Report by:

Ram Chryztler P. Acero

Year/Section:

B.S.Ed..

*The Civilization in Americas

The early civilization in Asia , Africa , and Europe were able to exchange ideas and influence as they developed . The culture of the America ever , grew up in almost complete isolation from the rest of the world . Over many thousands of years , the people of the America gradually settled in many different environments and develop a variety of distinctive culture and language . Like the people of other continent , the first Americans developed techniques of farming and metal working and brilliant traditions in arts and crafts . Religion played an important part on American culture , inspiring the building of temples and cities . Trading networks were established , and some powerful state gained immense wealth . A complex civilization developed in what is now Mexico . Developed a wide variety of societies .

Civilization Develops in Mesoamerica

During the most recent ice age , glaciers covered large areas of North America and northern Europe . Since much of the Earth’s water was locked up in these great sheets of ice , the water level in the oceans was lower .Scientists think that Bering Strait between Asia and North America was then dry land , forming a ‘bridge’ between two continents . This bridge may have formed twice , about 300,000 years ago and 12,000 years ago .

A land bridge links Asia and Americas

As these migrant hunter found widely scattered new homes in the Americas , they became very different from one another . Each group developed its own language and distinctive habits and customs . Eventually hundreds of different languages were spoken by the Indians of North and South America .

A variety of language develops

After the glaciers melted and the land bridge from Asia disappeared , the people of the Americas were cut off from the civilization developing in other part of the world .

American Indians develop distinctive technology

The first farming settlements were located in Mesoamerica , the area that stretches from central Mexico into Central America ( me so means ‘middle’) . In the fertile Valley in Mexico , people were growing corn and other crops as early as 3500 B.C . By 1500 B.C. many Mesoamericans were living in villages and growing squash , beans , and cotton as well as corn .

Hunter became farmer

By about 1200 B.C. when the Shang people in China were farming along the Yellow River , a people we call the Olmec's and settled on the coast of the Gulf of Mexico . We do not know what these people called theme selves or whether they were new comers to this region . The name we use means ‘rubber people’ , because the Olmec's culture are the pattern for civilization in Mesoamerica .

* The Olmec's lay the foundation for Mesoamerican civilization

• Its is the ceremonial ball game that was something like basketball .

Olmec's carving

Pok-a-tok

• The Olmec's build cone-shape mounds of earth shaped like the nearby volcanoes . On the tops of these mounds , temple were built . Unlike Egyptian pyramids , which were built as tombs , Olmec's temple pyramids were primarily places of worships . Steep flights of stairs led to a temple on the flat summit .

The Olmec's are artist and architects

• Later Mesoamericans peoples adopted or improved on the Olmec system of writing , number system , calendar , style of architecture , ritual ball game . Because of this , Olmec culture is considered the ‘parent culture’ in Mesoamerica .

Olmec influence spreads

• The Olmec religious centers were places of pilgrim age and work ship rather cities where all classes of people lived and worked .

A city is built in the Valley of Mexico

• Mesoamerica’s first city was built about in the fertile valley of Mexico and homes of all Gods called ‘Teotihuacan’ .

Teotihuacan

• The ‘Feathered Serpent god’ was thought of as a gentle of peace and humility.

Quetzalcoatl

Mayas

Aztecs

Incas

The 3 Major of Pre – Columbian Civilization

The Mayas build city states connected by trade

• The location is on the Northern part of Central America , the Yucatan Peninsula (present day Mexico and Guatemala) . The two other early centers built at Uaxactun and Tikal .

• Halach Uinic – means true man .

• Merchants carried on an active trade in corn , salt , smoked meat , dried fish , honey , wood products and animal skins . They also traded in luxury items , including jade , carved shells , fine pottery , and textiles.

*The Mayas

• Although priests were not the sole rulers in the city – state , they played an important role in the everyday lives of the Mayas .

The Mayas Calendar

Maya priest play an important role in society

• Priest , nobles and warrior were the upper classes of Maya society . Warriors fought the frequent wars , between city – states . Maya nobles helped run the government . They collected taxes , kept records of work that was done , and oversaw the road system . In their leisure time they wrote poetry , collected art objects , and enjoyed music .

Ordinary people support a rich state priests

• The Mayas did not move away , for their civilization collapsed . No one is sure why . Mesoamerican civilization never again reached the heights it had attained under the Mayas .

