9/20/19

AP WORLD HISTORY : PRECURSORS TO THE PERIOD 1 / CHAPTER 6 DEVELOPMENTS IN THE AMERICAS • Pre-Columbian: before the voyages of Columbus and the conquests of the Spanish • Groups develop in isolation • (968-1150) • Central • 968: Capital at established • Long-distance trade, even to American SW • Belief in Quetzalcóatl (; one of the main Pre- Columbian gods) • Heavily militaristic (sacrifice, war) • 1150: Collapse, probably caused by northern nomadic attacks

AZTECS (AKA ) 12TH – 15TH CENTURIES

• After Toltecs collapse, political power and people move to shores along Lake Texcoco • One of those groups are the Aztecs in the early 13th c • Lake Texcoco provides fishing, farming, and transportation • Valley by Lake Texcoco inhabited by groups organized into city-states • Many vie for control of lakes ! winners are Aztecs • Who are the Aztecs? • Speak (Toltec language) and worship Quetzalcóatl; lends legitimacy to rule • 1325: Aztecs found (city on island in center of Lake Texcoco) • 1434: Aztecs dominate central valley; conquer other city-states to make tribute empire (demand financial payments and prisoners to use for Aztec human sacrifices)

1 9/20/19

TENOCHTITLAN: AZTEC CITY STATE • What helped the Aztecs establish power in the Central

• Included: Mexican valley? • Temples QUICK REVIEW QUESTION • Royal palace • Describe the newly • Canoes and canals established . • Farming • Zoo and aviary • Bustling markets selling chocolates, textiles, parrots, feathers, stones, slaves

AZTEC SOCIETY AZTEC TRIBUTE LISTS

• As the Aztecs became solidified as the most powerful group around Lake Texcoco, Aztec society transformed into a rigidly hierarchical society • Tribute lists show what items that tribute 1) Ruler territories (controlled by the Aztecs) would • Head of state/religion send to the Aztecs • Representative of gods on earth • Way of organizing tribute items 2) Nobles • Common items: 3) Peasants • Bird feathers 4) Slaves (war captives) • Greenstone or jade • Clans (calpulli) dictate social status • Animal hides • A large gap emerges between nobility and commoners

2 9/20/19

AZTEC RELIGION

• Highly motivated by religious zeal • Dedicated to service of gods • Spiritual and natural world seamless • Hundreds of deities • Mostly focused upon fertility, agriculture, water/rain • Aztecs worshipped gods through festivals, ceremonies, feasting, dancing, warfare, and sacrifice • Sacrifice: a component of worship • (deity of war, sun, and ) needs strength • Patron of Tenochtitlan • Motivated by religious conviction? Or terror and political control? • Includes ritual cannibalism • War captives supply Aztecs with sacrificial victims

AZTEC ECONOMY GENDER AND AZTEC SOCIETY

• Aztec women’s responsibilities: household care, • Mostly an agrarian community cooking, weaving • Chinampas: man-made floating islands that yielded large amount of crops, constructed to provide additional • Women had to grind corn by hand on stone boards; farming land upon the lake time-consuming • Maize, corn, and beans • No wheels or suitable animals for power like Europe • No use of wheel or laboring animals • Lack of appropriate technology • Merchants worked in daily markets • Women could own/inherit property and will it to their heirs • Arranged marriages were common • Elite were often polygamous • Commoners were monogamous

3 9/20/19

• What belief necessitates Aztec sacrifice? • Precursors were the Chimor Kingdom (900-1465) • What is the agricultural innovation the Aztecs use to • Control of north coast of Peru QUICK REVIEW QUESTION • Incas conquer Chimors by taking over irrigation systems and cutting off increase available farmland? access to water • Inca Empire (Twantinsuyu) • Quechua-speaking clans from southern Andes Mountains • By 1350, Incas live centered around and in Cuzco (capital city) • Control other regions by 1438, • Led by Pachacuti (ruler, or inca) • Centered around Lake Titicaca • Fishing, irrigation, farming • Aggressive expansion for 60 years by Pachacuti, his son, and grandson

TECHNIQUES OF THE INCA INCA CULTURE

• Viracocha (creator/sun god) is highest • Highly centralized • Temple of the Sun at Cuzco is center of state religion • Inca ruler; governors of four provinces; bureaucracy • Local gods allowed to survive • Local rulers maintain their positions providing they defer to • Cult of ancestors, deceased rulers mummified Inca rule • Inca gods are animistic • Integrated various ethnic groups into an tribute empire • Cultural Achievements • Quechua is spread as language to unite empire • Metallurgy (copper, bronze) • Military: System of roads, pay stations (tambos), storehouses • No writing system but knotted strings (quipu) for accounting • Extensive irrigated agriculture; large building and irrigation • Monumental architecture (steep slopes) projects • Farming: potato; maize • “Split inheritance” necessitates conquest • Power goes to eldest male; wealth and land to other sons

