The first Americans migrated across the Bering land bridge over 20,000 years ago. They hunted megafauna and adapted to climate changes by gathering and developing agriculture. Early civilizations like the Olmecs, Maya, Teotihuacan, and Toltecs arose in Mesoamerica, characterized by theocracies ruled by priests, calendars, pyramids, temples, and bloody human sacrifices. In South America, the Chavin, Incas, and other groups developed successful empires through trade, agriculture, and architecture like roads and terraces, with the Incas conquering a vast Andean region. North American cultures included the ancestral Puebloans, Mississippian mound builders

1. The Americas Before Columbus
SSWH8:a-b.

2. Time and Geography

4. The Earliest Americans
• First Amerindian group from northeast
Asia crossed Beringia land bridge
20,000-10,000 BCE
– Ancestors to Native Indian peoples from
Canada to South America
• Second group from Central Asia
– descendants today are in western Canada
– exception of the Navajo and Apache peoples,
who migrated to the American Southwest
between 1300 and 1500 CE
• Last group from northeastern Asia
– modern descendants are Inuit Eskimo peoples
of northern Canada and Alaska
The first Americans are
believed to have migrated
across the Beringia land
bridge.

5. The Earliest Americans
Paleoindian Americans
– Clovis Culture – earliest-
known hunting culture
– Folsom points – smaller
spearheads needed when
megafauna died
The Archaic Period
– Conditions warmer and drier,
so people depended on
gathering as game
disappeared
– Little is known about social
organization in this period
An artists depiction of PaleoIndian
Americans hunting giant armadillo.

7. Agricultural Revolution
in the Americas
Result of environmental change
• First occurred in Mexico
• Chili, pumpkins, beans, plus
maize
• Farming spread across Mexico to
Central America and coastal Peru
by 1500 BCE
• High productivity made possible
the great civilizations
Farming spread from Mexico
to Peru

8. RELIGIOUS/INTELLECTUAL

9. EARLY MESOAMERICAN
CIVILIZATIONS
• Mesoamerica (Middle America): central Mexico and
Central America
• Earliest civilizations located on elevated plateaus or
tropic lowlands
• Polytheistic theocracies ruled by astronomer-priests of
(semi-) divine status
• Used accurate calendars to regulate agriculture and
religion
The ceremonies we very
bloody

10. EARLY MESOAMERICAN
CIVILIZATIONS
• Cities were religious centers with pyramids, temples,
palaces and ritual ball courts
• Masses witnessed awe-inspiring, bloody ceremonies
• Elites created writing and numerical systems
• Extensive trade networks also catalysts for cultural
exchange
The ceremonies we very
bloody

11. Olmecs and Chavin
• Olmecs, 1500-300 BCE
– “People of the Land of Rubber” - solid rubber balls for
ballgame
– Southern Mexico - developed first culture with
regional influence
– Elite group – priests had great powers
– Ruler probably a hereditary king/high priest
– Established vast trade networks in Central America
– Religious faith centered on worship of ancient feline -
heads of basalt
– Skill in stonework – The Great Pyramid
– Primitive form of writing and number system

13. Maya, 400 – 1500 CE
• Maya supplanted Olmecs
• Most advanced of all pre-Columbian Amerindians
• Hierarchy of cities ruled by kings
• Public buildings, temples, palaces, ball courts
• Wealthy hereditary elite held power, powerful
priesthood

14. Maya, 400 – 1500 CE
• Common folk were freemen,
serfs and slaves
• Noblewomen held positions in
religion and politics, certain
rights
• Lower classes tended garden,
domestic animals, weaving, and
home religious rites
• Religious belief was important in
the order of daily life Mayan Indian

15. Maya
• Pyramids: sacred mountains with chambers where
priests mediated
• Mayan cosmology has 13 heavens and nine hells
• Human sacrifices common - companions for rulers for
next world
A human
sacrifice

16. Maya
• Prosperity brought decline -
overpopulation and ecological collapse
• 200 years later, Mayan achievements
forgotten
• Most notable accomplishments:
– Accurate astronomy based on
mathematics
– Mayan calendar
– Mayan only pre-Columbian people who
were literate
Mayans

17. Teotihuacan and the Toltecs
• Teotihuacan (Place of Gods) 200 BCE
– Another high culture in Valley of Mexico
– Unfortified city, theocracy devoted to agricultural, crafts, and commerce
not war
– Pyramids and temples center of religious rituals, offerings to the gods
– Largest and most impressive of ancient pre-Columbian centers:
population 200,000
– Hub of commerce: trade networks from northern Mexico to Central
America
– Final years more militaristic
– Invading warriors destroyed Teotihuacán in about 650 CE
– Two centuries of chaos and conflict among rival groups
• Toltecs
– Federation of nomads
– Chief city was Tula