Maya society declines

A nomadic tribe grows powerful

• As Maya civilization was dying out , other state came to power in Mesoamerica . One nomadic tribe from the dry lands to the north had slowly migrate southward to the Valley of Mexico . The people of this tribe called themselves Aztecs . About 1325 the Aztecs built the village of Tenochtitlan on an island in a lake , where city – state had conquered other tribal groups in center Mexico and was rapidly expanding .

*The Aztecs

Huitzilopochti• The most important God in Aztecs , the God of sun .

Tlaloc• God of rain .

Quetzalcoatl• The Feathered Serpent God .

• The Aztecs borrowed ideas and skills from other peoples in Mesoamerica . Aztecs architecture had its roots in Teotihuacan . From the Olmec's successors came the Aztecs calendar and writing system . The social system, their religion , and many of their arts and crafts also came from earlier cultures in Mesoamerica .

The Aztecs excel as builders

Aqueducts

• Its to carry fresh water from the main land to the city and sewers to carry away waste .

• A grew into a great city with broad open plazas and larges market places .

Tenochtitlan

• The Aztec state did not rule directly over conquered peoples . Instead of appointing governors to rule conquered lands , the Aztecs demanded tribute .

A trade empire develop

• As the population grew , the Aztecs sought new sources of tribute .

Human being sacrificed

• Aztecs society was organized much like that of the Mayas , but it was less rigid . Education gave the Aztecs opportunity to advance socially . All Aztecs children were required to go to school , where they learned Aztec history and religion .

Education is important in Aztecs society

Montezuma II• King of Aztecs

Hernando Cortes

• The Spanish Conquerors

BEFORE

AFTER

Early culture develop in the Andes

• In the valleys of the rugged Andes , which form the mountainous backbone of south America , many different cultures develop .

*The Incas

• The Incas had some things in common with the Aztecs . They too had been a small tribe that had grown powerful through conquest .

• The MANCHU PICCHU is the city of state in all Incas .

• ‘Manco Capac’ he is the leader Incas empires who built the greatest Machu Picchu .

The Manchu Picchu

Incas engineers conquer the mountains

• The Inca empire had a strong political organization than the Aztecs state . The Incas ruled directly over the peoples they conquered , forcing language , and style of clothing .

• Quipu is were made of colored cords of various lengths and were knotted at intervals to indicate different sums .

Incas rule is centralized

Francisco Pizarro

Francisco Pizarro

• He was the Spanish conquered the Incas Empire in 1521 .

* Many Cultures Arise North of Mexico

• By the first century A . D a people known as the Anasazi had created a farming in the dry lands of the southwest-present-day Arizona , New Mexico , Colorado , and Utah . The name Anasazi was given them by the Navajo Indians , who much later discovered the ruins of their huge , many storied homes . In the Navajo language Anasazi means ‘strange ancient ones’ .

The Anasazi built cities in cliffs and canyon

• About the fifth or fourth century B . C a highly organized farming society developed in the Ohio River Valley . Living in villages along the river , those people became of the known as ‘Mound Builders’ because of the large earthen mounds they constructed . Some of those structures were burial mounds , and other were ceremonial mounds in the shape of animals such as snake , turtles , or birds .

The hope well people carry on widespread trade

• Both ideas and goods were exchanged in the trade among the Indians peoples of the Americas . By about A . D 1200 , people along the lower Mississippi River had built the most advanced culture north of Mexico .

The Mississippian culture borrows from Mesoamerica

• Along the Pacific Coast , from present –day northern California to Alaska , a very different culture was established by about 1000 B .C . The people of the Northwest Coast culture area included the Nootka , Haida , Tlingit , Kwakiutl , and Chinooka , Unlike other Indians people who lived to the north of Mexico , the Northwest Coast people did not depend on farming and apparently had no ties with Mesoamerica .

Wealth is important in the northwest Coast culture

• The Eskimos , or Iniut , who settled the northernmost parts of North America , shared some land and some customs with the Indians of the Northwest Coast . Because the Eskimos were , probably the last migrants from Asia , however , they had tittle in common with the American Indians to the south .

The Eskimos create a unique way of life

• Like most farming peoples , Indians throughout North America were generally peaceful and hard-working . Their local villages and tribal groups were organized fairly democratically .

Indians develop strong communities

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