Chapter 1

Question 0

Bering land bridge

Answer 0

Link between Northeast Asia and far Northwest North America during late Ice Age (Siberia and Alaska). Later migrants used this to reach the Americas.

Question 1

Monte Verde, Chile

Answer 1

Site of human habitation by 12,000 B.C.E.

Question 2

Paleo-Indians

Answer 2

Earliest peoples of the Americas, 13,000–8000 B.C.E.

They lived in small bands of fifteen to fifty people. The band lived together for the summer but split into smaller groups of one or two families for fall and winter. Although they moved constantly, they remained within informal boundaries except when they traveled to favored quarries to obtain jasper or flint for making tools. Here they encountered other bands, with whom they traded and joined in religious ceremonies.

Question 3

reciprocity

Answer 3

Mutual bestowing of gifts and favors rather than competition for resources

Paleo-Indians practiced this

Question 4

Archaic peoples

Answer 4

Native Americans from 8000–2500 B.C.E.

They lived off a wide variety of small mammals, fish, and wild plants rather than big game. Greater efficiency in hunting and gathering permitted larger populations to inhabit smaller areas. In rich areas, such as the East and Midwest, large populations lived in villages for virtually the entire year.

Question 5

Mesoamerica

Answer 5

Roughly, land extending from modern Mexico to Colombia; Central America plus Mexico.

The most sophisticated of these early farmers lived in highland valleys in Mesoamerica,particularly Tehuacán. By 3000 B.C.E. they were cultivating squash, gourds, beans, chili peppers, and fruits. At the same time Tehuacán farmers began the long process of domesticating a lowlands plant called teosinte, which ultimately became maize ( maze ), or corn. Maize agriculture spread rapidly; by 2500 B.C.E. maize was cultivated as far north as modern New Mexico and as far south as the Amazon basin.

Question 6

What were the principal differences among the Native American cultures that emerged after 2500 B.C.E.?

Answer 6

After 2500 B.C.E. many Native Americans moved far beyond the ways of their Archaic ancestors. The most far-reaching changes occurred among peoples whose environments permitted them to produce food surpluses by cultivating crops or by other means. Intensive farming radically changed the environment, and larger populations linked by trade and religion evolved into formal confederacies, and even hierarchical states joined by political and religious systems.

Question 7

By 2000 B.C.E. what changes did Mesoamerican farmers undertake?

Answer 7

Mesoamerican farmers rapidly developed sophisticated agricultural systems, improving both the quality and the quantity of their crops. In turn, the higher yields and improved nutrition led to the emergence of maize-based farming societies throughout Mesoamerica during the next eight centuries.
Some Mesoamerican farming societies were trading surplus crops to their nonfarming neighbors. Trade led to the development of wealthy and powerful urban centers that dominated surrounding communities.

Question 8

Teotihuacán

Answer 8

Was the capital of the largest early state, and was about fifty miles northeast of modern Mexico City, housed a population of one hundred thousand people.

Question 9

Teotihuacán during 100 to 700 C.E.

Answer 9

Dominated the Valley of Mexico, with trade networks ex-tending throughout modern Mexico; its influence on the religion, government, and culture of its neighbors was enormous.

Question 10

Sun Pyramid

Answer 10

Located in Teotihuacán, it was the largest structure in the Americas prior to the arrival of the Spanish.

Question 11

What happened once Teotihuacán started to decline?

Answer 11

The Mayans rose.
They lived in kingdom-states that flourished from southern Mexico to Honduras.
The Maya developed a highly accurate calendar; a numerical system; and a system of phonetic, hieroglyphic writing. Mayan codices (singular, codex)—formed from bark paper glued into long folded strips—recorded reli-gious ceremonies, historical traditions, and astronomical observations.

Question 12

In the fifteenth century what two powerful empires emerged?

Answer 12

1428 - The Aztecs of Mexico

1438 - The Incas of Peru

Question 13

Tenochtitlán

Answer 13

The Aztec capital, at its peak had some two hundred thousand inhabitants. At the center of the city was a massive temple complex.

Question 14

Describe the Aztecs

Answer 14

After 1450 the Aztecs were practicing human sacrifice for their gods. They borrowed freely from other Mesoamerican societies, such as writing from Teotihuacán and the calendar from the Mayans.

The Aztecs developed intensive agriculture based on artificially created islands anchored in Lake Texcoco.
Aztec engineers developed an elaborate irrigation system to provide fresh water for both people and crops.

