Transcript Early Americas:

Early Americas:
Mayas,
Aztecs, Incas,
and Llamas
 Yucatan Peninsula, 250-900 CE
 Organized into small city-states ruled
Mayas
by kings
 Known for:
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Pyramids
Ball Game
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religious and political significance
Playing the game would maintain cycles of
sun and moon and bring rains
Gameplay
– The goal was to get the ball through a
hoop
– The goal was also NOT to touch the
ball with one's hands
– The winners of the game were treated
as heroes and given a great feast. The
penalty for losing a game was death.
The leader of the team who lost the
game was killed
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Polytheistic
More Mayas
 Limited
human sacrifice
Cut own bodies so blood would nourish gods
 Sacrifices some captured enemies to gods;
never to extent of other societies
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 Calendar-predicts
massive catastrophe in
Sunday, December 23, 2012 which few will
survive
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Bad times 
 We
don’t know what happened to them
“Greeks of the Americas”
 Contributions include:
 Writing based on
pictographs
 Use of zero as a
placeholder
 Astronomy and eclipses
 Calculated length of year
 Cultivation of maize
 Copper metallurgy
 Great city: Teotihuicán,
center for trade and
worship
Rise of the Aztecs
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Decline of the Mayan civilization
 Nomadic Toltecs established an empire in Mexico
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Built Chichén Itzá
 Legend of Quetzalcóatl
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Toltecs fell in 12th C., taken over by nomadic Mexica (Aztecs)
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Capital at Tenochtitlán in 1325
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Built on island in Lake Texcoco
Built chinampas: floating gardens
Maize and beans were staple crops
Aztecs
 Central Mexico, 1200-1500 CE
 Known for:
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Worship of Huitzilopochtli, the sun god
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polytheistic
Human sacrifice on a large scale
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Sun god needed human blood to battle evil and rise the next day
Victims included: enslaved people, criminals, and people offered as
tribute by conquered peoples
Prisoners of war preferred victims; priest required steady supply of
victims; battle tactics adapted to ensure opponents taken alive
More Aztecs
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Calendar
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called Eagle Bowl
Predicts end of earth on
December 24, 2011
Stratified Society
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Nobles, peasants, and slaves
– Often slaves were war prisoners
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Organized into clans called
calpulli
Women
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Women who died in childbirth
were given same status as men
who died in battle
Politically subordinate
Could inherit property
 Peru (Andes), 1200-1500 CE
Incas
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Known as Quechua, name Inca
comes from ruler’s title- “Inca”
 Organized into clans called ayllus
 Government forced people to
supply Mita, work on government
lands
 Ruled a large empire over diverse
people
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1438 clan ruler Pachacuti gained
control over Lake Titicaca
 Approximately 11,000,000 people
 Unified empire by
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Roads
Quechua language
Royal marriage alliances
Settling conquered people far away
from their lands
More Inca
 Known for:
 Gold and Silver
 Sun god important because Incan ruler was “descendant of
Inti”
 Sacrifices typically agricultural or animal
 Great builders: Manchu Picchu (unsure of its purpose)
 Quipu: record keeping system of knots instead of a written
system
 Did not use wheel-even though available-used llamas
 Mummies
Comparisons
 Legend of Quetzalcóatl
 Polytheistic
 Great builders
 Sacrifices: Inca Animal, Aztecs Human
 Aztecs ruled brutally, Incas ruled by
incorporating people into empire
 Aztecs long distance trade, Inca system
of roads