1. Ch. 11: The Americas (400-1500) Section 1: North America
Section 2: Mesoamerica
Section 3: South America

2. The peoples of North America

3. The First Americans
During the last Ice Age (between 100,000 – 8,000 years ago) there were low sea levels
created a land bridge in the Bering Strait
Google Earth!

4. The First Americans
Scholars believe small communities crossed the land bridge (most likely hunters pursuing herds of bison and caribou)

5. Different cultures developed throughout North America

6. Arctic/ Northwest: Inuit
Clothing: furs
Homes: made of stone and turf (igloos served as temporary housing during times of travel)

7. Arctic/ Northwest: Inuit
Food: hunted seal, caribou, fish using harpoons and spears made from antlers and narwal husks

8. Plains Food – beans, corn, squash; also hunted buffalo
Homes – buffalo skins stretched over wooden poles = teepees

9. Southwest: Anasazi Food: farming society
Homes: used adobe to build pueblos

10. Southwest: Anasazi
Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde are examples of this civilization
Why did they abandon these places?
Prolonged drought

11. Chaco Canyon was a major center of ancestral Pueblo culture between AD 850 and It was a hub of ceremony, trade, and administration for the prehistoric Four Corners area - unlike anything before or since.

12. Early civilizations in Mesoamerica

13. Mesoamerica – areas of Mexico and Central America before the Spaniards arrive

14. Olmec
1200 BC – 400 BC
architecture: large cities, colossal stone heads

15. Teotihuacán
first major city in Mesoamerica, located near present day Mexico City.

16. Video clip: Mesoamerica

17. Maya (A.D. 300 – 900) Location: Yucatán Peninsula
Religion: polytheistic, nature gods—especially sun, rain, corn
Architecture: temples and pyramids built in each city- state

18. Maya
Government: city-states governed by a hereditary ruling class who claimed to be descended from the gods

19. Maya What happened to the Maya?
Mayan cities were abandoned and covered by dense jungle growth.
They weren’t rediscovered until the 19th and 20th centuries.

20. Warm-up: Monday What color represents the location of the Inca?
What color represents the location of the Aztec?
What color represents the location of the Maya?

21. Aztec (1300s-1500s)
Video Clip: Aztec Empire

22. Aztec (1300s-1500s)
Location: Capital city in the Valley of Mexico where current day Mexico City is located. The Aztecs founded their capital city on Lake Texcoco by building artificial islands.

23. Aztec Religion: polytheistic practiced human sacrifice
Why? If they appeased the gods, they could delay the final destruction of their world.

24. Aztec
Economy: Aztec ruler received tribute – goods or money paid by conquered peoples to their conquerors

25. Aztec What happened to the Aztec? Fall of the Aztec:
1519: Spanish arrived at Veracruz, on the Gulf of Mexico
Montezuma, the Aztec monarch, greeted them with gifts, but eventually tensions rose between the two
Fall of the Aztec:
weakened by diseases brought from the Spanish
Eventually defeated by the Spanish

26. Civilizations in South America

27. Inca
location: Andes Mountains
Video Clip: Inca

28. Inca
Religion: polytheistic—sun god important
Machu Pichu

29. Inca
Engineering: The Inca connected their empire with roads and bridges: 24,800 miles of it!

30. Incan bridges
bridge.html
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31. Inca What happened to the Inca?
In 1531, the Spanish arrived on the Pacific coast of South America.
They brought with them: weapons, gunpowder, horses, and disease
The Inca Empire experienced an epidemic of smallpox, which also killed the emperor
This led to civil war
Eventually, the Spanish took over