The Americas

American civilizations before “encounter” or “conquest”

Early Settlements

• 40,000 to 10,000 BCE• The Bering Land Bridge (Ice Age)• Diet: pumpkin, corn, grain, etc.• A diverse climate: hunting and farming, depending

on climate.• Social structures, alliances, and warfare• Population• Common characteristics: elders, shaman, priests-

warriors- alliances and inter-tribal warfare

Population

• 90 million to 120 million people in Americas before the Europeans

• 30 million a piece for the Aztecs and Incas

Norte Chico

• Peru, outside of Lima• 3,000 BCE• America’s first urban center• Consisted of at least 25 cities• Temple in Huaricanga (built between 3200 and

2500 BCE) around size of the 2nd Pyramid at Giza• Irrigation• Civilization may have been abandoned for areas

that were easier to farm.

Norte Chico

Chavin

• 900 BCE to 500 BCE-Peru• Lack of written language• Artisans: ceramics and weavings• Agriculture and territorial expansion• Polytheistic: jaguar deity• Mastered cultivation of corn• Used rivers to expand up into Mountains

Chavin

Nazca

• 300BCE-600CE and Moche 0-600CE• Chile/ Bolivia/ Peru• Nazca took over from Chavin• Nazcas added more color to ceramics and textiles• Examples of brain surgery! 55-60% success rate• Put board on head of nobles to elongate their forhead• Nasca Lines: only visible from air• Probably religious w/ depiction of animals• Rudimentary hot air balloon?• Chile: Atacama Desert: mummified bodies

Nazca Lines

Nazca Brain Surgery/ Skulls

Olmec

• Gulf of Mexico (1500 BCE to 200 BCE)• “Mother Culture” of Mesoamerica• Gulf coast community• Calendar system• Cities for nobles/ Priests• Writing system: hieroglyphics and stone

carving• Colossal heads

Olmec Colossal Heads

Teotihuacan

• 200BCE- 700 CE (contemporaneous with Roman Empire)

• Pyramid of the Sun ( 3rd largest pyramid in the world)

• Famous for monumental architecture • City of Teotihuacan= largest city in the Americas• Nuhuatl- name: true name is unknown• Terraced farming• Temples of Sun, Moon, and Quetzalcoatl

Teotihuacan

Mayas

Incas

Capacocha• Beautiful beyond exaggeration," is how one Spanish chronicler

described Tanta Carhua. Carhua was a 10-year old Inca child whose father offered her to the Inca Emperor as a Capacocha sacrifice. She was taken by priests to Cuzco where she met the Inca Emperor, and on her return journey to the mountain where she would be sacrificed the procession passed through her home village. According to the legends, Tanta Carhua told the village: "You can finish with me now because I could not be more honoured than by the feasts which they celebrated for me in Cuzco."

• Tanta Carhua was then taken to a high Andean mountain, placed in a shaft-tomb and walled in alive. Chicha, a maize alcohol, was fed to her both before and after her death. And in death, this beautiful ten-year old child became a goddess, speaking to her people as an oracle from the mountain, which was reconsecrated in her name.

Tanta Carhua

Aztecs