Americas, 500 BCE – 1200 CE WHAP/Napp
“There were also great differences between the hemispheres. Geographically, the cities of the western hemisphere were built at water’s edge, usually near lakes or small rivers, but not on major river systems. Technologically, the people of the Americas did not use metals in their tools. In fact, they hardly used metal at all except for ornaments, jewelry, and artwork. They used neither wheels nor draft animals in transportation, perhaps because the Americas had no large, domesticable animals to use for pulling carts until horses and cattle were introduced by the Spaniards. Llamas served as pack animals for small loads in the Andes in South America, but otherwise goods were carried by hand, dragged, or shipped by canoe. Construction and transportation were thus far more labor intensive than in most of Afro-Eurasia. Finally, except for the Maya, the Native Americans did not create writing systems. Some, like the Zapotecs and Toltecs, used limited hieroglyphic symbols and calendar formats, but these did not develop into full, written languages. In Afro-Eurasia, only in the Niger River area did settlements grow into cities without developing writing systems…
Humans arrived in the western hemisphere from across the Beringia land bridge (connecting Alaska and Siberia) about 15,000 years ago and then spread throughout both North and South America. By 5000 B.C.E., they were cultivating maize, at least in small quantities, as well as gathering wild crops and hunting animals.” ~ The World’s History
1. As for early agriculture in Mesoamerica, it can be said that(A) The settlers developed food crops brought from Siberia.
(B) Horses and oxen played important roles in transportation and farming.
(C) The settlers developed maize as their staple food around 5000 B.C.E.
(D) The settlers supplemented their diet with meat from cattle.
(E) All of the above.
2. The low sea levels during ice ages
(A) Prohibited human migrations from Siberia to North America.
(B) Exposed land bridges that linked Siberia with Alaska and Australia with New Guinea.
(C) Enabled humans to migrate via floating glaciers.
(D) Made impossible for indigenous Americans to fish.
(E) All of the above. / 3. All but one of the following is true regarding migrations to the Americas:
(A) A large migration came about 13,000 B.C.E.
(B) By 9500 B.C.E. the migrants had reached the tip of South America.
(C) The migrants were hunters and gatherers.
(D) Most of the migrants arrived by boat.
(E) Most of the migrations to the Americas took place during the last ice age.
4.Crops spread more slowly in the Americas as compared to Eurasia in part because
(A) Of the north/south orientation of the American continents.
(B) The successful domestication of large mammals by the Americans made crop domestication less important.
(C) Warfare was more endemic in the Americas.
(D) Farmers in the Americas developed no grain crop that could sustain large populations.
Key Words/ Questions / I. Civilizations of Mesoamerica
A. Atlantic and Pacific Oceans ensured that the cultures of Western Hemisphere had long operated in a world apart from Afro-Eurasia
B. Lacked large domesticated animals and iron-working
II. Mesoamerica
A. From central Mexico to Nicaragua
B. In first millennium BCE, Olmec civilization (a “mother civilization”)
1. Olmec Culture: Stone heads, Maize, Rubber Cultivation, Glyphs
C. The Maya
1. Classical civilization of Mesoamerica
2. In present-day Guatemala and Yucatán region of Mexico
3. Classical phase between 300 and 900 CE
a) Mathematical system with concept of zero
b) Predicted eclipses of sun/moon, calendars, writing system; pyramids
c) By 600 CE, drained swamps and terraced hillsides
4. Highly fragmented political system of city-states
5. Engaged in frequent warfare
a) Tikal (city): 50,000 people lived in city
b) But no Maya city-state succeeded in creating a unified Maya empire
c) Resembled the competing city-states of Sumerians and Greeks
d) Drought in 840 CE, cities were deserted
D. Teotihuacán
1. At time of classical Maya, giant city of Teotihuacán thrived (Mexico)
2. A population between 100,000 and 200,000…Largest urban complex
3. Along the main north/south boulevard, the Street of the Dead:
homes of elite, headquarters of state authorities, temples, pyramids
4. Streets in a grid-like pattern
5. But art has revealed few images of self-glorifying rulers or individuals
6. A number of glyphs or characters suggest a limited form of writing
7. The city cast a huge shadow over Mesoamerica, from 300 to 600 CE
III. Civilizations in the Andes
- Around 900 BCE, located in the Andean highlands at a village called Chavín de Huántar, shamans made use of hallucinogenic cactus
- Became a pilgrimage site
- Moche
2. Economy rooted in complex irrigation system, governed by warrior
priests, however, fragile environmental foundations/drought, etc.
