HS Workshop Day One, Session 4 MIDDLE SCHOOL REVISION II The Americas the Western Hemisphere in Eras

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HS Workshop Day One, Session 4MIDDLE SCHOOL
REVISION II The Americas (the Western
Hemisphere) in Eras 2, 3 and 4
Whats different about the history of the W.
Hemisphere?
How and when did agrarian civilizations appear in
the Americas?
Can we explain the differences between different
world zones?
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Middle School Revision II and Intro to HS Era 4
(Western Hemisphere)

• What are the essential aspects of the MS CEs that
  you want to revise with students before embarking
  upon Era 4?
• the big changes that occurred in the Western
  Hemisphere between c. 4000 BCE and 300 CE (but
  really to 1500 CE)
• how these played out at the inter-regional level
• enough local examples to give substance to the
  big picture
• In particular you need to concentrate on Eras 2
  and 3
• WHG Era 2 Early Civilizations and Cultures and
  the Emergence of Pastoral Peoples (4000-1000 BCE)
• WHG Era 3 (and Era 4) Classical Traditions,
  World Religions, and Major Empires (1000 BCE
  300/1500 CE)

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Three main World Zones Pacific Zone from
c. 1,000 BCE
History took a different trajectory in each zone
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Questions about the place of the Americas in
World History

• How do the histories of the different world zones
  differ?
• How is the history of the American world zone
• Similar to and
• Different from
• The histories of the Australasian and Pacific
  zones?
• The history of the Afro-Eurasian zone?
• What can these differences and similarities tell
  us about human history in general?

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Comparing the American, Australasian Pacific
Zones Similarities and Differences

• Settlement Dates
• Australasia, from c. 60,000 years ago
• Americas, from c. 13,000 years ago
• Pacific
• Melanesia from c. 30,000 years ago
• Polynesia from c. 3,000 years ago

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The Americas, Australasia the Pacific

• Historical Evolution
• Australasian World Zone
• Agriculture only in Papua New Guinea?
• No agrarian Civilizations
• Pacific World Zone
• Agriculture in many Pacific communities
• Powerful chiefdoms in some of them (Tonga,
  Hawaii) by 1,000 years ago
• Americas
• Agriculture from c. 4,000 years ago
• Powerful chiefdoms from c. 3,500 years ago
• Agrarian Civilizations from c. 2,000 years ago

Moorea
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The Americas, Australasia the Pacific

• Summary
• The American world zone was
• Larger
• More populous
• Evolved larger communities
• Evolved more productive technologies than the
  Australasian and Pacific world zones
• How do the Americas compare with the
  Afro-Eurasian world zone?

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Comparing the American and Afro-Eurasian world
zones

• 4 Major Differences
• The Americas are settled later
• The geographies are different
• Agriculture appears later in the Americas
• Agrarian Civilizations appear later

www.rootsweb.com/akahgp/ Social/beringia.htm
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The 1st Difference Later Settlement
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Early Migrations to the Americas
Humans may have arrived earlier, but they
certainly reached the Americas by 13,000 years
ago, traveling either by sea, along the W. Coast,
or inland between the great ice sheets
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American History Started Later

• Humans arrived with technologies adapted for the
  north and north east of Eurasia
• The Americas were a new land
• The first Americans had to learn new techniques
• They had to become familiar with new animals and
  plants
• American animals and plants had to adapt to the
  presence of humans

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The 2nd Difference Geographical Orientation
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Traveling south through the Americas meant
adapting to many different environments

• The Biologist, Jared Diamond, has pointed out
  that
• Migrating east through Afro-Eurasia was fairly
  easy
• Climates and environments did not change too much
• So it was easier to adapt familiar technologies
• Migrating south through the Americas was tougher
• Climates and environments changed as you moved
  towards and away from the equator
• Still, humans migrated all the way in c. 2,000
  years (a sign of the increasing adaptability of
  humans by 13,000 years ago)
• But exchanging technological ideas was tougher

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N. America Climates
Traveling E-W you encounter less climatic variety
Traveling N-S you pass through many different
climate zones
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S. Americas Climates
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The 3rd Difference Agriculture appears later
Phase 3 after 4,000 BCE
Phase 2 7,000-4,000 BCE
Phase 1 9,000-7,000 BCE
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Major American Domesticates?

