1. Where in the World Wednesday
What is this?
Where is it located?
Which culture created it?
When was it created?
When was it “discovered”?

2. Where in the World Wednesday
Machu Picchu
Peru in the Andes Mts
Incas
circa 1450
Discovered in 1911 by an American professor searching for the Lost Incan City

3. Influences of Latin America
Many different cultures influence the Latin American region
These cultures combined with the early civilizations that were settled around Central and South America
Early Pre-Columbian cultures are the Mayans, Incas, and Aztecs

4. Today’s Assignment Divide your paper into three columns
Label one Maya, one Aztec, and one Inca
Read through the notes provided. Summarize each slide for the different civilizations.
Once your notes are completed, complete the assignment on the last slide of the handout on the back of your notes sheet.
If you have any spare time work on your map.

5. The Mayans Yucatan Peninsula, between A.D. 300 and 900.
Central America and southern Mexico.
The Yucatan Peninsula

6. Mayans- Politics City-states Governed by a hereditary ruling class.
Built around temples and their specific gods
Governed by a hereditary ruling class.
States warred with one another
Believed rulers descended from gods
Captured nobles and war leaders were used for human sacrifice.

7. Mayans- Religion Believed life is in the hands of divine powers
Appeased gods through human sacrifice
Itzamna was the supreme god
Gods were either good or evil
He was good

8. Mayan Glyphs
sky king house child city
Mayan Mathematics

9. Mayan- Social Social classes Gender roles
Rulers, nobles, scribes
Artisans, officials, merchants
Peasant farmers (majority)
Gender roles
Women- homemaking & raising kids
Men- fighting & hunting
Built many advanced temples and pyramids
Developed a complex calendar
Rulers said to have been descendents of gods

10. End of the Mayan civilization
Mystery
invasion?
internal revolt?
natural disaster (volcano)?
overuse of the land?

11. The Aztecs
Twelfth century A.D., the Aztec began a long migration to the Valley of Mexico.
Capital at Tenochtitlan on an island in the middle of Lake Texcoco

12. Aztec: Political semi-independent territories governed by local lords
tribute- goods or money paid by conquered peoples to their conquerors

13. Aztec- Social
monarch - lords & government officials, commoners, indentured workers, slaves
men and women have different roles from birth
women- house, can own property, & enter contracts, & become priestess
men- warriors
The midwife said to a newborn boy, “You must understand that your home is not here where you have been born, for you are a warrior.”
She said to the newborn girl, “As the heart stays in the body, so you must stay in the house.”

14. Aztec- Religion
According to legend, the Aztec believed that a sign would come from the god of war and of the sun, Huitzilopochtli, telling them where to settle.
Struggle between good and evil
Practiced human sacrifice to put off the end of time
In 1325 they were driven into the swamps and islands of Lake Texcoco, where they saw an eagle standing on a cactus growing out of a rock, the sign that had been foretold.
They built a magnificent city of temples, other public buildings, and roadways linking the islands and mainland.
They also consolidated their rule over much of what is modern Mexico.

15. Quetzalcoatl The feathered serpent.
According to Aztec tradition, this being left his homeland and vowed to return in triumph.
Return would be preceded by a sign of arrow through a sapling

16. Aztec Writing
Aztec Math

17. The End Montezuma Hernan Cortes Quetzalcoatl confusion disease
gunpowder

18. The Incas
South America
Modern day Peru
Centered on Chilean Mountains

19. Inca- Political Pachacuti Warfare Largest city- Machu Picchu
Founder of the Incas
Warfare
Largest city- Machu Picchu

20. Inca- Economics
roads
irrigation
agriculture
peanuts
potatoes
cotton

21. Inca- Religion Polytheistic Sun God- chief diety
Belief in afterlife evident by mummification

22. Inca- Accomplishments
Gender roles
women - raise children & weave cloth
Men- work and provide for family
could choose to marry anyone in your social class
Architecture
Quipu
Writing system using a system of knotted strings
Theater
Poetry, music, tragic & comic works

23. The End 1531 Francisco Pizarro
Spanish explorer
Brought steel weapons, gunpowder, horses, & small pox

24. Early History
Ancient Civilizations were mostly conquered by the Europeans during the Age of Exploration.

25. Age of Exploration 1400-1600 God, Gold, Glory
Spanish and Portuguese explorers started settling around Latin America
Treaty of Tordesillas
Line of Demarcation: Pope gave everything East of the Atlantic to Portugal, everything West of Atlantic to Spain
Gave Brazil to Portugal

26. European Influence New government systems developed
Spread of Christianity throughout the region
Goods and services now cost money…no longer based on bartering/trading
Diffusion of products and people
Changing of the landscape- land now used for economic reason and less for survival