1. America before people arrive

2. Prehistoric America

3. The First Americans

4. Native American Origins Arose from Multiple Bering Sea Migrations

5. http://drarchaeology.com/culthist/origins.htm

6. Megafauna of the America’s extinction

7. Clovis Point

8. N. American Arrow heads http://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/nati ve-indian-weapons-tools/arrowheads.htmhttp://www.warpaths2peacepipes.com/nati ve-indian-weapons-tools/arrowheads.htm

10. Early North American Cultures Anasazi – Lived in impressive cliff dwellings called pueblos made of sun baked clay bricks

11. Mound Builders – 700BC to 1500s AD Hopewell, Adena and Mississippian Mounds had various purposes Culture came to an end due to European diseases

12. Cultural connections of the North American Religion was similar –Nature spirits and The Great Spirit above others Respect for the land –Land should be changed as little as possible –Land could not be bought or sold Women often held great power and the family name in many tribes passed through the women

13. The Game Changer for Humans What was the plant that created civilization in Mesopotamia and Nile Valley? Yellow River? (China) In what is now central Mexico?

14. Domesticated plants native to the Americas

16. Zapotec Develop 3 very important things –Calendar based on the movement of the sun –Hieroglyphic Writing System –First planned cities mixing residential and religious buildings

18. What is this a picture of?

19. Zapotec, Olmecs and Mayans

20. Olmec Earliest known ceremonial centers of the ancient Americas appeared near modern day Veracruz around 1200 B.C. “Olmec” means “Rubber People” Agricultural Drainage Cities A social hierarchy

21. Decline of the Olmec Olmec systematically destroyed their ceremonial centers –Statues were broken and buried, monuments defaced, and capitals burned No one knows why By about 400 B.C., Olmec society had fallen on hard times and other societies soon eclipsed it

22. Olmec Influence on the Mayans Maize Ceremonial centers with temple pyramids Calendar based on the Olmec one Ball games Rituals involving human sacrifice

23. Mayans Began to develop around 300 A.D. in what is now southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, and El Salvador Known as “The People of the Jaguar”

25. Agriculture Maize Cacao

26. Agriculture –Soil in Mesoamerican lowlands was thin and quickly lost fertility –Mayans built terraces –Raised maize, beans, squash, gourds and cacao –Cacao was a precious commodity consumed mostly by nobles and even used as money Cacao tree

27. Cities

28. Social Hierarchy A Mayan Priest A Mayan Warrior

29. Religion and Education Human Sacrifice and Bloodletting Ritual

30. Religion: Bloodletting Rituals Mayans believed the shedding of human blood would prompt the gods to send rain to water the maize Bloodletting involved both war captives and Mayan royals Mayan queen holds a bowl filled with strips of paper used to collect blood.

31. Religion: Bloodletting A popular bloodletting ritual was for a Mayan to pierce his own tongue and thread a thin rope through the hole, thus letting the blood run down the rope

32. Religion: The Ball Game Mayans inherited a ball game from the Olmec that was an important part of Mayan political and religious festivals High-ranking captives were forced to play the game for their very lives –The losers became sacrificial victims and faced torture and execution immediately following the match Object of the game was to propel an 8 inch ball of solid baked rubber through a ring or onto a marker without using your hands

33. Mayan Ball Court

34. New Technologies Mayan Calendar Observatory at El Caracol

35. New Technologies Excelled in astronomy and mathematics –Could plot planetary cycles and predict eclipses of the sun and moon –Invented the concept of zero and used a symbol to represent zero mathematically, which facilitated the manipulation of large numbers –By combining astronomy and mathematics, calculated the length of the solar year at 365.242 days– about 17 seconds shorter than the figure reached by modern astronomers Mayan numerical system

36. Art and Writing Mayan writing

37. Mayan Decline By about 800, most Mayan populations had begun to desert their cities –Full scale decline followed everywhere but in the northern Yucatan Possible causes include foreign invasion, internal dissension and civil war, failure of the water control system leading to agricultural disaster, ecological problems caused by destruction of the forests, epidemic diseases, and natural disasters

38. The End of prehistory in America What causes prehistory to come to an end? These are the large scale Native American societies when Columbus bumps into America.