18. POLITICAL

19. THE MILITARISTIC AZTECS
• Fall of Teotihuacán – warlike nomads migrated
• Modern Mexico gets name from the Mexica, known later as Aztecs
• Mexica-Aztec converted from despised nomads into elite of huge
militaristic state
• By 1500, with alliances and expansions, the Aztec Confederation
dominated center of present-day Mexico down to Mayan Guatemala
• Lives of ruling elites revolved around conquest and warfare
Aztecs

20. THE MILITARISTIC AZTECS
• War shaped their religion and social structure
• Aztec religion included human sacrifices,
cannibalism
• Aztec government and society
– Emperor (semi-divine status), officials,
priests
– Class of warriors
– Ordinary free people
– Serfs and slaves
– Upper class women had some rights
and freedoms
The Aztec Empire

21. SOUTH AMERICAN
CIVILIZATIONS
• Inca - Andes Mountains of modern Peru
• Militaristic empire
• Achieved first unification of entire Andean area
• Pre-Columbian Peru a complex mosaic of ethnic and
linguistic groups
The first image of the Inca in
Europe

22. SOUTH AMERICAN
CIVILIZATIONS
• Culmination of centuries’ developments in agriculture,
commerce, religion, architecture, and government
• Collective food basket very nutritious: fish from Pacific
Ocean, tubers from highlands, fruit from tropical forests
• Industries: fishing, farming, textiles, metallurgy
One of the main events
in the conquest of the
Inca Empire was the
death of Atahualpa, the
last Sapa Inca of the
empire on 29 August
1533

23. The Chavín
• Chavín’s capital on trade routes connected coast with
mountains
• Use of llama fomented trade and led to construction of roads
• Chavín hegemony from trade and cultural exchange, rather
than political power or military might
• Chavín jaguar cult spread and lasted for centuries
• Blunt-tipped pyramids, platform mounds, artificial water works
• Priests organized irrigation projects, supervised labor force
• Triumph: feed population in difficult topographical areas
• Chavín culture collapsed: overpopulation, increased social
stratification, and rising militarism
• Chavín never became a true political state
• Influenced succeeding theocratic kingdoms of north and
central Peru

24. Ancient Andean Lifeways
• Ayllu or clan - basic unit of
society and government
• Village: 2-4 clans, male head
who expected absolute loyalty
• Priests, agricultural calendars,
ayllus: labor for farming +
building
• Religion – worship spirits that
lived in rivers, cave, mountains
• Rulers were demigods
Ayllu people

25. Ancient Andean Lifeways
• Textiles and fibers important: fishing nets, roofs, rope
bridges, cotton, (alpaca) woolen cloth
• Women and girls spun and wove cloth
• No known writing system
• Northern and Central areas: El Niño – drought, famine led to
downfall of these states
• Southern and Central civilizations expanded with alliances,
colonizing, and warfare
Ayllus

26. The Incas
• Southern Andes centered on the town of Cuzco
• Conquered Andean region: (Argentina to Ecuador) - 8 million people
• Rule of Pachacuti Inca
– Split inheritance: each Inca ruler kept his lands; new emperor to
conquer new territories
• Inca rulers claimed direct descent from the Sun
• Government: regimented, enforced conformity, social welfare
• Control of people: deported inhabitants, established colonies
• Cultural impact: Quechua (official language along with Spanish)
• Material Culture:
– Kipus for recordkeeping, counting, reciting oral traditions
– Superb road builders and architects
– Irrigation systems, dams, and canals, terraces
– Machu Picchu, fortress-city, built without technology
• Spaniard. Francisco Pizarro, arrived in 1533 to rob the gold of
Cuzco

27. North Americans
• Ancestral Puebloan civilization (Anasazi)
– Began agriculture about 400 CE
– Chaco phenomenon: 14 “Great Houses” multi-story
stone and timber pueblos
– Road system in nearly straight lines converged on
Chaco Canyon
– Regional trade center wielding great power
– Puebloan clans migrated west, south, east about
1300-1500

28. Ancestral Puebloan civilization (Anasazi)

30. North Americans
Mississippian and Cahokia
Civilizations
• Mysterious mound-building
cultures based on hunting
• Cahokia – largest, most
important settlement from this
period
• May have had social hierarchy
• Some mounds were for
religious rituals, others were
tombs
• Ended mysteriously about 1300
Mississippians

32. Discussion Questions
1. Archaeologists often have to guess at the significance
of ruins and artifacts, as in the case of the Chaco
Canyon roads. How do you think the archaeologists of
the future will look at the remnants of our road systems
such as the freeways of Los Angeles, or Washington
DC’s Beltway? What suppositions might they make,
based on the remains of our highway system?
2. When the Spanish met the great Amerindian cultures of
Latin America, they considered them to be barbaric
people. What aspects of their own culture might have
convinced the Spaniards of the accuracy of their
attitude? What aspects of the Native American cultures
might qualify as “civilized?”