The Aztecs collected taxes from conquered peoples living within a hundred miles of the capital.

Question 15

Describe the Incas

Answer 15

The Inca were highly successful farmers, producing enormous quantities of potatoes, maize, beans, and meats.
They constructed terraced irrigation systems on their un-even terrain, perfected freeze-drying and other preservation techniques, and built a vast network of roads and bridges.

Question 16

Who were the Hohokam people?

Answer 16

Early agricultural society of Southwest

Emerged during third century B.C.E.

The Hohokam people built elaborate canal sys-tems for irrigation that enabled them to harvest two crops each year. The construc-tion and maintenance of the canals demanded large, coordinated workforces. The Hohokams therefore built permanent villages of several hundred residents, and many such communities were joined in confederations linked by canals

The Hohokam way of life drew on Mesoamerican materials and ideas. From about the sixth century C.E., the larger Hohokam villages had ball courts and plat-form mounds like those in Mesoamerica, and ball games became major public events.

Question 17

Describe the Anasazis

Answer 17

Pueblo culture that dominated Southwest from 100 B.C.E.–1200 C.E.

Anasazi culture originated during the first century B.C.E. in the Four Corners area where Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah meet. Although they adopted village life and agriculture late, the Anasazis expanded rapidly in the eighth century C.E. and came to dominate a wide area. Modern Pueblo Indians are descendants of the Anasazi.

From the tenth through the mid-twelfth century, an unusually wet period, the Anasazis expanded over much of today’s New Mexico and Arizona. Village popula-tions grew to a thousand or more. In Chaco( CHAH-ko ) Canyonin northwestern New Mexico, a cluster of twelve villages forged a powerful confederation numbering fifteen thousand people. Perfectly straight roads radiated from the canyon to satel-lite pueblos up to sixty-five miles away. The builders carved out stairs or footholds in the sides of steep cliffs. The canyon was a major trade center, importing and ex-porting a wide range of materials from and to Mesoamerica, the Great Plains, the Mississippi Valley, and California.

Question 18

Kivas

Answer 18

A large chamber, often wholly or partially under-ground, in an Anasazi and later a Pueblo Indian village; used for religious ceremonies and other purposes

Question 19

Chaco Canyon

Answer 19

Center of powerful Anasazi confederation, 900–1200 C.E.

Question 20

The Anasazi culture was destroyed by what?

Answer 20

Devastating droughts in the late twelfth and thirteenth centuries

Suddenly, the amount of farmland was drastically reduced for a population that had grown rapidly during the preceding centuries. The Indians abandoned the great Anasazi centers and scattered.

Question 21

mound-building culture

Answer 21

Eastern Woodlands societies, which flourished from 1200 B.C.E.–1400 C.E.; included Poverty Point, Adena, Hopewell, and Mississippian

Question 22

Hopewell culture

Answer 22

During the first century B.C.E., Adena culture evolved into a more developed and widespread culture known as Hopewell.

Hopewell ceremonial centers, which were larger and more elaborate than those of the Adena, mushroomed along the Ohio River and Illinois River valleys. Some centers contained two or three dozen mounds within enclosures of several square miles. The graves of the elite contained elaborate burial goods: freshwater pearls, copper ornaments, mica, quartz, and other sacred substances.

Hopewell artisans used raw materials from throughout America east of the Rockies. Through trade networks the Hopewell influence spread to communities as distant as places in modern-day Wisconsin, Florida, and New York.

The people who created the sophisticated Hopewell culture were primarily hunter-gatherers, not farmers. Although they did grow some crops, agriculture became a dietary mainstay for Woodlands people only between the seventh and twelfth centuries C.E

Question 23

First full-time farmers of the East

Answer 23

The Mississippians, who lived on the flood plains of the Mississippi River and its major tributaries.

Their culture, beginning sometime around 700 C.E., blended elements of the Hopewell culture and ideas from Mesoamerica with their own traditions.

Mississippian towns, containing hun-dreds or even thousands of people, were built around open plazas like those of cen-tral Mexico. Religious temples and elite residences stood atop large mounds next to the plazas. Religious ceremonies focused on worship of the sun as the source of agricultural fertility. Chiefs claimed to be related to the sun, and when they died, wives and servants were killed to accompany them to the afterlife.

Question 24

Cahokia

Answer 24

Major mound- building “supercenter,” which existed from 900–1200 C.E.

