This document provides information about three ancient civilizations in the Americas: the Maya, Aztec, and Inca. It discusses the origins and locations of each civilization, as well as details about their governments, religions, architecture, and cultural practices. It also describes key events and factors that contributed to the decline of each civilization, such as disease outbreaks and conquest by Spanish colonizers. The Maya inhabited Mesoamerica and built cities with temples and pyramids. The Aztecs founded Tenochtitlan in central Mexico and practiced human sacrifice. The Inca ruled an empire from Cusco in the Andes mountains and constructed elaborate roads and sites like Machu Picchu.

1. Maya, Aztec, and Inca
Civilizations

2. How did people first get to the
Americas?
 Theory #1 = Bering land bridge
Humans migrated into North America from
Asia by crossing over a land bridge between
Alaska and Siberia…

4. How did people first get to the
Americas?
 Theory #2 = Coastal migration
Humans migrated to the Americas by crossing the
seas, most likely the Pacific Ocean, and settling
along the western coasts of the Americas…

5. Mesoamerica
 Mesoamerica = Mexico & Central America
 Some of the earliest civilizations in the Americas
developed in Mesoamerica
 The Maya and Aztec lived in the Mesoamerican region

6. Where did the ancient Maya live?
 The Maya were concentrated on and around the
Yucatan Peninsula in central America.

8. Maya Political Structure
 The Maya were NOT AN EMPIRE and NOT
UNITED politically…
 Maya civilization was made up of city-states.
City-states were controlled by their own ruler.
 In your opinion, do you think that the Mayan
political structure helped or harmed the people?

9. Maya Religion
 The Maya were polytheistic (believed in many gods)
 The Maya practiced human sacrifice

10. Maya Architecture
 The Maya built towering temples and
elaborate palaces
 Atop the temples, priests performed religious
ceremonies and sacrifices while people
watched from the plazas below
 Ceremonial
platforms, temples, pyramids, observatories
and ball courts were all built by the Maya

13. Advances in learning
 The Maya created a writing system of
hieroglyphics
 Hieroglyphics are a system of writing using
pictures.
 Most of the pictures were representative of
phonetic sounds. This means that pictures could
be combined to form words.

14. Advances in learning
 The Maya created a set of numerals-base 20
system (20 individual digits instead of 10)
 Also developed a 365-day calendar
Bar=5
Dot=1
Shell=0

15. What happened to the Maya?
 The Maya abandoned many of their cities around
900 A.D.
 Archaeologists DO NOT KNOW WHY Maya
civilization declined
 BUT…

16. Maya today
…more than 2 million Maya people live in
Guatemala and southern Mexico today.

17. Maya Video Clip
http://www.watchknow.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=12
203
This National Geographic video shows the Mayan
Pyramids. It is part of the series Lost Temples and it tries
to give an answer to the question "Why did the Maya
abandon their magnificent city of Chichen Itza?" There
is reference to Maya culture.

18. Aztecs:

19. Where did the Aztecs live?
 The Aztecs lived in what is known as the Valley of
Mexico in central Mexico.

20. Tenochtitlan
 Tenochtitlan was the capital city of the Aztec
Empire.
 The Legend of Tenochtitlan

21. Legend of Tenochtitlan
The gods told the Aztecs to search for an eagle
holding a snake in its beak perched atop a
cactus. This is where they were to build their
capital city. The Aztecs saw this sign on a
swampy island in lake Texcoco.

22. Tenochtitlan
 Today, Tenochtitlan is
Mexico City

23. How did the Aztecs build a city in the
center of a lake?
 Tenochtitlan was built on an island
 It was connected to the mainland by causeways
(raised roads across low or wet ground) leading
north, south, and west of the city.
 The city was interlaced with a series of canals, so
that all sections of the city could be visited either
on foot or by canoe.

24. Government
 The Aztecs created an empire through conquest
 Conquered people and local rulers had to pay
tribute to the Aztecs
 The Aztecs had an emperor
 The Aztec Emperor’s main job was to lead in war

25. Who was Montezuma?
 Montezuma (Montezuma II) was the 9th
emperor of the Aztecs. He was the most
famous Aztec emperors.
 He was the Aztec emperor who met Hernan
Cortes. Cortes was a Spanish Conquistador.
(Conquistador= military leader in the Spanish
conquest of the New World) Headdress worn by
Montezuma when
he met Cortes

26. Montezuma
 Montezuma thought that the Spanish were
descendants of the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl (ket-
säl"kō-ät'l). Therefore, he allowed them to enter
Tenochtitlan unopposed. Montezuma was then
captured by the Spanish and held hostage. He
was later killed. Within a few years after his death
the Spanish conquered the Aztecs and took
control of Mexico.

