meso america Flashcards
meso-america
1.
Anthropology, Archaeology. the area extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua in which diverse pre-Columbian civilizations flourished.
glyph
pictograph or hieroglyph.
olmec
designating a Mesoamerican civilization, c1000–400 b.c., along the southern Gulf coast of Mexico, characterized by extensive agriculture, a dating system, long-distance trade networks, pyramids and ceremonial centers, and very fine jade work.
aztec
a member of a Nahuatl-speaking state in central Mexico that was conquered by Cortés in 1521.
hernan cortes
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.
montezuma
c1470–1520, last Aztec emperor of Mexico 1502–20.
yucatan peninsula
The Yucatán Peninsula, in southeastern Mexico, separates the Caribbean Sea from the Gulf of Mexico, with the northern coastline on the Yucatán Channel.
chichenitza
ruins of an ancient Mayan city, in central Yucatán state, Mexico.
lake texcoco
ruins of an ancient Mayan city, in central Yucatán state, Mexico.
tikal
ancient Mayan city occupied c200 b.c. to a.d. 900, an important center of Mayan civilization, situated in Petén in the jungles of northern Guatemala and the site of significant archaeological discoveries in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
chinampa
Mesoamerica) a long and narrow floating field on a shallow lake bed, artificially built up by layering soil, sediment, and decaying vegetation and used, especially by the Aztecs, to grow crops.
quipu
Mesoamerica) a long and narrow floating field on a shallow lake bed, artificially built up by layering soil, sediment, and decaying vegetation and used, especially by the Aztecs, to grow crops.
chavin
relating to, or characteristic of a Peruvian culture flourishing from the 1st to the 6th century a.d.
inca
member of any of the dominant groups of South American Indian peoples who established an empire in Peru prior to the Spanish conquest.
andes
mountain range in W South America, extending about 4500 miles (7250 km) from N Colombia and Venezuela S to Cape Horn. Highest peak, Aconcagua, 22,834 feet (6960 meters).