• How many could you have named?
• Tomatoes
• Potatoes
• Chili
• Beans
• Squash
• Quinoa
• Alpaca/llamas
• Guinea pigs

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Why does agriculture appear later in the Americas?

• Possible answers
• Species were different-
• Many American plants were harder to domesticate
• Many potential animal domesticates were driven to
  extinction
• Humans arrived later-
• So they took longer to learn how to use American
  plants and animals
• Problems of overpopulation emerged later

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Maize was less pre-adapted for domestication
than wheat
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Extinct N. American megafauna
included potential domesticates
Horses evolved in the Americas, but were hunted
to extinction there.
Many species of camelids evolved in the Americas,
such as this guanaco. Some survived.
Species of elephants, including mastodon and
mammoth, were hunted to extinction.
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4th Difference Agrarian Civilizations arrived
later in the Americas
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Agrarian Civilizations in the Americas Chronology

• c. 1500 BCE
• towns, powerful chiefdoms amongst Olmec,
  Mesoamerica
• 500 BCE
• cities and small states, Mesoamerica (e.g. Monte
  Alban)
• 500 CE
• large states (e.g. Teotihuacan, Mayan regions)
• 1500 CE
• large empires (Aztecs, Incas)

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Afro-Eurasian American agrarian civilizations
shared much, even though there was no contact
between them

• They were based on agriculture
• There was an elaborate division of labor, with
  specialist artisans, traders and warriors
• They built monumental architecture devoted to the
  gods
• They engaged in warfare
• They had powerful and wealthy leaders
• They had large cities
• They had taxation and writing

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The Olmecs

• By 1200 BCE, along the southern Gulf Coast of
  modern-day Mexico, Olmec society was wealthy and
  organized enough to construct sophisticated
  drainage systems and royal burial structures at a
  number of sites
• By 400 BCE Olmec culture had declined, but the
  cultural developments they facilitated in the
  region culminated in a Mesoamerican golden age
• Best known of the successors to the Olmecs were
  the Mayas, but equally impressive were the
  achievements of the society that constructed
  Monte Alban, and Teotihuacan, one of the most
  remarkable cities in world history

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Monte Alban Site

• Monte Albán is a large
• pre-Columbian archaeological
• site in the southern Mexican
• state of Oaxaca
• Located on a low mountainous range rising above
  the plain in the central section of the Valley of
  Oaxaca where the valley's northern , eastern, and
  southern branches meet
• Founded around 500 BCE, Monte Albán was the
  capital of a large-scale expansionist culture
  that dominated much of the Oaxacan highlands and
  interacted with other Mesoamerican regional
  states such as Teotihuacan to the north

Pyramid Temple at Monte Alban
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Remains of the main square, Monte Alban
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Teotihuacan (Temple of the Sun) flourished c.
200-600 CE
At its height, 200,000 people may have lived in
Teotihuacan. It traded over a large area of
Mesoamerica
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Regions of Mayan Civilization
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Tikal

• By start of 6th C CE, Tikal had become the
  leading Mayan center, and from roughly 600 to 800
  CE it had a population of 40,000 people
• City dominated a surrounding hinterland that may
  have included half a million people
• Public architecture of the city was monumental in
  scale, and included the 154-feet high,
  steeply-stepped Temple of the Giant Jaguar

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Tikal, Guatemala, c. 200 CE
Like all monumental architecture, these pyramids
almost certainly had deep religious significance
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Chichen Itza in Mayan Yucatan, built c. 1050 CE
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Chichen Itza flourished after other Mayan centers
had collapsed
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A reconstruction of Mayan monumental architecture
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Warfare was an important aspect of Mayan
civilization
Bonampak frescoes, c. 792 CE. Battle scene above
Mayan warriors guard prisoners of war (r)
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Mayan writing, from the Madrid codex, c. 1500
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Mayan and Aztec calendars were amongst the most
accurate in the world
Aztec Calendar Stone
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The Aztec Empire
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Ancestors of the Aztecs

