The Civilization of America

1. *
Report by:
Ram Chryztler P. Acero
Year/Section:
B.S.Ed..

2.  The early civilization
in Asia , Africa , and Europe were able to
exchange ideas and influence as they developed . The culture of the
America ever , grew up in almost complete isolation from the rest of
the world . Over many thousands of years , the people of the
America gradually settled in many different environments and
develop a variety of distinctive culture and language . Like the
people of other continent , the first Americans developed techniques
of farming and metal working and brilliant traditions in arts and
crafts . Religion played an important part on American culture ,
inspiring the building of temples and cities . Trading networks were
established , and some powerful state gained immense wealth . A
complex civilization developed in what is now Mexico . Developed a
wide variety of societies .

4.  During the most recent ice age , glaciers covered large areas of
North America and northern Europe . Since much of the Earth’s
water was locked up in these great sheets of ice , the water level
in the oceans was lower .Scientists think that Bering Strait
between Asia and North America was then dry land , forming a
‘bridge’ between two continents . This bridge may have formed
twice , about 300,000 years ago and 12,000 years ago .

5.  As
these migrant hunter found widely scattered new homes
in the Americas , they became very different from one
another . Each group developed its own language and
distinctive habits and customs . Eventually hundreds of
different languages were spoken by the Indians of North and
South America .

6.  After the glaciers melted and the land bridge from Asia
disappeared , the people of the Americas were cut off from
the civilization developing in other part of the world .

7.  The first farming settlements were located in Mesoamerica
, the area that stretches from central Mexico into Central
America ( me so means ‘middle’) . In the fertile Valley in
Mexico , people were growing corn and other crops as
early as 3500 B.C . By 1500 B.C. many Mesoamericans
were living in villages and growing squash , beans , and
cotton as well as corn .

8. *
 By about 1200 B.C. when the Shang people in China were
farming along the Yellow River , a people we call the
Olmec's and settled on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico .
We do not know what these people called theme selves or
whether they were new comers to this region . The name
we use means ‘rubber people’ , because the Olmec's
culture are the pattern for civilization in Mesoamerica .

9. •

10. •

11. •
Later Mesoamericans peoples adopted or improved on the
Olmec system of writing , number system , calendar , style of
architecture , ritual ball game . Because of this , Olmec culture
is considered the ‘parent culture’ in Mesoamerica .

12. •
The Olmec religious centers were places of pilgrim age
and work ship rather cities where all classes of people
lived and worked .

13. •

14. •

15. Mayas
Aztecs
Incas

16. *
The Mayas build city states connected by
trade
•
The location is on the Northern part of Central America , the Yucatan
Peninsula (present day Mexico and Guatemala) . The two other early
centers built at Uaxactun and Tikal .
•
•
Halach Uinic – means true man .
Merchants carried on an active trade in corn , salt , smoked meat ,
dried fish , honey , wood products and animal skins . They also
traded in luxury items , including jade , carved shells , fine pottery ,
and textiles.

17. 
•

18. 
•
Priest , nobles and warrior were the upper classes of Maya
society . Warriors fought the frequent wars , between city –
states . Maya nobles helped run the government . They
collected taxes , kept records of work that was done , and
oversaw the road system . In their leisure time they wrote
poetry , collected art objects , and enjoyed music .

19. 
•
The Mayas did not move away , for their civilization collapsed
. No one is sure why . Mesoamerican civilization never again
reached the heights it had attained under the Mayas .

20. *
 A nomadic tribe grows powerful
•
As Maya civilization was dying out , other state came to
power in Mesoamerica . One nomadic tribe from the dry
lands to the north had slowly migrate southward to the
Valley of Mexico . The people of this tribe called themselves
Aztecs . About 1325 the Aztecs built the village of
Tenochtitlan on an island in a lake , where city – state had
conquered other tribal groups in center Mexico and was
rapidly expanding .

21. Huitzilopochti
• The most important God in Aztecs , the God of sun .
Tlaloc
• God of rain .
Quetzalcoatl
• The
Feathered Serpent God .

22. 
•
The Aztecs borrowed ideas and skills from other peoples in
Mesoamerica . Aztecs architecture had its roots in
Teotihuacan . From the Olmec's successors came the Aztecs
calendar and writing system . The social system, their
religion , and many of their arts and crafts also came from
earlier cultures in Mesoamerica .

23. • Its to carry fresh water from
the main land to the city and
sewers to carry away waste .

24. •

25. 
•
The Aztec state did not rule directly over conquered
peoples . Instead of appointing governors to rule
conquered lands , the Aztecs demanded tribute .

26. 
•

27. 
•
Aztecs society was organized much like that of the
Mayas , but it was less rigid . Education gave the
Aztecs opportunity to advance socially . All Aztecs
children were required to go to school , where they
learned Aztec history and religion .

28. •
•

30. *
 Early culture develop in the Andes
•
In the valleys of the rugged Andes , which form the
mountainous backbone of south America , many different
cultures develop .

31. 
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•
•

32. 
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The Inca empire had a strong political organization
than the Aztecs state . The Incas ruled directly over
the peoples they conquered , forcing language , and
style of clothing .
•
Quipu is were made of colored cords of various
lengths and were knotted at intervals to indicate
different sums .

33. • He was the Spanish conquered the
Incas Empire in 1521 .

34. *

35. 
•
By the first century A . D a people known as the Anasazi
had created a farming in the dry lands of the southwestpresent-day Arizona , New Mexico , Colorado , and Utah .
The name Anasazi was given them by the Navajo Indians ,
who much later discovered the ruins of their huge , many
storied homes . In the Navajo language Anasazi means
‘strange ancient ones’ .

36. 
•
About the fifth or fourth century B . C a highly organized
farming society developed in the Ohio River Valley .
Living in villages along the river , those people became of
the known as ‘Mound Builders’ because of the large
earthen mounds they constructed . Some of those
structures were burial mounds , and other were ceremonial
mounds in the shape of animals such as snake , turtles , or
birds .

37. 
•
Both ideas and goods were exchanged in the trade
among the Indians peoples of the Americas . By about A
. D 1200 , people along the lower Mississippi River had
built the most advanced culture north of Mexico .

38. 
•
Along the Pacific Coast , from present –day northern
California to Alaska , a very different culture was
established by about 1000 B .C . The people of the
Northwest Coast culture area included the Nootka ,
Haida , Tlingit , Kwakiutl , and Chinooka , Unlike other
Indians people who lived to the north of Mexico , the
Northwest Coast people did not depend on farming and
apparently had no ties with Mesoamerica .

39. 
•
The Eskimos , or Iniut , who settled the northernmost
parts of North America , shared some land and some
customs with the Indians of the Northwest Coast .
Because the Eskimos were , probably the last migrants
from Asia , however , they had tittle in common with
the American Indians to the south .

40. 
•
Like most farming peoples , Indians throughout
North America were generally peaceful and hardworking . Their local villages and tribal groups were
organized fairly democratically .