27. Religion & Mythology
 Aztecs were polytheistic
 Huitzilopochtli was
the main Aztec god.
(weets se lo poch tlee)
 The Aztecs built massive temples and pyramids
dedicated to their gods

28. Religion & Mythology
Pyramid of the Sun Pyramid of the Moon
http://www.class.uh.edu/courses/engl3
396/jtchris2/gods.htm

29. Human Sacrifice
 Human sacrifice was a common practice of the
Aztecs.
 For the dedication of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in
1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed 84,400
prisoners over the course of four days.
 To give the sun strength to rise
each day, human sacrifices were
offered.

30. What happened to the Aztecs?
 Spanish conquistadors led by Hernan Cortes
conquered Tenochtitlan and defeated the
Aztecs in 1521.

31. Aztec Video Clips
“Engineering An Empire”
http://www.watchknow.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=62
55
“What the Ancients Did For Us”
http://www.watchknow.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=10
964

32. Inca:

33. Where did the Inca live?
 The Inca controlled an empire in the Andes
Mountain region of South America.
 The empire was divided into four regions with
the capital at Cuzco.

34. Inca Government:
 The Sapa Inca (emperor) had absolute
power. He emperor claimed to be the son of
the sun. The Sapa Inca was also the
empire’s religious leader. He made all the
laws. Everything was the responsibility of the
Sapa Inca, and nothing could be done until
the Sapa Inca approved it.

35. How the Government was
Organized?
 The Sapa Inca organized his government into a
pyramid:
1.) Sapa Inca
2.)Supreme
Council (4 Men)
3.) Provincial
Governors
4.)Officials (army
officers, priests, judges, and
others from the noble class)
At the bottom of the pyramid were the
5.) Tax workers. Workers were organized into
Collectors family units called ayllus. Most of the
people in the Inca Empire were workers.
6.)Workers

36. Inca Construction and Architecture:
 The Inca constructed stone temples without
using mortar yet the stones fit together so well
that a knife would not fit between the stones.

37. Inca Construction and Architecture:
 The Inca Road was built connecting the empire. It
was 5281.66 miles long and it crossed fifteen
distinct ecosystems. Branching off of the Inca
Road was another 18641.1miles of road, that
included the Inca Trail, which was the part of the
road that leads from Cusco (the capital) to Machu
Picchu.

38. Machu Picchu
 Machu Picchu is one of the most important
archaeological sites in the world. It is evidence of
the Inca Empire at the peak of its power and
achievement. Machu Picchu is complex of
palaces and plazas, temples and homes. It may
have been built as a ceremonial site, a military
stronghold, or a retreat for ruling elites.
 Scholars are still trying to figure out the purpose
of Machu Picchu. The Inca had no written
language, so they left no record of why they built
the site or how they used it before it was
abandoned in the early 16th century.

39. Machu Picchu
http://video.nationalgeographic.
com/video/kids/people-places-
kids/peru-machupicchu-kids/

40. Inca Religion
 The Inca were polytheistic.
 The primary god was Inti, the sun god. Inti was
considered to be the highest god and omnipotent.

41. Inca Religion
 Inca believed in reincarnation. Reincarnation is
the belief that the once someone dies their soul
will return to earth in another form. Ceremonial
burials and occasional mummifications saw that
the dead were prepared for the next world with
clothing, food, and other items.

42. Inca Culture
 Each family in a community was assigned a specific job.
 Government officials arranged marriages.
 The government organized mandatory public service building
projects.
 The Inca had no written language. Instead they had cryptic
system of knotted strings known as khipu to keep records.
 The Inca spoke Quechua. This was a language that originated in
the Inca capital Cuzco in the 10th or 11th century. As the Inca
empire grew, the Quechua language spread. Today, over two
and half million people still speak Quechua in Peru.

43. What happened to the Inca?
 Civil war in the empire broke out and the Inca
empire fell because of the following:
 Civil War
 Smallpox
 BUT ultimately, it was Spanish conquistadors led by
Francisco Pizarro that brought about the fall of the Inca
Empire.

44. Inca Video Clip
http://www.watchknow.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=23
01