• As the last Maya stronghold of Chichen Itza
  continued to flourish in the eastern Yucatan, a
  new group of migrants who called themselves the
  Mexica began to appear in Central Mexico in the
  mid eleventh century
• Quickly gained a reputation for poor behavior
  with the agrarian occupants of the region because
  of their habit of seizing land and women
• They were kept on the move for over
• a century and forced to eke out a
• precarious existence
• Eventually they settled on an
• unoccupied island in the marshy
• waters of Lake Texcoco and
• founded a city that went on
• become the great capital of the
• Aztec Empire, Tenochtitlan

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• Lake provided the Mexica with abundant supplies
  of fish and waterfowl, and it allowed creative
  farmers to devise the unique chinampas
  agricultural technique

This involved dredging rich soil from the lake
and spreading it on floating farm plots that
were anchored in the lake
Chinampas Agriculture
The crops grew well, resources were plentiful,
and the lake also provided a natural defense for
the city
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Tenochtitlan
matthoffmanblog.blogspot.com/2007/09/aztec-te...

• As their society flourished, the Mexica embarked
  upon more and more ambitious engineering
  projects
• constructing a dam to control lake levels
• building causeways to connect their island-city
  to the mainland
• and beautifying Tenochtitlan with broad avenues,
  canals, temples and other monuments
• all of this testimony to the increasing power of
  their leaders

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Cities 16th century map of Mexico city/
Tenochtitlan
2 Million people lived here in 1500
Causeways across the lake
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Tenochtitlan in 1500

• By the early 1500s, tribute from nearly 500
  different subject states was flowing into
  Tenochtitlan, making it one of the great cities
  of Planet Earth

By the time the astonished Spanish conquistadores
arrived, the Mexica capital was home to 200,000
people, and was resplendent with magnificent
public buildings and a rich commercial market
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Reconstruction of the pyramids of Tenochtitlan
When we saw all those cities and villages built
in the water, and other great towns on dry land,
and that straight and level causeway leading to
Tenochtitlan, we were astounded. These great
towns and buildings rising from the water, all
made of stone, seemed like an enchanted vision
from the tale of Amadis. Indeed, some of our
soldiers asked whether it was not all a dream.
It was all so wonderful that I do not know how to
describe this first glimpse of things never heard
of, seen or dreamed of before. From the
memoirs of Bernal Diaz, a soldier with Cortes
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The Empire

• Kings exercised almost unlimited power as head of
  the army, ruler of the state, and chief priest of
  the Mexica religion
• After conquering and colonizing Oaxaca in
  southwest Mexico, the Mexica and their allies
  expanded towards the Gulf Coast
• Eventually Aztecs established hegemony over an
  estimated 21 million people and a substantial
  region of Mesoamerica

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Aztec Writing
An Aztec codex, showing the gods, Tezcalipoca
(right) and Qetzalcoatl (in the form of a green
serpent)
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A division of labor
Aztec carving of the god, Quetzalcoatl Profession
al artisans made exquisite art objects
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South American Empire Ancestors of the Incas

• Name Inca originally the title of rulers of a
  small kingdom that occupied the Cuzco Valley
  around 1200 CE, but today it is used to more
  widely describe all subjects of the Incan Empire
• After migrating through the Andean highlands, the
  Inca people settled on the shores of Lake
  Titicaca by the mid-13th C
• In a parallel to the contemporary Aztec state,
  the creation of the Incan Empire was a
• product of vigorous and
• successful leadership, and its
• maintenance the result of
• effective imperial
• administration

www.bbc.co.uk/leicester/content
Shores of Lake Titicaca Today
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Constructing the Incan Empire

