Developments in the Americas

Essential Question: What states developed in the

Americas, and how did they change over time?

The Mississippian Culture

Chaco and Mesa Verde

The Maya City-States

The Aztecs

The Inca

Continuities and Diversity

Major Cultures in North and Central America in 1400
 The Mississippian Culture

Emerging in the 700s or 800s, this was the first large-scale civilization in North
America.

It occupied the Mississippi River Valley and became known for erecting large
earthen mounds to serve as ceremonial centers.
Its highly rigid social structure was based on the control exerted by local chiefs, with
the support of nobles and priests, over a lower class of merchants, farmers, hunters
and slaves.

The Mississippian society was matrilineal, because titles were passed from fathers
to the sons of the father’s sisters.
This civilization experienced a severe decline by the end of the f15th century, due to
the combined impact of several natural disasters.
The Cahokia Mound
Artistic Recreation of the Cahokia Complex
 Chaco and Mesa Verde

Several cultures emerged in the dry regions of Southwest North America c. 800.

One of them, known as Chaco, build large houses using stone and clay.

The Mesa Verde people embedded their massive brick houses on the side of cliffs.

The architecture of their main settlements suggests that the Chaco and Mesa Verde
people engaged in warfare.

Both of these cultures experienced a sharp decline at the end of the 13th century,
due to changes in climate.
Chaco Culture National Historical Park
Mesa Verde National Park
 The Maya City-States

At least two million Maya people lived in some 40 cities located in and around the
Yucatan península between 250 and 900.
Each of these cities was under the control of a king that ruled also the adjacent
territory.

Conflicts between neighbouring city-states were common, and took the form of
ritualized warfare, with the winners collecting tribute from the losers.

In each of these city-states the social order was rigid and the inheritance model was
patrilineal.

There was no central government ruling over all the Maya city-states, but some of
the strongest ones dominated several others in selected regions.
 Mayan Religion, Science, and Technology

Mayan mathematics were very advanced, serving as a foundation for sophisticated

forms of astronomy and for the creation of a highly complex calendar.

Priests were in charge of expanding and preserving Mayan knowledge.

The Mayan had paper, and were able to read and write using a rich logographic
script.

Their numerals followed a vigesimal (base-20) positional system.

Mayan Logographic Script
Temple of Kukulcán in Chitchen Itza.
 The Aztecs

Also known as the Mexica, the Aztecs migrated to the central valley of Mexico from
areas situated up North, around 1200.
In 1325, they founded the city of Tenochtitlán, on the site of what is now Mexico City,
and over the next century they took control of the people that surrounded it.

They created an empire that stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific Ocean.

Tenochtitlán was partially built on a lake, with the use of floating gardens known as
chinampas to assist food production.

The architecture of the city, and the complex engineering required by its unique
location, demonstrated to its neighbors the power of the Aztec rulers.
 Aztec Government, Economy, Society and Religion

The Aztec ruled over their vast empire by imposing a tribute on the peoples they
conquered.
Each of those people continued to be governed by their original leaders, now
turned into province administrators and tribute collectors.

In exchange for paying the tribute, which consisted of assorted goods as well as
military conscripts, the subjects enjoyed the protection offered by the Aztec army.

The top leader of the empire, known as the Great Speaker, governed with the
support of a large contingent of landowning nobles, right above craftspeople and
traders, which in turn ruled over many peasants, soldiers and slaves.

Aztec religion, which involved ritual human sacrifices, was linked to imperial
politics.
Tenochtitlán
 The Inca

After conquering many of the people living in a vast array on mountain valleys deep
in the heart of the Andes, the leader of the Cuzco Kingdom founded the Inca empire.
His son and his grandson expanded Inca control over an even larger region.

The people ruled by the Inca were forced to contribute to public works across the
empire under a system called the mit’a, aiding in the construction of monuments
and the development of infrastructure projects such as a vast network of
spectacular mountain roads known as the carpa nan.

The religion of the Inca was a form of animism centered on the worship of the sun
and on the veneration of their ancestors.

The Inca based their rule on the technological success of the empire’s bureaucracy,
which developed sophisticated forms of record keeping (quipu), terrace cultivation
(waru waru), and monumental engineering (carpa nan).
1438 1463 1493
Inca Engineering: Machu Picchu and the Carpa Nan
Continuities and Diversity