8.1

Question 1

Meso-America

Answer 1

Mesoamerica was a region and cultural area in the Americas, extending approximately from central Mexico to Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica, within which pre-Columbian societies flourished before the Spanish colonization of the Americas in the 15th and 16th centuries.

Question 2

Glyph

Answer 2

A hieroglyphic character or symbol; a pictograph.

Question 3

Olmec

Answer 3

The Olmecs were the first major civilization in Guatemala and Mexico following a progressive development in Soconusco and modern southwestern pacific lowlands of Guatemala.

Question 4

Aztec

Answer 4

The Aztec people were certain ethnic groups of central Mexico, particularly those groups who spoke the Nahuatl language and who dominated large parts of Mesoamerica from the 14th to 16th centuries.

Question 5

Hernan Cortes

Answer 5

Hernán Cortés de Monroy y Pizarro Altamirano, Marquis of the Valley of Oaxaca (Spanish, 1485 – December 2, 1547) was a Spanish Conquistador who led an expedition that caused the fall of the Aztec Empire and brought large portions of mainland Mexico under the rule of the King of Castile in the early 16th century. Cortés was part of the generation of Spanish colonizers who began the first phase of the Spanish colonization of the Americas.

Question 6

Montezuma

Answer 6

Moctezuma II (1466 – 29 June 1520), variant spellings include Montezuma, Moteuczoma, Motecuhzoma and referred to in full by early Nahuatl texts as Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin (Moctezuma the Young),[N.B. was the ninth tlatoani or ruler of Tenochtitlan, reigning from 1502 to 1520. The first contact between indigenous civilizations of Mesoamerica and Europeans took place during his reign, and he was killed during the initial stages of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, when conquistador Hernán Cortés and his men fought to escape from the Aztec capital Tenochtitlan