• First significant Inca ruler was Viracocha (d.
  1438) who transformed the Incan military into a
  formidable force, and instituted the idea that
  the king was divine
• His son Pachacuti (r. 1438-1471), one of the most
  powerful rulers in the history of the early
  Americas, conducted a series of expansionary
  military campaigns
• After conquering mountainous valleys to the north
  and south of the Inca heartland, Pachacuti began
  the annexation of the coastal kingdom of the
  Chimu
• The process was completed by his son Topa
  Yupanqui (1471-1493), who also extended the
  empire south into Chile

techfixers.org/historydayproject.aspx
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The Inca Empire

• Yupanquis successors continued the expansion
• By the end of the 15th century the Incan Empire
  stretched 4000 kilometers from Quito in the north
  to Santiago in the south, and included all of
  Peru, much of Ecuador and Bolivia, and portions
  of Chile and Argentina
• The Incan realm may have been home to 12 million
  people

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Incan agriculture required elaborate systems of
terracing
Incan foods included a dozen root crops, 3
grains, 3 legumes and more than a dozen fruits.
These plants are still grown and sold in markets
in the Andes by rural, Indian peasants Several
of these crops were introduced to the rest of the
world potatoes, lima beans, peppers, and
tomatoes.
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Ruins of Cuzco

• Bureaucracy based in the Incan capital of Cuzco,
  which may have had a population of up to 300,000
  at the height of the empire. Here the Incan
  rulers, nobility, high priests, and noble
  hostages of conquered people dwelt in a beautiful
  city of red stone buildings and lavishly
  decorated palaces and temples.

Cuzco
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Machu Picchu
Bighams 1912 Photo of MP

• Inca site located 2,400 meters above sea level on
  a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley in
  Peru
• Built c. 1450 in classical Inca style, with
  polished dry-stone walls but abandoned a hundred
  years later, at the time of the Spanish conquests
• Forgotten for centuries, then brought to
  worldwide attention in 1911 by Hiram Bingham, an
  American historian
• Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1983
  also one of the New Seven Wonders of the World
• In Sept 2007, Peru and Yale University reached an
  agreement regarding the return of artifacts which
  Hiram Bingham had removed from Machu Picchu in
  the early 20th century
• Concerns about the impact of tourism on the site
  400,000 visitors in 2003

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Writing or Accounting?
The Inca did not have a system of writing, but
used knotted ropes, or quipu to record
important state information.
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With few domestic animals, most trade was carried
by porters along a vast system of state roads
Inca ceramic, 15th century
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Inca Roads

• Incan engineers excelled at building
  sophisticated canal systems and hydraulic works,
  and also constructed an extensive road system as
  an aid to imperial communication
• Two major roads stretched from north to south
  through the realm, one along the coast and the
  other following mountain paths
• Their quality and length (about 16,000
  kilometers) amazed the Spanish conquistadores
  when they arrived in the region in the early
  sixteenth century

Inca Road from Levanto to Chachapoyas
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As in all agrarian civilizations, Inca rulers
acquired fabulous wealth
Inca Sun Mask made of gold
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Anasazi dwellings, New Mexico
In North America there appeared smaller power
systems
The Anasazi of S.W. USA
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The Anasazi

• In the southwest the sophisticated Anasazi
  (Navajo for the ancient ones) controlled a
  large area from the Gulf of California to
  present-day Idaho
• Despite the harsh environment, the Anasazi
  achieved substantial harvest yields, storing
  excess produce in pottery vessels in warehouses
• From around 700 CE they began to live in
  multistory stone and adobe buildings at sites
  like Mesa Verde and Canyon de Chelly.