By the tenth century most Mississippian centers were part of larger confederacies based on trade and shared religious beliefs. Powerful “supercenters” and their chiefs dominated these confederacies. The most powerful confederacy revolved around the magnificent city of Cahokia

Question 25

After 1200 C.E. Cahokia experienced what?

Answer 25

Shortages of food and other resources.

Competition for suddenly scarce resources led to warfare, and survivors fled to the surrounding prairies.

By the fifteenth century, their descendants lived in villages linked by reciprocity instead of coercion.

Question 26

Non-farming societies flourished where?

Answer 26

Along the Pacific coast, from Alaska to southern California

Question 27

The first verified contacts between Europe and America

Answer 27

Came when the Norsecolonized Greenland in the 980s.

The Norse traded with the Aleuts for furs and walrus ivory.

In 1001 Leif Ericson led a group of Norse who planted a small settlement in Vinland,now known as Newfoundland.

However, the Norse quickly settled into a pattern of hostility with local Indians. By 1015 the Norse had abandoned their Vinland settle ment, although the Greenland settlements endured almost until the end of the fifteenth century; Europeans would later reap, at the expense of the native peoples, the fruits of a “new world.”

Question 28

What common values did Native Americans share despite their vast diversity?

Answer 28

Kinship, reciprocity, and communal control of resources lay at the base of Indian societies, while trade ensured that the bow and arrow, ceramic pottery, and certain religious practices existed in almost all Indian societies.

Question 29

Nuclear families

Answer 29

Married couples and their children

Kinship bonds were more important in Indian society than the bonds within nuclear families

Question 30

Norse

Answer 30

Also known as Vikings, a warrior culture from Scandinavia

Question 31

Vinland

Answer 31

Site of first known attempt at European settlement in the Americas

In 1001 Leif Ericson led a group of Norse who planted a small settlement in Vinland,now known as Newfoundland.

Question 32

Extended families

Answer 32

Families that consist of several generations living together

Question 33

Which Native American society believed extended families of women took precedence over those of men?

Answer 33

Iroquois

Question 34

Women’s role in cultivating

Answer 34

Among almost all agricultural Indians except those in the Southwest (where men and women shared the work), women did most of the cultivating.

With women producing most of the food supply, some communities gave women more power than European societies did.

Among the Iroquois of what today is upstate New York, for example, women collectively owned the fields, distributed food, and played a major role in selecting chiefs. In New England, women often served as sachems,or chiefs.

Question 35

Manitou

Answer 35

Powerful spiritual force that Algonquian-speaking Indians believed pervaded all of nature; other Native American languages had comparable terms

Question 36

How did environmental change shape the transition from Paleo-Indian to Archaic ways of life?

Answer 36

Ancestors of most Native Americans reached North America from around 33,000 to 10,500 B.C.E., during an Ice Age when Asia and North America were di-rectly connected. Warming weather facilitated the spread of these Paleo-Indians and granted them access to a wide range of food sources that could support large populations. Climate change also contributed to the extinction of many of the large animals that might have threatened early Americans.

Question 37

What were the principal differences among the Native American cultures that emerged after 2500 B.C.E.?

Answer 37

From 2500 B.C.E. to 1500 C.E. diverse Native American societies based on agriculture proliferated and adapted to widely varying environments.

Among the most prominent were the centralized Mesoamerican societies, such as the Maya and the Aztec; the Inca of the Peruvian Andes; the Pueblo societies of what is now the southwestern United States; and the Eastern Woodlands mound builders of Hopewell, Adena, and Cahokia. Nonfarming societies like those of the Pacific Northwest also prospered. The vast grasslands of the Great Plains were home to nomadic hunters dependent on the great buffalo herds.

Question 38

What common values did Native Americans share despite their vast diversity?

Answer 38

Despite their diversity, the majority of these societies shared several common characteristics. In most, kinship played a critical social and political role, with extended families assuming greater importance than nuclear families.

Gender also played a major role in organizing most societies, with women doing the farming and men primarily hunting. Indians believed that nature was spiritual as well as physical and sought to live in accord with the supernatural. Most people sought orderly societies and relied on reciprocity to maintain stability. Native Americans never saw themselves as a single people. It was Europeans who emphasized differences between themselves and the Indians, a name bestowed by Christopher Columbus, who thought he had landed in the Indies. This new America, in which people were categorized according to continental ancestry, was radically different from the one that flourished for thousands of years before 1492.