Other war captives were enslaved.
• Like other ancient peoples in Central
America, one way the Maya appeased the
gods was through human sacrifice.
• Human sacrifice was also performed on
certain ceremonial occasions.
MAYAN SOCIETY
• nobles, military leaders, public officials,
scribes, townspeople, artisans and
merchants
• Most were farmers; maize, cotton, cacao
beans
• Labor divided along traditional gender
lines.
• Fall: declined in 800 ce, they deserted
the city
A detail from a sacred Maya mural at San
Bartolo — the earliest known Maya
painting, depicting the birth of the
cosmos and the divine right of a king
TIKAL
• Urban centers such as Tikal may have
had a 100,000 inhabitants.
DEADLY GAME
• Nearby were temples, palaces, and a
sacred ball court
• The game had religious meaning because
the court symbolized the world, and the
ball represented the sun and the moon.
• The defeated team was sacrificed.
MAYAN BALL COURT
Chichén Itzá
• built great palaces and pyramids,
controlling the upper Yucatan Peninsula
from Chichén Itzá
Mayan ruins in Guatemala.
HIEROGLYPHS
• The Mayans created a writing system
using hieroglyphs, or pictures.
• Unfortunately, the Spaniards assumed
the writings were evil because they were
not Christian, and they destroyed many
Mayan books, a pattern the Spanish
would repeat throughout their conquest
in the Americas.
MAYAN STELLE
ITZAMNA
• Itzamna was the supreme god of the
Mayans, and some gods, like the jaguar
god of the night were evil.
• belief: all life is in the hands of divine
powers was crucial to Mayan civilization.
Mayan Contributions
Highly skilled Mayan mathematicians and
astronomers calculated the solar year at
365.2420 days
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Astronomy; 365 day calendar
understood concept of #0
giant stone heads
Pyramids - Chichén Itzá
Tikal (political center)
Ball courts
hieroglyphics: wrote on bark/ folded in
accordion w/plaster cover
THE LONG COUNT
• The long count was based on the belief in
cycles of creation and destruction.
• The Maya believed our present world
was created in 3114 BCE and would end
on December 23, 2012 CE.
• Many other hieroglyphs recorded
important events in Mayan history,
especially events in the lives of Mayan
rulers.
MAYA 260 DAY CALENDAR
THE CALENDAR
• Priests used a sacred calendar of 260 days to foretell
the future and know the omens associated with each
day.
• Only priests could read and use the calendar.
Chavín in South America
• Complex society: 1000 bce
• Modern day Peru/Bolivia
• Main crops; beans, peanuts, sweet
potatoes, cotton
• Fishing
• Produced pottery, built
temples/pyramids
• 900-300 bce; Complexity of society
increases
• Techniques of producing cotton textiles,
fishing nets
• Discovered gold, silver, copper –
metallurgy
• NO WRITING
States and empires in Mesoamerica and
North America:
The Toltec and the Mexica
• Societies had limited or no contact with
Africa, Asia, Europe
– Brief presence of Scandinavians in
Newfoundland, Canada
– Some Asian contact with Australia
• Mesoamerica in period of war and
conquest, 8th century CE
AZTEC SOCIETY
• population consisted of commoners,
indentured servants, and slaves, who
were war captives and worked in the
houses of the wealthy
• diet of dried corn; beans, squash, chile,
avocados, *maize (corn); no
domesticated animals, no beasts of
burden
• Children were taught courtesy, respect
for their elders, truthfulness, and selfcontrol.
• Language: Nahuatl
Aztec Political structure
• Chief of Men, both civil and religious
leader; Priestly-class
• Rigid class system, including slaves
• Extracted tribute from conquered peoples
• Militaristic: fought with a wooden sword
studded with obsidian volcanic glass blades
AZTEC Economy
• Originally nomads who conquered
farming peoples as they moved south
• Maize (main crop)
• Trade network – not too extensive
(geography)
• metal work (gold & silver), jade objects,
semiprecious stones, & textiles
• Elaborate irrigation system (aqueducts)
Aztec Religion
• Quetzalcóatl: the feathered serpent god.
• According to Aztec tradition, he left his
homeland and vowed to return in
triumph.
• This became part of a legend about a
prince whose return from exile would be
preceded by a sign of an arrow through a
sapling
• Jaguar was seen as a god
Aztec religion was based on the belief in an unending
struggle between the forces of good and evil, which led
to the creation and destruction of a series of worlds.
• Polytheistic:
• Huitzilopochtli – God of the Sun and War who
demanded human sacrifice (most important)
• Tezcatlipoca (father-creator of all, spirit) and
Coatlicue (mother earth) son, Huitzilopochtli
(god of sun), sister Coyolxauqui (goddess of
moon)
• Tlaloc – God of rain, demanded sacrifice of
infants
• Xochiquetzal – god of Family
• Chicomecoatl- goddess of Fertility
• Xipe – God of spring
HUMAN SACRIFICE
• Aztec religion practiced human sacrifice
to postpone the day of destruction of
their world, the 5th world.
• A massive pyramid at the center of the
capital was topped with shrines to the
gods and an altar for human sacrifice.
THE INCAS
• Around 1400 C.E.
• Equador to Chile
• Cuzco, capital of the Incan empire in
Peru
** No writing, used system of cords and
knots called quipu**
*** Hillside terracing for farming**
Government
• God-king had complete control of
everybody and everything
• Emperor who was considered the son of
the sun was also the religious leader
**** Gvt built an amazing system of roads
to unify the empire (ordinary people
forbidden on roads) -- Better than that of
the Romans; Had bridges and tunnels
through hills; 12,000 miles of roads
• Suspension bridges
Society/Religion
• Lives were strictly controlled by govt;
Upward mobility difficult
• Language: Quechua (All people had to
speak the Incan)
• No writing, used system of cords and
knots called quipu
• Govt officials decided who had what job
and even arranged marriages
• Polytheistic – linked to the forces of
nature
• Farmers – gov’t stored grain for hard
times
INCA Contributions
• The Incas constructed Hundreds of miles
of roads
• Ruins in Machu Picchu 7,000 feet above
sea level (discovered in 1911); finest
example of Incan architecture
• Mesoamerica: name given to the areas of
MX and Central America that were
civilized before the Spaniards arrived
• Francisco Pizarro conquers the Incas in
1531 and establishes new capital in Lima