Before there were “gringos”

The Pre-encounter Western Hemisphere, 20,000 B. C. E.-1492

What we think we know

• Beringian Hypothesis

• By 12,000 B. C. E., “human beings” inhabited the whole span of the Western Hemisphere

• Archaeological Studies cast doubt on single wave of migration

Olmecs

• Central Valley of Mexico 100 b. c. e-500 c. e.

• elaborate urban architecture (Tehotihuancan)

Tehotihuacan: The "Camino de los Muertos" from the

Pyramid of the Sun

Mayas

• Yucutan and Belize 500 –950

• great science and math, urban centers

What happened to the Maya?

• Theories:

• ecological devastations

• internal social and political unrest

• external invasion

Maya Solar Calendar

Agricultural Foundations for Human Civilization in the

Americas

Olmecs and Mayas were farmers. Between 5000 B. C. E. and 2500 B. C. E., cultivation of corn was developed.

Mexica (Aztec)

• Empire flourished from about 1325-1520

• Vast political, trade, and tribute network

• capital city was Tenochtitlan

• conquered by Cortes.

Mexica Empire

Artist’s rendering of Tenochtitlan

Quechua Empire (Inca)

• extended through Ecuador, Peru, and Chile• flourished from about 1200 to 1533• conquered by Juan Pizarro.• The ruler, the Inca, had great power and kept

his empire together through a network of roads over which messengers ran carrying instructions/accounting “written” in the form of knotted ropes.

Quechua Empire

Machu Picchu, major temple and administration center

Human Beings al Norté

• Pueblo-Hohokam

• Adena-Hopewell

• Mississippian

Southwest Peoples• Book to read: Stephen Plog, Ancient Peoples of the

Southwest

• Slow to develop agriculture

• Major cultural flowerings:

• HOHOKAM—Southern Arizona 1000 B. C. E.- 1100—Ball Courts, feathers

• MOGOLLAN—Southern New Mexico 1000 B. C. E.-1000 —Pit Houses and Pottery

• ANASAZI (now properly called Ancestral Puebloans)—1000 B. C. E. –1300—Northern New Mexico and Arizona—large villages and cliff dwellings, good roads.

Pueblo Bonito—Chaco Canyon, New Mexico

Cliff Palace, Mesa Verde, Colorado

ADENA-HOPEWELL

• Mississippi and Ohio River Valleys 1000 B. C. E.-800 A. D.

• Burial Mounds

• Trade Goods

Adena Hopewell Village—computer enhanced

image by scholars at the University of Cincinnati

MISSISSIPPIAN

• Flourished 900-1550

• Lower Mississippi Valley

• great moundbuilders

Emerald Mound in Mississippi 3.5 football fields long

Other Peoples• GREAT PLAINS—1500 B. C. E. – Present—hunters, gatherers,

transhumance, bows and arrows—got horse in 1600.• GREAT BASIN—1500 B. C. E.-Present—hunters, gatherers,

horticulturalists—UTES (NYUUTSIYU)• ARTIC/SUBARTIC—5000 B. C. E.-Present—good boats, whale

hunters.• PACIFIC NORTHWEST—5000 B. C. E.-Present—good fishers,

hunters of whales, netters of fish. (Tlingits)• MUSKOGEAN—1500 present—Southeast—moundbuilders and

farmers (Natchez, Chickasaw, Choctaw)• IROQUOIS—1400 present—New York—longhouses—Senecas,

Cayugas, Onondogas, Oneidas, Mohawks.• ALGONQUIAN—1200 present—agriculture, hunting, gathering,

fishing.• CARIBBEAN—1000-1500—fishers, canoe borne commerce

(ARAWAKS—Columbus encountered these)

Misc.

• In 1492, TOTAL INDIAN POPULATION—57 million to 112 million

• How do we know about these “lost peoples/” Archaeology—clovis/folsom hypothesis. Kennewick Man—was he a Caucasoid ecotumor? Oral History.