39. What does this have to do with the Aztecs?

40. The Aztec Empire is part of Mexico today. According to Aztec legend, the gods told the nomadic people who had entered the Valley of Mexico to search for an eagle perched on the top of a cactus. The eagle would be holding a snake in its beak. When they saw the sign on a swampy island in Lake Texcoco they established the city of Tenochtitlan The Aztec Empire Mexico’s Flag

42. Tenochititlan Tenochtitlan was linked to the mainland with causeways. It had an aqueduct to ensure a fresh water supply and sewers carried waste materials away.

43. Tenochtitlan Over the years Tenochtitlan grew into a great city with open plazas and marketplaces.

44. Tenochititlan “The city has many squares where markets are held and trading is carried on. There is one square where there are daily more than 60,000 souls, buying and selling, and where are found all the kinds of merchandise produced in these countries, including food products, jewels of gold and silver, lead, brass, copper, zinc, bones, shells, and feathers.”

45. Tenochtitlan Today…

47. Food and work Aztecs ate corn and beans, tortillas grilled and dipped in tomatoes. They also ate pancakes stuffed with tadpoles. The Aztec used a lot of herb and prayer in their medicine. The Aztec also developed a writing system with pictographs that gave an image of the story.

48. Montezuma II was the Emperor of the Aztecs in the Sixteenth Century. He was a conquering king who often went to war with his neighbors. He kept the gods on his side by making human sacrifices to the gods. Montezuma II

49. Aztec Religion Aztec religion was influenced by the previous culture at Teotihuacán. Teotihuacán dominated valley life from A.D. 200 to A.D. 750. The two groups worshipped some of the same gods, including Quetzacoatl, the god of earth and water, and Tlaloc, the rain god. Aztecs believed the gods had created their world in Teotihuacán.

50. Teotihuacán

51. Teotihuacán

52. Teotihuacán

53. Human Sacrifices Tens of thousands of prisoners were sacrificed at a time. Each had to be individually killed. The usual method of sacrifice was to open the victims chest, pull out his heart while he was still alive and then knock the victim down the temple stairs. The temple stairs were covered in blood.

54. The Aztec Temple

55. Why Sacrifice? Huitzlopochtli, the sun and war god battled the forces of darkness each night and was re-born each morning. There was no guarantee the sun would win, so human sacrifices were made to help him.

56. Incas

57. Inca

58. Inca By the 13 th Century, the Inca had established domination over the regional states in Andean South America In 1438, Pachacuti launched a series of military campaigns that greatly expanded Inca authority By the late 15 th Century, the Inca empire covered more than 2,500 miles, embracing almost all of modern Peru, most of Ecuador, much of Bolivia, and parts of Chile and Argentina

59. Agriculture Llamas Terraced farm land

60. Agriculture Intensive agricultural techniques –Inca empire spanned many types of environments and required terraces to make farmland out of the mountainous terrain –Chief crop was the potato –Herded llamas and alpacas for meat, wool, hides, and dung (used as fuel)

61. Social Hierarchy Chief ruler was a god-king who theoretically owned everything and was an absolute and infallible ruler Dead rulers retained their prestige even after death –Remains were mummified and state deliberations often took place in their presence in order to benefit from their counsel –Were seen as intermediaries with the gods

62. Social Hierarchy Aristocrats lived privileged lives including fine foods, embroidered clothes, and large ears spools –Spanish called them “big ears” Inca ear spools

63. Cities

64. Cities: Cuzco Inca capital at Cuzco served as the administrative, religious, and ceremonial center of the empire May have supported 300,000 residents at the height of the Inca empire in the late 15 th Century Tremendous system of roads emanated from Cuzco

65. New Technologies Major Roads of the Inca Empire

66. Economic Exchange Inca gold “Sweat of the gods” “Sweat of the gods”

67. Economic Exchange Gold, the Inca’s most valuable commodity, proved to be their undoing when Spanish conquistadors destroyed much of the empire in the early 1500s in search of gold The Spanish melted down almost all the gold so few works of art remain Arrival of Francisco Pizarro in South America

68. Religion and Education Inti Raymi, the feast of the sun

69. Art and Writing The Inca had no writing Instead they kept records using a quipu –An array of small cords of various colors and lengths, all suspended from a thick cord –By tying knots in the small cords, Inca could record statistical information 586 on a quipu

70. Art and Writing Quipu

71. The End of the Incan Empire Civil War over who would the Incan King Atahualpa wins the war but weakens the empire Francisco Pizarro shows up right after (Spain)