Council Rock High School SOUTH

Ms. Van Eysden: AP World History: Vocabulary/ Terms (pages 415-432)

Name:______Date:______Per:____

The Acceleration of Cross-Cultural interaction: 1000-1500 CE

Chapter 20: Worlds Apart: the Americas and Oceania

This chapter presents the evolution of complex societies in the Americas and the Pacific Islands up through the sixteenth century. Isolation and varied resources led to a wide range of social structures from simple hunting and gathering to settled agricultural villages to the highly complex urban societies like those of the Aztecs and the Incas. Common aspects of these societies include:

·  Isolation from one another and from the cultures of the Eastern Hemisphere.

·  Absence of metallurgy, although the peoples of Mesoamerica and South America mined gold and silver.

·  Few domesticated animals--the llama and alpaca of the Andes Mountains being the notable exceptions--and, as a result, no wheeled transport.

·  Lack of a written language. The Aztec had mathematics, precise calendars, and a symbolic system of record keeping, but no formal written literature. The Inca kept accounts with quipu, a system of knotted cord.

Study of these societies is limited by the lack of written sources. The earliest accounts of the Aztec and Inca come from the Spanish conquerors and missionaries and are distorted by their prejudices. Nevertheless, those accounts plus oral traditions and archaeological evidence make it possible to describe those societies in some detail.

People/ Places

Toltec Mexica Huitzilopochtli Quetzalcoatl Iroquois

Inca Pueblo Montezuma Pachacuti Navajo

Tenochtitlan Cahokia Mound Chan Chan Cuzco

Machu Picchu Tula

Terms/ Concepts

chinampas quipu Inti calpulli

Vircacocha Chimu society Incan road system

Nahuatl Quechua

Study Questions:

1. How did the Mexica people establish their authority over the peoples of central Mexico? How did the Mexica treat conquered peoples?

2. What are some of the distinctive features of Mexica agriculture? Why was it so productive? What are the distinctive features of the Mexica social structure?

3. Read Source on page 420. What are the expectations for boys and girls in Mexica society? How do these gender role expectations compare to other settled societies in China? Islamic world? sub-Saharan Africa?

4. What are the distinctive aspects of Mexica religion? What is the purpose of human sacrifice?

5. What are some of the distinctive features of Inca society and religion? What are some of the notable achievements of Inca society?

6. Compare the Aztec and Inca societies with those of the Pacific Islands. What were the similarities? What were the significant differences?

Questions for me:?

Social:
Development and Transformation of social structures
Political:
State-building, expansion and conflict
Interaction
Between humans and the environment
Culture:
Development and interaction of cultures
Economic:
Creation, expansion and interaction of economic systems