Transcript The Olmec - Arlee High School

SPONGE
Chapter 2, Lesson 1
1. Most scientists think that bands of
hunters reached North America
across a __________ ________.
(p.36)
2. The earliest known civilization in
the Americas was that of the
_________ in Central America.
(p.37)
The First Civilizations of the Americas
Chapter 2, Section 1
Reaching the Americas
• There is no way to know how
long Native Americans have
lived in the Americas or where
they come from.
• Scientific evidence suggests
that Native Americans came
across the Bering Straight from
Asia during the last ice age
(13,000 – 20,000 years ago.)
• At this time glaciers covered
1/3 of the earth and reached as
far south as Kentucky.
Reaching the Americas
• Others believe that the first Americans arrived by
boat from Asia, Polynesia or Africa.
• Most tribes have an oral history that says they came
from this land – not from another continent.
• These early Americans multiplied and spread all the
way to the tip of South America, living in a variety of
lands and climates.
• Around 12,000 years ago, the ice age ended and the
land bridge between Asia and Alaska disappeared.
• At the same time, many types of large animals died
out and tribes began to rely more on farming and
gathering.
The Olmec
• Farming allowed tribes to
build food surpluses and
support large cities for the first
time.
• The Olmec were the first
civilization in the western
hemisphere.
• They lived in Central America
about 3500 years ago.
• They built stone temples and
giant stone heads.
• They studied the stars and
developed a simple calendar.
• The Olmec disappeared
mysteriously into the jungle.
The Maya
• Lived in the southern Mexican and northern
Central American rainforest, rising to power
from about A.D. 300 to 900.
• Cities like Tikal, Copan and Chitzen-Itza were
centers for religion, trade, art, and for farmers to
sell their food.
• Priests and Nobles were most powerful in
Mayan society, while farmers and slaves were
the least powerful.
• Priests made amazing advances in math,
calendars and astronomy.
The Maya
• The most important Mayan
crop was corn, called
maize. Mayans also ate
beans, squash, peppers,
avocados and papayas.
• Mayan priests developed a
system of writing using
signs and symbols called
hieroglyphics.
The Fall of the Maya
• Around 900 A.D. the Mayas
suddenly left their cities and
no one knows why. Many
think it could have been:
– Crop failures
– War
– Drought
– Disease
– Famine
– A great revolution tore
society apart
The Aztec
• Centuries after the Mayans fell, Aztec
nomads settled in the Valley of Mexico
(1100’s AD.)
• They built their capital, Tenochtitlan, on
an island in lake Texcoco, fulfilling an old
prophecy.
• In the 1400’s they expanded by
conquering their neighbors, forcing them to
pay tribute.
• The Aztec, like the Maya, had an Emperor,
nobles, priests, warriors, farmers and
slaves, as well as gifted craftsmen.
The Aztec
• Aztec doctors developed
more than 1,000
medicines from plants.
Scientists also developed
complex calendars.
• They sacrificed thousands
a year to help the sun
battle across the sky.
• By 1500 they had a large
empire across central
Mexico.
The Inca
• Around 1200, the Incas settled
in Cuzco (Peru.) Most Incans
were farmers who grew maize
and other crops.
• Through wars and conquest,
the Incas gained control of the
entire Cuzco Valley and,
eventually, nearly the entire
western coast of South
America.
• By 1500, the Inca ruled 12
million people. Their language,
Quechua, is still spoken today.
The Inca
• Incan government was complex
and well-run.
• Incan engineers built massive
stone temples and more than
19,000 miles of roads through
the Andes Mountains.
• The Inca increased their
farmland by building stone
terraces into mountainsides.
They also built aqueducts that
carried water from the
mountains to farmlands.
Early Cultures of North America
• Before the Mayan and
Aztec cultures fell, many
of their ideas, foods, art
and beliefs traveled to
tribes further north.
• Farming techniques had
already spread to the
American southwest by
1,000 B.C. and societies
like the Hohokams and
Anasazis emerged
there.
People of the Southwest
• The Hohokams lived in present-day Arizona. About
2,000 years ago they began digging networks of
irrigation ditches so they could farm the desert.
• Farmers could now raise corn, squash and beans.
People of the Southwest
• The Anasazis built large
adobe houses that the
Spanish later called
Pueblos.
• In the year 1,000 this
tribe built their villages
into cliffs in order to
escape attacks from
neighboring tribes.
• Farmers planted crops
on land above the cliffs.
Mound Builders
• In the east, more farming
cultures grew. One of them,
the Mound Builders, built
thousands of earthen
mounds from Wisconsin to
Florida.
• The first mounds were used
for burials, but later ones
were used for religious
purposes.
• The largest Mound Builder
city was Cahokia, where
30,000 people lived around
1500.