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Chaco Canyon, New Mexico an Anasazi ritual center
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Iroquois Longhouses with fortifications
Major Culture of the NE
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The Iroquois

• In the northeast, sedentary Iroquois peoples, who
  constituted a distinctive culture with a common
  language by 1000 CE, went on to create a
  substantial state based on a League of Five
  Nations
• Alliance used the longhouse as a metaphor of
  unity and division of responsibilities
• Mohawk, who controlled the Hudson River Valley,
  were known as the keepers of the eastern door
  while the Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga and Seneca
  were keepers of the western door
• Later alliance with the Tuscarora nation allowed
  the confederacy to gain control of a very large
  state indeed, stretching from the Great Lakes to
  the Atlantic

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Cahokia and the Mississippians

• In the Mississippi Valley,
• Mississippian peoples were
• successful farmers
• Their plentiful yields of crops
• including maize, beans and
• squash resulted in increased
• population densities, and the creation of a
  complex, stratified, sedentary society based at
  Cahokia
• Constructed over about two centuries (roughly
  800-1000 CE), the mound-city covered an area of
  about 4000 acres
• Over 120 mounds in the complex, the centerpiece
  being a pyramid known today as Monks Mound,
  which was over 100 feet high, covered an area of
  14 square acres, and contained an estimated 22
  million cubic feet of earth
• A massive building once stood on the summit,
  where the great chief lived, governed and
  conducted ceremonies

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Cahokia
In 1200 CE, 30-40,000 people lived near Cahokia
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The death of a Cahokian chiefAn eyewitness
account

• The French 16th century explorer, Le Page du
  Pratz,
• found himself in a rigidly stratified
  society, divided into nobles and commoners and
  headed by a chieftain known as the Great Sun, who
  lived in a village of nine houses and a temple
  built on the summit of an earthen mound. Pratz
  witnessed the funeral of the Great Sun. His
  wives, relatives, and servants were drugged, then
  clubbed to accompany him in death.

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Mississippi River from the top of Monks
Mound Craig B and Buster very hot day! Cahokia
Mounds
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Part 2 Main Similarities and Differences between
the American and Afro-Eurasian Zones

• How similar was the history of these two regions?
• What were the major differences?
• Can we explain these major differences?

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Similarities American Afro-Eurasian World Zones

• Though there were no significant contacts between
  the two world-zones
• Agriculture appeared in both zones
• Early power structures appeared in both zones
• Agrarian Civilizations appeared in both zones
• Agrarian Civilizations shared many features
• Monumental architecture
• Powerful leaders
• Armies
• Writing systems
• Networks of exchange appeared in both zones
• How can we explain these similarities even though
  there was no significant contact before 1492?

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Differences in 1500 How large were populations?

• In 1500, c. 40-60 million people lived in the
  Americas, mostly in Mesoamerica and Peru
• In 1500, over 400 million people lived in
  Afro-Eurasia
• c. 84 million lived in China
• c. 95 million in the Indian sub-continent
• c. 67 million in Europe
• c. 78 million in Africa south of the Sahara

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Differences in 1500 How powerful were states?

• The size of states is one way of measuring their
  power
• The Inca and Aztec Empires each controlled c. 2.2
  megameters in 1500. In contrast
• The Persian empire, in 500 BCE, controlled 5.5
  megameters
• The Roman empire controlled 4.0 megameters
• The early Islamic empires controlled 10.0
  megameters
• The Mongol empire controlled 25.00 megameters

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Differences in 1500 How large were exchange
networks?

• American Networks of Exchange were extensive
• Mesoamerican networks reached along the
  Mississippi river
• e.g. the adoption of maize growing from c. 1,000
  CE
• Limited contacts between the Andean and
  Mesoamerican regions
• Perhaps using large, ocean-going canoes
• But American networks were
• smaller, and
• much less varied than those of Afro-Eurasia
• Did the equator act as a barrier to
  communications (as it did in Africa?)

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Exchange Networks Americas c. 1500 CE
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For Comparison Eurasian Exchange Networks c.
1500 CE
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Why these differences mattered?

• Compared to the other world zones, the
  Afro-European zone was
• Larger,
• More interlinked,
• More technologically dynamic
• This is why, when the different zones collided
  after 1492, the societies of the Afro-Eurasian
  zone soon dominated the other zones!
• This is one of the critical themes of the HS
  course, and one of the most important questions
  in all world history!