THE AMERICAS: 600 – 1450 CEChapter 6

The Pre-Columbian Americas

What is meant by pre-Columbian? Period before 1492 Before the arrival of Christopher

Columbus & the “Columbian Exchange”

Two North American Native Groups

400 – 1300 CE SW United States Lived in pueblos

700 – 1500 CE Ohio & Mississippi

River Valleys Cahokia: largest

city of Mississippian

Anasazi Mississippian Civilization

Mexico and Mesoamerica…

Compare these answers with your notes in the guided reading packet.

Put any extra details in the lecture notes packet!

Mayans: faded away in the 800s CE

“mystery of history” *gone long before

Europeans

Toltecs 800 – 1100 CE An aggressive warrior society

that ruled much of Central America …

After the Mayans

Aztecs: 1200 – 500s Warlike people Built pyramids Practiced human sacrifice Used a tributary system:

conquered peoples taxed – had to provide Aztecs with good stuffs & gold!

Fell to the Spanish conquistadors~

South America: The Andes Mts.600 – 1450 CE

Moche: 200 – 700 Used terrace farming Waru Waru agriculture –

technique consists in combining raised beds with irrigation channels so as to prevent damage due to soil erosion during floods.

Llamas Quipu: knot tying method to

keep records

Incans 1300s – 1500s The Great Inca: ruler,

considered to be a descendent of the Sun God

Achievements: sophisticated road system, elaborate bureaucracy, heyday in the 1400s.

Demise: fell to Spanish conquistadors (early 1500s)

People in the Americas were less susceptible to continent-wide circulation of germs but therefore had less opportunity to build up a natural immunity to diseases they later encountered upon the Europeans’ arrival in the New World.

EX. Small Pox – Africans had an immunity. Native Americans did NOT!

InTeResTiNg NoTe: