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Powerful ruler Aristocrats
Power based upon ownership of land
Farmed by poor relatives
Small middle class• artisans, traders
Majority of pop. farmers
Chiampas• Division of labor along
gender lines Men fighting and hunting Women home
•Polytheistic Human sacrifice performed to appease gods
•Cities built around ceremonial centers
Central pyramid surmounted by shrine to the gods
Nearby temples, palaces, sacred ball court
Possible reasons• Overuse of the land• Invasion• Internal revolt• Natural disaster
Older centers abandoned and new centers further N continued
•Valley of Mexico•Less
sophisticated than neighbors
•Excellent warriors•No centralized
state semiautonomous territories
Centralized religion
Authoritarian power Claimed descent from gods Ruler selected from royal family by a select group of
senior officials King advised by council of lords Headed by prime minister- served as chief executive
and head of bureaucracy Power of central gov’t limited beyond
capital
polytheistic•cosmology based upon belief of 2 worlds:
material and divine earth material divine- heaven and hell
• fatalistic elements
Religious significance• Sacred precinct• massive pyramid
Painting Cast gold and
silver Writing
• Hieroglyphics Calendar from Olmecs
1519 Hernan Cortes landed in Veracruz•Cortes demanded Aztec accept
Christianity•Disease brought by Europeans eventually
wiped out majority of pop• Within months entire civilization crumbling
Extended from Ecuador to Central Chile
Tahuantinsuyu 10,000 residents Ruled by governor
forced labor Excess inhabitants transferred to other locations
Cuzco Imposing stone metropolis no mortar Temple dedicated to the sun
24,800 miles of roads from Northern Columbia to Santiago Chile
Rest houses and storage depots along roads
Suspension bridges traversed ravines and rivers
Terraced ag• irrigation• collective labor controlled by state
Marriage strictly regulated•vestal virgins
State built on war• Universal male conscription• move quickly along highway system
No wheeled vehicles
Conquered peoples Instructed in language and state religion
Writing quipu
Francisco Pizarro w/ few hundred men
Internal factionalism
Disease of Europeans