Early Americas
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66 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 Empire stretches from central Mexico to south to the northern part of Central America | Maya |
| Lived in hot, dense tropical rainforests | Maya |
| Grew a variety of crops including squash, beans, avocados, and maize(corn) | Maya |
| Hunted deer, rabbits, and monkeys | Maya |
| Small cities eventually turned in t small city-states | Maya |
| Reached its height between AD 250 and 900 | Maya |
| Empire included more than 40 large cities | Maya |
| Trade helped hold civilization together | Maya |
| Each city-state had its own king and government | Maya |
| Cit of Palenque - King was Pacal | Maya |
| Held highest position in society | Maya |
| Priests, merchants, and novels were also part of the upper class | Maya |
| Most people in this empire belonged to the lower class | Maya |
| Worshipped many gods | Maya |
| On special occasions, made human sacrifices for the gods | Maya |
| Built observatories to study the stars | Maya |
| Made 2 calendars | Maya |
| Cane up with a symbol for the number zero | Maya |
| Skilled mathmeticians | Maya |
| Developed a complex writing system similar to hieroglyphics | Maya |
| Wrote in bark paper books | Maya |
| Civilization began to collapse in the AD 900s | Maya |
| Decline of civilization was unknown but was thought to decline because of natural disasters | Maya |
| Were farmers | Aztec |
| Settled on a swampy island in the middle of Lake Texcoco | Aztec |
| By the 1400s they ruled the met power in Mesoamerica | Aztec |
| Had causeways-raised roads across water or wet ground | Aztec |
| The main city was Tenochtitlan | Aztec |
| Built canals | Aztec |
| Created floating gardens called chinampas because of limited farming land on their island | Aztec |
| Emperor and nobles had the highest position | Aztec |
| Warriors and priests were under the nobles and emperor | Aztec |
| Under the warriors and priests were the merchants and artisans | Aztec |
| The lowest level under the warriors and priests were the farmers and laborers who made up most of the population | Aztec |
| Believed in many gods | Aztec |
| Priests regularly made human sacrifices to please the gods | Aztec |
| Studied astronomy and devised a calendar much like the Mayas | Aztec |
| Conquered by Cortes | Aztec |
| Emperor was Moctezuma II | Aztec |
| Moctezuma II though Cortez was the God who promised to return in 1519 win the Spanish conquistadors and Cortez arrived | Aztec |
| In1521 they surrendered | Aztec |
| Empire arose in South America | Inca |
| Began a small tribe in the Andes | Inca |
| Capital was Cuzco in what is now Peru | Inca |
| In the mid-1400s a ruler named Pachacuti expanded the empire | Inca |
| Empire stretched from modern Equador to Central Chile | Inca |
| Official language was Quechua | Inca |
| People paid taxes in a form of labor rather than money. The labor tax system was called the mita | Inca |
| No merchants or markets | Inca |
| Common people had little personal freedom | Inca |
| Society had two main social classes, the emperor, priests and government made up the upper class while the farmers, artisan, and servant made up the lover class | Inca |
| There were o slaves because they did not practice slavery | Inca |
| Grew maize and peanuts | Inca |
| Carved terraces into the hillside to farm | Inca |
| Raised llamas for meat and wool | Inca |
| Cerimonies often included human sacrafices | Inca |
| Great builders known for their masonry | Inca |
| Built a network of roads while two main highways ran throughout the whole city connecting all of the roads | Inca |
| Made some of the finest textiles | Inca |
| Had no writing system so they kept records with knotted cords called quipus | Inca |
| Conquered by Pizarro | Inca |
| Civil war began in the 1520s after the death of a ruler | Pizarro's conquering |
| the ruler had two sons, Athaualpa and Huscar | Pizarro's conquering |
| Athaualupa won the war in 1532 | Pizarro's conquering |
| Whwn Athaualupa was getting crowned king, about 180 of Pizarro's soldiers defeated them | Pizarro's conquering |
| In 1537 Pizarro defeated the last of the empire | Inca |
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