American History

1. AMERICAN HISTORY

2.  Ancient Mexico was part of a region often referred to as
“Mesoamerica”, or middle America.

3.  It is a cultural region which includes
all of Mexico, Belize and Guatemala,
extending into parts of Honduras.
Mesoamerica , particularly the Valley
of Mexico, was the heartland for the
earliest of civilizations in
America.

4.  The subarctic regions of North America
have long been believed to be the gateway
for prehistoric people migrating into the
Americas.
 These migrations across the Siberian
peninsula and Bering Strait may have
occurred as early as 25,000 years ago
over a land bridge that existed during the
last Ice Age.

5.  There is also the belief that some peoples
may have crossed over to the Americas by
water, constituting many trans-Pacific
crossings over a long period of time.
 Thousands of years the people of the
Americas took place, with migrations
traveling as far south as Central and South
America.

6.  However the means of arrival, the early
people in the Americas were hunter-gathers
following the migrations of the big game
animals. The woolly mammoth and
American bison were staples of their diets.
 The people themselves were dark skinned,
having dark hair and dark eyes with an
epicanthic fold which links them to their
Mongolian/ Siberian origin.

7. By approximately 5,000 b.c.e., the
early beginnings of agriculture were
apparent in Mesoamerica.
Building cities in ancient Mexico
was a slow process for
the Mesoamericans as they never
developed the use of the wheel.

8.  The stones used to build these structures
would be carried by
human porters.
 As early as 1500 b.c.e., urban and
ceremonial centers were being built in the
Gulf Coast lowlands of Mexico by a
people known as the Olmecs.
 They are often referred to as the “mother
culture” of Mesoamerica.

9.  Generally, the broad periods of cultural growth
and change in Mesoamerica are defined as
formative, classic and post-classic.
 Although there was a rise in social and political
structure around this time, most Mesoamerican
cultures remained agricultural.
 Food such as beans, squash, corn, sweet
potatoes, peppers and tomatoes were
cultivated, many of which were indigenous to
the Americas.

10. The Mesoamericans lived in a
theocratic society and were
polytheistic, believing in multiple
gods.
The development of religion in
Mesoamerica was also permanently
intertwined with agriculture, as many
of the gods were associated with sun,
rain, fertility and crops.

11. The people of ancient Mexico
portrayed their belief in the creation
of the world and of
the gods living in the underworld
through the ballgame.
The ballgame can be traced back over
2,000 years to its origin with the
Olmecs.

12.  Trade was an important factor affecting growth
and social change in Mesoamerica.
 A merchant class began to rise as well as
regional trade markets.
 The long-distance merchants were called
“pochteca”.
 Objects of trade included items such as silver,
gold, jade, macaw and parrot feathers, jaguar
skins, cocoa and various food items.

13. The Mesoamericans also
practiced astronomy,
studying the moon, stars and
night sky movements.
Out of these studies they
developed a highly accurate
calendar.

14.  The first evidence for the use of
calendars in Mesoamerica occurs
around 500 b.c.e., but it was nearly 1,000
years later that it reached its height of
perfection with the Maya.

15. Writing in Mesoamerica also reached
it height with the Maya.
The Classic Maya are considered the
first “fully” literate culture in the
Americas, leaving
behind a complex writing system of
carved glyphs documenting and
recording their history.

16. The last of the great civilizations in
ancient Mesoamerica were the
Aztecs.
Around 1300 a.d., they established
their capital in central Mexico.
By this time, the other great cultures,
including the vast empire of the Maya
were at the end of their reign.

17. The Aztec culture flourished only
about two-hundred years or
until 1519 when the Spanish arrived.
With the introduction of weapons and
disease, the great Aztec culture would
soon fall, marking the end of over
2,000 years of Mesoamerican
civilization.

18. Mesoamerica developed complex
systems of government, religion,
science, architecture, writing & art,
astronomy and precision calendar.
By 2000 b.c.e Mexican crops
included corn (maize), beans, chili
peppers, tomatoes, avocados, cotton
and cacao (used to make chocolate).

20. People first came to South
America probably around 20,000
years ago. They were probably
traveling south from North
America, though some people
may also have come by boat
across the Pacific ocean.

21. These earliest people, like other
people elsewhere in the world at
that time, knew how to make
stone spearpoints and axes, and
how to make fires.

22. They lived by gathering plants,
mainly wild grasses like teosinte and
mesquite, and by hunting mammoth
and other animals.
Around 10,000 BC some new people
seem to have arrived in South
America, also coming from North
America.

23.  Possibly these new people killed off the people
who were already there, or they may have mixed
peacefully. In any case these people soon had to
deal with a new problem: the big animals like
bears and mammoths which they were used to
hunting all died off, probably because the world
became a little warmer and not enough of the
plants these animals ate grew anymore.

24.  People had to learn to hunt smaller animals
like rabbits and llamas and alpaca.
 Because people arrived later in South
America than in Africa or Asia or Europe,
it was not as crowded there, and so people
could get plenty of food by hunting and
gathering and did not need to begin
farming as early.

25.  There were also some environmental
problems for beginning farmers: for
instance, the best places for planting corn
also happened to be the best places for
gathering wild mesquite, so people didn't
want to destroy a good food supply in
order to try out a new risky idea.

26.  But by around 2000 BC people in Central and
South America did begin farming anyway.
 Soon they began to form bigger states. The first
of these was the Olmec civilization, which
began around 1200 BC. It was mainly in
Central America (the southern part of modern
Mexico) although Olmec-type monuments are
found as far east as modern Guatemala.

27.  The Olmec civilization collapsed (we're not
sure why) about 400 BC. The problem may
again have been climate change, but there are
also signs of invasions.
 Soon other people, or perhaps descendants of
the Olmec people themselves, created new
states in the same area. Best known of these are
the Maya. Another one is the Zapotec.

28.  Early signs of the Maya state began as
early as 1000 BC, but the main Maya
period began about 600 BC, with the
decline of the Olmec's.
 The Maya gradually established a
powerful kingdom or kingdoms, which
extended over most of Central America
(modern Guatemala).

29.  Perhaps under the influence of the Maya state,
other states like the Moche began to rule
different parts of South America.
 When the Maya state began to decline, about
1300 AD, two other important kingdoms
formed near them. One was the Aztecs, whose
whose kingdom was to the north of the Maya,
Maya, in what is now Mexico.

30.  The other was the Inca, whose kingdom was
to the south of the Maya, in what is now
Ecuador and Peru.
 In the other parts of South America, there
were fewer people, and so they still had
plenty of land for hunting and gathering, and
most people preferred to remain hunters
and gatherers instead of beginning to farm
and developing complicated governments.


31.  Although the Maya state was clearly in decline
by the 1400s, all three of the big states -the
Maya, the Aztec, and the Inca - were still there
when the first invaders came from Europe to
South America just after 1500 AD.