Chapter 11 - Peoples & Civilizations of the Americas

      The Maya, a people of Guatemala, Honduras, Belize and southern Mexico, took the area over after the fall of the civilization at Teotihuacan. The people there had practiced human sacrifice and built huge pyramids to their gods. The Maya were never a formal state, but they used their power to increase their territory in the Americas. The Maya used slash-and-burn agriculture and "floating fields" on lakes to produce enough food to feed those in their city-states. They decorated a lot of their buildings, some with stories or legends and some with their calendar, which was a brilliant system for the time. They invented a writing system, the concept of zero, and a solar & lunar calendar. The Maya's power declined due to a struggle for resources and wars that were taking place, and many of their cities were left abandoned.
     In c. 900, the Toltec people used military might to create an empire with its capitol at Tula. Their influence spread across Mexico, but they were soon surpassed by the Aztec.
     The Aztecs (Mexica) had the center of their civilization at Tenochtitlan, an island in Lake Texcoco. The Aztecs were a warlike people whose religion demanded that their main god, Huitzilopotchli, be continuously fed human hearts on altars. Despite their sacrificing, they still managed to form connections through trade (some of it was done through forced labor). Women were allowed some roles of power in Aztec culture - they could serve as shamans and rulers (ruling was rare).
     In North America, irrigation practices learned from Mesoamericans and cultivation of corn stimulated the development of the Hohokam and Anasazi. The Anasazi, the more notable of the two, centered their empire in the "Four Corners" states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Arizona). In Chaco Canyon, they built entire cities with parts of them extending underground.
     The Hopewell (Ohio River chiefdoms) developed because of trade with the Anasazi and Hohokam. They developed their own religious practices and came to build religious mounds all over the Southwest. The Hopewell culture was continued by the Mississippians, who were based in Cahokia (near Saint Louis). Changes in the environment undermined the Anasazi and the Mississippians, leading to their demise.
     The Andes (we're back in South America now!) have varying climates - they have arid coastlines, cold highlands, and dense tropical forests. The cultures developed there based themselves on ayllus (family groups) and mit'as (rotating labor draft systems). From these people, the Moche civilization began in Peru. They had a strong military, good trade connections, and their own religion. The Tiwanaku and Wari peoples used their military power to take over the Moche empire and extended it to Bolivia.
     The Inca developed from a mixture of these peoples, and were able to take over because of their military capability. They used roads, irrigation and terracing to provide their empire with materials, but were weakened by civil wars. These civil wars occurred just as Europeans (mainly Spanish) were arriving, making conquering easier.