World History Ancient Americas

1. Mesoamerica – Ancient World History
CHEE - LACCD

2. TIMELINE – Mesoamerica
18K BCE
Asia and America connected by the ice ages
humans migrate (in tiny numbers) to the Americas?
16K BCE
glaciers melt
15,000 BCE
Small numbers of migrants from Siberia to Americas
13,000 BCE
first large wave of migration from Siberia (Russia to Alaska)
9500 BCE humans reach South America
8-7000 BCE
Origins of agriculture in Mesoamerica (chili peppers,
avocadoes)
4000 BCE maize (corn) cultivation in Mesoamerica
1200-100 BCE
Olmec society (around central America)
San Lorenzo (1200-800BCE), La Venta (800-400 BCE), and Tres Zapotes (400-100 BCE)
200 BCE -750 CE
300 – 1100 CE
950-1150
1325-1519
Teotihuacan society
(Pyramid of the Sun & Moon)
Maya society
Toltec society
Aztec empire

3. How to write an essay
Intro (thesis - for example, Mesoamerica’s isolation to the
other continents made them more vulnerable to disease and
conquest, leading to the European conquest of the region in
the fifteenth century with disease and technological arms)
Body (3 major points)
1. Document “X” reveals something about this society in the
14th Century BCE…
2.
3.
Conclusion (wrap-up)

4. Bering Land Bridge

5. Migrations to the Americas
18,000 BCE Asia & America connected by the ice ages
- humans migrate (in tiny numbers) to the Americas?
16,000 BCE Glaciers melt
15,000 BCE Small numbers of migrants from Siberia to
Americas
13,000 BCE first large wave of migration from Siberia
(Russia to Alaska)
9500 BCE
humans reach South America

6. Bering Land Bridge – PBS

7. Mesoamerican agriculture
8-7000 BCE
beans
chili peppers
avocados
Squashes
gourds
4000 BCE - maize (corn)

8. 1200-100 BCE Olmec society (around central America)

9. Olmecs – “Rubber People” –
name/people unknown
Largest, nearly 10 feet tall, 20
tons

10. Olmec Ceremonial Centers
1200 – 800 BCE San Lorenzo (Veracruz)
800-400 BCE La Venta (Tabasco)
400-100 BCE Tres Zapotes (Veracruz)

11. La Venta Pyramid
800,000 man-days of labor?

12. Olmec Decline?
They left a legacy for later Mesoamerican societies,
such as
•Maize
•Ceremonial centers with pyramids as temples
•Calendar
•Ball games & rituals involving human sacrifice

13. Heirs to the Olmecs
200 BCE -750 CE Teotihuacan society
(Pyramid of the Sun & Moon)
300 – 1100 CE
Maya society
Tikal, Palenque, & Chichen Itza

14. Teotihuacan society 200 BCE – 750 CE
most famous – Pyramids of the Sun & Moon

15. Teotihuacan, 30 miles NE of Mexico City
Teotihuacan

16. Heirs of the Olmecs:
Teotihuacan Society
(200 BCE – 750 CE)
• Thriving city of 200,000 – one of the
largest in the world
• Pyramid – 2/3 size of the one in Egypt
• Probably a theocracy? Religious
leadership
• Much still unknown about its fall

17. Heirs of the Olmec:
Mayan Society
300 BCE – 1100 CE
• Cultivated maize, cacao, cotton
• Built 80 + ceremonial centers, with pyramids, palaces
& temples
• Built many small city-kingdoms, such as Tikal,
Palenque & Chichen Itza
• Kingdoms fought with each other, in hand-to-hand
combat, bringing captives back

18. 300 BCE – 1100 CE Mayan
Society
(S. Mexico & Guatemala)
Tikal

19. Tikal (Guatemala)

20. Palenque (Chiapas, Mexico)

21. Chichen Itza (Yucatan, Mexico)
Ninth Century – formed a loose empire, but Mayan society declined

22. Mayan Society – class structure
• Kings & rulers
• Large class of priests – elaborate calendar, knowledge
of writing, astronomy, & mathematics (invention of
0) (we will read Popul Vuh)
• Hereditary nobility – owned land & organized the
military
• Maya merchants – ruling & noble classes
• Professional architects & sculptors
• Artisans – pottery, tools & cotton textiles
• Peasants & slaves – most of physical labor

23. Mayan writing
Ideographic elements &
syllables

24. Mayan writing
Only 4 books remain,
as they were destroyed by the Spanish
conquistadores in the sixteenth century

25. From the Olmecs: Mayan Calendar
Solar year of
365 days
Ritual year of
260 days, 20
months of 13
days
52 years – for
the 2 calendars
to mesh