C. Peoples of the Americas
1. Three Groups: Civilizations in Mesoamerica/Andes, gathering and hunting peoples, and semi-sedentary peoples in the eastern woodlands of U.S., Central America, Amazon basin, and Caribbean islands
D. In Chaco canyon in what is now northwestern New Mexico, between
860 and 1130 CE, five major pueblos emerged
1. The Olmecs
(A) Established the first complex society in Mesoamerica.
(B) Built ceremonial centers with pyramids and temples.
(C) Lived in an area where rubber trees flourished.
(D) Constructed elaborate drainage systems.
(E) All of the above.
2. Which of the following would not have been seen at Teotihuacán?
(A) The Pyramid of the Sun
(B) The Pyramid of the Moon
(C) Iron tools
(D) Orange Pottery
3. The heartland of early Andean society was
(A) The region now occupied by the states of Peru and Bolivia.
(B) The region now occupied by the states of Mexico, Honduras, and El Salvador.
(C) The islands of the Pacific Ocean.
(D) The region of the Amazon basin.
4. An important similarity between the pre-Columbian civilizations in Mesoamerica and classical Greece was
(A) warring city-states
(B) trade with nearby civilizations
(C)gods who possessed human characteristics
(D) a common calendar
5. How did civilizations in the Americas differ from other regions?
(A) Most civilizations in the Americas lacked writing systems
(B) The transition from nomadic, hunter-gatherer communities to settled agricultural communities occurred much earlier
(C) Culture and technology in the Americas developed without the benefit of trade
(D) Early communities developed without the social stratification / 6. 12.At its peak, the population of the city of Teotihuacán may have reached:
(A) 50,000 people.
(B) 200,000 people.
(C) 500,000 people.
(D) 1,000,000 people.
7. Like the urban centers of the Indus Valley, Teotihuacán appears to have been
(A) Equipped with sophisticated plumbing systems.
(B) Planned and built on a grid pattern.
(C) Surrounded by an enormous agricultural hinterland.
(D) Subject to occasional outbreaks of plague and disease.
8. Researchers now believe that the decline of the Maya was caused chiefly by
(A) Ecological degradation resulting from slash-and-burn farming techniques.
(B) A cataclysm of some kind (earthquake, volcano, tsunami).
(C) Endless wars between neighboring Mayan city-states.
(D) Practices of interbreeding that led to a steep rise in congenital disorders.
9. Chavín de Huantar is important because
(A) It became the capital of the Andean empire that succeeded the Norte Chico civilization.
(B) It was the center of a pan-Andean religious movement.
(C) Its leaders went on to found the Inca Empire.
(D) It was ruled by warrior-priests who lived on huge pyramids.
10. The Maya derived their writing and mathematics from the:
(A) Mesopotamians.
(B) Olmecs.
(C) Chinese.
(D) Chavin.
Thesis Practice:
Compare the rise of civilizations in Eurasia and the Americas.
Identify one similarity:
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Identify one difference:
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Write a valid thesis statement:
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Critical Thinking Questions:
How did the geography of the Americas contribute to their unique development?
______
The paucity of written documentation for the cultures of the Americas makes for large gaps in our understanding of them. What sorts of information can we obtain about cultures such as these without written texts, and what will we never know?
______
A Bit about Oceania:
I. Early societies in Australia and New Guinea
A. Humans arrived in Australia and New Guinea at least sixty thousand years ago
B. About ten thousand years ago, rising seas separated Australia and New Guinea
1. Australia: hunting and gathering until the nineteenth and twentieth centuries CE
2. New Guinea: Turned to agriculture about 3000 BCE
a) Austronesian peoples from Southeast Asia were seafarers to New Guinea, 3000 BCE
b) Early agriculture in New Guinea: root crops and herding animals
II. The peopling of the Pacific Islands
A. Austronesian migration to Polynesia
1. Outrigger canoes enabled them to sail safely
2. Agriculture and domesticated animals
B. Austronesian migrations to Micronesia and Madagascar
~ Traditions and Encounters
Multiple-Choice Question:
In what way were the Austronesian migrations to the Pacific Islands NOT distinct from earlier human migrations?
(A) They had a significant impact on their new environments, unlike earlier migrants.
(B) They were more recent than other migrants, beginning only about 3,500 years ago.
(C) They were waterborne, using oceangoing canoes.
(D) They were already agriculturists when the migration began.
Thesis Practice:
Analyze similarities and differences in Bantu migration and Austronesian migration.
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