Meso America Flashcards
Meso-American
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.
Glyph
hieroglyphic character or symbol; a pictograph
Olmec
a member of a prehistoric people inhabiting the coast of Veracruz and western Tabasco on the Gulf of Mexico ( circa 1200–400 BC), who established what was probably the first Meso-American civilization.
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.
Hernan Cortes
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.
Montezuma
was emperor of the Aztecs at the time of the Spanish conquest.
Yucatan peninsula
separates the Gulf of Mexico from the Caribbean Sea, encompassing 3 Mexican states, plus portions of Belize and Guatemala.
Tikal
an ancient Mayan citadel in the rainforests of northern Guatemala.
Chichenitza
a world-famous complex of Mayan ruins on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula.
Lake texcoco
was a natural lake within the Anáhuac or Valley of Mexico.
Chinampa
a type of Mesoamerican agriculture which used small, rectangular areas of fertile arable land to grow crops on the shallow lake beds in the Valley of Mexico.
Quipu
series of colored, knotted strings
Chaüin
excessive or blind patriotism — compare
Andes
running along South America’s western side, is among the world’s longest mountain ranges.
Quechua
member of an American Indian people of Peru and parts of Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, and Ecuador.
Sacrifice
an act of slaughtering an animal or person or surrendering a possession as an offering to God or to a divine or supernatural figure.
Francisco Pizarro
Spanish conquistador known for conquering Peru’s Inca Empire and founding the city of Lima in 1535.
Stone heads
a stone marker set at the head of a grave; gravestone.
maize
chiefly in British and technical usage) corn1 (def 1).
Long count as u
a system of dating in the Maya calendar according to the time in numbers of baktuns, katuns, tuns, uinals, and days elapsed since an arbitrary point prior to 3000 b.c. — compare short count.
Machu pichu
is an Incan citadel set high in the Andes Mountains in Peru, above the Urubamba River valley.
Copan
a city, in the Department of Copan, near the boundary between Honduras and Guatemala.
Cusco
a city in S Peru: Inca ruins. 255,568.
Popol Vuh
the story of creation according to the Quiche Maya of the region known today as Guatemala.
Caral
was a large settlement in the Supe Valley, near Supe, Barranca Province, Peru, some 200 kilometres (120 mi) north of Lima.
Calendar
chart or series of pages showing the days, weeks, and months of a particular year, or giving particular seasonal information.
Observatory
a room or building housing an astronomical telescope or other scientific equipment for the study of natural phenomena
Pyramids
are ancient pyramid-shaped masonry structures located in Egypt.