26. From the Olmecs:
Bloodletting rituals
• Sacrifices involved
shedding human
blood, to prompt
gods to send rain
– War captives
– royalty as
volunteers
King Shield Jaguar, with wife, Lady Xoc, with a thorn & rope
through her tongue, letting blood into a basket

27. The Toltec and Aztec empires,
950-1520 C.E.

28. Height of the Toltec empire 950-1150
(around Tula – 50km NW of modern Mexico city)
1175 collapse of the Toltec empire
• capital city of Tula, (50km northwest of modern
Mexico city)
• 60K people + another 60K in surrounding regions
• grew rich from trade and agricultural produce (from
irrigating the Tula river) such as maize, beans,
peppers, tomatoes, chiles and cotton, as well as
weaving, pottery, and obsidian art (like the
Teotihuacan)
• Tula collapsed after 1175 because of civil strife and
foreign nomadic invasions from the northwestern
Mexico

29. The Aztec Empire (Mexica)
(“the place of the seven legendary caves”)
• Aka, the Mexica (meh-SHEE-kah), the
majority people
• spoke Nahuatl
• migrated from the north to central Mexico in
the mid-thirteenth century?
• Neighbors thought of them as troublemakers
- kidnapped women, and took land/farm
products that others cultivated

30. Aztec (Mexica) Tenochtitlan-1345
Dredged
soil from
lake bottom to
create fertile plots
of land
Chinampas,
up to 7 crops
per year


31. Aztec city of Tenochtitlan
• built the city, on an island in Lake
Texcoco, of 200,000
• controlled an empire of 12 million
engulfing most of Mesoamerica, with
nearly 500 subject territories paying
tribute
• Created a system of alliances, tribute,
trade, and a powerful army

32. Tenochtitlan
(Spanish build on top, becomes
Mexico City)

33. Tenochtitlan – “a dream”?
Bernal Diaz del Castillo

34. Tenochtitlan –
artist renderings

35. Aztec or Mexica Society
dominated by warriors, who
came from the aristocracy
( they ate the best food,
wore the best clothes, and
even met as a council to
choose the emperors)

36. Aztec Empire
Priests, also shared the rank
among the Mexica elite,
not only presiding over
religious ceremonies but
some also became
important rulers
(Motecuzoma II 15021520 when the Spanish
came and conquered)
Aztec demon

37. Aztec or Mexica Society
• Women, with the exception of
the honored position as child
bearer, played almost no public
role in Aztec society, though
they were active in the
marketplaces.
• Slaves worked as domestic
servants, despite constant
warfare, they were usually
Mexica
Aztec Vessel

38. Bernardino de Sahagun. Florentine
Codex
Franciscan
priest,
anthropologic
al study of the
Aztecs or the
Mexica

39. Malinche
“Dona Marina” &
Cortes c. 1519
Spanish to Maya to Nahuatl
Interpreter, advisor & lover

40. Diego Rivera. Slavery, oppression, &
genocide & the Spanish Conquest

41. Hernan Cortes (1519-1521)
(~550 men) & the Aztecs

42. Andean Societies
• Migration into
South America c.
12000 BCE
• Climate – warm &
dry c. 8000 BCE
• Largely
independent from
Mesoamerica
• Highly
individualized due
to geography

43. Ancient South America –
little known
•
•
•
•
no written records
3000 BCE food cultivation
Mochica State 300-700 CE (pottery vessels)
Chavin Cult - New religion in central Andes,
900-300 BCE - little known about particulars
of religion
• South America, contemporary Peru
Intricate stone carvings

44. Newest Discovery –
Buena Vista, Peru – 2200 BCE

45. Buena Vista – 2200 BCE
Archeologists
discovered this site
close to Lima, Peru

46. The Incas
• built an
elaborate
series of over
10,000 miles
of roads, 3500
miles long
Cuzco, capital
of the Inca
empire,
300,000
Inca Empire of 11 million from the twelfth- fifteenth centuries?

47. Machu Picchu & The Incas
No much known
about Machu
Picchu, 15th
century?
Discovered only
in 1911
Inca Empire of 11 million from the twelfth- fifteenth centuries?

48. The Incas & Quipu
• Ruled as a military
& admin elite
• Armies of
conquered peoples
• No writing, but had
quipu, cords of
various colors &
lengths, with knots

49. Guaman Poma’s
Nueva coronica Gathering the
Harvest – Incas
before the Spanish
Conquest

50. o The Incas & Francisco Pizarro (180
men) 1532-3
o Francisco Pizarro & 180
Spanish men
o arrived when the Inca
ruling party was
disputing – exploited civil
strife
o 1533- took Cuzo – capital
o killed the ruling party
including the Inca ruler
Atahualpa – until they
received gold.

51. Copyright 2012 - CHEE
Professor Chee does not endorse any other lectures
on slideshare or other websites for her world history
students