4 9/20/19

COMPARISON OF INCA AND AZTECS INCA SUN TEMPLE OF CUZCO (QORIKANCHA)

Similarities Differences • Temple of Qorikancha was dedicated to the Built on earlier that Aztecs have sophisticated traders and Inca sun god, Inti preceded them markets VS Inca have no specialized (Aztecs = Toltecs; Inca = Chimor) merchant class • Inti provides for and powers all life on earth Excellent imperial and military Aztecs have a writing system VS Inca • In front would have been a life size sculpture organizers do not garden giving thanks to Inti by revealing the Highly organized agricultural Inca empire in miniature (maize cobs; Inca sector under state control people; llamas) Ethnic groups allowed to survive • The temple was covered entirely with gold (Inca incorporate them into empire; Aztecs rule them harshly) • When the Spanish conquer the Inca, they destroy all but one wall of the temple (after Animistic religions removing the gold), then build the Church of No draft animals for labor Santo Domingo on top of it

• What similarities do the PEOPLES OF THE AMERICAS Aztecs and Inca have? • Great variety; adapt to region • What differences? • Only two large states/empires formed QUICK REVIEW QUESTION • Aztecs and Inca • Weakened by European contact • Long distance/regional trade common • By 1500: 200 languages • Agriculturalists; nomads • Communities are technologically behind Europeans, Chinese, Arabs

Major Linguistic Groups in North America

5 9/20/19

MAYA CHACO CANYON 2000 BCE – 900 CE

• Developed the most sophisticated writing system in the Pre-Columbian • Part of the Ancestral Puebloans of the American SW, the Anasazi Americas constructed underground buildings (kivas) in New Mexico • Enormously important and dominant Mesoamerican civilization • The large Anasazi community at Chaco Canyon had a population • Unlike other groups, Maya were all clustered in one geographic area of about 15,000 people • At peak, Maya may have reached 2 million people • Practiced hunting, trade, and irrigated agriculture. • Known for art, architecture, mathematics, calendar, and astronomical system • Multi-level (5 story) buildings could hold 800+ people • Indicates tremendous labor of stonecutting and masonry • Especially in the Classical Period: 250 – 900 CE • Lived here for about 350 years beginning around 900 CE (marks an • Mayans are not centralized – there is no Maya empire to speak of. They were explosion of activity across the region) broken and divided into warring Maya city states. • The Anasazi civilization declined in the twelfth and thirteenth • Maya rule was based on ritual authority of the ruler centuries as a result of drought, overpopulation, and warfare. • This means that rulers were ill-equipped to quickly address trade and food • Sometimes called the Chaco Phenomenon ! the Anasazi built distribution 700 miles of roads. The purpose is not known. • Maya collapse around 900 CE: major political tumult; abandonment of cities; • They had no beasts of burden nor wheeled wagons/flatbeds overpopulation; drought

MESA VERDE CAHOKIA

• Ancestral Puebloans known as the Anasazi resided in the Mesa • Native American tribe called the Mississippians resided Verde Canyon in Colorado in modern-day Ohio and the surrounding area. • Agriculturalists who lived in Colorado, New Mexico, & Arizona • Economy was based on hunting and gathering and was supplemented by agriculture. • Famous for the Mesa Verde Cliff Dwelling within a canyon • Largest settlement/city called Cahokia north of Mexico • Known as a pueblo: communal village of flat-roofed structures • Had 30,000 people living there • Some were 5-6 stories tall • Built large mounds both as burial sites and as platforms upon • Built into the side of the cliff using stone and mud mortar which temples and residences of chiefs were constructed. • Why move here? • Over 120 earthen mounds; meant moving 55 million cubic feet • Did canyon provide protection from tribes? Spiritual significance? of earth Protection from elements? • Cahokia was abandoned around 1250 perhaps because • Abandoned in 1300 CE – why? of climate changes and population pressure (related to • Unclear – drought, lack of resources, violence? waste disposal and food distribution)

6 9/20/19

• Can you name one distinguishing characteristic of SUMMATIVE GROUP ACTIVITY each of the following? • Maya QUICK REVIEW QUESTION • Chaco • Mesa Verde • Pretend you are a rival of the Aztecs and you hear • Cahokia that they use human sacrifice. What would you think about them? Write out a paragraph explaining your reaction when you learn of this.

7